Education: Citizenship Studies

Baroness Royall of Blaisdon Excerpts

Monday 30th June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

I agree entirely with the noble Lord. I would hope that in a school with a proper syllabus on this these were not contradictory. Certainly Ofsted should look at this in inspecting spiritual, moral, social and cultural development.

[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon (Lab)]

My Lords, too many of our young people do not vote, which is understandable when they are not taught about our political system and our system of governance. The Minister mentioned citizenship lessons but the fact of the matter is that they are not compulsory. As the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, said, they should be a compulsory element in all schools including academies and free schools. What plans does the Minister have to ensure that there is a fully qualified citizenship teacher in every school?

[Lord Nash]

I am a little confused about the Labour Party’s attitude on compulsory subjects in the national curriculum. I thought that its study group had proposed that all schools should be free not to teach the national curriculum, but I will not attempt to keep up with this flip-flopping. We do not agree that it should be mandatory. A lot of people want to have subjects made mandatory in the curriculum but there is not room. Schools must teach citizenship at key stages 3 and 4. They must also teach about spiritual, moral, cultural and social responsibility and British values. The curriculum includes all the institutions to which the noble Baroness referred.