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Education and Inspections Bill

I agree with the hon. Gentleman, and I thought that I had made the point that if education of that kind was included in the national curriculum, or if it formed part of a minimum curriculum entitlement subject that was clearly defined, agreed to and accepted, there would be no need for any opt-out. The risk that the hon. Gentleman runs is that the kind of education that he mentions is lost at the moment to those children whose parents withdraw them from religious education lessons. There is a good argument for including such information, which I agree is vital—I have said so twice—in a religious education and beliefs or citizenship curriculum, in which pupils could examine their responsibilities to others, and their own beliefs, or lack of them. That would be fair enough. I hope that that point is understood. However, because the system does not work like that, and because, in some cases, lesson content is not as balanced as the hon. Gentleman suggests it should be, there is a parental opt-out. The Joint Committee on Human Rights was firm in its view that, if an opt-out is deemed necessary for parents, it must also be available to young people who are competent. To finish, I shall deal with the Government’s concession in the House of Lords, in response to a Liberal Democrat amendment tabled by Baroness Walmsley and supported by Members of all parties. After the subject was raised in Standing Committee, and following the report of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, the Government consulted the faith community on the issue, but very narrowly. It consulted only on collective worship, and only in respect of sixth-formers, rather than all those competent to decide. They did not ask about some of the other issues in the Joint Committee’s report—indeed, the consultation did not refer to the report—and they did not refer at all to the human rights issue at the heart of the subject. After that consultation, the Government returned with a welcome but rather narrow amendment that allows sixth-form pupils to withdraw from collective worship. I shall pocket that concession, and I thank the Minister for it, but he should accept that one is either in breach of human rights or not; we cannot say, ““Well, ensuring 25 per cent. of those rights is okay””. The concession left out the half of our amendment that dealt with religious education, as well as the issue of 15 or 16-year-olds who are not in the sixth form, but who know that they do not want to attend compulsory prayer—at least, not the compulsory prayer on offer. Those young people should have that right, even if their parents think that they—excuse my language—damn well should attend. The Minister has to explain why he chose not to consult on the issue and why the consultation was so narrow, and he should respond to the point made by my noble Friend Baroness Walmsley, who said that the Government’s provisions might well open the door for a case to be brought under the Human Rights Act 1998. Why should the Government wait? What is their fear? It has been argued that it would be difficult for schools to decide what Gillick competence was, but that was not an argument against ensuring rights in respect of the provision of medical treatment. I have not heard that argument advanced—especially not by Liberal Democrat Members—in discussion of pupil choice, a subject on which we have a policy to ensure that pupils, after receiving advice, have more choice over their curriculum. Nor was that argument used on the subject of the rights of a child to be consulted; there was no worry about whether the child was not competent to feed into that consultation. It seems to the Joint Committee, and to other human rights authorities to which I have spoken, that that is not a problem; schools can make a decision when a child comes to them and gives good reasons for not wanting to attend religious education or collective worship. My party has a long history of calling for collective worship not to be compulsory in school, but for schools to provide prayer rooms, so that people who wish to pray and worship may do so, whatever their religious belief—and young people have the right to express their religious belief. The converse of ensuring that worship is not compulsory is allowing young people, as a minimum, to opt out of what is organised for them. The Government are particularly vulnerable on the issue of collective worship. I hope that the Minister understands where other hon. Members and I are coming from. This is not an attack on the proper teaching of religious education, or on freedom of religion—I believe that people should be able to pray in prayer rooms, outside lesson hours, at schools—but I hope that he will explain why he does not propose to take the Joint Committee’s advice on this important issue.