Relationships and Sex Education

Hannah Bardell Excerpts

Monday 25th February 2019 Westminster Hall

[Helen Jones (Warrington North) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered e-petition 235053 relating to relationship and sex education.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Moon.

It is often said that the British have a funny relationship to sex; we certainly have a very strange relationship to sex education, sometimes. We live in a society where explicit imagery, pornography and material that demeans and degrades women is available at a few clicks of a mouse, yet there are still some who resist teaching our children the facts about not only their own bodies, but emotions, relationships and all the things they need to keep them safe while they are young and to enable them to form healthy relationships as they get older.

I wondered why that was, so before the debate I had a look at some of the material circulating about these proposals. I must say that some of it misinterprets what the Government are proposing and is designed, I think, to alarm parents. The petition itself is not specific. It refers to

“certain sexual and relational concepts”—

I think that was designed to avoid the rules about material that is offensive to certain groups—and suggests that some of the material produced for children does “more harm than good”.

Let me say that there is absolutely no evidence for that whatever—zilch. In fact, the research that has been done, mostly in America, shows that young people who receive good relationships and sex education are less likely to form early sexual relationships, less likely to have an unwanted pregnancy, less likely to get pregnant early and less likely to get a sexually transmitted disease. For me, that is a whole series of wins.

However, we do not need to look far to find a great deal of propaganda directed at parents about this. I found on YouTube a programme called “The Makinations”, in which a presenter introduces a lady who he says is a teacher, and she presents a number of books that she says are available in schools. They then go on to object to those books. For instance, they object to one that I presume is intended to talk to young children about differences, which says that girls can have long or short hair; I am guilty of that. They also talk about gay people “posing”—their word, not mine—as parents, and about “state-sanctioned child abuse” and even “graphic cartoon porn”.

I found that chilling, but not for the reasons the authors intended. If stuff such as this is being directed at parents, I am not surprised that they become alarmed. Honestly, the fact is that it was vile and homophobic, but it was also not true. I speak in this debate not only as a parent, but as someone who used to be a teacher—in fact, two of us here, myself and my hon. Friend the Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Mike Kane), have taught sex education in school, although in my case it was some time ago. Schools do not use books about a penguin with two daddies—the first penguin in the zoo with two daddies—with all children. They use them when children ask questions, or with children who might have two parents of the same sex, just as they would use a book about a single-parent family with a child who came from a single-parent family.

[Hannah Bardell (Livingston) (SNP)]

The hon. Lady is making some excellent points. I remember my mum telling me how frustrating it was, as a single parent, when she went to the bookshop to find some books about single parents and there was only one book about a little boy with a single mum and about building a bed. One book—and I was born in 1983. We have come a long way, but does she not agree that inclusive education on sexuality and all kinds of families is vital?

[Helen Jones]

I do, and I will come to that later in my remarks. Those of us who are long in the tooth will remember the controversy over a book called “Jenny Lives with Eric and Martin” in the 1980s. That book was available to teachers to use as necessary; it was not used routinely in schools.

It is important to say what is and is not being proposed by the Government. The Children and Social Work Act 2017 requires all maintained primary schools to teach relationships education, and all maintained secondary schools to teach relationships and sex education. Importantly, it qualifies that with the words “age-appropriate”, because teachers know that we cannot teach children concepts that their mind cannot grapple with. They simply do not take it in. Learning how children’s brains develop is part of a teacher’s training. We would be wasting our time trying to teach them things they cannot possibly understand at a young age.

Following the 2017 Act, the Government put out a call for evidence on the teaching of RSE and personal, social, health and economic education, and then issued draft guidelines last year. I have not yet seen the final guidelines—well, I have seen them, but they are under an embargo until the Secretary of State has finished his statement to the House. I will come on to that in a minute.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sammy Wilson]

No, I will not take any interventions, because other people wish to speak.

The core issue is the freedom of individuals and families to make decisions about what the appropriate teaching for their youngsters is. There is an irony that, on the one hand, parents can withdraw their youngster from education totally and teach them at home, but when it comes to this one particular aspect of education the right to opt out is severely curtailed. That strikes me as very odd, especially for something so sensitive.

Many parents have written to me expressing concerns, and have expressed them in briefings that I have been given, that the state is taking away from them the responsibility that they believe ultimately rests with them. Parents may well decide that the relationships education that their children are receiving in school is appropriate; however, if they decide that it is not something that they want their youngster to be taught, the right to withdraw has been taken away from them.

It is also significant that most of the publicity surrounding this matter has been about lesbian, bisexual and gay relationships; when interviewed on Radio 4, the Ofsted chief inspector zoned in on that aspect. For some parents, those are not the kind of relationships that they want their children to be taught about by a stranger. If they are going to talk about those things, parents want the ability to teach their youngsters about that themselves. At least they would have control over what was taught in that instance.

[Hannah Bardell]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Sammy Wilson]

No, I will not.

It is important that the state should not have a monopoly on such issues when it comes to the teaching of youngsters. I thought it significant that many Members who have talked about the importance of the regulations and expressed opposition to opt-outs are the very people who would, in many other instances, continually quote human rights obligations.

In a whole range of international rulings, including some by the European Court of Human Rights, and in international human rights law—I do not want to quote specific legislation or rulings—time and again the emphasis is that parents should ultimately have the right to know and decide what is taught to their youngsters, and should be able, where it is contrary to their beliefs, to exercise their right not to have their youngsters subjected to that kind of teaching. They should be the people who ultimately decide what values and beliefs are instilled in their children. It is significant that that aspect seems to have been missing from most of the speeches in this debate.

My final point is that the current rules either place a big burden on teachers or give far too many rights to headteachers. Nowhere are “exceptional circumstances” defined, so headteachers who particularly want their schools to push certain lifestyles in relationships education could refuse to allow parents to opt their children out. They may regard such parents as bigots, as people with funny views, as fundamentalists or as orthodox, which they do not like.

We have to remember that the secular trend in education can be quite aggressive at times: it gives headteachers who want to push an agenda a huge ability to say, “No, you cannot remove your children, whether you like it or not, because I want them to hear this.” On the other hand, the rules may place a burden on teachers and headteachers, because they will be left to make judgments without any specific guidelines or criteria. If headteachers are given no guidance, schools will inevitably make different decisions. I believe that that will put pressure on headteachers.

For all those reasons—individual freedom, the right for families to decide what they want their youngsters to be taught, and the ability for parents rather than teachers to make the final decision in the absence of clear guidelines—I believe that the only answer is to give parents the right to opt out in all circumstances where they decide, “This is not the kind of education that I want for my children.” I do not believe that children will be disadvantaged by that.

There are plenty of other, probably more effective ways for schools to deal with issues such as domestic violence or homophobic bullying. Having pastoral care, making sure that teachers know what is happening in the classroom and the playground—those are the ways to deal with it. I do not believe that the regulations will be a panacea or that they will deal with many of the issues that hon. Members have raised today.

--- Later in debate ---

[Hannah Bardell (Livingston) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir David, and to have sat through the wide range of contributions to the debate—that is probably the only way I can describe them. Although I appreciate that this is a contentious issue, it is not a difficult one. The petition is about potential rights, but at the heart of the issue are children’s rights and, unfortunately, some of the speakers have forgotten that.

As far as I am aware, I am the only member of the LGBT community to speak in the debate. I am a lesbian, and I started primary school in Scotland during the year that section 28 came into force. This year, my four-and-a-half-year-old niece will start school in Scotland, during the first year that inclusive education is introduced. That is a source of great pride for me. However, as the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy) mentioned —unfortunately she is no longer in her place—the kind of bullying that I and some of my friends and colleagues experienced, and that is still experienced in schools, happens because of a fundamental lack of education, understanding and tolerance. I absolutely respect the rights of religious communities and of parents, but if they want an inclusive society—each religious group wants to be not just tolerated, but accepted— surely the best way to do that is for our children to be properly educated in their schools about the range of families, religions and people in our society.

The issue is of course devolved and I take on board the points made by a number of hon. Members about the implementation and the stress and concern that that has caused in some communities. That is regrettable. None of us is perfect—no Government or party—but from a Scottish perspective, the majority of parents in Scotland want schools to teach RSE: 92% in 2016 according to an independent poll for the PSHE Association. I want to highlight that Scottish perspective.

As has been said, nearly half of LGBT pupils—45%—are bullied for being LGBT. I am sure that some hon. Members will be aware of the work of Laura Bates, the founder of the Everyday Sexism Project, and writer of many an excellent column and book, most recently “Misogynation”, which I would suggest all hon. Members add to their reading lists. In her work, she recalls how young women described it as normal to be groped or sexually assaulted while wearing their school uniforms, and the shock that she experienced about the level of misconception and myth surrounding ideas about sexual relationships among young people.

A number of hon. Members have made the point about tracking the number of children in each school who are being taken out of RSE, and having discussions with their parents about how and what they are teaching their children is a sensible idea. I understand that some parents will have concerns about that, but surely a responsible parent with nothing to hide who has taken their child out of RSE should have no concerns about whether or not a school wants to support them in that decision. So many vulnerable children are being taken out of RSE. Are they not the ones who need that education and support? That goes to the heart of the matter.

Laura Bates also highlights the phenomenon of online harm, which I am conscious of as the SNP spokesperson on the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee. Although I only managed to catch part of the Secretary of State’s speech before I came to this debate, Laura Bates points out how drastically outdated the UK Government’s current guidelines are: it is 19 years since they were last updated. In Scotland, we updated ours in 2014 and they are about to be updated again. One in 25 primary-aged children are sent a naked image by an adult according to research by the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children.

Educators have the responsibility to teach young people not only about sex and relationships, but about related issues, such as consent, conducting respectful relationships and the nature of unsafe relationships and abuse. I appreciate that in some quarters my view may not be popular, but it can only be damaging for a parent to take a child out of that vital education if they are not trained to an appropriate level and have the appropriate knowledge to prepare their child for what they will face. The hon. Member for Warrington North (Helen Jones), who spoke so powerfully in her speech, rightly said that although parents may be able to control what their children have on their phones or on the home computer—that is debateable and today there was a concerning article in The Times about the app TikTok, which asks children to strip—they have no control over what other children will show and put in front of their children.

It is only right and sensible, therefore, that any Government put the duty of care and safety of children first, and ensure that that education is holistic and informative. If children are not provided with that education, they will clearly be left exposed. As for the existing guidance for teaching relationships education or RSE, I think it is fair to say that repeal of a piece of legislation, or changing it, does not take away the problem. When we repealed section 28, we put nothing in its place. Children are still subjected to bullying, and not just to that.

LGBT young people, in particular in the trans community, have staggering rates of self-harm—80% or 90%. At the moment, a difficult and damaging debate is raging about trans rights. In reality—I think the hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Shabana Mahmood) made reference to this and gave her views—while the adults all argue about definitions and rights, children are much further ahead of them. When I talk to my local LGBT group, the Glitter Cannons, I find that some of those young people are much better informed than most of the adults I know. The reality is that those discussions and that education are taking place outside schools.

In Scotland, our LGBT education will be world leading. I pay tribute to the Time for Inclusive Education campaign, Stonewall, LGBT Youth Scotland and my colleagues in the Scottish Government, in particular John Swinney and Christina McKelvie, who were bold and brave and brought that policy forward. They consulted widely, although I know that people still have concerns, which we must work constructively on, as I hope and know the Minister will on the concerns expressed by Members about the legislation in England and Wales. In Scotland, however, our world-leading LGBT education policy will have no exemptions or opt-outs. It will embed LGBTI-inclusive education across the curriculum and subjects, which the Scottish Government believe to be a world first.

We talk about religious tolerance and freedom, but every religion has a spectrum. I am always minded to mention Vicky Beeching, who is a champion of inclusion and diversity in the Christian faith. She is a lesbian but also identifies as an evangelical Christian. When she came out a few years ago, before I came out, I had a discussion with her at an event about her experience. She faced a huge backlash and huge persecution, but she pressed on. Vicky’s book, “Undivided”, is absolutely worth the read—another one for Members to add to their reading list—and in it she talked about the reading and interpretation of the Bible and religious texts, and how certain communities can, for their own ends, interpret texts in a certain way. As we move on, as society progresses and evolves, people read those texts in different ways. I am not about to preach to any religion about how to look at its texts, but it is interesting that someone such as Vicky from the Christian community can talk from a scholarly and theological perspective about the Christian faith and how some in that faith have interpreted what the Bible says about LGBT people. It is vital to ensure that in our schools and societies, we recognise how society has moved on.

Pornography has become a huge issue, as many Members said, affecting young people’s sense of self and issues that they will come up against regarding consent. Not only in pornography but in advertising in general how our bodies are portrayed—how we should look, how women should look—is hugely damaging. If we do not teach our children how to interpret that and how to have meaningful, consensual and well-developed relationships, we are setting them up for spectacular failure. Some might argue that it is not for us legislators to interfere, but I absolutely take very seriously my responsibilities as an elected parliamentarian to ensure that children, wherever they are, are properly educated and prepared.

I am sure that the Minister will respond to the concerns expressed by some, and I take on board some concerns expressed by my own constituents, but I am also conscious of what the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) said: that there seems to be quite a lot of misinformation. The petition states:

“We have grave concerns about…about certain sexual and relational concepts”,

but it does not go into specifics. A lot of misinformation has seeped out into the public domain, and it is important that we counter it.

An incredible wealth of literature is out there to counter some of the narratives about sex, relationships and consent. I pay tribute to Lucy-Anne Holmes, the founder of the No More Page 3 campaign—it is a shame that the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion is no longer present, because she famously wore that T-shirt in the Chamber. Lucy-Anne Holmes did a huge amount for feminism, not only when she and her feminist colleagues managed to get rid of topless women on page 3, but in her work since then. She has just brought out a book, “Don’t Hold My Head Down”, which is a memoir about sex—another one for Members to add to their reading list. It talks about her journey into self-love and empowerment through sex, and about what healthy sex and relationships should and could look like.

When I read that book, it was almost like going on a journey through my own experiences. The reality is that so many of our young people are growing up in abusive relationships because they experience them at home or see them on television and in other media, and they do not understand what should be respectful and consensual. We must absolutely give them the best start in life by having inclusive education and doing everything we can to ensure that they are supported, can have fulfilling lives and, above all, are safe and protected.

[Mike Kane (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)]

It is always a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir David, but especially in this critical debate. I thank all Members who have taken part: the hon. Members for Henley (John Howell), for Congleton (Fiona Bruce), for Bolton West (Chris Green), for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas), for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson), for Strangford (Jim Shannon) and for Livingston (Hannah Bardell), my hon. Friends the Members for Birmingham, Ladywood (Shabana Mahmood), for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy), for Bradford West (Naz Shah), for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams) and for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick), and my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Liam Byrne). Everyone made excellent speeches.

The Government are right to be doing what they are doing. The common good is the maximum utility for the most number of people, but always with a preferential option for those who cannot go along with the decisions. My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Ladywood whetted my appetite regarding the culture wars today, but we must be careful not to engage in them. Government should and have a right to govern and bring forward guidance on this matter.

I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington North (Helen Jones), a woman with stunning oratory. She has absolutely brought due diligence to her work on the Petitions Committee and to introducing the debate today. She made powerful points that opened the debate up. I look forward to her soaring oratory when she winds up.

I just mentioned the common good; interestingly, the same concept exists in Judaism—tikkun olam—and in Islamic social thought, but we need to think about what that is. The hon. Member for East Antrim was right—I agreed with him—about one thing. As a school teacher myself, I used to rail against politicians in this place who thought that the answer to every social problem in our country was to get it on the school curriculum. It is not. Parents are the primary educators and we should remember that. The hon. Members for East Antrim and for Strangford might be on one side and the hon. Member for Livingston and my hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse slightly on the other side, but I think there was a great degree of consensus in the debate.

A champion of RSE was my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion), who got it included in the Children and Social Work Act 2017. Deciding what is in the national curriculum in social work Acts or amendments to them is not the proper way forward, or what I would want if I was in government, but she championed it, she won and here we are today. It is a shame that we did not have the guidance that would have informed this debate, and that the Secretary of State was on his feet in the main Chamber at the same time, but these are the circumstances in which we find ourselves. Proposals made by the Secretary of State at the time, the right hon. Member for Putney (Justine Greening), included making elements of PHSE mandatory in all schools and making new subjects—relationships education and relationships and sex education—mandatory at primary and secondary level respectively.

In the past, RSE was seen as an add-on, taught for an hour every fortnight by someone whose job it was not, or by an outside agency brought in to tick a particular box. That was backed up by the evidence of the Department for Education’s own data, which showed that time spent teaching PHSE fell 32% between 2011 and 2015. As a former PHSE co-ordinator I attribute some of that fall to my coming to Parliament.

High-quality relationships and sex education helps to create safe school communities where pupils can grow, learn and develop positive, healthy behaviour for life. Inadequate RSE leaves pupils vulnerable to abuse or exploitation, without an understanding of how to negotiate risky situations or where to go to for help. Statutory RSE needs to be part of the overall teacher training programme, and any qualified teachers whose role includes teaching it must be appropriately equipped and resourced. It needs to be done sensitively.

I taught year 5, including the sex education programme, for a number of years. There was a really well-developed policy through the Standing Advisory Council for Religious Education, local religious organisations and the local education authority. There was a sense of subsidiarity in how it was done in local areas. We lose that slightly through the multi-academy trust system, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill, pointed out. The policy was overseen by the headteacher, we held consultation meetings with all the parents of that class, we did one-to-ones, and we had an accelerated learning programme where objectives were clearly marked out and outcomes noted. It was done late into the term, when I had established good relationships with each child. It was overseen by a parent governor—Mrs Rocca in my case, who was also the school’s secretary—who would sit in on some of the lessons if the headteacher did not.

I would present myself at the school gates at the end of every day of those lessons, to ensure parents could interact with me. At the end of the lesson, when we had reached the objectives, the children could place a question into the pot and we would have an open, honest and constructive conversation about the questions they had. It was done really well at my school; I taught it well, but it was down to really strong leadership from the headteacher.

The Minister needs to outline what budget and resources his Department has identified to support schools, such as the school where I taught, so that teachers can deliver RSE effectively. The Government’s draft guidance clearly sets out the rights of parents and carers to withdraw pupils from sex education, but not relationships education. It also notes that the role of parents in the development of their children’s understanding of relationships is vital—they are the primary educators—and that all schools should work closely with parents when planning and delivering these subjects, to ensure all children and young people receive age-appropriate RSE. The Minister will probably touch upon whether it will be the same for LEA schools as for free schools and academies. We know there are differences in how the national curriculum is delivered.

For primary schools, the draft guidance states that headteachers will automatically grant a request to withdraw a pupil from any sex education that is not part of the science curriculum. For secondary schools, parents will still have a right to request to withdraw children from all sex education delivered as part of statutory RSE, and the request will be granted in all but exceptional circumstances. That will apply up until three terms before a child turns 16, at which point a child will be able to opt in to sex education if they so choose. The guidance is also clear that as primary educators, parents must be consulted on their school’s curriculum for relationships and relationships and sex education.

Children need to be taught what a coercive relationship is, whether violent or sexual. The Government have done remarkable work and I commend the Prime Minister —I rarely say that—on her work to combat human trafficking and the problems it creates. Children need to be taught what is appropriate and what is not when they meet people.

There is a danger that without a clearer steer from Government there will be big variations in what schools deem consultation with parents to be. That was the key message of the eloquent speech from my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill, about the issues at Parkfield. Will the Minister indicate what guidance and support will be available for primary schools to engage with parents on the RSE curriculum?

Views expressed through the consultation are helping to shape the final regulations and guidance, and the Department for Education expects to lay the regulations in spring 2019, alongside final draft guidance. We are expecting schools to be ready to deliver the statutory RSE curriculum in September, so there is not much time for consultation with parents and appropriate training and resources for teachers. Will the Minister outline the consideration he has given to the ability of schools to deliver within those timescales?

RSE is sensitive and can be emotive. Our priority has to be to keep our children healthy and safe. Like many in this Chamber, I believe that age-appropriate RSE should be a statutory subject in schools in order to teach children about mutual respect and the importance of healthy relationships. Its role does not end there. Greater Manchester Police are increasingly worried about child exploitation, but they are more worried about criminal child exploitation. Last year, just short of 10,000 children were off-rolled in years 9 and 10. The state had no idea where those children were. I have criticised the Minister about that, because it makes our young people hugely vulnerable.

[Hannah Bardell]

The hon. Gentleman makes a particularly pertinent point. The rise in the development of apps and threats to children online are so quick that many parents cannot keep up. Parents who take their children out of school will not have the information to give them the help and support they will need.

[Mike Kane]

I am sympathetic to that argument, but schools are increasingly off-rolling children and they are not being taught. The key vulnerability is in the home, but there are children outside who are not in school, which is a breeding ground for criminals who want to exploit children. I congratulate the hon. Lady on her powerful personal testimony.

Children must know their rights if they are to exercise them throughout their lives. Relationships and sex education is most effective when it sits as part of a whole-school approach embedded across the curriculum with well-trained staff, with an option for those with religious beliefs to have an input in that system. The Government must ensure schools have the resources to deliver that.