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Education and Skills Bill

I have a lot of sympathy with what the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, said, but I wish we could leave everything to the leadership and ethos of each school. However, we have to accept that some schools are rather better at putting that form of leadership into practice. I support the intentions behind this amendment. When the Government introduced citizenship classes, it was quite brave because Governments had put them off again and again thinking that they would be used as political propaganda for the side that was in power. However, they were introduced and it was thought that citizenship would be a subject, instead of which it has been distributed into all other subjects being taught. The one thing that I and my noble friend Lord Northbourne, who I am sad to say is not in his place, were keen on was that parenting would be taught; not relationships with parents, because when teenagers are growing up there are tiffs with parents, but how to be a parent, what responsibilities parents have to take on board and what pleasures they can hope to receive from and impart to their children. Sadly, that has not happened. Perhaps somehow, as well as contraception and all the other more practical forms of encouraging young people not to have children before they are old and mature enough to make those kind of decisions, one could get discussion going about how we bring up the next generation, which will be crucial—even more than usual because there will be so few of them. They will need to be cherished by us all. I support the amendment.