Lord Storey (LD)

My Lords, in my view, all the amendments in this group are important and worth seriously considering. I will deal first with Amendment 206. Of course, one person’s twaddle is most people’s reality. The Curriculum and Assessment Review is an important step along the road to what the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, wants. It will actually strengthen the current citizenship curriculum. For the first time, it brings in citizenship at primary level as well. Now that we have the review, and the parts of it that have slightly altered civic and constitutional education, for example, I do not quite understand what the next stage is of populating that curriculum, particularly for citizenship and the points that the noble and right reverend Lord’s amendment makes, such as democracy, the rule of law, freedom, respect for every person and respect for the environment. All that is important, but the most important thing, in my view, as well as having it on the curriculum, is the point that the noble Lord, Lord Norton, made. It is no good having a subject as important as citizenship unless you have quality teaching and staff who want to teach it, not just staff dragged in from the PE or the language department to do it. You need to have first-class materials to make that work. On Amendment 208, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, I do not understand how a student in a school has relationship and sex education, yet a 16 year- old in a college does not. It just does not make sense. I am sure the Minister will be able to tell us that this should change, because it is hugely important. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, for tabling that amendment. I thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Sater and Lady Grey-Thompson, and the noble Lord, Lord Addington, for their important amendment. In a sense, we have gone backwards, because we used to have an hour of sport and PE on the curriculum. It was one of the initiatives introduced by the Blair Government. For some reason, it got lost or diluted. I just do not understand why. When did it suddenly fall off the cliff edge, and who was waving the banner saying we should stop this? We still must have an hour of sport and PE on our school curriculum. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Burt, for her amendments. I know some noble Lords will slightly wince at them but, with the exception of faith schools, what she is saying is happening in most of our secondary schools, and Ofsted is not reporting it. Most secondary schools that are non-faith schools are not carrying out a daily collective act of worship which is mainly Christian. It is just not happening. Maybe at some stage, whether we like it or not, we should face up to the reality of the situation. My final question is to the Minister, on humanism. We have local SACREs, which decide what will be taught in schools in their locality. Could a SACRE minister say that humanism would be part of that religious education?