Relationships and Sex Education

I beg to move,

That this House has considered e-petition 235053 relating to relationship and sex education.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Moon.

It is often said that the British have a funny relationship to sex; we certainly have a very strange relationship to sex education, sometimes. We live in a society where explicit imagery, pornography and material that demeans and degrades women is available at a few clicks of a mouse, yet there are still some who resist teaching our children the facts about not only their own bodies, but emotions, relationships and all the things they need to keep them safe while they are young and to enable them to form healthy relationships as they get older.

I wondered why that was, so before the debate I had a look at some of the material circulating about these proposals. I must say that some of it misinterprets what the Government are proposing and is designed, I think, to alarm parents. The petition itself is not specific. It refers to

“certain sexual and relational concepts”—

I think that was designed to avoid the rules about material that is offensive to certain groups—and suggests that some of the material produced for children does “more harm than good”.

Let me say that there is absolutely no evidence for that whatever—zilch. In fact, the research that has been done, mostly in America, shows that young people who receive good relationships and sex education are less likely to form early sexual relationships, less likely to have an unwanted pregnancy, less likely to get pregnant early and less likely to get a sexually transmitted disease. For me, that is a whole series of wins.

However, we do not need to look far to find a great deal of propaganda directed at parents about this. I found on YouTube a programme called “The Makinations”, in which a presenter introduces a lady who he says is a teacher, and she presents a number of books that she says are available in schools. They then go on to object to those books. For instance, they object to one that I presume is intended to talk to young children about differences, which says that girls can have long or short hair; I am guilty of that. They also talk about gay people “posing”—their word, not mine—as parents, and about “state-sanctioned child abuse” and even “graphic cartoon porn”.

I found that chilling, but not for the reasons the authors intended. If stuff such as this is being directed at parents, I am not surprised that they become alarmed. Honestly, the fact is that it was vile and homophobic, but it was also not true. I speak in this debate not only as a parent, but as someone who used to be a teacher—in fact, two of us here, myself and my hon. Friend the Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Mike Kane), have taught sex education in school, although in my case it was some time ago. Schools do not use books about a penguin with two daddies—the first penguin in the zoo with two daddies—with all children. They use them when children ask questions, or with children who might have two parents of the same sex, just as they would use a book about a single-parent family with a child who came from a single-parent family.

The hon. Lady is making some excellent points. I remember my mum telling me how frustrating it was, as a single parent, when she went to the bookshop to find some books about single parents and there was only one book about a little boy with a single mum and about building a bed. One book—and I was born in 1983. We have come a long way, but does she not agree that inclusive education on sexuality and all kinds of families is vital?

I do, and I will come to that later in my remarks. Those of us who are long in the tooth will remember the controversy over a book called “Jenny Lives with Eric and Martin” in the 1980s. That book was available to teachers to use as necessary; it was not used routinely in schools.

It is important to say what is and is not being proposed by the Government. The Children and Social Work Act 2017 requires all maintained primary schools to teach relationships education, and all maintained secondary schools to teach relationships and sex education. Importantly, it qualifies that with the words “age-appropriate”, because teachers know that we cannot teach children concepts that their mind cannot grapple with. They simply do not take it in. Learning how children’s brains develop is part of a teacher’s training. We would be wasting our time trying to teach them things they cannot possibly understand at a young age.

Following the 2017 Act, the Government put out a call for evidence on the teaching of RSE and personal, social, health and economic education, and then issued draft guidelines last year. I have not yet seen the final guidelines—well, I have seen them, but they are under an embargo until the Secretary of State has finished his statement to the House. I will come on to that in a minute.

Does my hon. Friend accept that under a whole load of international treaties, as our constituents rightly point out, parents have the primary responsibility for bringing up their children and they may have different views from those she is expressing? Does she think, and will the law provide, that parents still have the right to opt their children out of these classes—with the variation, I understand, that that now applies only up to three terms before they turn 16? Is that not the right compromise between these two issues?

I will come to that later in my remarks, but of course my right hon. Friend is right that parents must play a major role in this. Most schools will want to work in co-operation with parents; we would be foolish to do anything else.

The Government issued draft guidelines for what should be taught in school, and it is important to look at how those draft guidelines work. In primary school, children should be taught about families, “people who care for me”, caring friendships and respectful relationships. They should be taught that there are different kinds of families and what to do if they feel unhappy or unsafe at home. That part is crucial because, although we hear much about stranger danger, let us remember that most children who are abused are abused within their own families. We must remember that. They need to learn about how to keep safe online and offline, and where to go for help.

I cannot honestly see a difficulty with that. Saying to young children that there are different kinds of families is only reinforcing what they know. They know from their own experience, from their own classes, that some children will have a mummy and daddy, some will only have a mummy or a daddy and some, increasingly, may have two parents of the same sex. That happens.

In secondary school, what is proposed is necessarily more complex. Children will be expected to learn about the importance of marriage and that it must be freely entered into, which is crucial given that some British young people are still experiencing forced marriage.

This is a timely debate in a number of ways. I read somewhere today that the Secretary of State for Education implied that parents could actually opt out of this. Having said that, I know that my hon. Friend has looked at the guidelines. Do they take into consideration, for example, religious schools? Several parents from different strands of religions have written to me about this. Could my hon. Friend enlighten me?

The guidelines do take that into consideration. I will come to that in a moment.

Young people in secondary schools also need to learn about consent, what constitutes a respectful relationship and what constitutes sexual violence and sexual harassment. They also need to learn why what they see online is often a distorted picture of healthy relationships, about grooming and sexual exploitation and, I understand, about female genital mutilation and why it is illegal. Again, that is crucial to keeping people safe.

The hon. Lady is making a really strong case. Given that health workers and schools already receive FGM guidelines that say withdrawal from sex education is an indicator of risk, does she agree that it is actually incredibly dangerous if we allow the opt-out to be used in this blanket fashion, because it could mean that vital information is not passed on?

All of this is about trying to reach a sensible compromise.

Will my hon. Friend give way?

I want to make a little progress.

One thing to note is that primary schools are not obliged to teach sex education, but it is recommended that they take steps to prepare children for puberty. As puberty happens much earlier in children now, that seems sensible. Crucially, on the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry South (Mr Cunningham), the guidelines say that schools must take into account the religious beliefs of their pupils when drawing up their programmes, and that faith schools may use their faith to inform their teaching. In fact, the guidance suggests that a dialogue should take place on issues regarded as contentious.

When I taught years ago, that is exactly what we did; it is not new in any way. I spent my teaching career in Catholic schools. We would teach—particularly our older children—what the Church taught and what others believed, and we would have a debate about it. There are good reasons for that. First, schools do not want to produce people who cannot put forward a rational argument, and faith schools certainly do not want to produce children who cannot defend their faith. Secondly, I have yet to find anyone who can stop a teenager arguing about any of this.

There are, of course, those who say that all this should be down to parents, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Warley (John Spellar) mentioned. Parents are clearly crucial in all this and should be partners with schools. However, let us be honest: some parents do not do it, and some increasingly find themselves all at sea in dealing with online risks, domestic violence, grooming and so on. I was struck, even years ago, by the amount of wrong information and misinformation that children have in their heads. That was before the internet.

My hon. Friend is making an excellent presentation, as usual. Because of Ofsted’s powers and the way it deploys them, it is essential that we have total clarity about parental opt-outs and religious freedom. It is important in a debate such as this to understand that central to our unwritten constitution is the importance of religious freedom, as is the relationship between the state and parents. Because of those powers and their misuse in recent times by Ofsted, it is vital that the Government provide clarity. Does my hon. Friend agree?

I do. As I said, all of this is about trying to reach a sensible and reasonable compromise between competing issues.

Will my hon. Friend give way?

If my hon. Friend will forgive me, I must make a little progress, because lots of people want to speak.

Before the internet, children had enough wrong information in their heads. With the rise of the internet and stuff available at a few clicks, it is essential that we give children a proper education that protects them from some of the wrong information and ideas online, and that shows them what good, healthy relationships look like. Research from the Children’s Commissioners shows that many of our young people do not know what a healthy sexual relationship looks like and do not understand the concept of consent. That is very dangerous. It is why four Select Committee Chairs wrote to the Government in 2016 asking for relationships and sex education to be made mandatory in schools; it is why the Women and Equalities Committee, in its inquiry into sexual harassment and sexual violence in schools, asked for the same thing; and it is why that request is supported by Members from across the House.

This is about applying a bit of common sense to this situation and looking at the world that our children are growing up in, which is not the same one that we grew up in. I say with great respect to parents who think that their children are not seeing all this online stuff that, although they may think that they are controlling what is on their children’s phones or iPads, they are not controlling what their children see with their friends or what is passed around in the playground and so on.

It is shocking that 28% of 11-year-olds have viewed pornography. Unless we want them to grow up thinking that what they see is normal and a proper relationship, we need to do something about it. By not doing anything, we are not leaving our children innocent. We are actually leaving them to the worst possible teacher: the internet.

Will my hon. Friend give way?

I really must make some progress. I am sorry.

Of course, many parents want schools to be involved in teaching RSE, as do many young people. Research done for Ofsted in 2013 showed that many secondary school pupils felt that too much of their education was on the mechanics of reproduction, and that there was not enough about emotions, relationships, dealing with pornography and so on.

Prior to the debate, the Petitions Committee met some young people in Parliament’s education centre. As one of them said to us, “If you’re opted out, you can just google it.” That is the problem we face; that is the reality of life. Nevertheless, it is true that parents have a right to request an opt-out from sex education for their child, which the guidelines say should be automatically granted in primary schools and should be granted except in exceptional circumstances in secondary schools. I was quite concerned about that, but I have actually been convinced by something sent to me by the Catholic Education Service, which supports the opt-out on the ground that it gives heads the opportunity to discuss with parents why the lessons are important and why it is much better for children to be there, rather than getting a garbled version from their friends in the playground. That approach clearly works, because the opt-out rate in Catholic schools is very low, at about 1 in 7,800 children. That is in a faith-based education system.

That opt-out applies to the sex education element, not to personal, social, health and economic education or relationships education, and not to stuff in the science curriculum, which is part of the national curriculum. It is also true—certainly in the draft guidelines and I presume the formal ones—that the Government suggest that children can opt back in three terms before they reach the age of 16. Case law no longer supports an automatic and continuing opt-out, so we need to reach a sensible balance on when young people can decide for themselves.

All parents face this problem, whether in deciding when children can go to the shops on their own or when their children are deciding on a career. It is hard. I remember the first time we allowed my son to walk up the road on his own to post a letter; we were hanging out of the bedroom window, keeping an eye on him for as long as possible. However, as parents, we have to realise that, while our job is to try to set our children on the right path, they will eventually make their own choices, which may not be the same ones that we would make.

Will the hon. Lady give way?

I will give way once more and then I will have to wind up.