BRITISH values should now cover freedom of faith and respect for the environment, the previous Bishop of Oxford Lord Harries said last week.
Currently enshrined as “democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty, and mutual respect and tolerance of various faiths and beliefs”, the values could “strengthen the teaching of citizenship in schools”, he told the House of Lords.
In the introduction to the Second Reading of his Education (Values of British Citizenship) Bill (News, 2 August), Lord Harries sought to “make these values clearer and more holistic” in addition to to get them termed “values of British citizenship” in future.
“Now is precisely the proper time to think about whether the unique formulation was adequate, and, specifically, whether it is feasible to search out a type of wording that’s more rounded and is independent of the goals of the Prevent strategy.”
In 2014, the Department for Education had published guidance on how the values must be promoted in educational settings, which arose from the introduction of “British values” into the curriculum in 2011. That first change was a part of the Prevent counter-extremism strategy, designed to combat the danger of terrorism grooming of youngsters and young people. Opposition got here from the Muslim community, who “felt that their introduction was directed at them specifically”, and from others concerned that the move was “asserting British values as in some way superior to those of other cultures”.
Lord Harries also said that he now desired to expand “mutual respect and tolerance of various faiths and beliefs” to incorporate freedom of faith, which, together with “respect for the equal value and dignity of all and sundry”, would cope with those objections. In addition, he proposed an additional variation to the values to incorporate “respect for the environment”.
The Bishop of Sheffield, Dr Pete Wilcox, voiced concern for the topic of RE.
“The statutory inspection process for Anglican and Methodist schools and their teaching of RE signifies that church schools can confidently guarantee a high-quality, diverse religious education that supports children to develop the talents and knowledge they should grow into global residents, and to navigate the nuances of a secular, multi-religious society.
“However, since 2017 . . . uptake of RE at GCSE has fallen sharply and social studies uptake has consistently remained below ten per cent.”
Baroness D’Souza said that, “in reframing the elemental British values, [the Bill] gives schools the chance to give attention to cultivating the brand new values and introduces recent connections with human rights, government and policy.”
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle said: “We have inherited a disastrous set of values and attitudes towards the environment, with considering that goes back a good distance and which we’ve adopted into our mental tradition. . . We are failing our kids if we don’t educate them about their place as a part of nature; that should be a part of a much wider change where our education system works to arrange people for all times, not only exams and jobs.”
Responding on behalf of the Government, the Minister of State for Education, Baroness Smith of Malvern, congratulated Lord Harries. “The goals of the Bill are admirable. It is important that pupils have a sound understanding of the elemental values on which our society is founded and their relevance to the rights, responsibilities, and opportunities of living in modern Britain.”
She was sceptical, nevertheless, that laws was “the proper method to secure effective implementation by schools. . . The current arrangements provide a sound basis for delivering British values, but there’s room for improvement.”
Lord Harries, thanking the Minister and other speakers, concluded that “as we shouldn’t have a written structure, it is likely to be good to have something within the law of the land about these fundamental values — and we’re talking about political values, not personal values, or, within the old-fashioned term, civics.”
The debate lasted almost two hours. The Bill will now move to the Committee Stage, scheduled for 4 November.
