The Lords backed a Conservative amendment to the School Standards and Framework Bill by 119 votes to 104.

An Education and Employment Department spokesman responded to the defeat saying: "Baroness Young's amendment will require annual parents' meetings to discuss the aims and values of the school and the ways in which the school intends to promote the spiritual, moral, social and cultural development of its pupils.

"Now a duty"

"It was always open to the governors and parents to discuss these issues at annual parents' meetings. It will now be a statutory duty to do so.

"The government will reflect carefully on these amendments and decide the course of action at a later date."

If the amendment stands it will require school governors to publish an annual statement on pupils' spiritual, moral, social and cultural development.

The statement would also include the plans schools had put into place to promote such development, and the targets the school had set to monitor them.

Home-school agreements

Lady Young's amendment may also see the creation of several "home-school" agreements.

These would include agreements to specify the school's responsibilities for "spiritual, moral, social and cultural development". The arrangements would have to be endorsed each year by parents.

Lady Young said: "I would be the first to say that schools cannot do it all in the case of moral and social education.

Support for parents

"But we can in legislation support good parents who are struggling to bring up their children in a very difficult world and a very difficult time with all sorts of problems that were not experienced even 30 years ago - drugs, drink, sex on a scale which was certainly not prevalent 30 years ago."

Lady Young added: "One of the reasons why church schools are often so very effective is because their aims and their values are known and parents make an active choice to opt for what they are saying.