Personal, Social, Health and Financial Education

Elizabeth Truss Excerpts

Wednesday 16th January 2013 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Elizabeth Truss)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley) on securing the debate and I congratulate so many Members on their contributions. The number of Members who have turned up and spoken with such passion demonstrates the issue’s importance to Members of Parliament. I may not be able to give them all the answers that they were looking for this morning, but I hope to set out the Government position. We have had some interesting comments about the details of situations in their constituencies, and I assure them that I will take into account what they have said today and feed it into the Government review. As the hon. Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan) knows, I am holding a series of meetings on the subject.

The Government believe that all young people should have access to a high-quality, rounded education in personal, social, health and economic issues. My hon. Friend the Member for Hastings and Rye (Amber Rudd) asked about sex education as a requirement, and the current statutory guidance makes it clear that this involves teaching about relationships and parenthood and teaching girls and boys. That is the requirement for schools in teaching sex education, so it is already set out and on the statute books. The guidance for sex and relationship education also provides for pupils to be taught about how the law is applied.

There have been some interesting comments about susceptibility to domestic violence and violence against women and girls, and that is part of the current statutory guidance. Hon. Members alluded to the Home Office-led, cross-Government violence against women and girls group, which continues to draw attention to the issue. The Minister who sits on that group is the Under-Secretary of State for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mr Timpson), who represents the Department. Our position, therefore, is that guidance to schools on sex and relationship education covers those matters and applies the relevant laws.

Hon. Members have pointed out, with a number of comments on the time scale, that the Government review of PSHE education has been extended. Our issue is to make it work with our review of the national curriculum, for which hon. Members will not have to wait much longer. Those two elements need to work together. Our fundamental belief is that the national curriculum should give schools more flexibility to teach in a way that is suited to their pupils and to how the school operates. As I have mentioned, we have statutory sex education, but we believe in more local autonomy in how things are achieved, so that they are done in the best possible way.

[Barbara Keeley]

Does the Minister believe that such flexibility should be extended so far as to allow that education to be patchy or non-existent? That is the lesson from the many hon. Members who have spoken. We have said in all our contributions that we do not want such education to be non-existent, pathetic or patchy in our schools, in my authority or any other. Does flexibility go that far? If it does, we have an issue.

[Elizabeth Truss]

No. We want schools to offer a rounded education, but we believe the best way to do that is to allow more decision making by head teachers, rather than by Whitehall.

I want to respond to some of the points made on financial education and to explain how it works with our national curriculum review. As my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) mentioned, we are incorporating more financial education into the mathematics curriculum, such as understanding money, compound interest rates, loan repayments and applying percentages or ratios. That is a practical reason why the PSHE review has to interface properly with the national curriculum one. We are opening up the new published national curriculum for review, so I hope that Members will be able to comment on how it relates to what they have asked for in the PSHE curriculum.

Drugs education was also mentioned by hon. Members. Our focus is to ensure that schools and local commissioners understand which programmes have a genuinely positive effect. To support that, we have asked the Centre for Analysis of Youth Transitions to develop an open-access database of evaluations of programmes and interventions that have robust evidence of impact outcomes for young people, including on substance misuse. I can provide a link to the information in place.

I have outlined how I think that more teachers should be empowered to decide the content of the wider school curriculum. International evidence shows that giving schools more autonomy results in them being able to make better decisions on the ground. The same applies to teacher training, which was mentioned by the hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South. We are clear that teachers should be free to access high-quality resources and training, such as that provided by the British Heart Foundation on life-saving skills. It is a two-way process, with professionals in schools in regular dialogue with outside bodies, as well as the Government, rather than one with edicts issued from Whitehall about how exactly subjects should be taught.

[Dan Rogerson]

I accept what the Minister says about empowering schools to adapt things to local circumstances; but clearly, head teachers and governing bodies act within a framework of accountability, including league tables and so on. As my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) pointed out, those academic scores are a focus for schools—in particular, for schools in challenging areas—whereas dealing with some of the issues that young people face could unlock their potential and help them in their academic lives. As well as looking at the curriculum, can the Government do something to incentivise good teaching, by rewarding it in how schools are judged?

[Elizabeth Truss]

We are currently reviewing the accountability system and will shortly have some proposals, as well as having the PSHE review, so such things are under consideration. I am meeting organisations and hon. Members from all parts of the House about those various elements.

[Barbara Keeley]

That is the second time that the Minister has mentioned meetings, and she is talking about meeting Members. My hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson), however, made the point that the Minister is not meeting organisations such as the PSHE Association, which clearly has a vital role, or many other organisations. Furthermore, she is not meeting Opposition Members. Will she start to throw open her meetings to a much wider group, such as those who are interested today? Will she meet more groups and Members from all parts of the House?

[Elizabeth Truss]

I have met both Government and Opposition Members on matters pertaining to PSHE, and I have met various organisations. As hon. Members have alluded to, quite a few organisations deal with the various issues across PSHE, and I am certainly willing to engage with Members—I am keen to do that, and I have already had a series of meetings. I am also happy to respond to a parliamentary question or to write to the hon. Lady about which organisations and Members I have met. Perhaps she was referring to the previous Minister—I am not sure.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes) for raising body image, which is another important issue. Giving schools more autonomy will enable them to teach what is relevant to them. She mentioned that different aspects of the body image issue might be important in different parts of her constituency. Again, that demonstrates the need for more local decision making within a framework set out by the Government. That is what we are working on in the PSHE review, to follow our release of the national curriculum review. I am happy to engage with hon. Members on that.

I thank everyone for their contributions to today’s debate, which has been extremely helpful in informing my views, as a relatively new Minister, on important issues for Members of Parliament from in all parts of the House.