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Education and Inspections Bill

My Lords, I shall be brief because it is high time the right reverend Prelate had a break from this, and he has to be here until the end. My noble friend Lord Waddington drew attention to one danger of my noble friend Lord Baker’s amendment: that it would not work. He left out another almost equally important danger: that it has turned Amendment No. 104 into a sideshow. It is actually a very important amendment. Not only does it address the question of school assembly, breaking it up so that it no longer becomes an assembly of the whole school, making it optional and taking out the religious content, but it repeals Schedule 20 to the 1988 Act. The schedule embodies the phrase ““wholly or broadly Christian””, which was put on the statute book in 1988 after lengthy deliberation by your Lordships in a campaign led by the noble Baroness, Lady Cox, who alas is not here tonight. To reverse that with a thinning House late at night would be a tragedy. The only other comment that I will make is to reinforce the remarks of those who say that the study of religion is more important than it has been for a very long time. The age when children are reaching maturity is probably the most important time for them to become aware of it, look at it rationally and not be brainwashed, and that is the role of RE in schools these days. I will not reply to tirade of the noble Lord, Lord Taverne—who is not in his place but I shall address him in his absence—though one came across most of it teaching in the sixth form, and indeed the fifth form, but I will say simply that those who have lived it are very grateful that they learnt it.