Sexual Harassment and Violence in Schools

Anne Milton Excerpts

Thursday 2nd November 2017 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Women (Anne Milton)]

I have a long speech, so I will not be able to cover all the points that have been raised, but I will ensure that everyone who has contributed to the debate gets a timeline of what is happening. If I do not address all the points raised by the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Brent Central (Dawn Butler), I will ensure that she gets an update.

I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) on securing this debate. She has done a brilliant job as the first and only Chair of the Women and Equalities Committee, on which she really is to be commended. The hon. Member for Ogmore (Chris Elmore) said that it was a coincidence that we should be having a debate this week on individuals abusing their powerful positions in order to sexually exploit those who are seeking patronage or merely trying to get on with their jobs—and that is just in Westminster. As we have heard, however, the reality is that this is happening everywhere, including in our schools. The #metoo campaign has without doubt gained momentum and done much to reduce the stigma and damaging shame associated with people coming forward to tell of their experiences. The hon. Member for Ogmore got a hug from the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy). He bravely mentioned his own horrific experiences, for which he deserves not only a hug but our respect.

I want to pick up on a number of points that have been raised. My right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke gave the House some shocking figures, but the really worrying thing is that they are just the tip of the iceberg. She rightly said that if we get this wrong in schools, the problem can go on right the way through a child’s life and result in them becoming abusive adults. She talked about the collection of data, and I have great sympathy with her on that. If we measure it, it matters. I think she deserves a fuller letter on that point in particular. She specifically mentioned online pornography. We have been talking about that for as long as I have been a Member of this House. I am not a schools Minister, but I am Minister for Women, and perhaps it is sad that I am not entirely shocked by all this.

I have been asked whether the law is clear and if teachers understand it, and the shadow Minister talked about training. Even when people understand the law and what they are required to do, they still need training in how to do it. My right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke was also right to say that as soon as the Government introduce restrictions, someone will find a way round them. I know that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport is very aware of a number of these issues.

When my friend—I use that term on purpose, because our friendship has been in the papers—the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) and the hon. Member for Walthamstow spoke, the emotion behind their contributions was clear. Like the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley, I have to keep on believing that things will change. We will not give up. Things can be dispiriting at times, but I am firmly of the belief that if we—women in particular, but I am not excluding men, who have made some contributions today—keep on going resolutely and in a cross-party way, we will make some progress.

There will be more directive guidance—the shadow Minister requested that—but in some ways, sadly, action needs to be taken on a case-by-case basis. Teachers cannot be the arbiter, but schools have to recognise that a referral of a serious sexual assault to the police is not the end of the matter. The hon. Lady is right that we have to act. The hon. Member for Walthamstow spoke a lot about power, which we do not talk about enough, because a lot of sexual abuse and harassment is all about power.

The hon. Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) was as dogged as ever. He rightly pointed out that we must not forget that some schools are excellent, but that we do need consent training in schools and universities. He was also absolutely right that we need training about consent in this place, too. He talked about an epidemic in this country and, sadly, he is probably right. We can start by talking about and changing things here, but there has to be change across the country. My hon. Friend the Member for Eastleigh (Mims Davies), who is doing a great deal as chair of the all-party group for women in Parliament, talked about social media companies, which have been mentioned a lot. They have to come to the table, and we need to do more to make them stand up and note their responsibilities.

Relationship education in primary schools and relationship and sex education in secondary schools were made compulsory by the Children and Social Work Act 2017. The Act also provides powers to make PSHE mandatory in schools subject to consultation, which is ongoing, and we will be looking to hear from schools, teachers, parents, safeguarding experts and, to respond to the shadow Minister, from young girls and indeed young boys. The consultation should not be restricted, because sexual violence is not just restricted to girls. We will develop new statutory guidance on RSE, and we hope that draft regulations and guidance will be published in 2018. Regulations will then be laid alongside the draft guidance, and I have no doubt that there will be further opportunities for debate in the House.

Making RSE compulsory is absolutely not the end. I was public health Minister when the FPA was campaigning to make it compulsory, and I used to say that just ticking a box and getting the geography or RE teacher—somebody with nothing to do on a Thursday afternoon—to do it is not sufficient. This education has to cover the sort of issues that have been spoken about in this debate, and the situation is complex. We all come to the topic of RSE with our own experiences, and we need to be able to park those experiences in order to provide high-quality training, which must include an understanding of power in relationships and among peers, and how it can be used in a sexual nature to force young people to submit.

All schools have a legislative duty to safeguard and protect children, and Ofsted always reports on whether arrangements for safeguarding children are effective. The Education and Skills Funding Agency carries that responsibility for academies and free schools. Similarly, parents and carers must always have the opportunity to discuss concerns with children’s social care and the police. “Working together to safeguard children” is the definitive piece of statutory guidance on safeguarding. It clarifies the legislative requirements on local authorities, children’s social care, health services, the police, schools, and other organisations that work with children and families.

It is important to note that inadequate safeguarding is one of the few reasons why Ofsted can rate a school as inadequate, irrespective of other good performance. A school can be brilliant at maths and everything else, but if it fails on safeguarding, it will be rated as inadequate. In a serious situation—a number of serious and harrowing situations have been raised today—if parents or carers do not think that a child is safe, they should go to children’s social care. Alternatively, if a parent or carer feels that a school is not fulfilling its duty because either it is not following its policies or it has inadequate policies, there is a whistleblowing line with Ofsted and the NSPCC.

Part of what we can do as Members of Parliament is to get parents and carers who come to us to look at their schools’ policies and then call out the schools that are not doing what they should. Ofsted can do what it does, but in the meantime we all have a duty. Perhaps we as Members of Parliament should be looking at the schools in our constituencies, asking them about their safeguarding policies and taking a view as to whether they are adequate.

I have not covered all the points I would have liked to address, but I just want to say that I do not consider myself to be an inbetweener—I think I am a born-again feminist. I do not think that the House of Commons is sexist; I think it just smells of boys a bit, to be honest. When I was public health Minister and I had responsibility for sexual health, what struck me more than anything when reflecting back over 40 years was how very much more complicated life is for today’s young people. Young people have to make decisions on a far more complex set of choices than I ever had to make. For me, it was just about smoking and drinking, and how much to do of both. Now it is about taking club drugs, being on the pill, using a condom to protect oneself from STIs, who to have sex with—and where and when—and the risks of going home with somebody. If we overlay that with everything that is on social media, all the pornography that is freely available, all the coercive sexual behaviour that we know goes on in schools, and sexual assault and rape in or outside the classroom, it is absolutely clear that we have much more to do to make young people more resilient and able to resist the challenges they face. There is no doubt that there is an urgency to do exactly that.