Oral Answers to Questions

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Monday 12th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his question. It is a tragedy that the ideologically driven closure of special schools under the last Government meant that so many children with special educational needs did not receive the education they deserved. That ideologically driven closure will end under this Government, and under the Minister of State, Department for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for Brent Central (Sarah Teather) we will review support for children with special educational needs. Their care should always be our first concern.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

T9. The Secretary of State will know that one problem in many of the poorest constituencies in the land is the high level of teenage pregnancy in this country—five times higher than in the Netherlands. Before Government Members start blaming Labour—or, for that matter, me personally—let me tell them that the figures rose dramatically under the Conservative Government and then did not fall sufficiently under a Labour Government. The Secretary of State fought hard in the previous Parliament to ensure that we did not have good compulsory sex and relationship education, for every child, in all schools in the land. Will he reverse the argument that he advanced then, because in countries with low levels of teenage pregnancy, the existence of such education is the big difference?

[Michael Gove]

The hon. Gentleman is a former vicar of the Church of England; he has been accused of many sins, but contributing to teenage pregnancy has never been one of them, to my knowledge. May I say that I entirely appreciate the importance of proper sex and relationships education? My dispute with the previous Government was simply over a question of individual liberty. I felt it important that parents had the right to withdraw their children from sex and relationships education if they thought it inappropriate. I agree, however, that it is vital that all children have high-quality sex and relationships education, in order to ensure that they make the right decisions later in life.