Education (Environment and Sustainable Citizenship) Bill [HL]

Baroness Fookes Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 16th July 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Fookes (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I am delighted to be the first to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Knight of Weymouth, not only on introducing a very sensible Bill but on the excellent and informative way he delivered his response to the crying needs of the environment. I will not rehearse his major points in my short contribution, save to say that I thoroughly endorse all of them and hope the Government will listen to what he put forward so forcefully and well.

I have a further point to make about the curriculum and pupils. As a former teacher, I have noticed that if you can get children truly interested in a particular topic it has a knock-on effect on the way they tackle other subjects. We already know how many young people are keenly interested in the environment, so I suggest this as a good way of making higher standards—through sheer enthusiasm.

The noble Lord mentioned many groups that are in favour of the Bill. I pick out one that is of special interest to me, the RSPCA. I acknowledge my non-financial interest, as declared in the register, in this long-standing and very able animal welfare organisation. It rightly sees education as a major way of improving the lot of animals because, often, ill treatment comes not from malice and sheer evil but from lack of knowledge about the needs of animals. Therefore, it has embarked on various school courses, but we cannot expect a charity to do everything. Work about the welfare of animals could be neatly incorporated into the suggestions made. Looking at the terms of the Bill,

“instils an ethos and ability to care for oneself, others and the natural environment, for present and future generations”,

I suggest “others” could be animals. It has the added value that, for children in particular, one starts from something with which they are familiar and can then go on to develop a much wider understanding of all the issues involved in the environment. I hope this can be incorporated within the general idea of sustainable environmental ability. In a very short time, I hope I have made the case for including animal welfare in this excellent Bill.