Relationships and Sexuality Education (Northern Ireland) (Amendment) Regulations 2023

Baroness Thornton Excerpts

Wednesday 28th June 2023 Grand Committee

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Northern Ireland Office (Lord Caine) (Con)]

My Lords, the regulations before your Lordships today seek to update the education curriculum in Northern Ireland to make age-appropriate, comprehensive and scientifically accurate education on sexual and reproductive health and rights, covering contraception and access to abortion, a compulsory component of the curriculum in all grant-aided schools in Northern Ireland.

I understand and respect that there will be differing views on this issue. I also recognise the will of this Government to deliver on their statutory obligations. In passing the Northern Ireland (Executive Formation etc) Act 2019, Parliament decided to implement the recommendations made by the 2018 report of CEDAW, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women. Section 9 of the Northern Ireland (Executive Formation) Act 2019, which passed with a majority in the House of Commons of 232 and one of 145 in your Lordships’ House, places a legal duty on the Secretary of State to ensure that the recommendations in paragraphs 85 and 86 of the CEDAW report are implemented in full. This is a specific and unique duty which arose from a vote in Parliament. In implementing this decision, the Government have always sought to ensure that the education provided would be similar to that already provided in England with regard to contraception and abortion, and these regulations do this.

It has been widely reported that there is a problem with how sexual education is being taught in schools in Northern Ireland. This has been highlighted by a number of recent studies, including by the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission. In its report into relationship and sexuality education in post-primary schools in Northern Ireland, it recommended that a standard level of RSE be introduced throughout all schools in Northern Ireland. That was in June this year. Separately, a survey commissioned in September 2022 by a health charity, Informing Choices NI, highlighted that 78% of MLAs agreed that there should be a standardised curriculum, regardless of a school’s ethos.

I am acutely aware that education is a devolved matter in Northern Ireland—indeed, I am looking at a former Education Minister, in the form of the noble Lord, Lord Weir of Ballyholme, right now. It has always been the Secretary of State’s and this Government’s preference that the Department of Education in Northern Ireland updates the curriculum. However, with nearly four years having passed since the executive formation Act, adolescents in Northern Ireland are still not receiving comprehensive and scientifically accurate education on sexual and reproductive health and rights. This is why, on 6 June, the Secretary of State, my right honourable friend Chris Heaton-Harris, laid these regulations in Parliament to comply with his statutory duty.

This SI has the following effects. It amends the Education (Northern Ireland) Order 2006, and the Education (Curriculum Minimum Content) Order (Northern Ireland) 2007 for adolescents, to make age-appropriate, comprehensive and scientifically accurate education on sexual and reproductive health and rights, covering prevention of early pregnancy and access to abortion, a compulsory component of the curriculum. It places a duty on the Department of Education to issue guidance by 1 January 2024 on the content and delivery of the education required to be provided and places a duty on the board of governors and principal of every grant-aided school to have regard to the guidance. Also, the Department of Education is required to publish a report by 1 September 2026 on the implementation of the updated curriculum in grant-aided schools and to lay the report before the Assembly. I say in parenthesis that I trust that there will be an Assembly back in place and fully functioning well before that date.

The Government recognise the sensitivity of this topic and that some parents may wish to teach their child about sex education or to make alternative arrangements to be provided in line with their religious background or their belief about the age that their child or children should access sex education. In recognition of this, this SI also place a duty on the department to make regulations about the circumstances in which a pupil may be withdrawn from education on sexual and reproductive health and rights, or elements of that education, at the request of a parent. This follows the approach taken elsewhere in the United Kingdom.

It is important to state that this Government believe that educating adolescents on issues such as contraception, the legal status of abortion and how relevant services may be accessed should be done in a factual way that does not advocate a particular view on the moral or ethical considerations of abortion or contraception. While schools will be under a duty to teach the updated curriculum within the 2023-24 school year, there will also be a period of implementation and a need for meaningful engagement with parents and teachers. The amendments to the curriculum come into force on 1 July, in preparation for the 2023-24 academic school year. As I said, the duty on the department to issue guidance on the content and delivery of the required education will come into force on 1 January 2024.

Officials in my department, the Northern Ireland Office, will continue to work closely with those in the Department for Education. They have also been engaging with relevant educational bodies to make them aware of the changes to the curriculum. We understand that further engagement with schools, parents and young people is also very important so that they feel reassured about the content of this updated curriculum. However, it is important that children and adolescents are given the correct information so that they can make informed choices.

That summarises the changes that are introduced by these regulations, and I commend them to the Committee. I beg to move.

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for introducing these regulations. Of course, the Secretary of State is not only empowered to make these regulations but legally obliged to do so. With the regulations, the Secretary of State is making a statutory duty to implement recommendation 86(d) of the report of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women. As a result, as the Minister has told us, age-appropriate, comprehensive and scientifically accurate education on sex and reproductive health and rights, covering the prevention of early pregnancy and access to abortion, will become a compulsory component of the curriculum for adolescents in Northern Ireland.

The Labour Party fully supports these measures. On these Benches, we believe that they are a critical step in ensuring that all parts of the United Kingdom meet their human rights obligations to children in this area. All adolescents deserve age-appropriate, comprehensive and scientifically accurate relationship and sex education. For too long, relationship and sex education has been unavailable to adolescents in Northern Ireland. In May 2019, Sir John Gillen’s independent review into how the criminal justice system in Northern Ireland deals with serious sexual offence cases made a series of recommendations, including the need to include in the school curriculum for RSE matters such as consent, personal space, boundaries, appropriate behaviour, relationships and sexuality. In April this year, an evaluation by Northern Ireland’s Education and Training Inspectorate found that 44% of schools reported that they were delivering the topic of consent

“to a small extent or not at all”.

Earlier this month, the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission, as the Minister told us, published a report into its investigations of relationship and sexuality education in post-primary schools, and found that the curriculum on relationship and sexuality education does not meet human rights standards. According to the commission, most schools are not providing

“age appropriate, comprehensive, scientifically accurate education”

on access to abortion services. The investigation also found that some schools actively contribute to the shame and stigma surrounding unplanned pregnancy and abortion by making statements such as abortion is not a means of contraception and those who knowingly engage in casual sex must bear the consequences of their actions. It revealed that some schools are teaching children that homosexuality is wrong.

In England, Scotland and Wales, compulsory RSE that embeds reproductive rights and choices within the curriculum, implementing the CEDAW recommendations, is already in place. The Labour Party welcomes the fact that today’s regulations will help to ensure that the curriculum for children in Northern Ireland meets that standard too. The Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission has welcomed the new regulations and emphasised that implementation and monitoring will be critical. Schools should support and develop their capacity to deliver RSE, and the commission and other expert independent organisations have offered their expertise to help with that.

I have read with care the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee’s report on these regulations and the debate that took place in the Commons yesterday. I of course agree with my honourable friend Peter Kyle and the Minister in that debate about the need to move forward on this matter. However, there are a few matters from this report that particularly concern us. The first is the question of consultation—or lack of it, as the committee says at paragraphs 54 to 56. The Minister needs to clarify that and address it. The second is the use of outside contractors to deliver RSE. How will the Department of Education in Northern Ireland ensure that the delivery of RSE meets the updated curriculum that these regulations set in motion? Thirdly, will the Northern Ireland Office liaise with the Department of Education to provide detailed information about implementation, which the report mentions at paragraph 43? Finally, is the Minister assured that the Department of Education will have the necessary regulations in place regarding parents withdrawing their children from RSE?

With those questions, which I am sure the Minister will be happy to address, we offer him our support.

[Lord Morrow (DUP)]

My Lords, I am watching the annunciator because I am due to speak on amendments in the Chamber. I know that we are expecting a vote very shortly, which will probably mean the suspension of the Committee, but noble Lords will understand if I leave and cannot participate in the whole debate, which I want to do.

These regulations are profoundly controversial in terms of their content and the procedure that attended their development. In the first instance, they suffer from a similar legitimacy deficit to that attending the abortion regulations 2020 on account of the fact that they are made by the same parent legislation, Section 9 of the 2019 Executive formation Act. At this stage, lest I forget, I want to challenge something that the Minister said. It was not so much that what he said was inaccurate, but that it was not the whole story. He said that 78% of MLAs voted for this. Yes, but it was 78% of 30; there are 90 MLAs and only 30 voted. That was not said, but it needs to be. However, for reasons that I shall explain, the legitimacy deficit attending these regulations is significantly more extensive.

Section 9 was the result of a vote in another place on 19 July 2019 the impact of which pertains exclusively to Northern Ireland, in a context when every single Northern Ireland Member of Parliament who took their seat in the democratically elected House voted against this provision. It becomes quite disturbing. We are always told by others who maybe have never been to Northern Ireland, or are very rarely there, “We know better than you lot that live there”. In other words, a provision that pertained only to Northern Ireland was imposed on Northern Ireland over the heads of its elected representatives.

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

I interrupt the noble Lord just to say that I spent the weekend before last in Ireland, just over the border, and in Enniskillen with my family. We had a lovely time.

[Lord Morrow (DUP)]

I am glad that the noble Baroness enjoyed Northern Ireland. Most people who come to Northern Ireland enjoy it because there is so much to do and see. Right now, we can even provide the weather, which we cannot always. I am delighted to hear that she made a visit and I hope she will come back some other time.

Although there is nothing technically wrong with using the votes of other parts of our union to impose changes on specific parts of it in violation of the wishes of its elected representatives, every time that happens there is a clear legitimacy deficit. That is why apologies were subsequently issued for the flooding of Capel Celyn in Wales and the imposition of the poll tax a year early in Scotland.

However, in the case of Section 9, the legitimacy deficit is more extensive, because the Executive formation Bill had been subject to accelerated procedure on the basis that it was about just one issue, and it was widely reported at the time that the clerks in another place advised that the amendment that resulted in Section 9 was not in scope. This meant not only that profoundly controversial legal changes were imposed on Northern Ireland but that we were not even afforded the dignity of a full debate.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Weir of Ballyholme (DUP)]

My Lords, I speak as a former Education Minister for Northern Ireland. I will keep my remarks relatively succinct, because a lot of the substantive ground has been covered by my two colleagues who spoke previously. We are also due to speak in the House on the debate on illegal migration. I join them in expressing concerns about the content of this and in particular the way it has been brought about. The phrase that keeps coming back to me in the context of the implementation of this SI is “lack of respect”: a lack of respect for the sensitivities around the issue of abortion, a lack of respect for the ethos and belief of many people in Northern Ireland, a lack of respect for the devolutionary settlement, a lack of respect for basic democratic process, a lack of respect for educational process—I will touch on that later—and a deep lack of respect for education stakeholders at so many different levels.

As has been indicated, this is something on which myriad steps have been taken and in which undemocratic process has been grafted on top of other undemocratic process. As has been said, it arises from Section 9 of the legislation, which itself had an accelerated passage and was grafted on top of a one-issue subject. Indeed, the CEDAW recommendations, which were meant to be advisory, were themselves grafted on to the issue of abortion within Northern Ireland. As has been indicated, in terms of democratic scrutiny, the provisions in paragraph 86(d) of the CEDAW report did not merit a single minute of debate when this was discussed in relation to primary legislation. Beyond that, we now see these regulations being introduced without any consultation whatever. The concerns raised in relation to that have been highlighted by the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, which also highlighted that some of the provisions will—it seems uniquely—be brought in immediately rather than after the normal 21 days.

The Minister said in his opening remarks that the Government’s intention was to put Northern Ireland in a similar position to that of England, yet that is not accurate. In England, proper consultation at least took place. There are many things done by government that all of us will disagree with to different levels but, if we are all given the opportunity to have an input through proper consultation, due process will at least have taken place. This process has circumvented that and has not put the people of Northern Ireland in the same position; it has put them in an inferior position to the people of England and Wales.

This also cuts across educational process. The noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, rightly made reference to the Gillen report. The substance of that report around RSE focused on critical issues of consent, respect for females and ensuring that relationships were conducted in a respectful manner that hopefully means that we can reduce—and, in an ideal world, eliminate—sexual abuse within that. Yet, it has to be said, this SI tackles none of the subjects at the forefront of the Gillen report. Indeed, it circumvents the work that has been going on in the Department of Education and Department of Justice on the Gillen report. When I was a Minister alongside Minister Long, we did not hold similar views on issues such as abortion—

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

Does not the existence of a properly run relationship education include all the things that were mentioned in the Gillen report? That is why I referred to it.