The Times – 15 August 2000

A fundamental point is being overlooked in the controversy about proposals to inject pro-EU material into the school curriculum (report, August 7; letters, August 12). When something similar was tried with the concept of "peace studies" in the 1980s, the result was the inclusion in the 1986 Education Act of provisions outlawing such educational indoctrination. Those provisions were carried forward in the 1996 Act as Sections 406 and 407.

Any teachers who fail to present politically controversial subjects like these in a balanced and impartial way will simply be breaking the law.

Incidentally, with the demise of one-sided nuclear disarmament as a political campaign, little is now heard of "peace studies" as a legitimate subject for inclusion in the school curriculum. I look forward to the day when pro-federalist propaganda suffers the same fate.

Dr JULIAN LEWIS MP
House of Commons
London SW1