Personal, Social, Health and Financial Education

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Wednesday 16th January 2013 Westminster Hall

[Dan Rogerson (North Cornwall) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Robertson. I congratulate the hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley) on securing this debate and on the work that she has done on the subject for some time. I am pleased to see so many hon. Members in Westminster Hall today to discuss this subject. In fact, I am surprised that there are so many Members here. Sometimes, I come to Westminster Hall and limited numbers of Members are present for a debate, so it is very encouraging that so many Members are here at this point in the morning to discuss this subject.

I should perhaps explain my initial connection with this topic: both my parents are teachers. In fact, my mother was responsible for PSHE in the secondary school that I attended, so if there are any failings in my skills in dealing with life, I suppose that I will probably have to take them up with her on two levels, and take the pain of that. However, it gave me a commitment to explain how important PSHE is. My mother dealt with Cornwall county council in those days, talking about the importance of the PSHE element in the curriculum. In fact, when she started dealing with the subject it was actually called “personal, social and moral education”, which perhaps gives an idea of what the subject was like in the early part of the ’80s; there was a slightly different twist to it.

The hon. Lady has focused on relationship education as something that is crucial, and it is very important to me, too. I remember that when I first stood for Parliament I was at the hustings—it was one of that type of “churches together” hustings—and a question came up about sex on television and whether it was a bad thing. Being a politician, I turned the question into something important to me, which is talking about relationships. I said that what I found far more insidious is that all that young people hear all the time, from soap operas and so on, is about relationships failing. Let us be honest—it is done that way because it is a story and that is what soap operas are about. There are very few examples of relationships that actually make it and that work and are successful. That is perhaps a sadder issue. The mechanics of sex being on television are such that the cues that young people pick up—they also pick them up from wider society, celebrity magazines and so on—are all about how relationships are exciting things to start and exciting things to end, and sometimes it is the work of keeping them going that is far more difficult to deal with.

As the hon. Lady said, there are many campaigns for elements or aspects of the curriculum that could come under PSHE; hon. Members have argued strongly for their inclusion in PSHE. However, it is also important that we do not take those elements and put them in some sort of silo and say that this is something that we tuck into a corner of the curriculum and forget about. Those elements must also inform what goes on in education as a whole.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

Is not the point about the situation now that PSHE is precisely tucked into a silo of science? The only part that pupils are required to learn about in school is sexually transmitted infections and how to have sex, and that is a kind of advertising manual rather than a proper sex and relationship education that might enable, for instance, girls to have so much self-worth that they want to delay their first sexual experience and that might bring boys into the equation, so that they understand that sex is not only a recreation but might also be part of a strong and fulfilling relationship.

[Dan Rogerson]

Absolutely. I agree with the hon. Gentleman, although boys, too, might well want to delay their first sexual experience, rather than just girls. I think that we sometimes get caught up in a “boys are from Mars, girls are from Venus” view, and there is a difference in the way that we deal with the two. In fact, I think that a lot of the issues, concerns and disquiet that young people might have about some of these issues will be shared by both boys and girls.

Of course, as the hon. Lady said they are also issues about drug and alcohol abuse, as well as strategies for managing and dealing with exposure to drugs and alcohol. The hon. Member for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley) made a point about how campaigns, such as those on drink-driving, have been successful in the past. General issues of mental health and well-being are incredibly important, too. As the hon. Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes) said, sometimes some of these things are incredibly important to young people in their development but difficult for them to express and engage with. They carry those feelings around with them day to day, but they find it difficult to confront them. In extreme cases, that can lead to self-harm or suicide. In other cases, it can undermine academic performance, social interaction and all sorts of other things, so it is crucial that the issue is explored.

We need to look at strategies for bringing relationship education out of its silo, and the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) agreed. Save the Children’s Families and Schools Together programme takes relationship education out of the classroom and deals with building relationships in families as well. We talk about early intervention, and the earliest intervention would be to get to people and give them the skills in parenting and dealing with their own emotional growth before they become parents. However, some people have already been through education, and it failed to provide such things. We need to look at schools as a way to engage with such people to give them skills as parents, to reinforce all the good things that they do and to share that experience. Save the Children’s programme is a successful way to do that.

Relationship education must be taught effectively, and the hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South was right to mention the questions that have been raised about that. As the coalition Government consider the information that they have received through consultation and how they might advance relationship education, I hope that they will focus on that. They have set out their determination to increase the quality of the teaching available, and this important issue must not be dealt with simply as something that teachers pick up to fill their timetable; it must be something people have the skills to deliver effectively.

Teaching should be reinforced through interaction across the curriculum. The hon. Member for Rhondda talked about the science connection, and other hon. Members have talked about their determination to see more done on financial literacy and financial education, so there are tie-ups with maths, business and so on. By reinforcing such messages across the curriculum, we can make them much more powerful, and we can use the skills of teachers in other disciplines to ensure that those messages are worked on and delivered effectively. As I say, we can also use schools as a way to reach out into families and reinforce what goes on in them.

The coalition Government have not tackled this issue by moving on a prescriptive curriculum or by micro-managing what goes on in the classroom. However, it is important to Members on both sides that the issue is pursued and that the Government have a grasp on it to make sure that we deliver it effectively. I hope that the Minister will be able to respond to the debate in that spirit.

--- Later in debate ---

[Amber Rudd]

We looked at the figures for under-19s. In fact, the figure for under-16s is extremely low. We mainly examined the figures for those aged 16 to 19.

We had a genuinely open mind towards our inquiry. It was public, with several groups giving evidence. We thought that one of the causes might be access to contraception, but we found that relationship education was absolutely the key missing part. Let us not forget the men. Let us not think, perhaps like the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson), that the issue is more about men than women or women than men. The issue is about society.

[Chris Bryant]

Or both.

[Amber Rudd]

Or both, as was just helpfully said.

We must include the whole of society in this important social problem. We found that sex education is pretty good. The young people that we spoke to know about contraception and how to get pregnant, but they do not know why not to get pregnant or about the emotional confidence they need.

There is some confusion around sex education. The hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) is right that sex education is compulsory as part of biology. It is compulsory for schools to have a sex and relationship education strategy, but it is not compulsory for them actually to teach it. It is compulsory to have some elements of HIV and sexually transmitted infections within PSHE education, but the crucial aspect of relationship education is apparently not included.

[Chris Bryant]

There is a particular problem here. I made a lengthy report into teenage pregnancy a few years ago, as it is one of the major causes of poverty in my constituency. One problem is that because the legal requirement focuses on sexually transmitted infections, much of sex education in this country focuses on the use of condoms only. Condoms are notoriously ill-used when one is blotto at 11.30 pm on a Friday and that is one reason why we have a much higher rate of teenage pregnancies in this country, whereas other countries that teach the double-Dutch method of using two forms of contraception are far more successful.

[Amber Rudd]

The hon. Gentleman is quite right. There is the Pearl index, which I am sure he knows about, which assesses the effectiveness of contraception. In the age group that we examined, condoms have an effectiveness rate of something like 70% to 80%; so perhaps another reason why there should be some form of relationship education is that, as we know, drink unfortunately plays a large part in whether young people will use the right form of contraception.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

I, too, congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley) on securing this debate. Teenage pregnancy is one of the biggest and most complex issues that Members from all parties want to address. The figures for this country rose dramatically during the Thatcher years and then fell somewhat, although not as far as we wanted, under Labour Governments. The fact remains, as has been said, that our figures are five times higher than in the Netherlands, three times higher than in France and twice as high as in Germany. The single biggest policy difference between those countries and ours in relation to young people is the quality of sex and relationship education. I believe that we in this country have made things worse by insisting that children must learn about sexually transmitted infections and the physical, biological aspects of how to have sex, rather than placing those in the wider context of self-development and issues of growing up as a young person.

Teenage pregnancy matters because many teenage mums go on to be the mums of teenage mums. Indeed, many girls who have babies when they are under 16 end up having another baby before they are 20. Many of the daughters of mums who gave birth at age 18 or 19 end up giving birth at the age of 15 or 16. I have met girls from my constituency who have given birth at the age of 14 or 15. While that continues, nobody can say to me that we as a country are serving those children well.

Motherhood becomes a career for some young girls because they do not have enough self-worth or believe that they are valued at home or at school, and they think that a baby might provide them with unconditional love. I do not believe some of the mythology about girls getting pregnant so as to have flats; there is simply no evidence for it. The vast majority of teenage mums live with their parents or other family members. However, as the Joseph Rowntree Foundation has shown, there is evidence that girls choose motherhood almost as a career in self-worth. That is what we need to address.

It is true that sex and relationship education, as all Members have said, is patchy in both England and Wales. Not only the Ofsted reports on England but the Estyn reports on Wales have said exactly the same things: large numbers of schools have a policy but do not implement it, or have teachers who are theoretically meant to be engaging in sex and relationship education but feel that they are not up to the job or are not doing a very good job. Numerous children who respond in surveys say, “I wish we’d had better sex and relationship education. I know how to do it, but I don’t know how to not do it.” Again, I think that we are failing them. That is partly because all too often, we start far too late. Girls get to their first period without realising what is happening to their bodies. What will that do to their sense of self-worth as they grow up? Often, parents are far too terrified to talk about such issues with their children, or children are far too terrified—[Interruption.] I would certainly be terrified of having sex education from the hon. Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes) if she were my mother. Children are often terrified of addressing the issues with their parents.

The value of good sex and relationship education, if it starts early enough and instils a sense of self-worth, is that it almost certainly leads young people to have less risky sex, to take fewer risks in their lives and, if they do take risks, to do so knowingly. Most importantly, it probably delays their first sexual encounter. If we could change all that, we could probably change the pattern of poverty in this country. The map of teenage pregnancy is the map of poverty. It means that poverty in this country is more handed down from generation to generation than wealth. That is why I want to change things.

I also hope that we might be able to do something about homophobic bullying in schools. Diversity Role Models, a charity of which my partner is a trustee, does a great job of trying to stop it, which is important because a young gay boy is six times more likely to commit suicide than anybody else.

Finally, such education must be mandatorily, statutorily, compulsorily provided across the whole country; otherwise, schools will not invest, local education authorities will not ensure that the quality of the teaching is good enough and we will fail our children. I say that not only to this Minister, who has responsibility for England—I hope that she will reply expressly to this issue—but to my colleague in Wales, because I believe that we need to do exactly the same in Wales as in England.

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Robertson. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley) on securing this important debate. She told us about teenage pregnancy in Salford and reminded us that a move to make PSHE statutory before the last election was blocked by the Conservative party during the wash-up. That was a shame. Perhaps Back-Bench Members from whom we have heard today could exert some pressure to reverse that position.

The hon. Member for North Cornwall (Dan Rogerson) said that there were not many positive images of long-term relationships on television. I used to be a fan of “Coronation Street” and always thought that Jack and Vera Duckworth or Hilda and Stan Ogden were wonderful role models. I do not have enough time to watch any soap operas these days, so I am not sure what is going on. I think it has got much more sensationalist since my day.

[Chris Bryant]

They are all dead now.

[Kevin Brennan]

Yes, I had heard. But those were long-term successful relationships.

My hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson) highlighted the Government’s lack of activity and, in doing so, highlighted the great deal of activity that she has put into this subject. I will say more about that later.

The hon. Member for Hastings and Rye (Amber Rudd)—the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s Parliamentary Private Secretary, no less—spoke with great passion and conviction, as always, on this subject. I congratulate her on the cross-party work that she has done on this subject, which she has got across recently in the media. She said that teenage pregnancy under 16 was low. I know, from the work of my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley and Eccles South in Salford, that figures for teenagers above 16 range from a low of 216 to 250, whereas for the under-16s it ranges from 37 to 51. It can be as high as 20% in some areas. Although I take the hon. Lady’s point, I would not describe it as very low: 20% is a worryingly high proportion.

The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) spoke with conviction, although perhaps his view is not shared by the majority of hon. Members present. Age-appropriateness is the issue here. I think all of us can agree that sex and relationships education should be delivered in that way. I appeal to him for clear evidence and actual, practical examples of where he thinks abuse of this provision is taking place, because it is important that this debate happens in the light of evidence.

In the 1980s, ill-conceived media coverage and ill-conceived views expressed about what was being taught to children led to section 28. I was a teacher at that time and a colleague, who was a gay man, had to keep his sexuality hidden because of the consequences of section 28, which was based on unsubstantiated rumours that what was being taught in our schools was promoting homosexuality.