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Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

My Lords, I wish to speak against Amendment 175A. It is tabled in the same way as it was in Committee, but I accept that it was the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Oxford rather than the right reverend Prelate Bishop of Manchester who spoke to it on that occasion. I do not want to rehearse all those arguments again. It was a good debate, so I will perhaps sum them up and express a few further points.

The Bill is not trying to abolish yeshivas; that is not the intent of the legislation. I join both speakers so far in saying that I cherish and welcome the fact that we are a country that values education for all children and allows people of all faiths to reflect that faith in their own education. I have, sometimes at my own political expense, defended the state system, which has Roman Catholic schools, Church of England schools and many other schools. Politically, there are many people who think that we ought to not have faith schools at all. I have always defended them, because that is an important tenet of a free society, and I value the contribution they make to our lives.

I feel the same about people of any faith. This is not about the Orthodox Jewish faith. The amendment could be used by people of any faith to start a school and have 10 hours a day of religious instruction and home education in the evening. That point is very clear.

However, I am opposed to the way some faiths are organising their education at the moment. Without rehearsing the arguments, it comes down quite simply to this: if a child, maybe under 11, is in a yeshiva or any other school—but the yeshiva has been the one that has been mentioned—from 8 am to 6 pm, I do not believe that they can be home educated effectively in the evening. I do not think that is what we are about. If we take faith out of that and think of the needs of the child, we cherish our differences, but we are only a cohesive society if we cherish the things that we hold together.

One of the “samenesses” of our society is that we believe in the right of a child to have a broad and balanced education. I do not see how, in this structure, with yeshiva from 8 am to 6 pm and only religious education, sometimes not in the English language, then home education from 6 pm onwards, we are delivering that to those children. It is as simple as that. I have met people who have been educated in the yeshiva movement. They would not describe it as the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester described it. It is the same as any other school. There are people who like it, people who do not like it, people who say it has served them well, people who it has not served well. It is as simple as that. Let us not go down this line because we think it is one form of education that everybody cherishes and wants to preserve. There is as much of a difference of opinion in this as there is in anything else.

9.45 pm

My last point is that it is possible to be at school and have an education whereby you have ultra-Orthodox Jewish instruction and the broad and balanced curriculum as well. There are schools that do that. This amendment is asking us to exclude the broad and balanced education and have only the religious instruction. I cannot see why this group of people should be excluded from a Bill the main purpose of which is to safeguard children. I accept that the amendment says that safeguarding would take place, but we must, as far as we can, make sure that our children have the sameness of that broad and balanced education. It is not about following the national curriculum and slavishly doing what other schools do. It is about making available to them a broad range of learning, facts and experiences so that,

when they grow up, they have not only the faith—which for some people underpins their morality, vision and purpose in life—but that broad and balanced education which makes them an even more fulfilling member of the community and able to contribute.

My last point is this. I ask the right reverend Prelate to consider this. I think he has tabled this amendment to protect yeshivas, but it opens up the ability of anyone of any faith to set up a school where children are getting religious instruction from 8 am to 6 pm and home education after that. That is a direction of travel that we would not wish to embark on, so I oppose the amendment.