My Lords, before speaking to the amendments, I want to quickly say how much I agree with Amendment 101 on British values from the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, and Amendment 105 from the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst. I do not see it as an issue of culture wars or whatever—parents should see the material that their children are being taught. I am quite surprised that we cannot do that. When we had parents’ evenings, the textbooks and the material that we were using were freely available for parents to look at. It was quite an important aspect of those meetings, as well as children’s work being on display. I hope the Minister can answer this issue about copyright because that seems to be a red herring.
On Amendment 118H, the noble Baroness, Lady Chapman, is absolutely right: there should be a review of diversity in the curriculum. When you ask about black studies or black history in school, you get a list and you might find a black author or an Asian poet on it, but there is no guarantee that that is actually taught in schools; invariably, it is not. I want that audit on diversity to be carried out so that we know exactly how our curriculum should be developed.
I will come to the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Woolley, at the end, if I may.
I have a slight reservation with the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Chapman. We do not have a national curriculum: it is not taught in Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland, so it is not national. It is not taught in academies or free schools. It is taught only in maintained schools, so it is not a national curriculum.
I like the fact that academies and free schools have the freedom to devise their curriculum and I wish that freedom were given to maintained schools as well so that schools can devise their curriculum to suit their particular circumstances or issues. I gave an example to the Minister only today: Liverpool was the centre of the slave trade and I know that in academies in Liverpool they will do a unit on the slave trade, but it is not part of the maintained school curriculum. Maintained schools should be free to develop their curriculum.
The noble Baroness’s amendment lists the things that should definitely be part of this mandatory curriculum. They are probably the right ones. Financial management should be taught. Certainly, some personal, social and health education issues should be taught. I have a Private Member’s Bill on water safety, because I believe passionately that that should be taught in
schools. Yes, there are things that should be taught, but let us not be prescriptive now. What we need is a review of our curriculum. It has not been reviewed for 10 years and we need to do that—for all the reasons we have heard from the noble Lord, Lord Woolley, and the noble Baroness, Lady Chapman. So this is an important amendment but it is perhaps too prescriptive.
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The amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, is interesting. It will probably happen—it has to, does it not, in the future?
The amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Woolley, is very important. If I may say so, I am quite emotional about it. He is absolutely right: we have to be sure that black, Asian, Jewish and other minorities in schools are completely part of the school community and that they do not in any way face some of the issues that the noble Lord told us about. I add only that there is light at the end of the tunnel. There are some wonderful examples of lots of schools where the school community is made up of a whole range of pupils from different ethnic groups who work, play and respond together. I do not want to think that some of the schools that we know about are what our English education system is really like. However, it is right that we do what the noble Lord suggested, and that would make us feel more comfortable and relaxed about what is happening in our schools.
I will be very cheeky and ask the noble Lord to use “head teacher” rather than “headmaster”. To my mind, the former is not gender-specific.
That is my party’s view on those amendments.