Life Skills and Citizenship

Baroness Twycross Excerpts

Thursday 7th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

My Lords, I welcome the opportunity to speak today and thank the noble Baroness, Lady Garden, for initiating and introducing such an interesting debate.

Labour is committed, as part of our breaking down the barriers to opportunity mission, to building a broad school education that enables children to thrive and to develop life skills. Life skills should be taught throughout the curriculum. When I was chair of governors at a London academy, the pupils I met were most keen to access financial education. Citizenship education is vital. It is right that we ensure that children and young people understand the role of active citizenship—including an understanding of the role of government, Parliament and the justice system—and develop an interest in volunteering, responsible activity and activism, and critical thinking skills, as well as an understanding of how we should treat each other.

Part of that education must be the normalising of engagement with politicians and institutions, and I commend the work of the Parliament Education Centre, which opens up what we do. Many Peers also take part in the Learn with the Lords programme, which includes Peers being zoomed into classrooms all over the country, at both primary and secondary level, as well as speaking to children who are being home-schooled.

Even so, most children will not get the opportunity to come to Parliament or speak to politicians on a regular basis, so maintaining the teaching of citizenship in schools is also vital. Good teaching that makes politics and civic engagement interesting requires investment. The fall in specialist citizenship teacher numbers is regrettable. It would be useful for the Minster to tell us how the Government think that this issue, which is part of a wider issue, will impact citizenship and life skills. Can she also tell us when the Government next intend to make changes to the citizenship curriculum, and how they plan to embed better a range of life skills across the curriculum.