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House of Lords Official Report Vol. 787 Friday No. 65 8 December 2017 PARLIAMENTARYDEBATES (HANSARD) HOUSE OF LORDS OFFICIAL REPORT ORDEROFBUSINESS Education and Society Motion to Take Note ....................................................................................................1283 Lords wishing to be supplied with these Daily Reports should give notice to this effect to the Printed Paper Office. No proofs of Daily Reports are provided. Corrections for the bound volume which Lords wish to suggest to the report of their speeches should be clearly indicated in a copy of the Daily Report, which, with the column numbers concerned shown on the front cover, should be sent to the Editor of Debates, House of Lords, within 14 days of the date of the Daily Report. This issue of the Official Report is also available on the Internet at https://hansard.parliament.uk.lords/2017.12.08 The first time a Member speaks to a new piece of parliamentary business, the following abbreviations are used to show their party affiliation: Abbreviation Party/Group CB Cross Bench Con Conservative DUP Democratic Unionist Party GP Green Party Ind Lab Independent Labour Ind LD Independent Liberal Democrat Ind SD Independent Social Democrat Ind UU Independent Ulster Unionist Lab Labour LD Liberal Democrat LD Ind Liberal Democrat Independent Non-afl Non-affiliated PC Plaid Cymru UKIP UK Independence Party UUP Ulster Unionist Party No party affiliation is given for Members serving the House in a formal capacity, the Lords spiritual, Members on leave of absence or Members who are otherwise disqualified from sitting in the House. © Parliamentary Copyright House of Lords 2017, this publication may be reproduced under the terms of the Open Parliament licence, which is published at www.parliament.uk/site-information/copyright/. 1283 Education and Society [8 DECEMBER 2017] Education and Society 1284 House of Lords and fight embedded squalor. By 1870, there were too many children and schools for the churches to cope Friday 8 December 2017 with alone, and the first of the great Education Acts brought the schools under state control, although still 10 am with a very strong religious participation from different Christian churches and Jewish groups. Today,the Church Prayers—read by the Lord Bishop of Derby. of England alone educates over 1 million pupils each year in England, with 26% of all primary schools and 6% of all secondary schools. Education and Society Motion to Take Note Joshua Watson and his friends conceived their plans at a time of great national crisis and upheaval. The Luddite movement, which also began in 1811, was a 10.06 am response to fear of redundancy because of growing Moved by The Archbishop of Canterbury technological advances. Two centuries later,the advances that threaten long-established patterns of work are That the House takes note of the role of education different—but they are still there, in what we are now in building a flourishing and skilled society. calling the fourth industrial revolution. As the World Economic Forum describes it, the digital revolution The Archbishop of Canterbury: My Lords, I am that has been occurring since the middle of the last grateful to the usual channels for making time once century is today accompanied by emerging technological again for me to lead a debate in your Lordships’ breakthroughs in fields such as artificial intelligence, House. It is now something of a tradition for an robotics, the internet of things, autonomous vehicles, Archbishop’s debate to be held in early December. 3D printing, nanotechnology, biotechnology, materials Though a little later and less well established than the science, energy storage and quantum computing. How John Lewis advert, the appearance of an Archbishop our schools and our further and higher education on the order paper is a sure sign that Christmas is just institutions can equip us for this seismic shift, and how around the comer. our systems of social security and support can enable Last year, I led a debate on shared national values, us to keep our society cohesive and healthy, are among which featured some extremely impressive and thoughtful the greatest challenges facing this generation, and the speeches. I am sure that today’s debate will be equally generation to come. And, of course, there is Brexit, impressive, and I am grateful to so many of your with unforeseeable changes, challenges and opportunities. Lordships for making time to attend. I look forward We need an educational system that can bear the to your contributions, and it will be an especial pleasure weight of the changes that are coming. We must be to hear the first speech from the noble, reincarnated sure that, while we might find some inspiration in our and right reverend Lord, Lord Chartres. I am also past, we do not waste our time rummaging there for delighted that the noble Lord, Lord Sacks, will be the solutions of tomorrow. We must also challenge speaking today. He has told me—and obviously we all anew the pockets of deprivation and underachievement understand—that he will have to leave before the that still exist across so many of our communities; and wind-up to get home in time for the Sabbath. But it is we must face the poverty of aspiration that so often very good that he has come here at all. comes with it and which forms such a barrier to human There is a link between today’s debate on education flourishing in every form. and the previous one on shared values. What I hope to At its most basic, for the past two centuries the give today is an outline of the sort of values that we Church of England has looked to promote an education suggest, from these Benches especially, should underpin that allows children, young people and adults to live our education system, and the structures that might out Jesus’s promise of life in all its fullness. That support them, so that we might create a society where means enabling every person not only to grow in individual and mutual flourishing become the norm. wisdom and to learn skills but to develop character As in so many areas of our public life—if noble Lords and the spiritual, intellectual and emotional resources will excuse a little bit of trumpet-blowing—it was the needed to live a good life, as an individual but also in a churches that pioneered the idea of a universal system community. of education, free for all. In 1811, Joshua Watson founded the National Society for Promoting the Education In listening to a debate recently in your Lordships’ of the Poor in the Principles of the Established Church House about our science and innovation strategy, I in England and Wales. Fortunately, our titles are shorter was struck by an observation made from the Front nowadays. The then Bishop of Oxford described Joshua Bench by the noble Lord, Lord Prior, who, echoing Watson as “the best layman in England”—a title long other speakers in that really extraordinarily good debate, overdue for revival: applications please in sealed envelopes said that, to Lambeth Palace. What was started by Watson and “the cultural divide that we have had between academic and others in 1811 lives on today as the National Society. I technical education has been a disaster for this country since 1944 declare an interest as its co-president. My right reverend and probably earlier”.—[Official Report, 23/10/17; col. 830.] friend and colleague the Bishop of Ely, who I look The truth is that the myths of a golden age or a forward to hearing speak later, chairs its council. disastrous misstep are both wide of the mark. The Watson set a values framework that was as important noble Lord went on to describe how our universities to the principles of free universal education as was the are some of the best in the world for academic imperative, also in his ideas, to improve productivity achievement, but where we excel in research we often 1285 Education and Society [LORDS] Education and Society 1286 [THE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY] be essential. Not enough has been done to break down fail in development. The commitment to raise the entrenched disadvantages or to improve integration UK’s spend on research and development from 1.7% and cohesion. The Church of England with its wide—and of GDP to the OECD average of 2.4% is admirable widening—schools network can and must do more to and necessary—but, as the noble Lord pointed out, address this problem. This is the Joshua Watson challenge Germany already spends 3% and is aiming to spend of our generation. 3.5%. This is an area in which we cannot fall further The aim of the founders of the National Society behind, but in which progress can happen only through was to be universalist, unapologetically Christian in the effective work of our education. the nature of their vocation and service and committed We have neglected the value of further education to the relief of disadvantage and deprivation wherever within our overall educational landscape for far too it was found. Ours must be the same. Two hundred long, over numerous Governments and at least since years on, the role of the Church of England in education the 1944 Education Act. That neglect is a legacy of the can be to encourage and support excellence and to class system, especially in England. The children of provide a values-based education for all, with a laser-like privilege are continuing to inherit privilege and this is focus on the poorest and most deprived. That means a true not only in our educational institutions but the renewed vision that focuses as much on deprivation of whole country.
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