Sex and Relationship Education

Debate between Annette Brooke and Andrea Leadsom

Tuesday 25th October 2011 Westminster Hall

[Andrea Leadsom]

The hon. Gentleman will forgive me for not citing schools, because some are in my constituency and, as I have said several times, schools are teaching SRE with the best of intentions. There is no intention to harm, but I have talked to head teachers in my constituency who have said that they feel that the guidance they have been given is lacking, and that they would have appreciated more instruction on what is age appropriate in this very sensitive area.

Headmasters raised a separate issue, which is that many teachers find it extremely difficult to go through this type of material with very young children. They find it easier to provide something that, in response to the hon. Gentleman’s question, is often produced by television stations. For example, Channel 4 has provided some sex and relationship education, as has the BBC. However, such material is not licensed, so it is left to the discretion of schools, which feel ill-equipped to make the decision, as to what is appropriate for a seven-year-old. The hon. Gentleman will know as well as I do that, unless one happens to have a seven-year-old, which I do, one cannot really project oneself into a seven-year-old’s shoes very easily and decide what is appropriate for them. It would be far more helpful to have guidance from an organisation such as the BBFC, which has been providing guidance for 99 years.

[Annette Brooke (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing the debate. Does she agree with me that the starting point ought to be about training teachers? I would not want my grandchildren to have sex and relationship education given by people who were not qualified to do so. Training teachers has to be the starting point. It would then follow that the best packages of education would be chosen.

[Andrea Leadsom]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. That is a significant concern for some schools. They lack confidence in knowing for sure what material is appropriate for each age group. I do not need to explain to the Chamber that that varies with age. What one might show a 13-year-old is vastly different from what one might show a seven-year-old. This is what I am trying to get at—the specific point about age-appropriate material. From the contact I have had, that is a big concern for schools and parents.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andrea Leadsom]

I agree that that has some merit and is worth consideration. Equally, there is a counter argument that for very young children in primary schools, it is a fundamental principle to have one teacher for almost every subject. When introducing such an enormous topic as sex and relationship education to very young children, there is a case for sticking with the teacher pupils know and are often very fond of. To bring in an outside expert, no matter how sensitive and well informed, could be counter-productive in primary schools.

What should we be talking about in schools? We are talking today about sex and relationship education. I agree completely that, when we deal with the issue of teenage pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases, our schoolchildren have to be aware of those issues and how to prevent them. Sex education is vital. However, relationship education is equally, if not more, important, particularly at a young age. Nowhere in the material that I have seen has there been any emphasis on building relationships. We should be teaching children primarily about relationships. We should be teaching them about emotions and responsibility. Our children need to understand that as well as fun, happiness and contentment, sex and relationships can evoke other feelings, such as jealousy, sadness and guilt. Our children need to understand that sex is almost always better when you are in love, or when you are in a committed relationship. Unfortunately, a lot of what is being taught at the moment does not address those issues.

Finally, I want to consider who needs to have a say in what our children are being taught. I am concerned about the number of constituents who have said to me that they had no idea what was being taught to their children, and that when they found out they were horrified. I have three children. I allowed them to go to their RSE lessons and I have no idea what they were taught. I put my hand up to being a busy mum who was invited in one morning, on a work day, to watch what the children would be watching and who did not take the school up on the opportunity. The expectation that all parents have is that school knows best—it knows what it is doing, is best placed to do this, and that that is great as it gets me out of that extraordinarily awkward conversation.

Many parents have told me that they were completely horrified when they finally found out what their children were being taught. I believe that schools are acting with the best of honourable intentions, and I am not about to lay the blame at head teachers’ doors. Parents must share the responsibility, and there must, therefore, be better communication with them. They need proactively to know what their children are being taught on such a sensitive issue. Only parents can decide whether their child is ready to be taught about this subject. All of us who are parents and grandparents know that children mature at very different ages, and something that one seven-year-old finds funny and entertaining and is mature enough to deal with might not be appropriate for another.

Parents often simply trust schools and assume that they know best. That is no bad thing, but we must help schools to make the best decisions. Teachers and governors must make the decisions about whether material is appropriate, just as parents must be aware of what their children are being taught. We have the assumption that if parents are uncomfortable with the material they can opt out of SRE lessons for their children, but there should be the assumption that parents opt in, particularly for primary school children. Parents have to opt in to music lessons, school trips and even school lunches; no one assumes that they can take a child rock climbing or to a music concert without explicit consent.

[Annette Brooke]

I am concerned that a child living in an abnormal situation, with abuse taking place, will not know what a normal situation or normal touching is. If we have an opt-in, is there not a danger that such a child will have a prolonged life of misery?

[Andrea Leadsom]

My hon. Friend makes a fair point, but the problem with it is that we are saying that to catch the small minority for whom sex education might make a difference to what is going on at home we must inflict potentially inappropriate SRE on all children. I have quite a degree of knowledge of, and have had a great deal to do with, such situations through my nine-year chairmanship of the Oxford Parent Infant Project, a charity that has helped families in potentially extremely dangerous situations for many years. Simply forcing these children to have sex and relationship education at school will not make the difference—turning them into whistleblowers or giving them the ability to stop what is going on at home—and the harm done by inappropriate material could outweigh that potential. We should not inflict that type of material on all our children for the sake of, what I consider to be, a vain hope.

I want to see all material used in sex and relationship education in primary schools licensed and given some kind of classification, and school governors and teachers deciding what is appropriate to teach on the basis of that guidance, and I want parents to be given the appropriate information and the final say on whether and when their child should opt in to SRE.

I would be grateful for the Minister’s thoughts, first on whether a classification system that used the BBFC’s certificates could be implemented for SRE material in primary schools, to ensure that the material was suitable and conveyed the right message and had a guide to what age it was suitable for. Secondly, I would like to hear his comments on a commitment to provide clear guidance to schools that would ensure that not just sex but relationship education was properly taught, including the discussion of emotions and consequences, and of the benefits of love and committed relationships. Thirdly, I would like to hear his comments on a requirement that governors and teachers work together to decide what material is appropriate, and on having a cast-iron guarantee that parents will be properly informed of the full facts about what their children are taught, and be allowed to make the final decision on whether it is the right time for their children to opt in to SRE, rather than their having to opt out. I look forward to his response.

Mental Health (Infants)

Debate between Annette Brooke and Andrea Leadsom

Tuesday 26th October 2010 Westminster Hall

[Andrea Leadsom]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention, with which I completely agree. There is no doubt that all sorts of developmental issues are affected by the earliest relationship, including communication. Why does poor attachment arise? Often, it is the result of parents’ unhappy lives. A mother who was not attached as a baby to her own mother will often struggle to form a secure bond with her baby, as might a woman who suffers from post-natal depression.

[Annette Brooke (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing the debate. Given the examples that she has cited, which clearly are drawn from all sorts of backgrounds, be they deprived or affluent, as in the case she mentioned of post-natal depression, does she agree that keeping the universal service within Sure Start is vital?

[Andrea Leadsom]

I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention. I will come on to my thoughts on Sure Start later, but I believe that public funds need to be focused on the small but significant minority of families whose lives are chaotic and where the outcomes for the children without support can be truly disastrous, not only for them and their families, but for the whole of society.

A woman who suffers from post-natal depression might struggle to form a bond with her baby, as can parents with drug, domestic abuse or unemployment problems. Poor attachment is no respecter of class or wealth and crosses all boundaries. Sadly, the cycle of misery is often passed down through generations, as a woman who did not bond with her mother when a baby can then fail to bond with her own baby.

I stress again that this is not about making parents stay at home or carry their babies around 24/7. Attachment means building a bond with a baby so that they instinctively learn how to be part of a caring relationship. Where both parents work, or where there is a single parent or adoptive parents, attachment can be very secure. The point is that the less caring attention a baby receives from a familiar adult, the greater the risk of insecure attachment. A caring nursery worker could become an attachment figure for a baby, as could a nanny, a child minder and, of course, members of extended families. Where a baby’s home life is disturbed due to divorce, death, domestic abuse, drugs or even post-natal depression, it can be a positive experience for that baby’s quality of life to be in a sensitive and caring child-care environment where a loving key worker can become an attachment figure. Where a baby’s home life is happy and there is a strong bond with the rest of the family, a caring child-care environment is not harmful and can even add to the baby’s quality of attachment.

Where a baby’s home life is disturbed, however, putting it into an insensitive child-care environment can be a disaster. It is common sense that a baby can take only so much stress, change and disorder. If you pile up that stress and disorder, the baby will instinctively resort to the basic strategies of fight or flight, which all animals have, including humans. That translates, in baby terms, into either very passive behaviour, or aggressive crying.

A nursery might measure the contentedness of its baby room by how little crying there is, but ironically, a baby that has given up on having her needs met will sometimes withdraw, not making a sound and appearing very passive. Far from being a good sign, passivity can be an indicator of a future life that is inclined towards depression, a victim mentality or even self-harm. On the other hand, a baby who cries noisily and often could just be a fighter who has instinctively learnt that getting attention requires a huge amount of noise and aggression. Violent criminals have been shown to have a high tolerance to their own stress hormones, which means that they resort to high risk-taking behaviour in order to experience what are, to most of us, only normal levels of stress. Those two examples merely show that one cannot easily judge how contented and secure a baby is by the amount of crying they do. In fact, the quality of attachment experienced by a baby is hard to measure, even for an experienced professional.

Shockingly, research shows that 40% of children in Britain are not securely attached by the age of one. Of course, that does not mean that they will all go on to have behavioural or relationship problems, because other life events will also play a key part, but it does mean that they will be less robust in their emotional make-up to meet the challenges and disappointments of life. They may also struggle as parents later in life to form strong attachments to their own babies, thus perpetuating the cycle of misery through generations.

I draw some conclusions from that. Poor attachment may well lie behind the UNICEF report that shows that British children are the unhappiest of those in the 21 countries in the developed world. Poor attachment might also account for our high teenage pregnancy rate, as mums who are themselves children are looking for love, and for our high divorce rate, with many adults being unable to form long-lasting relationships. Some of the statistics issued by the Office for National Statistics over the past decade show that almost 80,000 children and young people suffer from severe depression and that 95% of imprisoned young offenders have a mental health disorder. All those facts point to the devastating consequences of poor early relationships.

Human misery is only one feature of insecure early attachment; there is also the vast financial impact on the public purse of dealing with its consequences. The charity, Railway Children, estimates that up to 100,000 children are at risk on the streets in the UK every year. Each looked-after child costs the taxpayer £347 a day, or £126,000 a year. Each adult prison inmate costs the taxpayer £112 a day, or £40,000 a year. Each person in acute psychiatric in-patient care costs the taxpayer £225 a day, or £82,000 a year. No assessment is available for how much of that expense is the direct consequence of poor attachment, but in the terrible case of baby Peter, I remember asking myself what mother could allow her boyfriend literally to torture her baby, unless she simply had no bond with him? What would have become of him had he lived to grow up with his appalling babyhood experiences?

Therefore, what can we do to promote better infant mental health? The astonishing thing is that if we tackle insecure attachment early enough, ideally before the baby is one, it can be turned around quickly, to the huge benefit of baby and carer, and to the public purse. I was chairman for nine years, and remain a trustee, of the Oxford Parent Infant Project, which is an Oxfordshire-wide charity providing specialist psychotherapeutic support for families struggling to bond with their babies. OXPIP has worked successfully with Oxfordshire social services, health visitors and GPs for 12 years. Highly trained parent-infant psychotherapists work with a carer, usually the mum, but sometimes the dad, grandparents or foster parents, to improve the quality of their relationship with the baby. It sounds incredibly simple, but it has dramatic consequences for the baby’s lifelong mental health

The average cost of OXPIP-style intervention is £75 a week for each family, and in many cases 10 visits are enough to make a significant improvement in the quality of attachment and to set the family on a positive path. In other cases, families receive support for up to a year or more, at a cost of around £4,000. In a small number of cases, OXPIP provides expert evidence to the family courts when a baby is deemed to be at risk. OXPIP receives self-referrals from desperate parents and also sees clients referred by health visitors, GPs and social services. There is no doubt that it saves lives, and a fortune. The cost of helping a family for a year in that way is around £4,000, whereas keeping a child in care for a year costs £126,000.

I will finish with a specific call to action for the Government. I know that so much good work is being done already through the Centre for Social Justice and the review that the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen) is carrying out on behalf of the Department for Work and Pensions. I pay tribute in particular to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field) and the hon. Member for Nottingham North for their commitment to helping children have a better future. There is plenty more than can be done, costing little to the public purse but giving huge benefit to human happiness and the health of our society.

First, I would like the Government to reconsider the 15 hours of educational help for each disadvantaged two-year-old. Instead of money being spent on preparing the toddler for school, it should go to supporting the parent-baby relationship before the baby’s first birthday if the home life is chaotic or frightening. Helping parents to support their baby is the best route to helping the most disadvantaged children in our society.

Secondly, I applaud the Government’s decision to provide 4,200 new health visitors. They do such valuable work for families, but they receive little training in the critical importance of secure early attachment. I urge the Government to require every health visitor and social worker to be trained to understand and spot families at risk. OXPIP provides such training, and it is highly valued by the recipients.

Thirdly, there needs to be an opportunity for onward referral to specialists in parent-infant psychotherapy when a health visitor identifies a real need. I recognise that the budget to do this kind of work is not available right now, but I urge the Government to consider a pilot scheme, perhaps as a result of the review that the hon. Member for Nottingham North is doing, and proactively to seek the evidence that would prove the value of early years intervention.

I am hoping to establish a pilot parent-infant service in my constituency of South Northamptonshire, and I am confident that other pilots could be established and evaluated in children’s centres around the country at a low price to the public purse. In fact, the director of children’s services in Northamptonshire told me that, in a previous role, he was able to balance his children’s services budget by focusing on early prevention. He was able to save on the budget for looked-after children and bring the cost of the entire service down by prevention. The impact on the public purse as well as on the human happiness of children is key.

Fourthly, where a baby spends more than a few hours a day in a child care environment, there should be protocols in the nursery that ensure that the attachment needs of the baby are addressed. They could include a far greater focus on the key worker relationship, so that one adult carer does all the intimate activities with the baby such as nappy changing, feeding, and morning and evening handover to the parents. There are plenty of opportunities to maximise the sensitivity of the child care environment to support the attachment needs of the baby.

Some nurseries and many child minders and nannies make the baby’s emotional well-being a high priority. Some of them recognise the importance of what they do; for others, it is instinctive. One research establishment—again, in my county of Northamptonshire, the Penn Green nursery in Corby—is specifically researching the impact on the very young of life in a sensitive nursery. Such research could be used to develop protocols for all nurseries.

Fifthly, training in early attachment for child care workers is critical. The turnover of staff in nurseries is high, and often the staff are young and inexperienced. All those factors contribute to a greater risk of insensitive care in child care settings.

Sixthly, in the small percentage of cases where the family’s life is chaotic, frightening and violent, and there are child abuse concerns, adoption should be swift, ideally before the baby’s first birthday. I urge the Government to look again at the adoption legislation with a view to putting a greater focus on the attachment needs of the baby. Foster adopter arrangements, where foster parents may adopt the baby if things do not work out with the birth parents, offer much less risk to the baby in cases of doubt. The baby is able to form a bond with the foster parents, who may become the adoptive parents, and the birth parents until such time as a decision is taken in the baby’s best interests. Research shows that the approach has been successful for the baby because the adults bear the risks rather than the baby.

By coincidence, the first time I spoke in the Palace of Westminster about infant mental health was in 2002, on the day that the Victoria Climbié report was issued. Today, almost nine years later, I am speaking on the day that a baby Peter report is coming out. Please, do not let it take another nine years for some real action to prevent the next appalling tragedy. Prevention is not just kinder: in these times of austerity, it is also much cheaper than cure.