Education (Environment and Sustainable Citizenship) Bill [HL]

Lord Knight of Weymouth Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 16th July 2021 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Knight of Weymouth]

That the Bill be now read a second time.

[Lord Knight of Weymouth (Lab)]

My Lords, before I start, I remind your Lordships of my education interests as in the register, in particular my work with Purpose Inc. on a campaign called Future ProofEd.

I have to be honest; I think that this a no-brainer. For the DfE, it is an easy win; I hope noble Lords will agree. Teachers agree: some 89% of UK teachers agree that climate change education should be compulsory in schools, while 78% think that individual action on climate and sustainability should also be taught. Young people agree: less than a third are aware of the sustainable development goals, but more than 70% are interested in learning more about the environment and more than half would like to be involved in climate and environmental action projects. Organisations such as the RSPB, the RSPCA, the head teacher unions and the National Education Union all support the Bill. They also agree.

I thank all noble Lords who have put their name down to speak in this debate; I look forward to their contributions. In particular, I thank Peers for the Planet, of which I am a member, Ann Finlayson, from Sustainability and Environmental Education, and Jamie Agombar, from Teach the Future, for their help with this Bill. They agree that there is a problem with our curriculum that needs fixing if we are to fix the planet.

Like many noble Lords, I sat in the Royal Gallery, in January last year, and listened in awe to David Attenborough. He is the inspiration behind this. We all have a part to play. If I can use my place in your Lordships’ House and my experience in education to make this change, I feel I will have answered some of that call to action.

Let me explain what the Bill seeks to do. First, it adds to the general requirements of a broad and balanced curriculum so that it

“instils an ethos and ability to care for oneself, others and the natural environment, for present and future generations.”

Secondly, it makes provision for “sustainable citizenship education” for the secondary curriculum, and for the Secretary of State to provide the necessary guidance. Thirdly, it updates the definition of the citizenship subject in key stages 1 to 4 to include

“programmes of study that encourage learning to protect and restore the natural environment for present and future generations, including but not limited to climate change considerations.”

What is not to like?

Some may say that the curriculum is full and there is no room for this. When I was Schools Minister, I, too, got fed up with every societal problem seemingly being solved by making everyone have to learn about it in the curriculum. That is why I am proposing changing citizenship, rather than imposing a new subject. This is no more than what good schools are already doing; this Bill sets an ambition for all to do the same.

It is also possible to argue that the Bill should go further. I am taking over as chair of the board of E-ACT—a trust of 28 academies whose status means that they do not have to abide by the national curriculum. But as the Secretary of State has said, the national curriculum represents what is expected to be taught in schools and what Ofsted should inspect against.

On occasion, I have been asked why this should be a priority in the climate change talks at COP in November. I gently remind those voices that, if we as a nation are to have authority and leadership in Glasgow, we should be delivering what we signed up to in 2015 at the Paris COP. Article 12 of that agreement commits us to move in this direction in education.

Yesterday, I heard evidence from the DfE to your Lordships’ Environment and Climate Change Committee saying that the Government want to profile England as a trail-blazer on climate education. At present, the trail-blazer is the host of the G20, Italy, where my friend Lorenzo Fioramonti, when Education Minister, introduced an hour a week of sustainable citizenship education for all school-age children. I should also say that the Climate Change Committee, the Dasgupta review and Parliament’s Climate Assembly UK all believe that we must do better on climate and sustainability education.

Why is there such unanimity on this? I say to the Minister that it is not because of the potential impact of schools’ capital; the education estate is important but not significant in its own terms. The reason is that, if we are to be successful as a result of Glasgow and give our schoolchildren a sustainable future, two-thirds of the action that needs to be taken must be as a result of behaviour change by the general public. The obvious place to start this is in schools, where we have a demographic that is highly motivated by this issue, that wants to act on it, that will carry on striking if we do not offer something more constructive and that can influence parents, grandparents and whole communities—not just on waste and recycling but on transport, food, energy and carbon capture too. So to the climate change policy experts listening, I say this: education is the most powerful behaviour change in your arsenal.

But what of those focused more on education, such as the Minister and her colleagues working among the lush, verdant greenery of Sanctuary Buildings? They may say that the necessary knowledge is already covered in the science and geography curricula and further change is not necessary. Before the Minister uses these familiar lines in her wind-up, I ask her to reflect on a few things.

First, I ask her to listen to the lived experience of young people. Last week, I was browsing emails on my phone at home in the kitchen, as you do, waiting for the kettle to boil. An email came through including a testimony from a 17 year-old from Harlow called Jodie. She said:

“I had little to no teaching on anything related to climate change outside of a few lessons in geography. Even the topic in chemistry was left by my strongly climate-denying chemistry teacher to teach ourselves.”


Jodie is not alone. There are countless examples of young people lambasting the inadequacy of the curriculum in preparing them for their future. Too many acquire a smattering of knowledge with little connection to the societal, environmental and economic implications of that knowledge. Knowledge without skills and agency is not only inadequate, it can be destructive.

Why destructive? That is my second point: look at the evidence of growing climate anxiety. Our children have had as tough a time as anyone in the pandemic. They also see their opportunities withering as the economic crisis plays out, and now they are living through a mental health crisis; according to NHS Digital, one in six five to 16 year-olds has a probable mental health disorder. The last thing they need is talk of a climate crisis with nothing to support them in doing something about it.

Today, our thoughts are with those bereaved and affected by flash flooding in Germany. Children also see people dying because of the heat in America, drought in Mexico and desertification in Africa. They see flash floods, the loss of species and the impact of fishing on our seas and our planet. They are not blind to the planetary car crash they are living through.

Last month, I was asked to judge an international school art competition. The winning picture was an extraordinary image from a primary pupil in Romania. It showed a planet in an hourglass being distorted as it passed through from rich, colourful beauty to becoming a grey, lifeless place.

Now has to be the time to show children that they can do something with their knowledge of climate change. It is time for a curriculum that teaches the skills and mindset to make change work for them. We can use this Bill to empower a generation, and evidence shows the very positive effects on mental health and learning as a result.

The final point I want to make to the Minister is one that I know she is mindful of from her assiduous work on the skills Bill currently in your Lordships’ House; that is, we have a responsibility to equip people with the skills, knowledge and mindset to thrive as we transition from a carbon to a zero-carbon economy, especially as part of whatever the levelling-up agenda turns out to be. A big part of that challenge is to retrofit adults with skills for green jobs, for transition jobs and for when every job is a green job—to skill people not just in building wind turbines or changing our boilers but shifting all workers to zero-carbon working practices.

Retrofitting skills, as we have to do with adults, is expensive and difficult, so why not get it right first time? Yes, encourage knowledge and skills in STEM for the green economy in schools, but also remember that those currently in school will be the workforce for this great transition to a zero-carbon world. They need the mindset of adaptability, creativity and resilience—all lacking in our curriculum that is so tightly focused on silos of knowledge.

Of course, we must be mindful of those starting school this September. That child will leave school in 2035 and enter a largely zero-carbon economy. She will never know the excesses of our unsustainable economy. For her to have a viable future, she needs hope, not fear. She needs confidence in her actions, not just knowledge. She needs a future-facing curriculum, not one rooted in the industrial past. Please, let us urgently get this right for her and make sure that our schools properly reflect the future we want for our children. I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Knight of Weymouth (Lab)]

My Lords, I am most grateful to speakers on all sides of the House and all sides of the debate for their contributions. I thoroughly enjoyed the debate, and I hope that everybody else did, too. I counted 23 speakers in favour, so there is quite a lot to cover, but I shall try to be brief about it.

There were a number of great contributions around the importance of the connection to nature and biodiversity, from the noble Baroness, Lady Fookes, the noble Earl, Lord Devon, and the noble Lord, Lord Randall; and the noble Lord, Lord Hannan, mentioned it too, in connection with his child. The noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, mentioned the natural history GCSE, and there was also the noble Lord, Lord Bourne. I enjoyed, and was very grateful for, the contributions on citizenship from the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Blackstone and Lady Young.

Noble Lords talked about the ethos of care, which is so important in what I am trying to achieve—that was from the noble Baronesses, Lady Bennett and Lady Blower. In part, that is in response to what the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, was talking about: if we can instil that ethos of care, we will get more debate, but it will be done in a more generous way than some of the debates that see such division. I welcome the noble Baroness’s contribution, as this Chamber should not be an echo chamber; it is really important that we hear diverse opinions. I thank her for her contribution in that spirit.

There was a discussion of behaviour change from the noble Lord, Lord Walney, and, again, from the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, and on skills and jobs from the noble Baroness, Lady Young, and the noble Lord, Lord Austin. We heard about the importance of leadership from the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, and the noble Lord, Lord Bourne, in respect of our international commitments. I was interested by the contribution of the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie, in respect of the devolved Governments and what we can learn from each other, and I was delighted to hear from the noble Lord, Lord McConnell, about what is already going on in Scotland and from my noble friend Lord Griffiths about what is going on in Wales. I remember, in my time as a Minister, I was more likely to be sent to Australia to learn what was going on than to be sent to Scotland or Wales. It is a shame we do not do a little bit more of that.

There were comments around the need for teacher support from the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, which I take very seriously. I was delighted to hear from the noble Lord, Lord McConnell, about the world’s largest lesson, as well as from the noble Baroness, Lady D’Souza, the Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Blower, and the noble Lord, Lord Bhatia. I would say to the noble Lord, Lord Randall, and I think the noble Lord, Lord McConnell, who were under the impression that this might apply only to secondary education, that that was answered by the noble Baronesses, Lady Wilcox and Lady Bakewell. They reminded us that the general requirements in the first part of the Bill apply to all maintained schools, both primary and secondary.

The noble Lords, Lord Whitty and Lord Browne, and the noble Baroness, Lady Young, mentioned evidence to your Lordships’ Environment and Climate Change Committee—I welcome the Minister’s invitation to meet them to discuss that. I think, as the noble Lord, Lord Browne, said, that the phrase at the end of that,

“we will be carrying out a formal assessment … over the next 9 months.”

is not good enough and I hope that, as a result of that meeting, a sense of urgency can be inserted into the department around what we do about this. I hope also that the questions raised by the noble Lord, Lord Hannan, and the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, around the space in the curriculum were in part answered by my opening but also by the noble Lord, Lord Addington.

I say to the Minister that I fear that, as things stand, it is too little, too late. I have also seen the letter from the chair of the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Select Committee to the Secretary of State, sent this week, where he says,

“to the best of my knowledge the last large-scale review of the National Curriculum took place between 2011-2014, and the geography and science curricula … have not been updated since 2013 and 2015 respectively. Knowledge of climate change and its impacts have grown substantially in the time since these updates”.

I think that Darren Jones is right to remind the Secretary of State of those things. We need to look at this urgently. Geography is an optional subject and the curriculum does not teach anything about what we do about this. That is at the core of the argument: it is all very well to learn about it, but we need young people, through schools, to learn action.

The noble Baroness, Lady Fox, rightly raised the question of what I mean by “we”. I would say that, by “we”, I mean the Church, I mean the Royal Family, I mean all the major parties in this country and I mean what we as a nation have signed up to in terms of climate change. That is “we”; that is us, and a few voices off should not distract us from the need to insert within our curriculum the knowledge, the skills and the mindset for our young people to be able to do something about it. I beg to move.

Bill read a second time and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

Education (Environment and Sustainable Citizenship) Bill [HL]

Lord Knight of Weymouth Excerpts

Committee stage
Friday 3rd December 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, I rise to move the little amendment in my name and, since the noble Lord, Lord Knight of Weymouth, has also signed up to it, I can cut my speech down from one hour to no more than 45 minutes. I hope that I will not be too patronising in delivering it. This is a simple amendment. Clause 1(4) of the Bill—which I support—as it stands at the moment, states:

“The Secretary of State must give guidance about the provision of education”.


After “must”, I wish to insert the words “by regulations” —because, if one looks slightly further on, the proposed subsection (3) in Clause 1(4) says:

“The governing body of a maintained secondary school must have regard to guidance under this section.”


I am moving this amendment in a private capacity but—for the next couple of weeks, in any case—I am the chair of the Delegated Powers Committee, which looked at the Bill, as it looks at all Private Members’ Bills. We do not change our guidance for private Members any more than we do for the Government. When we look at Bills, our normal rule is that, where guidance is advisory, we suggest that it should be laid before Parliament but does not have to be debated—it does not need the negative or the affirmative procedure. But when it is guidance that one “must have regard to”—as we increasingly see from government these days—we say that, in effect, it is almost mandatory, and there are legal consequences for the person or body if they do not have regard to it.

In our report, we say:

“Although a duty to have regard to statutory guidance does not imply a duty to follow it in … all respects, we have in recent years observed that a person or body required by statute to have regard to guidance will normally be expected to follow it and will in practice normally do so unless there are cogent reasons for not doing so. And yet this guidance is subject to no parliamentary scrutiny at all.”


We are therefore suggesting that the Secretary of State makes the guidance by way of regulations that are subject to the negative procedure. That is not a heavy burden on the Secretary of State or the department. As we know, most negative-procedure SIs go through on the nod; they are very seldom debated or prayed against. I cannot imagine any side of the House wishing to pray against guidance in this regard, but the power exists there, if the House wishes to exercise it in certain circumstances.

I will give noble Lords one more minute of technical stuff. How would this actually take effect, when I am only inserting the words “by regulations”? I am advised by our lawyers that the guidance would in fact be covered by Section 210 of the Education Act 2002, which provides that:

“Subject to subsections (5) and (6), a statutory instrument which contains any order or regulations made under this Act by the Secretary of State and is not subject to the requirement … that a draft of the instrument be laid before and approved by a resolution of each House … is subject to annulment in pursuance of a resolution of either House of Parliament.”


Merely putting in the words “by regulations” would mean that any guidance that the Secretary of State produces on this measure in future would be caught by that provision and subject to the negative procedure. In essence, that is it.

I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Knight of Weymouth, for signing up to the amendment. I do not think that we will have a highly contentious debate for the rest of the afternoon.

[Lord Knight of Weymouth (Lab)]

My Lords, although it is my Bill, I thought that I could probably take advantage of Committee and speak twice. But I take this advantage to outline why I am in support of the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, in his very helpful amendment. When I put together the original wording, I stole it from the Act that he quoted, and I perhaps could have paid more close attention to Parliament’s role. I am very grateful to the Delegated Powers Committee for its report and consideration.

The noble Lord was kind enough to send me an email on Wednesday. When I received it, it was with a little trepidation as to what he might have to say about how he would proceed today. It was of huge reassurance when he said that his amendment is not a re-emergence of the old Eric Forth and David Maclean “wreck a Private Member’s Bill on a Friday” scenario. I am grateful for the noble Lord’s support for the Bill and for the way in which he has gone about this.

One reason for wanting to speak early in the discussion of this amendment is to have an opportunity to ask the Minister a couple of things for her to consider in her response. I think the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, agrees that there is sometimes a danger of it feeling as though the Department for Education, because it makes a lot of regulations, is reluctant to go down the road of guidance being in the regulatory form. My question to the Minister is: is there a good reason why we should not have this sort of guidance in regulation, as opposed to a good reason why, because it is important?

This is also an opportunity for me to ask the Minister whether the announcement made by the Secretary of State on 5 November, in the context of COP 26 in Glasgow, changes the Government’s position as we heard it at Second Reading. We had a different set of Ministers then and a slightly different situation. The Secretary of State made his announcement in the foreword to the document that he has then consulted upon. He said:

“Education is critical to fighting climate change. We have both the responsibility and privilege of educating and preparing young people for a changing world—ensuring they are equipped with the right knowledge, understanding and skills to meet their biggest challenge head on.”


It was almost as if he had been listening to the Second Reading debate. I was so encouraged to read the consultation document and hear what he had to say, and to see that there is an emphasis on climate education, green skills, the education estate and the supply chain. Indeed, I loved the idea of the national education nature park and the climate leaders awards, which are part of what Secretary of State is proposing.

Can we push the department that little bit further on the climate education side of things, so that we get this guidance and ensure that there is more than just a voluntary approach from our schools to delivering climate and sustainability education, which is what the Bill would do? Also recently—I think it was last week or the week before—we had Nadia Whittome introducing her own Private Member’s Bill on this subject. The subject is not going to go away, so I strongly encourage the new ministerial team to give it their own encouragement. It might not be now; I would be really delighted to meet the Minister to discuss whether we can do anything with this Bill to get it into the national curriculum. However, I want to hear from her whether there has been any slight shift in her position.

[Baroness Blower (Lab)]

My Lords, this is a short, precise and extremely welcome Bill, improved by the helpful amendment presented today. I am pleased to tell noble Lords that the National Education Union—the largest education union in Europe, with 450,000 members —welcomes the Bill and the amendment.

The climate emergency is of course the existential threat to the future of all our children and young people. It is certainly the case that educators have a role to play in helping children address the threat by enabling them, as was said at Second Reading, to understand the climate emergency and ecological issues, and to think critically about how they can play their part as we seek a more sustainable way of life.

To demonstrate enthusiasm for teaching about the climate emergency and sustainability, the National Education Union worked with other organisations, including Teach the Future, to promote Climate Learning Month, which overlaps October and November, ahead of COP 26. Despite the high-quality resources produced, not all schools, and therefore not all children and young people, accessed them.

The Bill, particularly with the amendment, would ensure that all those educated in maintained schools would have access to this important area of learning. Alas, those educated in academies and free schools are not required to follow the national curriculum. However, Robin Walker, the Schools Minister, speaking on this in another place, said that

“I want us to do more to educate our children about the costs of environmental degradation and what we are doing to solve that, both now and in the future. Not only do our children deserve to inherit a healthy world, but they also need to be educated so that they are … prepared to live in a world affected by climate change, so that they may live sustainably and continue to fight the effects of climate change.”—[Official Report, Commons, 27/10/21; col. 146WH.]

I therefore hope that Her Majesty’s Government will not only support the Bill but press upon all schools the benefit of this aspect of learning. Of course, I hope that the Government will will the means to ensure that educators are themselves properly educated and trained to ensure high-quality teaching on this important issue.

Finally, it is the case that climate and sustainability issues are covered in the current curriculum—as has been said, they are covered in science and geography—but the magnitude of the climate emergency requires the holistic approach to content and skills development outlined in my noble friend Lord Knight’s Bill. The brevity of this speech should not be taken to imply anything less than my wholehearted support for the Bill and this amendment.

Education (Environment and Sustainable Citizenship) Bill [HL]

Lord Knight of Weymouth Excerpts

3rd reading
Friday 4th March 2022 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Knight of Weymouth]

That the Bill do now pass.

[Lord Knight of Weymouth (Lab)]

My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill do now pass, and in doing so I thank noble Lords on all sides, Jamie Agombar from Teach the Future, Ann Finlayson from SEEd and members of Peers for the Planet for their support. There are many outside organisations, both environmental and educational, which have met with me, discussed this and given great encouragement. Finally, I thank Darren Jones MP, who has agreed to take this forward in the other place.

I hope that the Bill encourages the Government to build on the consultation the Secretary of State launched at COP 26 on 5 November, and to firm up on the direction of travel set out in that strategy by moving from a voluntarist approach to something that has rather more teeth. I hope they can embrace that as this is debated in the other place.

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

My Lords, can I just say a word before my own Front Bench responds? I congratulate my noble friend on this legislative endeavour and, crucially, the debate it has initiated both in this House and across the education sector. Citizenship education would be enhanced if we were able to add to the existing curriculum, as my noble friend Lord Knight indicated, this critical issue for the future.

Given the geopolitics of the moment—the crisis facing Ukraine, the energy issues that reverberate from that conflict and the Russian action against a sovereign country—it is absolutely crucial that we have in our schools and colleges the necessary education, enthusiasm and commitment to ensure that we get this right for the future.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Baroness Barran) (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Knight of Weymouth, for highlighting this very important issue. While the Government agree with the sentiment of the Bill, as the noble Lord, Lord Watson, just suggested, they do not believe that amending the curriculum is the right way to encourage pupils to learn about a sustainable environment. The subjects of citizenship, science and geography all include content on sustainability and the environment, and schools have the autonomy to go into as much depth on these subjects as they see fit.

We are taking action to support schools to develop further pupil knowledge and skills in relation to these very important issues. Our draft sustainability and climate change strategy, which we announced at COP 26, set out two new initiatives: the national education nature park and the climate leaders award. Together, these schemes will build on knowledge gained in the classroom to provide practical opportunities for all pupils to learn more about nature and biodiversity, develop key digital skills that are essential components to solving climate change and be empowered to take positive action. Alongside this, teachers will have access to improved training in climate education, including a primary science module curriculum, science CPD and free access to high-quality resources. We have engaged widely and plan to publish the final strategy in April.

[Lord Knight of Weymouth (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friends Lord Blunkett and Lord Watson—particularly my noble friend Lord Blunkett, who is the father of citizenship in our schools. I think my noble friend Lord Watson’s comments about the views of young people that autonomy is not delivering are shared by teachers. If the Minister, or her colleague Robin Walker, had the appetite and the time to meet with me and Darren Jones before the Bill goes to the other place, we would be very grateful.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

Either I or, even better, my honourable friend in the other place would be delighted to meet with the noble Lord.