Life Skills and Citizenship

Baroness Lawlor Excerpts

Thursday 7th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Lawlor (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Garden, for securing this important debate, and I thank her and all noble Lords who preceded me. I, too, want young people to be educated to take their full place as citizens, educated in this country’s history, cultural heritage and traditions, which are characterised by its protection of freedoms—economic, political and, over time, religious—and its thriving voluntarism, with the state kept in its place by an informed democracy and the ballot box.

The question is: how can this best be achieved? Should—or, indeed, can—it be done by designating teachers and lesson time to potted citizenship classes, recruiting a cadre of teachers trained in what officials believe to be the fashionable subjects of citizenship today? At the very best, this can do little more than skim the surface but, at worst, it could end up undermining beliefs, traditions and aims that we all seek.

Today’s national curriculum already requires pupils in secondary schools to be taught specific citizenship programmes for 11 to 16 year-olds. For instance, GCSE headings cover such things as the development of the political system of democratic government; the role of citizens, Parliament and the monarch; the nature of the rules and laws of our justice system; voluntary bodies; and, of course, as has been mentioned, the management of finances, to mention but a few. Teaching these can best be achieved as a by-product of learning important subjects such as history, literature, classics, religion and mathematics, with teachers educated to degree level in their subjects. It is good, confident teachers who engage their pupils and can illustrate and make comparisons with today, imparting the skills needed and the aptitude to develop, whatever path in life is taken, be it professional or vocational.

I urge the Government to focus on recruiting able, academically qualified and committed teachers for all schools—primary as well as secondary—in the central subjects. This is the surest way to understand a culture characterised by parliamentary democracy, the rule of law and individual freedom.