Education (Values of British Citizenship) Bill [HL]

Baroness Shephard of Northwold Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 18th October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Shephard of Northwold (Con)]

My Lords, it is a privilege to follow the noble and right reverend Lord and the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett. I congratulate the noble and right reverend Lord on his Bill, which seeks to update and clarify the principles underlying the teaching of fundamental British values in our schools, within the national curriculum’s citizenship programme.

We all understand that sensitive issues are involved. One is the use of the term “fundamental British values”, which, when it was introduced as part of the Prevent strategy in 2011, met with opposition from some communities where people felt that the term was directed at them. Others felt the term suggested that British values were somehow superior to other nations’ values. The Bill meets these criticisms head-on by referring instead to the “values of British citizenship”. There are other textual but very important changes in the Bill, and the extremely interesting addition of “respect for the environment”—but there are questions about the current teaching of citizenship in our schools.

I turn to the Minister, whom I warmly welcome to her post. She will know that, in 2013, Ofsted reported positively on the teaching in schools of citizenship education. It said that

“headteachers had recognised the rich contribution the subject makes to pupils’ learning … and to the ethos of a school”.

But by 2018, a Lords Select Committee report entitled The Ties that Bind found that

“citizenship education is being subsumed”

into PHSE and was focusing on the personal development of young people rather than teaching them about their role in society, ignoring the political element of being a citizen. Rather alarmingly, the Lords Liaison Committee heard in 2022 from the Association for Citizenship Teaching that

“there was a general lack of … understanding of the subject by inspectors of what Citizenship is”.

I am shocked. I spent some time in my professional career as a schools inspector and this seems a rare accusation.

What has caused this change? We all value citizenship teaching, but do teachers now find the concept vague and difficult? Or do they, conscious of the sensitivities involved, need the confidence of new definitions and more clarity? I hope that the Government will see the proposals in the Bill as thoughtful and sensitive and a positive way forward.