Relationships Education, Relationships and Sex Education, and Health Education

Baroness Massey of Darwen Excerpts

Monday 25th February 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Massey of Darwen (Lab)]

My Lords, I very much welcome the Statement.

[Noble Lords]

Order!

[Baroness Massey of Darwen]

I am so sorry.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating this important Statement. We welcome the fact that the Government are introducing the provisions of the Children and Social Work Act 2017 on the introduction of compulsory relationships education for all pupils in primary schools, and compulsory relationships and sex education for all pupils in secondary schools. In addition, health education is being made compulsory for all pupils in state-funded schools, which is also something that we regard as a positive move in preparing young people for an increasingly complicated world. I have a number of questions for the Minister and will be perfectly content if he wishes to respond in writing if he feels unable to answer them immediately.

The Secretary of State announced that he is making £6 million available for training and resources to support the new subjects, but that averages out at around £250 per school. What does the Minister expect schools to be able to achieve with such meagre additional resources? Can he further provide an indication as to whether these are indeed additional resources or whether they are recycled from within the DfE budget? How many teachers will be trained in the new subjects, and how many schools does he expect to be teaching them, by the date that he mentioned, September 2020?

I agree with the Secretary of State that these subjects are of vital importance, but I suspect I am not alone in wondering what he expects schools to teach less of in order to make room for these new subjects in the timetable.

I understand the Government’s position on the parental opt-out for relationships and sex education, but I have to ask why they would not give a child the right to be included in those lessons at any age instead of selecting what appears to be an arbitrary age at which point the child’s voice will be heard. The Statement says that the parental opt-out could be overruled in “exceptional circumstances”. Could the Minister give examples of what he believes would amount to such exceptional circumstances?

Noble Lords will have read of the dreadful bullying and mental health problems that affect LGBT people. The fact that these issues are included in the draft guidance could be a milestone in ensuring that these people and others can grow up understanding more and living in a safer environment. We are certainly glad that the draft guidance says that these topics must be fully integrated into the curriculum and not taught separately. Does the Secretary of State believe that there are any circumstances in which a school should be allowed to simply not teach LGBT issues as part of this curriculum? Obviously, it would undermine the whole thrust of the provisions if that were the case.

It can be only to everyone’s benefit if we better understand the differing issues that face each of us. I hope these regulations will mean that we can work on a cross-party basis to make that a reality for the next generation.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Massey of Darwen (Lab)]

I apologise for my earlier interruption. Noble Lords may put it down to keenness, as I am keen on this area of the school curriculum. I very much welcome the fact that this will be a compulsory subject in our schools; it has been a long time coming. The Minister rightly emphasised that teaching on keeping children safe, developing good relationships, self-esteem and sexual education has been recognised in surveys as having an impact on academic performance in schools.

We know that not all children learn about issues such as sex and relationship education and online safety at home. Indeed, many parents say that they are pleased and grateful that their children receive this kind of education from schools and other professionals. I hope the Government will not be swayed by negative impulses from media sensationalism about this, as we have seen already. Such treatment of serious subjects is a disservice to parents and children.

We have talked about funding; I hope that that will be sorted out. I also hope that schools will be encouraged to involve other professionals in delivering this programme, including school nurses, and will work across departments to share expertise and the funding that will be made available.

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

I reassure the noble Baroness that we are absolutely firm on steering the middle course that we have tried to achieve over this long period to get to this point. As she will know, the call for evidence generated some 23,000 responses; the response to the consultation generated another 11,000. On top of that, we had two petitions, with 29,000 names in combination. We have tried to steer a way through this and we believe that we have come up with a process that keeps the vast majority of parents happy and comfortable that we are doing this in the right way, but, as I said to the noble Lord, Lord Addington, we will keep this under review because we are in a fast-changing world, particularly online.