Children and Social Work Bill [Lords]

Debate between Angela Rayner and Philip Davies

3rd reading: House of Commons & Legislative Grand Committee: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Tuesday 7th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Angela Rayner]

I take on board the hon. Lady’s point. There has to be balance, and there has been considerable movement in that direction. I pay tribute to the Government for moving on that issue. Hopefully we can tease that out as we go through the finer details.

However, I seek clarification from the Minister on certain points of new clause 15. First, the coalition Government withdrew funding for the personal, social and health and economic education continuing professional development programme. That policy made it much more difficult for teachers to access the necessary training, thus lowering quality. Will the Government commit to any new resources for teacher training and continuing professional development, to ensure that relationships and sex education provision is of high quality?

I reiterate the earlier contributions to this debate that, at first glance, there is no explicit mention of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender issues in new clause 15. We have evidence from Stonewall and others that excluding LGBT children and the issues they encounter daily from existing relationships and sex education has a damaging impact on their health, wellbeing and attainment at school. Do the Government commit to ensuring that the new statutory guidance is inclusive of LGBT issues in an age-appropriate way? Will the Government consult expert organisations in doing so?

We know that the nature of relationships and sex education will change, which means changes to statutory guidance.

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Angela Rayner]

The hon. Gentleman had loads of time to seek to intervene when the Minister was speaking.

Will the Government convene an expert group to ensure that, as the statutory guidance is updated, it covers the broad depth of topics required in RSE? Which organisations will be part of that group? On that issue at least, the House has spoken and the Government have listened. I urge the Government to do the same again on the other amendments before the House today. Many of the most vulnerable children depend on us, and we must not let them down.