To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science whether he has received any representations about the teaching of history in the national curriculum.

I have received various representations on the draft order for history in the national curriculum. The statutory consultation process ends on 15 February and I shall take account of all the responses before publishing the final order.

Why has the Secretary of State interfered with the history content of the national curriculum and why has he chosen to focus on the first half of the 20th century? Why will children no longer be able to learn about events of the past 30 to 40 years? Does he accept that those events are of just as much historical importance as other events in history and will he reconsider his decision?

It has been decided that the Secretary of State will lay the orders that determine what should be legally required to be part of the history curriculum and what should, therefore, be the subject of testing when we reach that stage. Having considered the advice of the National Curriculum Council, I have proposed that we should regard the study of history as looking back on events with a reasonable amount of historical perspective and that a distinction should be drawn between history and current affairs. There is nothing to stop pupils talking about important current affairs, but I do not believe that the law should require the study of contemporary events and characters, and examination on those events, as though they were part of the history syllabus.

Is my right hon. and learned Friend aware that, unlike some other countries that either are so new that they have no history at all or, if they have any, are somewhat ashamed of it, we have a long and glorious history which we should offer to all young people?

Pupils will have the opportunity to study our long and glorious British history, together with European history and some aspects of world history. I believe, however, that their study of important events in the Soviet Union, the middle east and other places should end at a point where it is possible to form an historical judgment on events. I have no objection to pupils' talking in the classroom about current affairs, but I do not believe that the law should say that that is part of the history curriculum.

Will the Secretary of State confirm that, following a question from me, he was unable to place in the Library evidence to suggest that any political or other bias had been involved in the teaching of modern history —history relating to the past 30 years or so? Does he accept that a good two thirds of GCSE history curricula deal in an historical way with the events of the past 30 years and that that is quite distinct from dealing with them in a current-affairs way? Does he realise that his impulsive decision to exclude that period may overturn two thirds of GCSE curricula and does he accept that people are unlikely to have faith in a national curiculum if they think that it has become simply the partisan plaything of a particular Secretary of State?

I did not give political bias as the reason for my decision; I gave as my reason the need to look at matters in their historical perspective. I believe that the judgments on current affairs that pupils should properly form will be more mature and carry more weight if they are based on a study of the historical background.

For the purpose of history, what is called for is not an examination of the current Gulf war, but—as I suggested in the curriculum—a study of events from the end of the Ottoman empire, taking in the Balfour declaration and the creation of the Hashemite kingdoms, through to the unrest at the time of the mandate, the civil war in 1948 and, finally, the war in 1967. That is the proper subject of the history curriculum; this morning's news on the radio, and current events in the Gulf war, are not. A proper history curriculum with perspective, enabling pupils to view the past and form judgments on it, is the best way for schools to prepare people for making continuing judgments on current events.

Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that it is important to teach children hard historical facts and to give them firm dates so that they can relate fact to historical perspective? Is not it time to move away from the child-centred subjective interpretations that we have seen in the classroom so often over the past few years?

I see no point in the study of history unless it is taught in a way that enables the pupil to acquire some knowledge of the factual sequence of events and the activities of the personalities involved. When we move on to the testing of ability and attainment in history, we should pointedly include the testing of historical knowledge. That is not the sole point of education, but it is the essential basis of the understanding of any important subject.