Relationships Education, Relationships and Sex Education and Health Education (England) Regulations 2019

Debate between Baroness Meyer and Baroness Deech

Wednesday 24th April 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Deech (CB)]

My Lords, I want to say how much I welcome the new guidance and regulations. In fact, the drafting of the guidance is brilliant; I compliment whoever drafted such nuanced and sensitive guidance for schools.

My main fear is that teachers will need protection. As the noble Lord, Lord Storey, said, some of the objections to these regulations are so blinkered and bigoted that one fears very much for the children and the teachers who may be subjected to this sort of unfortunate propaganda. In fact, the children in the care of such people may be the ones most at risk of female genital mutilation and abuse. For their sakes, as well as everybody else’s, the facts must be taught.

At my girls’ public school, the chapters in the biology textbook on the reproductive habits of the frog—the frog, my Lords—were removed in case we got the wrong idea. This did not hold me back until I became the chairman of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, when this gap in my knowledge caused some concern, at least temporarily. However, I managed to catch up.

The new regulations are welcome because they say that misogyny and homophobia must not be tolerated. They are not saying that any particular way of life must be promoted or forced on children—far from it. In fact, as I read it, the guidance strongly supports marriage and parental guidance. Parents should not fear because, if they have a different viewpoint to whatever is taught in school, they can point out to their children at home that they do not approve of it. However, that does not mean that the existence of different lifestyles and sexualities should not be taught in school. Indeed, children will probably get something far worse from watching things online or from their classmates than they will ever be taught at school. It is a matter of regret that primary and secondary schoolchildren could be withdrawn from sex education. The ones who are withdrawn will probably get a much worse representation of what is going on when they ask their classmates what they have missed.

Put simply, I very much welcome the regulations. What steps can the Minister and his department take to protect teachers from ill-intentioned members of governing bodies and hostile parents, who might make the lives of those teachers—who are only doing their job—very difficult?

[Baroness Meyer (Con)]

My Lords, I apologise for arriving a bit late. I hope that noble Lords will forgive me.

Like the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, I think that a lot of things in the regulations are really good. I am a bit more conservative; I fear that I consider sex education something that is rather more private. However, it is necessary. I started life in a Catholic school. In those days, of course, we were taught nothing. Then, at the age of 12, I arrived at the French lycée, where I had to face boys and had no idea how to behave.

Anyway, that is the past and today I want only to be sure of one thing and to ask two questions. First, can the Government assure this House that the regulations are fully consistent with the obligations to parents’ rights under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 and the Human Rights Act 1998? I ask this question in particular: is it consistent to downgrade parents’ current right to choose whether to enrol their children in sex education classes? Is it right to demote that right to a right to request the withdrawal of their children from such classes?

Further, on another subject, in her report Preventing Child Sexual Abuse, the Children’s Commissioner noted that 90% of primary schools still use Stranger Danger as a PSHE subject. Action against Abduction, the charity I founded and of which I remain president—I hereby declare my interest—has shown that Stranger Danger is out of date and ineffective in keeping children safe. One of the main reasons for that is that, obviously, most predators, especially sexual predators, are family members or friends of the family, not strangers. The charity that I founded came up with a new, much more effective, initiative, Clever Never Goes, which means that children learn how to behave when they feel that they are in an uncomfortable position. The regulations note that children can now go and tell their teachers that they were in an uncomfortable situation. Five hundred schools have already adopted our programme. Will the Government refer to Clever Never Goes in the guidance so that schools can give children the best advice on how to stay safe from sexual predators?