Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill

Debate between Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton and Baroness Butler-Sloss

Wednesday 19th June 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton]

My Lords, would the noble Lord, Lord Dear, please accept that he is referring to two separate issues? One is teaching religious education. Perhaps in some schools this is taught as fact by people who believe, particularly in church schools. As for the other, I do not know if other noble Lords have my experience of children, particularly grandchildren, asking people questions at the most inappropriate moments to get information.

Even if the noble Lord’s suggestion in the amendment was agreed, parents could say, “I do not wish my child to be in the classroom when X is being discussed”. However, then the child at the back of the class suddenly asks a question that the teacher has to answer. It is not formal sex education. “Where did I come from?” is the question that a child is most likely to ask at the checkout in the supermarket, rather than at the appropriate moment at home. Therefore, one cannot subdivide the process of education. Education goes on all the time. The teacher may be asked such questions in the classroom. It may be a scout leader who is asked—it could be anyone; it may occasionally be the grandmother. Then you have the problem of working out not only what you think but what the parents concerned would like you to say.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss]

My Lords, perhaps I may put in my 10 cents-worth on this. I entirely agree with the noble Lord, Lord Alli, that the teacher must teach what the law is. There is no doubt about it. I have the utmost sympathy with what the noble Baroness, Lady Farrington, has said. As I have said previously, it is the duty of teachers to support the child, whatever type of relationship the parents with whom they are living may have. I have happily granted adoption orders to same-sex couples. They are or can be excellent parents—as good as any other. I start from that basis.

However, I have a concern. It is really what the noble Baroness, Lady Farrington, said about being a grandparent. I am a grandparent and my grandchildren ask awkward questions but the concern is about when the question is asked of a teacher. The teacher is there, trying very hard to give a neutral account of what the present law of marriage is. Then a child asks an awkward question and the teacher answers honestly. It could be a question such as, “What do you think about it, miss?”, and the teacher says, “I have to say that I am a member of the Church of England and my view is that I do not believe in same-sex marriage”. The child goes off and tells the mother, and the mother comes and complains to the school because a member of that family is in a same-sex relationship. That is what worries me. It is the perception; it is the interpretation. It is that which has gone beyond the ordinary, perfectly proper teaching of the teacher. It is for that reason that what the noble Lord, Lord Dear, is asking for is a necessary protection for teachers.

I do not support the noble Lord’s second amendment. I think that children should learn everything. When I was a judge, I remember the father of a Roman Catholic family, who was very devout, telling me that I should make an order that in the Anglican school to which he had sent his children they should not attend religious education because it was Anglican education, not Roman Catholic. I basically told him to get lost and that if he had chosen to send the child to that school it was right that the child should learn what the school was teaching. Children should be learning everything and they will then distinguish between matters.

However, the first of the two amendments of the noble Lord, Lord Dear, should not be dismissed out of hand. There is a problem here that has to be recognised.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton]

My Lords, does the noble and learned Baroness accept that I have failed to convey the message of the much missed Lord Joseph? Good professional teachers will answer that question and will point out that parents, other teachers, local clergymen or whoever, may hold a totally different view. What is important is that the child knows about the range of views. That is the safeguard for the teacher.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss]

I do not want to keep getting up and down. I entirely agree with the noble Baroness, but since she asks me, it is not in fact what the teacher teaches in the class that worries me. It is what is said, probably to the head teacher, about what the child has said, what has gone home, and so on. Although I have never been a teacher I have had experience in different ways of what is said, and what is misunderstood, and the way in which teachers are placed in very difficult positions, when the head teacher has been given the information by a parent, by another teacher, or by somebody else. It is that perception—that interpretation —which worries me.