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Education: Adult Learners

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, for giving us the opportunity to give vent to our feelings on this matter. I offer sympathy to my noble friends on the Front Bench at the unassuaged assault that they are getting—to which I am anxious to add. We have heard much about the perhaps unintended consequences for the Government’s lifelong learning programme; we talk about joined-up government. I want to make a bid for the way it runs counter also to the aims of the social cohesion programme by affecting not only, as we have heard many times, the way in which the Open University works, but also the training of clergy, who are the cheapest and most effective social workers and contributors to social cohesion in the country. Since the battering that is being experienced is coming from all corners of this House, let me speak for the one corner that is not represented here: the Benches in front of me. A Methodist minister is always glad to speak for the Bishops, and I am very glad to do that. I would be very surprised if one of the 26 of them would not have fallen foul of this proposal. I would have fallen foul of it myself. There is no such thing as a lifelong job any more; we change careers and we need to be retooled for the new careers that we opt for. After a mini-career in university teaching, I went to get my degree in theology. Only if you think a Cambridge degree is superior to a Cardiff degree can you think that they are anything other than equivalent; the two are equivalent and I would have fallen foul. I speak in the name of all those who redirect their lives and seek appropriate skills for the new direction that their life takes, my two sons included; they started abortively with bad careers advice from their schools but ended up finding their way, retooled themselves for their jobs and are now happily ensconced in them. In the name of all that is decent—I know that my noble friends on the Front Bench are decent if nothing else—I do ask for a reconsideration.