Asked by Lord Robathan To ask Her Majesty’s Government what
consideration they have given to including litter picking in the
National Curriculum for Year 6 children, to tidy up the roads and
encourage civic responsibility. The Parliamentary Under-Secretary
of State, Department for Education (Lord Agnew of Oulton)
(Con) My Lords, as part of the...Request free trial
Asked by
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To ask Her Majesty’s Government what consideration they
have given to including litter picking in the National
Curriculum for Year 6 children, to tidy up the roads and
encourage civic responsibility.
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for
Education (Lord Agnew of Oulton) (Con)
My Lords, as part of the science curriculum, children are
taught about the scientific concepts that relate to the
environment. At key stage 2, pupils should explore examples
of the human impact on environments, which can include the
negative impact of litter. At present, around 75% of
schools in England are members of the Eco-Schools
programme. We would like to increase participation in this
programme overall and are working actively on
anti-littering awareness, including participating in litter
picks.
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(Con)
My Lords, that is a start and I am grateful to my noble
friend. However, the shocking and disgusting proliferation
of litter in our towns and countryside frankly shames this
nation. While my proposal might meet with opposition and
some people would understandably be very concerned about
safety—and, indeed, some teachers might not like it very
much—if all children spent a couple of hours clearing
litter, it might not only have a gradual effect on
attitudes but might in the long term have a positive
educational impact. So will my noble friend please go back
and look very seriously at this proposal or something
similar and take radical action so that we no longer need
be ashamed of the state of our highways and byways?
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of Oulton
My Lords, I agree with my noble friend that litter is a
scourge. That is why the Government launched the litter
strategy last year, which sets out our aim to clean up the
country and deliver a substantial reduction in litter
within a generation. The litter strategy brings together
communities, businesses, charities and, most importantly,
schools to bring real change by focusing on three key
themes: education and awareness, improving enforcement, and
better cleaning and access to bins.
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(Lab)
My Lords, given the high rate of illiteracy in many of our
primary schools and the low rate of numeracy among 11
year-olds, which affects their subsequent education, does the
noble Lord not agree that it would be far better to
concentrate on the essentials of a good education and not
expose our children to unnecessary danger doing foolish
things that are not part of the curriculum?
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of Oulton
My Lords, litter is a symptom of children’s respect for our
society and environment—so a good education will address
these two strands, which is what we do on the people side
through the citizenship programmes and PHSE, and through the
recent Tom Bennett review of behaviour in schools. As the
noble Lord knows, on the environmental side we have just
released the 25-year environment plan. We have the
Eco-Schools project that I mentioned earlier. The Great
British Spring Clean is under way and has been extended
because of the bad weather. So I think the noble Lord’s
judgment is a little harsh, because not having litter is a
symptom of a good society.
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(Con)
My Lords, two weeks from today a penalty of £80 will be
imposed on the owner of any vehicle from which litter is
thrown. This is a big advance, because previously the offence
could never be prosecuted. The Government have now made it
subject to a civil penalty rather than classing it as a
crime. However, does my noble friend accept that the
penalties for fly tipping and the enforcement of those
penalties are completely inadequate?
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of Oulton
My Lords, this comes back to my earlier statement that this
is about a sense of public responsibility and duty. I am
delighted that the fines for littering from cars have been
increased. My noble friend will also be aware that from
January this year we banned the use of microbeads in cosmetic
substances—so the whole thrust is to improve the protection
of our environment. I applaud the most recent action to which
he referred.
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(LD)
My Lords, the noble Lord is right to raise this issue and of
course Keep Britain Tidy does a lot of work in schools. But
now that we have light at the end of the tunnel, will the
Minister not lobby the Government to provide more money to
local authorities so that the highways, verges and streets
that he is concerned about can be properly cleansed, with
local authorities given the resources to carry that out? I
know that this is not quite in the Minister’s brief but,
while I am up perhaps I might ask—as some schools include
this as part of PHSE—when the consultation on PSHE will be
concluded, and will we have an opportunity to discuss the
recommendations?
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of Oulton
My Lords, in relation to the noble Lord’s first question, if
we can change attitudes we will not need to spend large sums
of taxpayers’ money cleaning up the litter left by careless
people. In relation to PSHE, the review closed on 12 February
and we had a record number of responses. We will be replying
to that as soon as possible. It is also worth noting that an
additional requirement that we have of schools is for the
social, moral, spiritual and cultural development of
children. This is a high-level duty that sits outside PSHE.
It is written into legislation and also into the academy
funding agreement, and it includes issues such as respect for
the environment.
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(Lab)
I am wary of criticising the noble Lord, , given his service
in the SAS, but I suspect that there are many parents and not
a few children today who, having heard him, are quite
relieved that there are mercifully few chimneys left in this
country. I wonder whether the noble Lord is aware that it is
extremely rare for the broad and balanced year 6 curriculum
not to include civic responsibility, so it is not a problem.
There are many great teachers in state schools in this
country, not least Andria Zafirakou, who was named as the
winner of the Global Teacher Prize just a few days ago. That
is a tremendous credit to her work at Alperton Community
School in north London. I suspect that most teachers in this
country would welcome a robust statement from the Minister
that teachers should be allowed to get on and teach. Will he
give that assurance?
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of Oulton
My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord that it is very
important that teachers are allowed to teach. The core of our
reforms over the last seven or eight years has been the
granting of autonomy to schools and the freeing up of the key
stage 3 curriculum to give space for the teaching of things
that are not directly linked to exams. I come back to my
general theme: much of education is about producing a
spiritual sense and a sense of belonging in society—so I
agree that we should not be mandating additional individual
activities.
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