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British values should cover freedom of religion, Lord Harries clarifies

25 October 2024

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BRITISH values should now cover freedom of religion and respect for the environment, the former Bishop of Oxford Lord Harries said last week.

Currently enshrined as “democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty, and mutual respect and tolerance of different 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” as well as to get them termed “values of British citizenship” in future.

“Now is exactly the right time to consider whether the original formulation was adequate, and, in particular, whether it is possible to find a form of wording that is more rounded and is independent of the aims of the Prevent strategy.”

In 2014, the Department for Education had published guidance on how the values should be promoted in educational settings, which arose from the introduction of “British values” into the curriculum in 2011. That first change was part of the Prevent counter-extremism strategy, designed to combat the danger of terrorism grooming of children and young people. Opposition came from the Muslim community, who “felt that their introduction was directed at them in particular”, and from others concerned that the move was “asserting British values as somehow superior to those of other cultures”.

Lord Harries also said that he now wanted to expand “mutual respect and tolerance of different faiths and beliefs” to include freedom of religion, which, along with “respect for the equal worth and dignity of every person”, would deal with those objections. In addition, he proposed a further variation to the values to include “respect for the environment”.

The Bishop of Sheffield, Dr Pete Wilcox, voiced concern for the subject of RE.

“The statutory inspection process for Anglican and Methodist schools and their teaching of RE means that church schools can confidently guarantee a high-quality, diverse religious education that supports children to develop the skills and knowledge they need to grow into global citizens, 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 fundamental British values, [the Bill] gives schools the opportunity to focus on cultivating the new values and introduces new 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 thinking that goes back a long way and which we have adopted into our intellectual tradition. . . We are failing our children if we do not educate them about their place as part of nature; that needs to be part of a much broader change where our education system works to prepare people for life, not just exams and jobs.”

Responding on behalf of the Government, the Minister of State for Education, Baroness Smith of Malvern, congratulated Lord Harries. “The aims of the Bill are admirable. It is vital that pupils have a sound understanding of the fundamental values on which our society is founded and their relevance to the rights, responsibilities, and opportunities of living in modern Britain.”

She was sceptical, however, that legislation was “the right way to secure effective implementation by schools. . . The current arrangements provide a sound basis for delivering British values, but there is room for improvement.”

Lord Harries, thanking the Minister and other speakers, concluded that “as we do not have a written constitution, it might be good to have something in the law of the land about these fundamental values — and we are talking about political values, not personal values, or, in the old-fashioned term, civics.”

The debate lasted almost two hours. The Bill will now move to the Committee Stage, scheduled for 4 November.

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