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.