rose to ask Her Majesty's Government whether the teaching of history in schools in England and Wales is satisfactory.

My Lords, I thank in advance all noble Lords for taking the time to participate in this debate. I look forward immensely to their contributions, and in particular to the speech of my noble friend Lady Buscombe and the reply of the noble Lord, Lord Adonis.

I begin by declaring an interest as an amateur historian; indeed, I would argue that no one can be a Member of this House without acquiring a due reverence for its history, the way in which it may influence our country's future and the role we play within it. History is continually happening. As George Santayana wisely said,

"those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it".

I would extrapolate from that the view that those who do not know their history will inevitably make the same old mistakes. I mentioned that we have debated this issue before; perhaps Mr Santayana's words are about to ring true.

The year 2000 was a time where the numbers of pupils aged 16 taking GCSE in history had been declining by 5 per cent each year since 1997, and many felt and argued at the time that the subject was beginning to be edged slowly out of the curriculum under a Government who had come to power promising "education, education, education". We discussed then the importance of chronology and of a broad and balanced approach addressing success and failures, and the advances in the study of social history and how its study as prescribed was being diluted in the name of flexibility. The then Minster, the noble Lord, Lord Bach, undertook to assure us that we should not be concerned and that,

"the Government value the teaching of British history very highly indeed".

He went on to say:

"We fully recognise the important role that the subject plays in a broader education".—[Hansard, 27/3/00; col. 589.]

Despite that promise, the spring of this year witnessed Mr Bill Rammell, Labour Minster for Higher Education, stating that the sharp fall in the number of university applicants wanting to study subjects such as history, philosophy, classics and fine art was "no bad thing". A Higher Education Minister? Your Lordships might think that "lower education" would be a more apt title.

This is a completely contrary view towards the teaching of history from that which the noble Lord, Lord Bach, implied or it at least shows an inconsistency of views between the higher levels of education, which the Historical Association has roundly condemned, calling it "very short sighted"—hence the fact that I have felt the need to retable this debate six years on.

A poll accompanying the recent Channel 4 series by David Starkey on the history of the monarchy highlighted the fact that fewer than half of adults knew that Henry VIII had six wives, let alone that they were subsequently "divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived". I find this most surprising and infinitely depressing when, as I remind your Lordships, the Tudors, together with Nazi Germany, is the most likely topic to be included in today's history classes. Even more worrying was the fact that only one in 10 younger people could name King John as the monarch who signed Magna Carta. I fear that a much smaller percentage even than that would know what Magna Carta was and what it has meant in the development of human rights, society and institutions down the ages.

History is knowledge. If you are lucky enough to have been taught it, you will be a more rounded and complete person than if you have not. I was lucky enough to have been taught it, and perhaps more importantly, taught how to appreciate history, starting with the all-important structure of dates, political events and people who have influenced events. As Anthony O'Hear so aptly summed it up recently:

"A person with no sense of the past is a person who is a stranger both to his own roots and to the human condition more generally. For human beings are not creatures of nature; we are inheritors of the history that has made us what we are. Not to know our history is not to know ourselves".

We are at present much concerned with Islam and how to reconcile its values with those of the largely Christian West. I therefore ask the Minster whether the history of the growth of Islam is part of the national curriculum. I also ask whether he is satisfied with the current state of culture in this country, obsessed as it is with celebrity, football and reality television. Most of our population seem to have no other interests and have no yardsticks from history.

In April the Daily Telegraph reported:

"History A-level students will have to spend at least 25 per cent of their time studying Britain's past under new rules proposed by the Government's curriculum advisors".

Surely that is a sign that our British heritage was not placed at the heart of teaching history as we were assured it would be six years ago when the school curriculum was revised. However, I must welcome the fact that this fundamental mistake has now been recognised and appears to have been corrected.

Years ago my noble friend Lord Patten said:

"Our history has been formed and changed by the individual actions of great people; heroes and villains; saints and sinners; generals and sea-farers . . . all these have stamped their mark on British history".

At the same time as the last debate, a new textbook for national curriculum history included extraordinary examples, such as that Wellington never fought Waterloo but merely opposed the Chartists, and that Churchill never led this country from defeat to victory—all he did of note was to lose the 1945 election. Clive of India, Wolfe, Nelson, Florence Nightingale, Gordon, Pitt the Younger, Peel and Palmerston are not even mentioned at all. Can the Minister reassure me that this travesty of a textbook has long since been withdrawn? I hope so.

I finish in the same way that I did six years ago. I am enormously proud of my country, of its traditions and of the many great and noble people who have forged our history. They made mistakes but made things happen. They were sometimes kings and sometimes commoners. I want all children—and even more so, those of foreign parents—to learn, to appreciate and to profit from proper teaching of our history, which is the most important building block of our society and citizenship. Without it, we cannot appreciate the past, cannot adequately fulfil our lives during the present, and have no hope of introducing the next generation to a successful future.

My Lords, I begin by thanking the noble Lord, Lord Luke, for initiating this very important debate, and for talking about it with great conviction and learning.

No subject could be more important than this one. History is a record of society's collective memories, and a story of the formation of its identity. How history is taught is therefore vital in helping us to understand and define ourselves, and in shaping our future actions. The noble Lord rightly concentrated on national history, so I should like to concentrate on the international dimension of the way in which history is taught in our schools. I shall make four or five points for a response from the Minister.

I am not entirely sure whether we are clear in our minds about the purpose of history teaching. By and large, it seems to be thought that the job of history teaching, apart from giving certain basic facts and figures, is ultimately to foster some kind of love of the country or patriotism. That was one of the major reasons why Mrs Thatcher disapproved of the findings of the national curriculum working party on the teaching of British history. That working party wanted to concentrate on the slave trade, opium wars and the British conquest of India, among other subjects, and Mrs Thatcher was not entirely happy about that. She unfortunately was not the only one. I can think of many people in other political parties who more or less shared the same view. That is deeply troubling.

The attempt to link history teaching with the cultivation of patriotism is fraught with all kinds of dangers. It inevitably falsifies history and leads to much myth-making and even lies. It also ill-equips future citizens to see their country as it is, and makes them unduly defensive and frightened when the darker side of the country's history is pointed out to them. It also politicises history because it implies that those who foster patriotism, or the great figures in our history, will vary from one political party to another and so make history into a political football.

History is an academic discipline; it is not a morality tale in which good always triumphs over evil and we find ourselves always on the side of good. Its purpose is to tell us who we were, how we came to be what we are, and what options are open to us as we plan our future. In other words, the purpose of history is to facilitate self-understanding and to give us self-knowledge. It cannot be the vehicle of moral values or political ideologies, or a belief in national or racial superiority, or a kind of collective psychotherapy that is intended to make us feel good about ourselves. I cannot emphasise the academic character of history enough. The purpose of history is to force us to see ourselves as we are, warts and all. That is its highest and only gift. We should not try to turn it into a vehicle for cultivating a certain body of what we like to call British values.

My second point is that our history teaching generally, though not always, tends to have a Eurocentric thrust. All the great values of our civilisation are supposed to be our own creation, and others have contributed very little to it. We ignore the great contributions of China, India, the Arabs and Islam, as well as the fact that many of the values of our civilisation had long been known to others. Tolerance, for example, was practised in India in the 4th century BC under King Ashoka. That is also true of the spirit of critical inquiry and scientific rationalism. Unless we highlight all this to our youth and get them to appreciate that all the great human achievements are the product of contributions drawn from all parts of the world, we shall be unable to equip them to live in our diverse world.

Thirdly, I refer to the place of black and ethnic minorities in our society, and how their history is handled. By and large, the discussion is either limited to black history month or to topics on slavery or post-war immigration. That implies that their arrival is recent, or that they were passive victims of our history. In fact, blacks and ethnic minorities have been here since Roman times. They were a significant presence in the 16th and 17th centuries. They fought in the Napoleonic wars, not to mention the First and Second World Wars of the 20th century. They do not, therefore, operate on the margins of society. They are central to our composition and to our understanding of who we are. It is about time that we mainstreamed their presence in the understanding of our history.

It is in this context that we might be a little more at ease in how we handle the history of the British Empire. There has been much discussion among politicians and others about whether the empire was a good or a bad thing, but that is not the way in which to approach the matter. The empire arose at a certain point in history as a result of certain forces in our society, and produced certain good and bad consequences. If these consequences were bad, we should not be ashamed to admit them. After all, we did not commit these acts ourselves. If our forebears did them, we can say that they acted according to the light and that in retrospect we think they could have acted differently. I simply cannot understand why we feel slightly uncomfortable or nervous in dealing with the history of the British Empire.

My fourth point has to do with the teaching of European history. I feel strongly that Germany generally tends to suffer the most in that teaching. Germany is reduced, by and large, to Hitler and the Nazis. As a result, the great past and the great post-war achievements of that country tend to be ignored. Even more important, a myth is created that Germany has always been our enemy. In fact, for centuries Germany has been integral to our self-understanding. In the 19th century, Germany's influence was very much present in the creation of our language, our history, our self-understanding, our culture, our philosophy and music. I cannot think of any part of our culture which is not traceable to an enormous contribution from Germany. In a sense, our failure to come to terms with Germany says more about ourselves than about the country.

The last point, on which I would like to end, has to do with how history teaching has increasingly become modularised and therefore reduced to isolated periods. Pupils in our schools concentrate on this or that period, and that is just about the end of it. As a result, there is no sense of narrative. There is no time for wider reading, and even less time to reflect on the significance of great events and on the human stupidities and heroic qualities that are on display in history. In other words, in modularising history in this way, human beings tend to fall out of the view and history becomes a mass of inert and meaningless data.

My Lords, I have a certain feeling about this debate as the first time that I received a letter of complaint from one of my own political party was after a debate on the teaching of history. That was about 17 years ago. It was the first time that I have inspired such a thing from my own party, although it will probably not be the last.

Everyone has an opinion on history and the way we use it. The degree of informed opinion depends on who you are talking to because it is impossible to be an expert on all of history. We tend to go to the bits we like, remember them, stand on them and forget about the rest. I have a little saying that all nations worth their salt can drown in their own sins. We can all choose the example of the noble Baroness, Lady Thatcher, who did not like to be reminded that we fought a war against the most populous nation on earth, which was militarily badly organised, to sell it hard drugs. That is probably something which the rest of us could do without having in our historical bag, but it is there.

What brought me to this debate was the idea of citizenship and what we are going to do with history now. The guidelines on the teaching of citizenship, for example, deal with human rights and responsibilities underpinning society and the basic aspects of the criminal justice system, and how they both relate to young people using history. You can go through selecting which bit of history you want and of course come up with examples.

If one assumes that we should be where we are now if there was not a better alternative, the Marxists, the Whig historians and so forth will say that it was part of the process or that we would have got here; others will say, "No, it is chance". Lord Russell, one of the great revisionist historians of recent times, would probably have had a considerable amount to say about what did happen. There is no inevitability about it happening. Why should we be here? The minute we start to look for moral justification about the present and what has gone on before we are on very shaky ground. Where do we go from here? Why does this have to happen? I do not know.

The noble Lord, Lord Luke, mentioned Magna Carta. One interpretation of Magna Carta is of a group of armoured heavies with hereditary backing demanding their rights under the existing system, which were being infringed by a monarch who was getting a bit above himself. Simon de Montfort carried on that argument. Such people started parliamentary democracy. It is fanciful to think that some of these great Anglo-French nobles who were fighting with other Anglo-French nobles over recently conquered territory would be interested in the outcome of elections. They had recently taken over from the Danes as the rulers of the English territory—another way of looking at us. Yet, people will justify that line of logic. We must always be very careful about how we use the past to justify the present.

The noble Lord, Lord Parekh, talked about Germany. We had the German royal family, and still do. Just because Germany has one blip in its history does not omit everything else, but people think that.

On the teaching of history, World War II was the first great war conflict to have large quantities of film and sound made of it, so we have a better record. We are only just coming to the end of personal recollections of what went on in that conflict. So we all have an over-emphasis. You will always have over-emphasis in periods of history that will colour the perception of what is important for the historians writing at a given moment. They will always think that their experience is probably the most important—the culmination. So, if we use history in education, first, the accuracy of what we say is totally subjective; secondly, if we state that we are going to look at history, we must of course look at everything that has gone on, which means that you will always have questions; and, thirdly, there are no right answers to historical questions as you are talking about the interpretation of events and about the record that is currently accepted.

The interpretation will go on and on. When I was doing a history degree Lawrence Stone and Hugh Trevor-Roper were arguing bitterly on what was seen to be the establishment argument. New arguments will be brewing now, and so it will carry on. We should always be very careful about how we look at this subject because tomorrow's truth may not be one we recognise.

My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Luke, for enabling us to debate this important subject. Christianity is often described as an historical religion, but I am prompted to speak more because I owe a great deal to some fine history teachers at my grammar school 40 years ago. The excitement that they conveyed about the significance of the past as a living reality in the present caused me to read history at university. Their teaching gave me a sense of belonging to this country and of valuing the continuities and the discontinuities between the past and the present. It was the experience of living history that helped me to recognise that Christianity could be both historical and contemporary. That commitment gave me an enlarged sense of common humanity.

I take seriously all that the noble Lord, Lord Parekh, said in his speech, and I am very conscious of how a nurse from a Norfolk vicarage, Edith Cavell—who must have been nurtured in a very patriotic way having nursed prisoners of war—when facing the firing squad in 1915, said: "Patriotism is not enough". And of course it is not.

I want to make one modest suggestion, ask a question and make an observation. The Government seem very keen on encouraging or teaching citizenship, but that often sounds a rather woolly concept to me. I cannot but think that a stronger place in the national curriculum and increased resources for the teaching of history in our schools might produce more informed citizens in the next generation without having to invent some strange new discipline cut loose from the historical moorings that it needs. Does the Minister recognise the strong connection between the place of history in the curriculum, taught well and properly, and a lively sense of citizenship? I suggest that, instead of thrashing around to find out what Britishness is all about, often reduced to a vague belief in tolerance and the importance of queuing, we already have in the teaching of history—its darker side as well as its better side—a vehicle for a better informed future electorate, one that might understand that our legal, religious, social and economic life is grounded in historical development; it is not something that stands still at all.

Teaching values without any sense of where they might have come from is often fruitless, so I would love to see us nourishing our collective memory as a means of consolidating a collective identity, which includes every citizen in this country. Like many bishops, I am a frequent visitor to schools and I have also had children at home who, until relatively recently, were studying history for GCSEs and at A-level. I observe that today's school pupils seem to know a great deal about relatively short historical periods. I have lived in a home where there once appeared to be almost continuous study of the Tudors and Hitler and Stalin, but nothing much in between. That makes the learning of history episodic. Perhaps that is because we are liable to concentrate not on grand movements in history but on the great personalities of the past, which is a sort of reflection back of our celebrity culture today. I suspect that that is why we do it.

I know that the answer, "That's not my period", is given by many historians to any question about 10 years outside their specialism, but am I correct in thinking that specialism now starts very early and that the broader sweep of history is suspect? If the broader sweep of history is suspect, where does that leave us? Does it matter? I think that it might, if learning becomes disconnected.

My observation comes from living next door to Norwich Cathedral, which has a fine education department. Some 13,000 school pupils of different ages and backgrounds and from different contexts came to the cathedral last year, many using the cathedral to complete projects not simply in religious education—which is rather a minority subject in this use of the cathedral—but in science, history and other disciplines as part of their studies. Getting to know this historical building, which is such a vibrant living centre of daily life, worship and other activities, proves immensely appealing. Many children and young people come expecting to be bored and find that they are fascinated. That is because of the imagination of our education officers and what they offer.

But I observe that schools now seem to find it much more demanding to bring pupils for this sort of experience. It is the scale of supervision required and the assessment of the risks involved that make them cautious. I sometimes wonder whether the regulatory frameworks that we have created limit imagination and risk in some areas of our learning. I also observe that sources of funding for the development of this work are much less plentiful from statutory sources than one might think given that our cathedrals and parish churches are the great carriers of living history. We see that as part of our mission in our cathedral, but sometimes we still face suspicions that it is some narrowly proselytising endeavour. That is a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature and character of Christian faith in the context of the history of this country.

Ours is a society so rich in history and historical artefacts that I suspect that we can take history and its teaching for granted and that many people simply think that we absorb it somehow. Again I thank the noble Lord, Lord Luke, for initiating the debate and for drawing attention to such an important subject for the country's future.

My Lords, I notice that this debate is about history and I realise that, even though education is a matter devolved to the Welsh Assembly, history has no such particular pigeonhole. History belongs to us all in the various nations of these islands. I remember that, going to school a long time ago, one of the first things that we had was a map of the world on the wall. The British Empire was in pink on that map. It was highlighted not only on that map, but nearly exclusively in what was taught in our history classes. It was the history of Britain and, more particularly, often the history of England.

Even in Wales, the history of Wales was marginalised. I am sure that the same might be said for Scotland. It was the British Empire that had all the emphasis. We knew much more about what the Tudors did in England or in the Empire, as it was then, than about what they were doing in Wales, even though they were a Welsh family. I am sure that in Scotland we would know much more about what the Stuarts did when they ascended the throne of England than about what they did when they were in their own homeland of Scotland.

So we can see how history over the years has tended to be limited in its scope. In school, I learnt nothing of the potato famine that so devastated Ireland. I learnt nothing of the resettlement of Scottish folk in Ulster. I hardly remember a reference to the Holocaust. They were not part of the thinking; it was the British Empire. However, one or two rumours came our way that it was a Welshman, Prince Madoc of Gwynedd, who discovered America in 1160, but even that was not substantiated—but it was there. We were so blinkered when we discussed history.

History teaching today must make amends for the insular approach of the past. The Commonwealth has come home, and as we walk the streets of London, or even the streets of towns in north Wales, we can hear many languages and see many people of different backgrounds. Now that the world has become a much smaller place, it has become a place whose history it is essential that we, too, understand.

New arrivals here grapple with our culture and practices. Africa, Asia and the Middle East are here with us. In realising that we are in the middle of a world that has so many different countries and so many different problems, we need to make sure that our people know that there is a world outside what used to be the old British Empire; for instance, we need to know the consequences of the Balfour declaration and how it has played such a prominent and sometimes not such a beneficial part in the history of the Middle East. We should know about world poverty and what caused it, and how our attitudes in the past have led to the impoverishment of so many countries in the world. Our own people and children in schools need to know of the wide span of world history and, as has already been said, new arrivals to these shores need to know something of our culture, our traditions and our history. So for everyone's sake, we must take off the blinkers and look at the world as one global world with a global history.

Is it possible to look again at the core curriculum in our schools to ensure that it includes a basic knowledge of world history, so that our youngsters know what happened in Africa and Asia, and in other countries, as well as in the UK? People who come here will also have some knowledge of our place as the United Kingdom in history. I hope that the Minister will be able to respond positively on the widening of our curriculum.

Of course, it is so much easier nowadays. There are so many new advantages. As my noble friend Lord Addington has mentioned, there is film footage that enables us to see what happened during the First World War. We can see what happened when the gates of Auschwitz were opened. We can be there and in some sense we can relive the horrific events of the past. So many words have been written that were not available in the past. We also now have the internet. In so many schools—I go around schools and they are so different from the schools that I was in as a boy—every desk seems to have its own computer. We have the internet and the expanse of the world that is available via it. History can be made alive; history can become something that means something to people today.

I suggest that history is no longer just a list of battles, kings, princes and presidents. History is the involvement in different sorts of battle: the battle against oppression; the battle against world poverty; and the battle of the individual, sometimes extraordinary individuals and at other times very ordinary individuals, against the circumstances in which they find themselves.

We must appreciate the work of our teachers in our schools and our colleges. We must ensure that our teachers are given the dignity, respect and support that they merit. At the end of the day, when you are teaching history or any other subject, if you are enthusiastic as well as knowledgeable, you can get your message across. Somehow or other, we must give support to those teachers of history so that they not only bring the past to life in their classes but through their influence bring about a sense of understanding and tolerance that will become part of the thinking of the young people whom they teach.

Finally, we do not want history to repeat itself—certainly not many historical incidents—but we can learn from history. By learning from history, we may avoid some of the tragic mistakes of yesteryear.

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Luke, for introducing this debate and congratulate him on his sense of timing. It so happens that the curriculum authority is reviewing the whole of the key stage 3 curriculum and A-levels. So, in this debate, we have a chance to influence that body and the department, which will take the final decisions.

I am also conscious that Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Schools, in a report published last October, urged a complete review of the history curriculum. The factors that were in mind at the time were that only 30 per cent were then choosing to do history at GCSE and even fewer at A-level and beyond. That is sad. The inspector commented that part of the reason for that is that, for some students, the subject is bookish and inaccessible and, to others, not important.

I want to make a few comments: not in the form of a curriculum but about some of the elements that can make history exciting, relevant and, at the same time, a vehicle through which to develop general skills of researching a subject, forming a judgment and producing a balanced argument.

Perhaps I may begin with some elements and then turn to key stage 3 and A-levels. First, if there is to be the excitement, to which more than one noble Lord has referred, in a history lesson the teacher must be excited about the subject. A good national curriculum for history is one that gives a framework but leaves plenty of scope for the teacher to meet the interests of his or her pupils and to express his or her enthusiasms. Then it comes alive. I see a history curriculum, especially in the primary schools, as being about: "It is my school's history curriculum, which incorporates the national history curriculum". There should be that freedom.

Secondly—the noble Lord, Lord Roberts, referred to this—an element of good teaching in history is making use of modern communications technology, both in the classroom, on the whiteboard, and for pupils afterwards on computer. Let me be more explicit. Especially at primary level, where language skills, especially reading, are still at a developmental level, visual images are very expressive and powerful. It so happens—I think that it is still so—there is a tradition that during the early years, children are able to encounter the great civilisations of the past such as Greece, Egypt and, perhaps, in modern times, further afield, in south America. They often study the succession of invading peoples, starting from the Celts, the Romans, the Anglo-Saxons, the Vikings and then the Normans. Those are powerfully expressed visually because they are characterised by dress, ornaments, vehicles, battles and so on.

I agree more with the noble Lord, Lord Luke, than the noble Lord, Lord Parekh, about heroes. In bringing history to life, you must have heroes and villains. I remember a teacher who enthralled me in history. He took us through the French Revolution and I sat spellbound. I was clear that Danton was a villain. "No, no, no", he said, "He was my hero. He had bad faults, but Robespierre was the villain". We discussed that and that brought it and the class to life. There are modern analogues.

Yes, it could be political, but I do not think that that has to be identified. For example, was not Churchill recently voted the first of the Britons? Isambard Kingdom Brunel, the engineer, was voted the second. But for the war, Churchill would have been a rather unimportant failure. He was the man for the time. I believe in seeing those people within their context, with their limitations. Nelson had his limitations, as well as being a very great person. I should like history to encompass a great engineer, such as Isambard Kingdom Brunel, or a scientist, such as Faraday; Mrs Pankhurst in the history of developing a democracy; and Queen Elizabeth in serving her nation with great courage. I should like to include people, but in their context—not entirely in praise, but understanding their limitations.

Good history, especially at primary level, involves hands-on learning and exploring one's own locality. I saw this wonderfully done at the cathedral recently, for people living in Southwark. Children were acting a role. This brings history to life for them, and they do not forget it. Of course, not all of us have something like that, but we have a village church, chapel or school, which is interesting. It is not just a school; it is about asking why it is there and putting it into its historical context. Even the village post office, missed though it is, is interesting because of the way in which it developed as a response to an historical need—from the time of the penny post in 1840 and so on—and to the railways. History could be about exploring a local hero, personality or event, but hands-on history—the kids talking to the grandparents about something, for instance—is what brings it to life and gets them seeing history as something to be researched rather than read about in a book.

I shall move very rapidly to the key stage 3 curriculum. I would like it to be a chronological survey of what happened in the making of the realm, starting perhaps at 1066 and going through to the Act of Settlement and modern times, and, in so doing, identifying two or three issues of current concern, such as Northern Ireland, which is a problem for us that was inherited from history. I would like children to explore the Commonwealth and the development of democracy, so that they understand that it took us centuries to develop democracy and understand why such a development does not take root easily in Africa or other parts of the world. It did not happen quickly here.

Finally, I am conscious that history, like geography, is one of the humanities that are no longer compulsory. I would like there to be a very challenging and enriching opportunity to study and research several topics in depth and to an A-level standard, which would bring in not only historical roots, but geography, world poverty, art and—where it applies—religion, too. Let me give an example. The noble Lord, Lord Roberts, referred to the competition among European nations for empire in Africa and the Middle East. There is the transition, particularly for us, from empire to Commonwealth, and the good, the bad and the remaining problems. Let them study what happened in the first 50 years of the 20th century. Let them study Britain, Palestine and the Balfour Declaration, as well as what happened after the war and what the situation is now. I could give other examples, but time is running out. I want these kids to be able to research, debate and form logical arguments and judgments. I believe that history taught in this way is a valuable education; it is stimulating and relevant and, as George Santayana said, if they understand the past, they will not repeat so many of the mistakes.

My Lords, it is always a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Dearing. I have to admit to a professional fascination for discussing history teaching. I started life as an historian, and I studied it at university in the late 1950s and early 1960s. In those days, it was really quite straightforward; there was a narrative. I studied English history and European history, which are of course entirely separate and totally unconnected. The only course we had on extra-European history was entitled, "The expansion of Europe". It was about how Europe had taken over China, India and all the other places, and it all fitted together. One of the problems that we must recognise is that that all fell apart in the 1960s, and we cannot put it together again. Part of the reason why all the history that my children learnt at school was about the Vikings, the Tudors, Lenin, Stalin and Hitler is that we have not yet managed to put it back together again. I have to say to the noble Lord, Lord Dearing, that we cannot leave it to the curriculum working party to devise a new key stage 3. We must have a much broader debate.

Since I left university, I have learnt much more about medieval history than the rather dreadful stuff that I was taught at the University of Cambridge. I intend, as my retirement project, to write what I hope will be a useful little book on how the development of the 12th and 13th-century Yorkshire economy was intimately linked to Florentine banks. The monks, after all, sold their wool crop to Italian bankers until the English Crown of Edward I bankrupted the Bardi and Peruzzi banks. The extent to which 12th and 13th century European economic integration caught England and Scotland up in itself is something that I had simply not begun to understand, because I was taught by good old-fashioned English Protestant historians.

When we talk about history, as the Government have begun to say, we are of course talking about identity, citizenship, Britishness and British values. We recognise, as the noble Lord, Lord Luke, said, that we need a story—a narrative. The reason popular history is so alive and academic history in so much trouble is that academic history cannot agree on a narrative. That is what people most like.

Linda Colley said in the Guardian the other week that we need,

"a standardised, chronological history of Britain [which] should become part of the national curriculum [because] . . . schoolchildren need to learn. For how can they grow up to be British citizens if they haven't a clue how Britain came to be what it is?".

We will leave aside for now the question of what Britain is; the question of which bits we remember and which bits we prefer to forget is the battleground now. We remember bits of our past and do our best to forget others. The great argument in Bristol the other month was how far Bristol should remember that it made its prosperity trading in slaves, or whether it should slide over that bit and pretend it was all about wine. When Ministers talked the other day about the need to have a British national day, I spent an interesting half hour trying to think which national day we should celebrate. Would it be Trafalgar, or Waterloo? I fancy the cutting off of King Charles's head myself, but others might disagree. How about the Bill of Rights in 1689? That is a Protestant festival and Catholics are extremely unhappy about it. Trying to choose a national day immediately makes us partisans of one or other view of British history.

The noble Lord, Lord Luke, takes, as I was taught it in the 1960s, the "conservative" view of British history—that history is about great men, heroes and villains. The "radical", more popular, progressive view already in the early sixties was that we need to talk about the common stream, the common people, and social and economic change as it affected most of our ancestors, not simply our masters. Linda Colley's narrative is different from the one that Niall Ferguson or Andrew Roberts would give. Roberts is now setting out to write a new history of the English-speaking peoples to demonstrate that Britain has absolutely no connection with those nasty people across the Channel, but is intimately connected with the Canadians, Australians and, above all, white Anglo-Saxon Protestant Americans. David Starkey's view of British history is different again from that of the noble Lord, Lord Morgan.

As for our views on Europe, I have had a professional life dealing with European Union enlargement and we have had arguments with all the potential applicants about how they are the last European state, and the ones behind them are clearly not Europeans. This demonstrates that world history is a battleground. Can we agree on a history of Islam, of Iran, or of China?

On the point of my noble friend Lord Addington, film gives you the illusion of evidence. I can recall seeing various pictures of the Sino-Japanese war in which the same film was used to illustrate entirely opposite points of view. The illusion of evidence is worsened by factoid history. For reasons you will understand, I find "Braveheart"—immediately adopted as standard history by the Scottish National Party—one of the most appalling mistakes in entirely misrepresenting Scottish history and that of my distant family.

We need a cross-party consensus, not a Government initiative, let alone one by the curriculum authority. We need an open debate. I am glad that the Royal Society of Arts is planning a series of lectures this autumn, which a number of people will be contributing to on precisely what sort of history we need. We need a commission—or a working party or whatever—with representatives of a range of different views. This is not something the Government can do on their own.

We need to teach the history of the last century, and of our own last 50 years. That is the most difficult. I heard a senior Conservative MP this morning say to a group of visiting Russians that Britain was lucky not to have experienced problems of post-imperial angst or nostalgia, as Russia had. At which point somebody said, "What about Suez?". What about the defence of the trade routes to India for 25 years after we gave India independence? We need to debate what our national past is, but in order to do that we must recognise how difficult that is. We need a cross-party approach to construct a more inclusive national narrative, which we desperately need, and to place British history in its broader European and global context.

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for initiating this debate, although it has been an all too short discussion on such an important and interesting topic. I also thank other noble Lords who have spoken. We have heard about the personal experiences of Members of your Lordships' House with history and history teachers which I am sure were the foundation stones for the thoughtful and knowledgeable contributions made today.

It is clear that as a nation there is a subconscious reaction to a deep-seated desire to know our history; we need only to look at the popularity of history programmes in the media and the wealth of historical novels on the shelves in bookshops. Yet there is an underlying nervousness that when it comes to teaching history in schools and universities, this Government are going down what my colleague in another place called "the drab, utilitarianism route". An example that springs to mind is that of the comments made by Charles Clarke three years ago when he was the Education Secretary. He reportedly described medieval historians as ornaments and suggested that their departments did not deserve state funding. While he claimed that his words had been misinterpreted, it is wise to remember that it was during those Dark Ages that classical learning was lost in the West. As Anthony O'Hear said,

"to be ignorant of the past is to make us impotent and unprepared before the present".

Without a sense of medieval history, how can we fully understand the current impasse the West finds itself in with regard to its dealings with Islam?

My noble friend commented on the announcement made in April this year that A-level history is now to focus on Britain's past in a broad and balanced manner. Members on these Benches welcome the measure, as has the Historical Association, but I will hold judgment until we see how the new rules from the curriculum advisers pan out. As noble Lords have highlighted, the Government's stance on the value of history is sometimes a little misleading. I hope that the Minister will take on board much if not all of the brilliant speech made by the noble Lord, Lord Dearing, who suggested that there should be a chronological survey of what has happened in our realm.

It is clear that some teachers need the confidence, in this era of political correctness gone mad, to teach British history without the fear of getting involved in political interpretations of the acts of our forebears. But one of the joys of history is that it is open to interpretation and should stimulate thought and analysis. It should stimulate a student's ability to form an argument which supports their interpretation and to communicate that argument fully. Indeed, in this regard I share the thoughts of the noble Lord, Lord Addington. When he referred to the late and much lamented Lord Russell, I have to say that I wished he was in his place tonight. I miss his brilliant speeches and he would have made a very valuable contribution to this debate. I have referred to just a few of the skills one learns through the study of history, not the least of which is the ability to explore. I worry when noble Lords talk about what they were not taught at school. Something I remember is being taught to want to learn, to read and explore around a subject. We must appreciate that we are talking about skills that are vital in adult life, particularly in politics.

One should not consider a rounded history of our sceptred isle too complex or diverse in our multi-ethnic classrooms, but be proud of the significant and all too relevant links and themes it can provide. I believe that it was my noble friend Lord Pilkington who passed the comment that history is rather like the study of other religions. A person can understand other religions only if he has some understanding of his own. I noted too the thoughts of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Norwich. He spoke of the sense of belonging to a common humanity that he learnt through studying and taking a degree in history. I agree entirely with him that in terms of the woolly concepts of national identity and citizenship, a proper teaching of history would provide the much stronger connection that is so desired and needed in this country. My twin sons are sitting the AS-level in history. I am worried that their learning has become very specialised and narrow, and that what they are being taught is how to pass examinations. It is a huge problem. Students are not being given the time and space in which to learn and to be excited by their subjects. The noble Lord, Lord Dearing, referred to the need to excite. I agree too that having brilliant teachers, which my sons are lucky to have, really does make all the difference.

As my noble friend Lord Luke surmised, history is the most important building block for our society and citizenship. It enables students to have a sense of time and progress and provides a foundation of knowledge that can only underpin a greater intellectual richness, and that is something we should all aspire to.

I well recall attending the opening of the wonderful Commonwealth and Empire Museum in Bristol a few years ago. I noticed that there was not a Member of this Government in sight. When I inquired who from the Government had been invited to support this brilliant initiative, I was told that the Government had declined all invitations; it was felt to be too politically incorrect. How ridiculous is that? Young people, in particular, want and deserve to know more about their history, their ancestors' achievements and challenges, and their sense of place in today's world. As the noble Lord, Lord Parekh, said, young people in particular need to learn about the consequences of empire—some good, some bad. Whatever happens, we should not be ashamed to admit what was bad.

Much of British history needs to be celebrated as well as taught. The role of the British Empire in abolishing slavery, of such physicians as Jenner and Lister in fighting disease, and of heroes such as Nelson in protecting Britain should be taught in ways that encourage a sense of pride, and shared ownership of our great country. In essence, we should also not be shy of accepting the need for children to gain, through learning history, a sense of national identity. My noble friend Lord Luke talked about an important building block of our society and citizenship. We cannot expect young people from different ethnic backgrounds to integrate and thereby become integral to our nation's future unless we give them an identity in which they can ground themselves.

I was one of those who, many years ago, had to give up learning history at 14. Since making that difficult choice between history and geography—and choosing geography—I have always felt somewhat on the back foot. Like many, I have taken time and a lot of effort to learn around the subject. I believe that it is so important for children to have the opportunity to learn as much as possible in school, and to be given not only the chance to study history, but for it to be a compulsory part of the curriculum up to the age of 16. Those two extra years would have made a huge difference to me, so I will do all I can to influence thoughts in relation to changes to the curriculum. I look forward to the Minister's reply to the concerns and questions put to him by your Lordships' House on this matter. I hope that this time the reply will be enough for my noble friend not to feel the need to table his question again in a year or two.

My Lords, the House is indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Luke, for this opportunity to discuss the current state of history teaching in our schools. Like almost all other noble Lords who have taken part in this debate, I was a history boy at school. I studied history at university and the study of history has remained a central part of my life. I have written books on the history of your Lordships' House, which, I have to confess, have not proved bestsellers. In this debate, we all share a passion for history and, indeed, for historical controversy—which is in the very nature of historical study—and a concern that schools should transmit a strong and rich historical consciousness to the next generation.

A straightforward answer to the question on the order paper can be found by quoting Ofsted's most recent report on history teaching, published last autumn:

"Teaching is good or better in well over three quarters of lessons in Key Stages 3 and 4, making history one of the best taught subjects in the curriculum".

This figure is even higher on post-16 courses. To give further statistics in support of Ofsted's conclusion, I should say that at GCSE and A-level the number of pupils taking history has risen notably since the late 1990s, and indeed since the figures given by the noble Lord, Lord Luke. Last year 66 per cent of GCSE entrants achieved grades A* to C, compared with 60 per cent in 1999. At A-level, just over half of all entrants achieved a grade A or B last year, a substantial improvement on 1998, when 38 per cent achieved grades A or B. History also remains a very popular choice at university level, with over 60,000 students choosing the subject. Ofsted reports that the teaching of history in primary schools is improving. Therefore the short answer to the noble Lord's question is yes, the teaching of history in our schools is broadly satisfactory. Of course, we should not rest content. The Government are alive to the scope for further improvement—including in many of the areas raised in the debate—and we have measures and training to bring that about.

Let me start with the early years of secondary education and the provision for 11 to 14 year-olds within the key stage 3 phase, an issue to which the noble Lord, Lord Dearing, referred. A review of key stage 3 is under way, looking at each national curriculum subject for the appropriate balance of knowledge, skills and understanding, with a view to revising the curriculum content and the accompanying programmes of study which the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority makes available to schools. In respect of history, the QCA has been consulting closely the Historical Association and others about improvements—in search, I suspect, of that elusive broad consensus which the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, urged on us—and the agency has submitted first drafts of revised programmes of study to my department. These draft programmes propose to reduce the degree of central prescription, particularly the perceived requirement to teach history in chronological blocks rather than by developing themes, and deal with the study of local history as teachers feel appropriate, in the way set out by the noble Lord, Lord Dearing.

Progression from key stage 3 to GCSE is a critical issue so that fewer have the misfortune to suffer the fate of the noble Baroness, Lady Buscombe, of having to give up history at the age of 14. While 30 per cent of pupils go on to take history GCSE, these pupils tend to be from the higher end of the ability range. With the Government's strong encouragement, the QCA and the examining board, OCR, are developing a new pilot GCSE which will enable schools and pupils to approach history from a more vocational angle. The pilot, to run in 70 schools, will start in September and the full GCSE should be available to all schools from September 2008.

Within this new GCSE, pupils will, for example, be able to consider history from the viewpoint of running a museum, curating a collection, or presenting to the public a National Trust property—or, indeed, Norwich Cathedral or some of the ancient sites of Yorkshire. The pilot GCSE will allow pupils to look at the way in which history is presented through documentaries, films, plays and other media—an important theme raised by the noble Lord, Lord Addington—rather than only through textbooks as in the past. This is not, I should stress, about creating a soft option but about providing an alternative and, in some ways, more modern course, offering more choice and relevance to history teachers and their pupils.

Two frequently raised issues of concern about school history—these have been mentioned in the debate as well—are, first, that the curriculum is too narrow and, secondly, that there is no requirement whatever to study history, even recent British history, beyond the age of 14. Perhaps I may deal with these two issues in turn.

On the issue of breadth, concerns have been raised that school history from key stage 3 through to GCSE and A-level is sometimes too narrowly and repeatedly focused on limited topics, not least the hardy annuals mentioned today of Tudor England and Nazi Germany. To encourage a greater breadth of study in 20th-century European history, the QCA has produced a new unit for key stage 3 on modern German history from the end of the Second World War to the present day. This unit has been developed with assistance from the German Embassy and I thank the previous German ambassador, Thomas Matussek, for his help in developing it.

Materials for teaching post-war European history at GCSE and A-level are also now increasingly good. Speaking personally, I cannot, for example, think of a better book for A-level or undergraduate students than Tony Judt's brilliant new book Postwar, not least its concluding chapter on the theme of the Holocaust and its long-run impact on post-war European ethics, institutions and politics.

The new pilot GCSE I mentioned earlier also encourages a broader approach to history. It offers broad options in British medieval history, local history and international history. In this context, I should mention that the Government have commissioned the Historical Association, together with leading university departments, to prepare materials on the teaching of important but emotive issues in history—for example, slavery and the slave trade and perceptions of Islam, both issues specifically mentioned by my noble friend Lord Parekh, and the Holocaust. We expect these materials to be available next year and to encourage a much wider sense of historical study than often applies in schools at the moment.

The QCA has just finished consulting on the new draft criteria for A-level, with a view to ensuring that the history specifications are broader. This will be achieved partly through the reduction of the A-level from six discrete units down to four units, which we hope will lead to less compartmentalisation. Ministers have also agreed with QCA a new requirement that A-level candidates study at least 25 per cent British history, which I was glad to see welcomed by the noble Lord, Lord Luke, and the noble Baroness, Lady Buscombe. We wish to see a similar 25 per cent British minimum observed at GCSE, although I am assured that the exam specifications for GCSE achieve this in most cases already. We hope that all these measures that I have outlined will help teachers acquire the knowledge, confidence and skills to teach a more diverse and inclusive history syllabus.

Let me turn, secondly, to the compulsory study of history, particularly modern British history, beyond the age of 14. There have been repeated calls for history to be compulsory through to the age of 16 instead of 14, as has been the case since the national curriculum was put in place by the previous government. We have given serious consideration to this issue, particularly in the context of the concern, which we share, that young people in our increasingly diverse and multiracial society develop a strong sense of shared British values, which can come from an understanding of the development of Britain's modern political institutions and society. Rather than make history itself compulsory until 16, which would be a major reduction in the flexibility of the curriculum, particularly for young people wishing to pursue vocational courses, we are looking instead to embed a British history element within the already compulsory requirement to study citizenship until the age of 16. I should stress that our aim is not to concoct a "potted history" course tagged on to the end of citizenship, but rather—precisely to take up the points mentioned by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Norwich—to consider how including modern British cultural and social history in the citizenship curriculum can strengthen young people's understanding of British values and institutions, including those of its devolved institutions and the fact that, as my noble friend Lord Parekh so rightly said, these British values are indeed civilised values which have much wider roots and hold sway internationally.

To this end we have asked Keith Ajegbo, the head teacher of Deptford Green School, which has an outstanding reputation in the teaching of citizenship, to report to us, after wide consultation, on how such an historical element could be incorporated within the citizenship curriculum, and within the teaching of history itself before and after the age of 14. Keith Ajegbo will also be reviewing practice and presenting advice to us on how the school curriculum promotes an understanding of the diversity of modern Britain. QCA states in its 2004–05 report on history,

"in many schools too little attention is given to the black and multi-ethnic aspects of British history".

That is another theme raised by my noble friend. Keith Ajegbo's review will look at that, too.

We have also asked the QCA to review the role of coursework at both GCSE and A-level. I know that some are concerned about the possible elimination of a coursework option in A-level history, which is widely regarded as an effective means of enabling students to start to deal with source material and historical records directly, not least with the aid of ICT as suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Dearing. Many in higher education support the retention of coursework at A-level as it provides a good model preparation for university history in these ways. The QCA has yet to report on this issue, but it is one in which I shall take a keen and close personal interest, to ensure that opportunities for students to engage in original research are encouraged, not discouraged, by changes.

In primary schools, pupils' achievements and teaching standards of history have improved since 1998. History teaching is now good or better in just under half of all primary schools, with only a small percentage rated unsatisfactory. Primary history promotes an understanding of the richness of ancient civilizations—the broader sweep of history invoked by the right reverend Prelate, including the Greeks, the Romans, ancient Egypt and the Aztecs, among others. The evidence is that children and teachers find this highly enjoyable. A local history study and a broad component of British history, such as Victorian Britain or Britain since 1930, are also within the primary syllabus. In the best primary schools, history is taught across the curriculum. Our policy is to encourage this approach in the support provided for primary-level teachers, who are more than likely to be non-specialists themselves.

In conclusion let me pay particular tribute, as have other noble Lords, to the work of the Historical Association, not least as a subject association of immense value to history teachers and in upgrading their own skills in teaching their subjects. I was glad last year to be able to support the association's successful petition for a Royal Charter to coincide with its centenary.

At the celebrations for the centenary last month, in the magnificent if sombre historical setting of the Banqueting House in Whitehall, Professor Barry Coward, the Historical Association's president, quoted the great Geoffrey Elton's words,

"History is endlessly exciting and a lovely way to spend one's days".

And so it is. He added:

"All who study history gain skills that are vital in all aspects of life, like the ability to think critically and formulate and present clear arguments. History matters too because it provides a sense of the past, an awareness of the development of different values, systems and societies, and the inculcation of critical yet tolerant personal values. In short, history matters because it contributes to the development of responsible active citizens".

I endorse that view entirely. History matters. It is a vital element of the school curriculum, and our policy is to see it strengthened further still.

House adjourned at twenty minutes before nine o'clock.