Education (Values of British Citizenship) Bill [HL]

Baroness Whitaker Excerpts

Friday 18th October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Whitaker (Lab)]

My Lords, it is always a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness. I welcome this Bill, so comprehensively and eloquently introduced by the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries of Pentregarth. It is indeed time to pay more attention to what citizenship consists of and what our society stands for. We benefit from a diverse society but its cohesion has deteriorated during the past years. The Bill would improve cohesion by affirming common and positive values. In general, it would give our children—and others—firm ground on which to develop the standards of behaviour that we need to live together peacefully and creatively. It covers the important elements that make our social norms.

I would like to highlight one provision. A principle from which we would particularly benefit from promulgating is that underlying the Bill’s inclusion of individual worth: the value of respect for and acknowledgment of the dignity of each of our fellow citizens. We have expressed this in our laws of human rights. They essentially enable tolerance; if we are to be tolerant, we need to be aware of what we tolerate and what the enemies of tolerance are. Both democracy and the rule of law underpin freedom but, without respect for individual worth, freedom is undermined and, in particular, minorities suffer from majority decisions. It is also time, I think we all agree, that respect for the environment took its place among our ideas of how we respect each other.

We should take pride in a degree of ownership of modern ideas of human rights. It is true that the ideas of respect and tolerance have an ancient pedigree—the code of Hammurabi and the edicts of the fifth century BC Indian king Ashoka are often quoted as the origins of human rights concepts; perhaps they are inherent in the way human nature has developed—but the European Convention and the post-war United Nations instruments have had substantial British input. Whatever some eccentric politicians might say, they have been universally adopted and underline our sense of common humanity. I would like to see the words “human rights” on the face of the Bill, therefore; I hope that, nevertheless, our Government can give it, or their own version of it, a fair wind.