Education Bill

My Lords, I rise in support of my noble friends in their amendment and acknowledge their tenacity in pursuing these important and sensitive matters. It is a welcome opportunity for me to leave the substitutes’ bench, even for a brief period, in the passage of the Bill and to take part in this significant debate. A colleague said that timely substitution can often win matches. However, looking at our recent voting form, I am not going to hold out too much hope. In Amendment 80, my noble friends Lady Massey of Darwen, Lady Gould of Potternewton and Lord Layard have called on the chief inspector to report on school policies on bullying, healthy eating, the delivery of citizenship education and the delivery of personal, social and health education, including sex and relationships education. In proposed new subsection (5D) in their amendment, they say: "““In reporting on the matters listed … the Chief Inspector must take into account the age and stage of development of the pupils””." That is very important for us to remember in the context of our debate tonight. There is no question in the amendment of any compulsion for inappropriately aged children. Education for Life, with a capital ““L””, is crucial in our modern, complex, choice-led, resource-scarce society, but I know that the force of my noble friends’ arguments will not be lost on the Minister, who carries his brief with enthusiasm and compassion. To quote the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, in Committee: "““Children may not go on to get first-class degrees but they will all have families, relationships, friends, personal finances, responsibility for their own health and safety … and jobs””.—[Official Report, 13/7/11; col. GC 344.]" Also in Committee, my noble friend Lord Layard quoted, at cols. GC 349 and 350, some revealing international evidence that personal, social and health education assisted children in their academic achievements. He said that it was not a case of either life skills or academic attainment but of both. Many noble Lords around the House are convinced by evidence such as this, by what parents themselves have said about PSHE and by the experience of PSHE in schools over recent years. I know that there has been a patchy nature to some of that teaching. One reason why my noble friends have tabled this amendment is to ensure that there is monitoring by Ofsted of the quality of that teaching and of the kind of training that must be given to those who deliver PSHE, whether it be generically through the school or as a separate subject. Although we on these Benches welcome the end-of-consultation date for the department’s internal review of PSHE—which I believe is 30 November, as elicited through an Oral Question from my noble friend Lady Gould of Potternewton—we still have a slight suspicion that this review set out to be one that featured a certain acreage of long grass. In that context, I ask the Minister why PSHE was removed entirely from the original independent review. We do not have a lot of time tonight. I want to say simply that we have a generation of children who face enormous and complex problems when it comes to sexual and personal health pressures. These are young people who come up against enormous problems, such as HIV infection, drug abuse, teenage pregnancy, alcohol abuse, obesity and smoking—the list goes on. It cannot be the role of a responsible Government overseeing education to allow chance, discretion or benign neglect to be the official response to the bewildering array of problems that face young people. I was as shocked as I am sure many noble Lords were at the recent evidence of sexual cyberbullying and the increasing amount of cyberbullying that goes on, particularly of young girls. It is imperative that we give young girls all possible confidence to resist such pressure. How do we do that? We do it by arming them with clear and rational argument. As the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, said, schools can make a difference. We also need to give young boys—here, I look towards the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, and the work that he does—the confidence to act in a responsible way and to resist their own peer pressure. This is where PSHE comes in. The correct teaching of PSHE, with proper training, can only be a good thing for the next generation.