Caroline Lucas: I am in danger of repeating myself a lot, but given that it will take at least 10 or 15 years to get nuclear power up and running, if it is really the case-which I do not believe-that the lights will go off in 10 years, nuclear power simply will not help us. I find it ironic that this is supposed to be a debate about energy efficiency, yet the hon. Gentleman is spending his time talking about...
Caroline Lucas: I welcome the Minister's statement today, not least because I was getting a bit worried about the Government's commitment to this agenda. The Chancellor's Budget statement contained absolutely nothing about energy efficiency, and a mere 23 words on the proposal for a green investment bank. There was a little more detail in the Budget report on measures to bring forward a low-carbon economy,...
Caroline Lucas: According to a recent Conservative party report, "Rebuilding Security", the party advocates "policies designed for hunting" new UK oil reserves as well as offering "the right incentives to explore for and extract the remaining reserves of oil and gas" Will the Minister agree that a moratorium on all new deep-sea offshore drilling is essential, at least until a full investigation into the...
Caroline Lucas: There are growing concerns that, despite declaring himself the fourth Minister in the Department of Energy and Climate Change as a symbol of his personal commitment to tackling climate change, the Prime Minister is already looking for a pretext to row back from the obligation to get the renewable heat incentive up and running by next April. Will the Leader of the House ask the Prime Minister...
Caroline Lucas: Following the revelations at the weekend that some quite shocking restraint methods are authorised in the "Physical Control in Care" manual for use by staff in secure training centres for children, will the Secretary of State introduce an explicit ban on corporal punishment in secure training centres and other youth offender institutions? Will he establish a public inquiry, chaired by a...
Caroline Lucas: One of the reasons why many of us would like to curtail this debate is that it is no longer shedding any light on what we are supposed to be discussing. The hon. Gentleman has asked several times what inspires young people. May I suggest that what inspires them is debates about things that really matter-debates about withdrawal from Afghanistan, financial cuts and Trident-not debates about...
Caroline Lucas: I am the author of four amendments in this group, and their purpose is to try to make it mandatory for the new academies to comply with the schools admission code. Concerns have been expressed in this debate that increasing the number of academies will have major implications for admissions planning, and, as I said, the amendments seek to ensure that there is co-ordination and that it is...
Caroline Lucas: I want to speak to amendment 5, and to reinforce some of the points that have already been made about the importance of making real consultation mandatory. The Government are selling these proposals on the basis that they are about empowering communities, but they are specifically refusing to allow proper consultation with our communities. This is not about empowerment; it is about...
Caroline Lucas: I completely agree with the hon. Lady. In spite of all their rhetoric about the big society, when the Government are put to the test and asked to demonstrate their commitment to the idea, they do not seem to trust our communities enough to consult them. The ramifications of so many schools becoming independent are enormous, and children, parents, teachers, trade unions and members of the...
Caroline Lucas: Why do we just have to take the hon. Gentleman's word for it? No disrespect, but if it is so self-evidently clear that the consultation will take place with all the relevant parties, why could that not be set down in the Bill? For a lot of us, that would be a way of putting our minds at rest.
Caroline Lucas: I beg to move amendment 1, page 2, line 1, leave out paragraph (a) and insert- (a) the school follows the National Curriculum;'.
Caroline Lucas: As Members will know, the amendment proposes that academies should follow the national curriculum. Under the Government's proposals, once a state-maintained school becomes an academy, it is no longer required to follow the national curriculum. [Interruption.]
Caroline Lucas: As I was saying, under the Government's proposals once a state-maintained school becomes an academy, it is no longer required to follow the national curriculum and that is of particular concern in respect of state-maintained faith schools that convert to become faith academies. Interestingly, a recent poll found that 75% of people agree or strongly agree that all state-funded schools should...
Caroline Lucas: I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. My notes tell me that this information came from a National Union of Teachers briefing. I imagine that the NUT is up to date with what is being taught in schools, but I am happy to check that and come back. This teaching has been going on, as it does in other countries where academies are fully fledged, such as the United States. So it...
Caroline Lucas: I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, because it absolutely proves the case that education is a key way of ensuring that we do not have a huge number of unwanted teenage pregnancies. Education does not lead young people suddenly to think of doing things that they might not have thought of doing were they not to have had that education. On the contrary, education is one of the best...
Caroline Lucas: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving me the opportunity to expand more widely on this point. I believe that the purpose of education is to enable the potential of every human being to be properly fulfilled, whatever that might be in-it might be in a very academic, artistic or practical way. What education is not about is giving very narrow training for a specific job that has...
Caroline Lucas: I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I do not think that the national curriculum is the best possible curriculum we could have but it is a bulwark and a protection against the kind of laissez-faire approach that will be unleashed by the Bill if we do not have some protections. I assure the hon. Gentleman that if we had more time and if I had more of my colleagues on these Benches,...
Caroline Lucas: I assure the hon. Gentleman that the only part of my notes that is from the briefing from the NUT, much as I respect it, is the reference to the particular school I mentioned. I have made it very clear that even if that practice is not carrying on at that school, the wider point remains that it could carry on in any academy at any time because there is absolutely no protection in the Bill to...
Caroline Lucas: I thank the hon. Gentleman for his wise observation. He is exactly right. If children are put into particular training perspectives very early on, the wider set of possibilities and potential that could have been available to them will no longer exist if they have only the particularly narrow kind of education that the sponsors of academies often seem to pursue. I thank all hon. Members who...
Caroline Lucas: I thank the Minister for his reply, but he will not be surprised to hear me say that I do not think that he goes far enough. Nothing in what he said reassures me that academies will teach a genuinely objective and balanced curriculum. Perhaps part of the problem is in the language, because what might feel objective and balanced to one person is patently not to another. There are not...
