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Address in Reply to Her Majesty’s Most Gracious Speech

My Lords, I join others in your Lordships’ House in warmly congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, on his maiden speech. He is strongly committed to improving the education that our children and young people receive and is immensely creative in his approach. We have heard in his speech today direct evidence of the intellectual acumen that he has brought to his advisory role over the past eight years. I look forward not only to enjoying his future contributions to debates in your Lordships’ House but to having a close partnership with him in his ministerial work as I did with his two predecessors, the noble Lord, Lord Filkin, and the noble Baroness, Lady Ashton. Perhaps I might humorously remark that if the noble Lord continues to be bothered by the unkind nonsense of public comment, he can rest assured that we will not bear him in mind for the next vacant bishopric. From his own words about his country of origin, I see that the Minister is a living reminder of the importance of clarity and the difference in meaning between three terms that are all too often elided in public discourse: multicultural, multiethnic and multifaith. For me, ““multicultural”” started when as a small boy in the 1950s I was taken regularly to a Chinese restaurant in Edinburgh, which was not common in those days. ““Multiethnic”” meant being brought up to be proud of and to value the traditions of the country of my mother’s origin across the North Sea. ““Multifaith”” meant understanding the Jewish boy in my class at school. Although the census of 2001 does not reveal our nation as overwhelmingly multifaith, with 71.7 per cent claiming to be Christian and the next largest faith group—Muslim—being 3.1 per cent, we cannot work too hard at building up understanding between different faiths. Schools have a vital role to play in that—a point to which I shall return later. I welcome the emphasis and the priority that education is given in the gracious Speech. Our education system in England and Wales is built on a close partnership between Church and state. As chairman of the Church of England Board of Education, I have the privilege of serving the Church end of that axis; the state end of which is represented in the House by the noble Lord, Lord Adonis. That partnership is sometimes misunderstood or misrepresented by people who speak of it as serving a sectarian interest. Nothing could be further from the truth, although I admit that there may be one or two well publicised suggestions to the contrary in isolated places. The Church of England’s commitment over the past two centuries has been to provide education for all comers—long before government got around to it—based on Christian belief and values and open to everyone. I said ““and open to everyone””, not ““but””, because it is a fundamental aspect of Christianity in its fullest form that we should seek to break down all the barriers, social and ideological, that divide our local communities. Church of England schools serve a far wider clientele than practising members of the Church of England. They serve, in very many cases, Free Church families as well as those of other Christian traditions. In many parts of the country, they serve large sections of families of other faith traditions—particularly in places such as Bradford—that value an education that honours God and respects religion. They want to serve all in their communities who seek the education that they offer. Where such schools are prevented from doing so, it is through lack of space. As the number of Church of England secondary schools grows, I am particularly pleased that we are able to make common cause with colleagues of other traditions. Already there are joint Church of England and Roman Catholic schools, and their number is growing. We are able to build on the existing partnerships, as new joint schools with the Methodists and the Free Churches are planned. Your Lordships may be aware that, through an initiative of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Oxford, there are high hopes that a joint Christian, Jewish and Muslim secondary school might be established. That would be a significant prize. There is a great deal of energy in the parishes and dioceses around the country that is committed to serving the cause of education, and I pay tribute to it. That energy is bearing fruits of all kinds. Only recently, the Right Reverend David Young, one of my predecessors as chairman of the Board of Education and National Society, laid the foundation stone of the David Young Community Academy in Leeds, in his former diocese of Ripon. That academy will serve a community in Leeds that does not enjoy the advantages in life that many of us have enjoyed. For such communities, the task of improving educational standards for all is not a matter of remote interest. It is not just a form of words in a speech far from the reality of their daily existence. It is fundamental to the chance that countless young people have of enjoying a fulfilled life. Such a life is one in which all the gifts and talents implanted by God, as Christians believe, can develop and flourish—for the benefit of not only the individual and their families, but the communities in which they live and, indeed, the whole of society. The cause of continuing to improve standards is urgent. There are still far too many young people who let themselves and their family down because they are let down by the system that should both challenge and support them. I am happy to say that the David Young Community Academy in Leeds will not be the last contribution that the Church of England makes to the academies programme. Diocesan directors of education are engaged in conversations that might lead, if all led to a satisfactory outcome, to 23 Church of England academies. I am aware that the academies programme has been criticised, sometimes unfairly. Some of that concerns the structural relationship between them and the LEA schools. In that connection, I gently point out that it is Board of Education policy for all teachers at Church of England academies to be registered with the GTC and for RE to reflect the kind of broad, mainstream and multifaith—not merely multicultural and multiethnic—syllabus that is standard throughout our dioceses. It has been suggested that the sponsors of academies exercise undue control over their schools—that they are rich men buying influence to serve their own ends. I do not believe that to be the case. The commitment of sponsors who support the programme is of direct benefit to the overall educational enterprise. Their energy and imagination can bring welcome innovation. Where that is coupled—as it is in a number of cases—with the Church of England’s long experience and deep roots in the education service, it can bring lasting benefit. Perhaps not surprisingly in this part of the debate on the gracious Speech, I have concentrated on the Church’s part in the education system in England and Wales, but I would not want that emphasis to be misunderstood. We maintain a strong commitment to the whole of education and believe that there is much to admire in schools of all kinds, in the dedication and imaginative work of teachers and those who support them. Our country is profoundly indebted to them. I have listened to the public debate over the past few weeks about school discipline and respect. Of course it is true that not all pupils and students are as self-disciplined or well motivated as we should like. There is a problem, and it has to be addressed. I welcome the initiative that the Secretary of State announced last week, which should lead to the Government publishing useful guidance on school discipline. But I confess to being a little nervous, because ““respect”” is a complex, relational term that cannot suddenly be fought back in the face of an overreaction against the undue deference of a bygone age. Respect is more likely to emerge when there are clear expectations on the part of all those involved in that relationship—student, teacher, parent, ancillary staff, voluntary helper, everyone. I can think of good examples where that has happened, such as St Luke’s School in downtown Portsmouth. There are so many teachers already working brilliantly with sometimes difficult pupils, and so many hard-working, self-disciplined, variously gifted and rightly ambitious young people—some of whom wear hoodies. I do not want them undermined. There is so much achievement of which to be proud. Let us not knock it.