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Education Bill

My Lords, I rise to support my noble friend Lady Hughes and to echo the words of my old friend, the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp. I suppose I reveal every time I speak in your Lordships’ Committee what a dinosaur I am, but deep down, I do not believe there should be a national curriculum. Equally, I do not believe in banging my head against a wall, when I will be on the losing side. I believe in education, and I have great difficulty in seeing any connection between education and a national curriculum. I was prompted to think about that when my noble friend Lady Hughes mentioned that the Secretary of State is keen for all children to learn the dates of the monarchs of our country. We just debated an amendment on technology and all that. To prove that my Alzheimer's is not as bad as it is, I start with Her Majesty the Queen and work back to as many Kings and Queens as I can think of, but for the life of me, these days, I cannot remember the dates at all. I cannot think of any reason why that is a problem for me, because I go to Google, I type in William IV and Mary, and up come their dates.