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Education and Inspections Bill

I want to speak to amendments (a) and (b) tabled by me and by Members from both sides of the House, which relate to collective worship and religious education in schools. In relation to the Bill, the issue was originally raised by the National Secular Society in communication with Education Ministers and with the Joint Committee on Human Rights on which I serve. It asked whether it was correct in human rights terms for the opt-outs from collective worship and religious education to rest only with parents of young people, when those young people should be considered to be competent humans in their own right. As a result of those representations on both collective worship and religious education, the Joint Committee took legal advice, as is the usual process. According to that advice, unless young people who are competent to make a decision about their article 9 rights with regard to freedom of religion were able to exercise an opt-out, the Government were at risk, in legislation and in practice, of breaching the Human Rights Act 1998. There is a right not to be forced, when one is old enough to know whether one believes in God, or in which God one believes, to pray against one’s will to another deity. That right applies regardless of age—there is no age threshold for human rights. Indeed, the UN convention on the rights of the child—and I have heard some of my hon. Friends speak eloquently on that—provides specifically for consultation with children on their education and other matters. In other areas, such as in the provision of contraceptive advice, the Minister will be aware that young people are able to consent to medical and surgical intervention, including the right to access an abortion, without parental consent or even parental knowledge. In such cases, the health professional must decide routinely whether the young person is competent enough to make a decision about their health. In relation to sexual health, that judgment is often activated at around age 14. Religious belief will vary according to the maturity of the child, but a child who has a strong view against belief in God should not be forced in any state school, under the Human Rights Act, to pray, whether individually or collectively. The Joint Committee also covered the question of religious education. The reason that there is an opt-out for religious education, which seems strange to many people, given that it is a subject rather than worship, is that it has no central curriculum. In voluntary aided and voluntary controlled schools with a faith ethos, the religion education curricula and syllabuses obviously look extremely different. Religious education syllabuses are generally set by standing advisory committees on religious education in each local authority area. For faith schools, there is a layer on top of that, which is the faith school deciding. As the Government have always recognised, however, the curriculum or syllabus is designed and delivered in such a way that there is no current protection for those parents who do not want their children exposed to both the content and style of delivery of directional religious education—which used to be called religious instruction, partly because of the way in which it is delivered in a few schools. The Government’s draft guidance on the Equality Act 2006 in respect of discrimination on religion describes an exception needed in some schools for children to continue to be discriminated against on the basis of what they are allowed to read out aloud. Some religious texts, some schools have urged, should not be allowed to be read out by a child who is not of the right religion, because to do so would be sacrilegious. I never thought for a moment that that would be an issue, let alone an example in the Government’s draft guidance to schools on how to ensure that they have adequate exemptions in place to avoid charges of religious discrimination. That is the sort of context in which religious education is currently provided. My view—and I believe that there is sympathy for this view in my party, although our Front-Bench spokesman will also speak—is that religious education is important in terms of the teaching of comparative religion, and that its presence in the syllabus is necessary as religion is part of our culture and history. Just like history, geography, philosophy, belief studies and citizenship studies, it needs to be taught and taught well. Clearly, some variation is needed to ensure that children of a particular belief are taught about it. It would be bizarre for the content in a school that had lots of Muslims, or that was a Muslim faith school as it currently exists, to be related mainly to Christianity. The curriculum must ensure, however, that those of all beliefs and none are covered. Were that part of the national curriculum or, as I would like, a minimum curriculum entitlement, there would be no need for a parental opt-out on religious education. Because that is not currently part of the national curriculum, however, there is a parental opt-out, and rightly so. For reasons that I have explained, I have never argued against that opt-out. Where that opt-out exists for parents, because of their human rights need for their wishes to be respected, it must also apply to young people who are old enough to decide for themselves, rather than it being imposed by parents or authority figures. After all, the House should be concerned about the radicalisation of some young people by older people, potentially including their parents, teaching them a brand of religion that they might want to resist. If young people cannot excuse themselves from rather directional teaching at school, we cannot even start the battle to ensure that they are immune from such proselytisation. After all, we do not allow political inculcation, which is a brand of belief inculcation, in our schools. I hope that the Minister accepts that religious education should be just that—education, not instruction, inculcation or proselytisation. However, the very existence of opt-outs is due to the local variation that is allowed, and the fact that faith schools may include in their lessons materials such as instructional videos from a pro-life group, showing abortion in graphic terms. One school allowed just such a video to be shown recently. The young people at that Catholic sixth-form college objected to having to attend compulsory collective worship for long periods, and to receiving such education or instruction. When they rebelled and refused to attend, they were excluded by the head teacher, who felt strongly about the subject. In the end, the matter was settled in favour of the students, and I believe that the head teacher resigned. Young people need the statutory right to say that they do not want such instruction imposed on them.