Education (Environment and Sustainable Citizenship) Bill [HL]

Earl of Devon Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 16th July 2021 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Devon (CB) [V]]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the authoritative noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, and to add my support to the excellent Bill. I am not an expert in education and defer to those who are, but I am a passionate environmental land manager and believe that access to and understanding of our natural landscape is key to a sustainable future.

Noble Lords will recall the report commissioned by the Treasury from Professor Sir Partha Dasgupta on the economics of biodiversity. He concluded that the solution to our economic and biodiversity crises is to understand that our economies are

“embedded in nature, not external to it”.

In his analysis, he highlighted the need for systemic change to combat our rampant assault on biodiversity, with focus on education and the need to change our understanding of economic success. He exhorted us to convert our affection for nature into a learned appreciation of it via mandatory nature studies.

“We should all in part be naturalists”,


he said. Interventions to enable people to understand and connect to nature would not only improve our health and well-being but empower citizens to make informed choices and demand the change that is needed. He says, in conclusion, that establishing the natural world in education policy is therefore essential. His report effectively recommends that this Bill become law.

This demand for education about nature and our dependence on it is echoed loudly in the National Food Strategy, commissioned by the Government from Henry Dimbleby, which was published just this week. He concludes that by the age of 14, all pupils should be able to understand the “source, seasonality and characteristics” of their food—ie, should learn the rhythms of nature and the crucial interplay between the environment and our diet.

The UK Climate Assembly said effectively the same thing: that it is necessary to make climate change and nature education compulsory in all schools. The government responded to the Dasgupta review but, disappointingly, dedicated barely a page to the recommendation of compulsory nature education. That response was repeated by the noble Lord, Lord Benyon, in reply to the recent debate on Fixing the Failures in Food. He explained that the Department for Education had recently established a sustainability and climate change unit to develop and drive a strategy; that the department is engaging with young people, leaders, teachers and sector representatives to help shape a departmental sustainability strategy; and that it is exploring proposals for a nature-focused award scheme.

It is no response to a review and report as urgent and authoritative as that of Professor Dasgupta to simply promise further consultation and strategy development. The time for engagement is over. Everybody agrees—the Climate Assembly, the Dasgupta review and the National Food Strategy: consultation is done, a strategy has been recommended and the Government cannot kick the can any further as we have reached the end of the road for the environment.

This legislative action is what is required to embed the environment and sustainable citizenship at the heart of our national curriculum. For the sake of future generations and our environment, I implore the Government and the whole House to support this simple but essential Bill with enthusiasm.

International Women’s Day

Earl of Devon Excerpts

Thursday 11th March 2021 Grand Committee

[The Earl of Devon (CB) [V]]

The convention is to address this House collectively as “my Lords”. Given the topic of this debate, in which over 70% of the participants are female, excuse me if I open with “my Ladies”.

Covid-19 has tested our society to its limits. It has closed schools, factories, offices and high streets, and the repeated lockdowns have thrust us all into our homes for month after interminable month. That has placed an enormous additional burden on those who manage the home and those who take the lead in home schooling and other domestic matters. Despite huge advances in equality over recent decades, that burden has unquestionably fallen upon women more than men. Statistically, the Covid-19 virus has afflicted men worse than women. However, the nurses and carers who tend to the sick and the elderly are predominantly female, thus the exhaustion, stress and sheer horror of care in the midst of this terrible pandemic have afflicted women far more than men.

Last week the Chancellor delivered his Budget, reporting the precipitous decline in GDP caused by the pandemic, with economic output collapsing in ways unseen for centuries. In the principal sectors impacted, such as retail and hospitality, most employees are women. There is a dichotomy here. Economic indicators tell of an unprecedented decline in output, yet the output of carers, nurses, mothers, wives and daughters has increased exponentially. Nowhere is that outpouring of love and care found in the Government’s data. Why is that? As a society, we are simply not measuring that output and thus we are not valuing it. In 2019 New Zealand introduced a well-being budget, the first western country to base its entire budget on well-being priorities, with a focus on mental health, family violence and child well-being. Will the UK Government consider the same?

As a lawyer, I have many female colleagues, and I know first-hand that their burden increased much more than that of their male colleagues. It was not lost on me that the return to school coincided with International Women’s Day, and that back-to-school cheers from exhausted parents over social media were predominantly in a feminine voice. What steps are the Government taking to encourage fathers to take a more active role in the home and in childcare? Will the Government increase the availability of paternity leave, allowing fathers to bond better with their children in those crucial early months?

Finally, I turn to equality. This House needs to set the standard but it does not. Only 28% of our membership is female, compared with 34% in the other place. That needs to change. The Lords Spiritual (Women) Act is changing the composition of the Bishops and life peerages are increasingly bestowed on women, but the most shocking gender imbalance is found among us 92 male hereditary Peers. As the youngest child of a youngest child, I am a poster child for patriarchal gender discrimination. I am the 38th Earl of Devon since the title was created by our first female monarch, Empress Matilda, and only one of us has been female—the fiercely independent Countess Isabella de Fortibus, who refused to sell the Isle of Wight to King Edward I until the bishops stole it from her on her deathbed.

This discrimination must cease and eldest children, whatever their gender, must be permitted to inherit hereditary titles. Will Her Majesty’s Government introduce a hereditary titles (female succession) Bill in the forth- coming Queen’s Speech?

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Healy of Primrose Hill) (Lab)]

The noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, has withdrawn, so I call the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville.