Schools: Citizenship Education

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Wednesday 5th February 2025 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what changes they are considering for citizenship education in schools to accompany proposals to reduce the voting age to 16.

[The Minister of State, Department for Education (Baroness Smith of Malvern) (Lab)]

My Lords, teaching about democracy and elections already forms a central part of the national curriculum for citizenship at key stages 3 and 4 and can be taught as a non-statutory topic in primary schools. We will consider the citizenship curriculum in the context of the curriculum and assessment review, and we see the potential of lowering the voting age to help boost young people’s engagement with citizenship and democracy.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, the Minister will be well aware of recent polls showing the levels of disillusion young people have about our current political institutions. Part of the argument for lowering the voting age to 16 is to get young people engaged in our institutions and voting before they leave school. The informal conversations I have with my grandchildren and the grandchildren of friends tell me that, frankly, the level and quality of citizenship education in state schools is pretty awful. Unless there is action to improve it considerably, this will not be a success.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The noble Lord is right about the challenge of engaging young people in politics—a challenge that rests with the political parties represented around this Chamber as well as with our schools and broader civic society. I was very proud to be the Minister, under the leadership of my noble friend Lord Blunkett, who introduced citizenship into the curriculum in the first place when I was last in government. The noble Lord makes a fair point about the need to ensure that there is sufficient quality of resource and teachers to make sure that it is effective in our schools. I and my colleagues in the department will certainly bear that in mind.