Lord Harries of Pentregarth (CB)

My Lords, I thank all those who have supported my amendment and those who have spoken to the other amendments. First, I will comment very briefly on the remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, who was her usual trenchant self. The reason for including respect for the environment in this list is that this, above all, is an issue young people care about. If you want young people to care about democracy and law, the list of values must also express something they really do feel strongly about. That is the reason why that is part of the list. How valuable it is to have the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, with us, given his front-line experience. I hesitate to respond to what he said, but he referred to this as a matter of subtleties. Rather, I would suggest that it is fundamental. The present list of fundamental values that have to be taught in schools includes the phrase “individual liberty”. It seems to me if you talked to a pupil about individual liberty and asked them what it means, they would say, “Does it mean that I can do what I want?” However, in the amendment before us, freedom is spelt out as freedom of conscience, freedom of religion, freedom of expression, freedom of assembly and so on. It is quite specific, and it is this which needs to be taught in citizenship education. I thank the Minister very much for her, as usual, warm reply. Maybe it would be possible for us to have a further conversation in future about how we can get some significant changes in relation to the curriculum assessment review, because it would strengthen the teaching of citizenship education to have this included. With that, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.