Schools: Parenthood Education

Lord Bishop of Ripon and Leeds Excerpts

Tuesday 13th November 2012 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Ripon and Leeds]

My Lords, will the Government encourage the teaching of financial literacy as an important part of parenting, and in particular stress that while child benefit is of immense value to those with children, it would be ludicrous to suppose that having children to obtain that benefit made any financial let alone moral sense?

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

I agree very much with the right reverend Prelate on his second point. On his first point, financial education is important. As he will know, it is delivered as one of the strands of PSHE education. Also, as part of trying to improve financial literacy, the Government could do work on things such as basic maths. There is a correlation: in well run schools, thriving pupils who have ambition and aspiration are less likely to get into the kind of difficulty that we have been talking about. I very much agree with the right reverend Prelate.