---

Education and Inspections Bill

My Lords, it is a great pleasure for me to say that I had a good lunch, and look forward to having a good dinner. I am grateful to your Lordships for your good wishes on my temporary return during a gap in treatment. I assure your Lordships that I will be back. I apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Baker, for my poor maths. When I was a Guildford rector the treasurer told me, after a few months, ““Don’t bother to add up your monthly expenses cheque, Kenneth—you always get it wrong””. This has been a rich and varied debate that could go on and on for hours. I want to touch very briefly on four aspects of it. First, I remain entirely sceptical about the amendment in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Baker, Lord Skidelsky and Lord Taverne, for reasons that I have already given that are shared by other people around your Lordships’ House, including the noble Baronesses, Lady Walmsley and Lady Buscombe. I hope that the kind of signals given by the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, to other noble Lords who do not share that view will pacify them and contribute to further debate. I echo the words used earlier by the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, that this is only part of the picture. Faith schools cannot possibly carry the weight of all our social issues and problems. It was good to hear from the noble Lord, Lord Alton, on Roman Catholic schools, and from the noble Lord, Lord Taverne, in his knockabout speech. We may disagree on faith and reason, but the Pope’s speech in Regensburg—hijacked because he opened his mouth in a particular Byzantine direction—was really about a new deal on faith and reason in the West. Whatever our religious views in the post-modern world, that provides many of us with much food for thought. When I was a small boy, I learned most of my theology from an old priest who was a chaplain in the trenches, and whose theology was formed by that experience. He once said to me, ““The purpose of theology is to prevent religion degenerating into superstition””—words that the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, at whose feet I sat many years ago in Manchester University, might welcome and even approve. However, there has been a slight air of unreality in parts of tonight’s debate about faith schools. There are 4,700 Church of England schools, while there are 35 Jewish schools, six Muslim-maintained schools and 100 independent Muslim schools that could become maintained—with many of all those oversubscribed—so we are not comparing like with like. Perhaps I may say, without intending to be patronising, that we need to handle minority faith communities with a bit of care and, dare I say, love. Secondly, I welcome the government amendment on staff at foundation or voluntary schools with religious character—that is easy. Thirdly, collective worship has been the Aunt Sally of tonight’s discussion. As I think the Minister said, the current provision is to have half Christian and half other faiths in community schools. What an enrichment that would be. It would have been an enrichment for the school that I attended if half the acts of worship had been of other faiths. I would have learnt so much more than simply having conversations with the little lad sitting next to me who was from the local Jewish community. I suppose that I would be slightly sceptical at this slip from worship to spiritual, moral assembly. It seems that if you define worship in the broadest sense, it is about contemplating the mystery of life and the use of silence in a very noisy world. I find in liturgy that it is children who can be quiet and parents who cannot. This spiritual, moral assembly may become rather moralistic. We may have to come back to collective worship in a proper debate. Perhaps I may stick my neck out slightly and quote from a conversation that I had with the Secretary of State in the summer. We talked about collective worship and I gave him a gentle warning that if we do not grasp it, it runs the risk of becoming like the blasphemy law: enshrined in statute, seldom invoked and almost universally misunderstood. To gently answer the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, yes, religion does not have exclusive rights on the grammar of values, but it is remarkably alive and kicking. To echo the words of my friend the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Newcastle, I do not recognise the religious life of this country portrayed in much public discussion. According to the statistics of the 2001 census, more than 71 per cent of the population signed up to Christianity in the broad sense and the second-largest faith group are the Muslims at 3.9 per cent, which is not quite how it is often portrayed. I am not using those statistics in a triumphalistic way, but rather in a world where religion is back on the map and people want to study it at schools and in universities. The old secularist approach will not work any more. I cannot quite believe that this debate began nearly three hours ago. I am sometimes accused of innocence and this began with a very innocent amendment on school improvement partners. Years ago, a group of us were swapping epitaphs and the eyes of the group turned to me. I said that I would like as my epitaph: be cunning as serpents, yet innocent as doves. The retired bishop said, ““Well, Kenneth, you certainly passed the first test””. Finally, I welcome the reassurances given on school improvement partners. With all the humility that I can muster just before nine o’clock with a rumbling stomach, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.