(Nottingham East) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to require matters
relating to climate change and sustainability to be integrated
throughout the curriculum in primary and secondary schools and
included in vocational training courses; and for connected
purposes.
Madam Deputy Speaker, 2050 is the year that the world needs to
reach net zero. This will require fundamental changes to every
sector of our economy unprecedented in their overall scale. For
some, 2050 might feel like it is a long way away. In the next 30
years, Governments will come and go and many Members of this
House will retire, but for my generation and for those who are
still in school—young people who have their whole future ahead of
them—2050 will be the middle of their working lives. A child who
started primary school this September will not even be 35. The
world and the economy that they inherit will feel very different
from those of today.
If our education system is not preparing young people to mitigate
and deal with the impacts of climate change, it is failing them.
If it is not teaching them the knowledge and skills they need to
thrive in a net zero society, it is failing them. If young people
are not being taught to understand the impact of human
interaction with the natural world and the need to maintain
biodiversity and cut our carbon emissions, it is failing them and
our planet. This Bill aims to put that right and to prepare young
people for the future, and this Bill is what young people are
demanding. In 2018, one survey found that 42% of pupils felt that
they had learned a little, hardly anything or nothing about the
environment at school, and 68% said that they would like to know
more.
This Bill exists only because of the hard work of young people.
School students from Teach the Future, who have joined us today
in the Public Gallery, have spent the past two years campaigning
relentlessly to be taught the truth about the climate crisis and
to be equipped with the skills to tackle it. Their campaign has
put this issue on the agenda; it now falls to us to put it into
law.
The Bill comes in the same month that the UK hosted the COP26. If
we want to know whether something was a success, we need to start
by asking the people who have the most to lose—people such as
15-year-old Safia Hasan, a climate activist from Chad, who
said:
“I’m hugely disappointed and hugely let down by COP. Coming from
Chad, millions of my people are suffering but nobody is listening
to our cries, our tears. It’s our planet, and it’s time to stop
messing about with our future.”
Notwithstanding the disappointing outcomes on climate finance,
decarbonising of the energy sector and just transition
initiatives, however, I welcome the Government announcement at
COP26 that they will take action to promote greater teaching of
climate change in the curriculum. That is a key first step and a
vital recognition of the importance of climate education, but a
voluntary scheme such as the one announced can achieve only so
much, and unfortunately the fine print of the announcement was
such that it amounts to little more than teachers being sent
PowerPoint presentations.
While teaching about the climate remains voluntary, many young
people will continue to miss out. Teachers must also be supported
to deliver climate education, given that 70% of teachers feel
that they have not received adequate training to educate young
people about climate change. This Climate Education Bill would
make climate education mandatory, embedding it across the
national curriculum and ensuring that all teachers receive
training. It would be intertwined with every subject, a golden
thread that runs through a young person’s schooling, just as the
climate crisis and our actions to tackle it run through every
aspect of our lives.
Whether those young people grow up to be a builder or a banker, a
carer or a caterer, the climate crisis will affect everyone. We
need to train the next generation of plumbers to install
low-carbon heat pumps, and teach the next generation of chefs
about sustainable diets and sustainable food production. This
Bill would ensure that climate change is given the emphasis in
our education system that it deserves.
The climate and ecological crisis impacts everything around us.
Pandemics, such as the one that has turned our world upside-down
for the past two years, will become more frequent as loss of
habitat forces animals to migrate and come into contact with
other animals or people. Climate education will help young people
to understand the world around them and provide access to nature
and opportunities for children to engage with our natural world.
Some 57% of child and adolescent psychiatrists in England see
patients who are distressed about the climate crisis and the
state of the environment. The Bill would provide support for
students to deal with eco and climate anxiety, which climate
education will also mitigate, as it will empower students to
understand what actions they can take to help tackle climate
change and the role that they will play in the future.
I hope that the Government will recognise the Bill as a natural
continuation of their announcement at COP26. I hope it will
encourage them to go further—to legislate to make climate change
part of the core content of all subjects, to support teachers to
deliver climate education and to decarbonise the education sector
much faster. Not only young people but our entire economy stands
to benefit. Our green jobs and recovery plans lag far behind
those of most G7 countries. The availability of the right skills
and a keen interest in sustainability will pave the way to a
productive green transformation and decent job creation.
I am delighted and grateful that the Bill includes among its
sponsors the Chairs of the Environmental Audit Committee, the
Select Committee on Education, and the Business, Energy and
Industrial Strategy Committee. I pay particular thanks to the
right hon. Member for Ludlow () for his continued leadership
on skills and training as part of a just transition to a greener
economy, as well as for his personal kindness and support for
this campaign.
It is important to be honest about the climate and ecological
emergency, but it is also important to remember how much we still
have to fight for. Every ray of hope and every inch of progress
at COP26 was won through relentless pressure from activists and
campaigners, especially those on the frontlines of the crisis.
Change has always happened this way, and always will. The next
generation are calling on us to take these steps, to secure their
future. I want us to listen to them and act for them. Some of us
may not be around to see the full results of our actions, but our
legacy will live on. We must decide: do we want to be remembered
for what we did or for what we failed to do? Young people’s
futures depend on us. We must not let them down.
Question put and agreed to.
Ordered,
That , , , , , , , , , , and present the Bill.
accordingly presented the
Bill.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 28
January 2022, and to be printed (Bill 197).
