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.