Life Skills and Citizenship

Lord Harries of Pentregarth Excerpts

Thursday 7th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Harries of Pentregarth (CB)]

My Lords, I was a member of the Select Committee that produced the report, The Ties That Bind: Citizenship and Civic Engagement in the 21st Century. It exposed major failings in the teaching of citizenship in schools. The Government’s response did nothing to suggest that these failings were being addressed. The Liaison Committee’s follow-up report, which was debated in April this year, again pointed out continuing failures in this area. All this is well set out in the excellent Library briefing.

The noble Lord, Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts, the chair of the original committee, much regrets that he is not able to be part of today’s debate because of an operation. In April, he said that

“our follow-up report made a number of recommendations at paragraphs 72 to 77 about Ofsted’s work. It is no exaggeration to say that Ofsted rejected the lot. It persistently mixes up citizenship education with PSHE—personal, social, health and economic education. In truth, they are completely different”.—Official Report, 17/4/23; col. GC 178.]

Is the Minister satisfied that Ofsted now distinguishes citizenship education from PSHE, or is the former still too often subsumed in the latter?

I will again raise two of the many concerns from the earlier reports. First, is a record now being kept of the number of trainee teachers in citizenship education? If not, why not? Secondly, are bursaries now available for those who want to teach the subject, as there are in other subjects where teachers are in short supply?

When we look around the world today, we see far too many oppressive dictatorships, military coups, managed democracies and elective autocracies. Of the 195 countries in the world, only 72 are democracies or flawed democracies. Democracy is a precious historical achievement, but it is fragile, as the noble Viscount just emphasised. There is no guarantee that it can survive. Young people should be taught why democracy matters and how to be a responsible citizen in democracy. Too often, at the moment, this is not being done at all, or only very inadequately.