Relationships and Sex Education

Debate between Helen Jones and John Hayes

Monday 25th February 2019 Westminster Hall

[Helen Jones]

I really must make some progress. I am sorry.

Of course, many parents want schools to be involved in teaching RSE, as do many young people. Research done for Ofsted in 2013 showed that many secondary school pupils felt that too much of their education was on the mechanics of reproduction, and that there was not enough about emotions, relationships, dealing with pornography and so on.

Prior to the debate, the Petitions Committee met some young people in Parliament’s education centre. As one of them said to us, “If you’re opted out, you can just google it.” That is the problem we face; that is the reality of life. Nevertheless, it is true that parents have a right to request an opt-out from sex education for their child, which the guidelines say should be automatically granted in primary schools and should be granted except in exceptional circumstances in secondary schools. I was quite concerned about that, but I have actually been convinced by something sent to me by the Catholic Education Service, which supports the opt-out on the ground that it gives heads the opportunity to discuss with parents why the lessons are important and why it is much better for children to be there, rather than getting a garbled version from their friends in the playground. That approach clearly works, because the opt-out rate in Catholic schools is very low, at about 1 in 7,800 children. That is in a faith-based education system.

That opt-out applies to the sex education element, not to personal, social, health and economic education or relationships education, and not to stuff in the science curriculum, which is part of the national curriculum. It is also true—certainly in the draft guidelines and I presume the formal ones—that the Government suggest that children can opt back in three terms before they reach the age of 16. Case law no longer supports an automatic and continuing opt-out, so we need to reach a sensible balance on when young people can decide for themselves.

All parents face this problem, whether in deciding when children can go to the shops on their own or when their children are deciding on a career. It is hard. I remember the first time we allowed my son to walk up the road on his own to post a letter; we were hanging out of the bedroom window, keeping an eye on him for as long as possible. However, as parents, we have to realise that, while our job is to try to set our children on the right path, they will eventually make their own choices, which may not be the same ones that we would make.

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Helen Jones]

I will give way once more and then I will have to wind up.

[Sir John Hayes]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady; she has been very generous. Of course she is right to say that good parents take the view that she has just described about their children. Much the best way of growing up to be a well balanced, kind, caring and loving person is to have well balanced, kind and caring parents. It is in the home that people’s ideas are first shaped and formed, notwithstanding the influences to which they are subject later on. For that reason, parents and parental choice are critically important.

[Helen Jones]

Yes. As I have said, parents are vital to all of their child’s education, but particularly to relationships and sex education, and good schools want to work in partnership with parents. However, unless we allow our children to make choices, they will not develop the skills and the emotional resilience that they need in adult life, and I think that what the Government have suggested is a reasonable compromise.

So what is the problem? I think, from the correspondence that I have had, that it centres on the teaching of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender issues. Let us be honest, there is nothing new about this. Since 2010, schools have had a duty under the Equality Act of that year to deliver an inclusive and non-discriminatory curriculum, and many schools have gone further than that. I will refer again to a Catholic school, simply because that is the system I know. Cardinal Newman high school in Luton, for instance, has had all its teachers trained in LGBT and gender issues, so that they can tackle bullying and ensure that they give children the right guidance.

In the end, this is actually not about what someone called background indoctrination. We cannot indoctrinate someone to be gay any more than we can indoctrinate someone who is gay to be heterosexual, although practitioners of some very nasty conversion therapies have tried in the past. This is about respect for difference and recognising that we live in a pluralistic free society. If I demand respect for my faith, which is a minority faith in this country, I have to give the same respect to other people’s faith, but also to the choices that other people may make in life. This is about tackling bullying: 45% of LGBT people have been bullied at school. That has to end. Young people have to know that whoever they are, whatever their sexuality, they will be welcomed and cared for.

Most schools and, I think, most parents, whatever their background or religious affiliation, would have no problem whatever with that, but there has been a lot of misinformation going around, so I say to parents who are concerned, “First, talk to your child’s teachers. Go in; don’t let other people tell you what they are doing. Go and have a look at the materials they are using. Go and talk to them about what they are trying to achieve. And you will see that there is very little to worry you there.”

I say to the Minister—this is not a phrase often heard from my lips—that I think the Government have got this about right. There is the right to an opt-out in certain circumstances. There has to be a right for children to opt in at some stage, and I think that the Government have got the age for that about right—in other words, just before they leave school. I also say to parents, “Trust your children. If you have brought them up with the right values and the right perspectives on life, you have nothing to fear from this.” It really is about creating a society in which we can respect one another, respect our differences and work together. At a time when society seems to be becoming more and more polarised and people are shouting at one another on social media all the time, that is a sensible and reasonable thing to do and is good for all of us.

Infrastructure Bill [Lords]

Debate between Helen Jones and John Hayes

Monday 8th December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hayes]

As the hon. Lady suggests, the kind of future that I anticipate is very different from the one that she sees, for my kind of future is ambitious for Britain and virtuous in its intent; I am not sure that that is true of hers. I do not mean to be unkind in any way. However, as I said, I will come to invasive species by those that are apparently ornamental when they first arrive but turn out to be nothing but a nuisance.

Hon. Members will see a virtuous pattern that demonstrates my and the Government’s unrelenting commitment to delivering better infrastructure. At the heart of the autumn statement made by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor last week was the biggest and most far-reaching roads programme in decades, with over 100 improvements to our major roads. As the House knows, that extra capacity will be underpinned by £15 billion of investment. Better infrastructure means more jobs, more opportunities and more growth. Those things will ultimately help to build a better future, drive down the deficit and inspire our people.

On taking office, we produced the first ever national infrastructure plan. We have made big calls on HS2, on Crossrail—the biggest construction project in Europe—and on shale gas exploration. We have got Britain building, with over 500,000 new homes built since April 2010.

[Helen Jones (Warrington North) (Lab)]

The broad sunlit uplands that the Minister is describing mean absolutely nothing to people in my constituency threatened with the untried technology of fracking without sufficient safeguards, which would wreck many of our villages and suburbs. Does he think that that is all right because it is going to happen in what his noble Friend Lord Howell calls the “desolate” north?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Helen Jones and John Hayes

Thursday 31st March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hayes]

Yes, we spoke earlier about the importance of using those skills to create a bridge from disengagement to engagement. No one has been a doughtier champion of the need to stand up for those people than my hon. Friend. That requires a raising of the status of apprenticeships, but it also requires better progression, which is why I want to build an accessible, navigable and seductive vocational ladder that people can climb.

[Helen Jones (Warrington North) (Lab)]

May I ask the Minister what discussions he has had with his counterparts in the Department for Education? The Secretary of State for Education consistently downgrades vocational qualifications in school. We cannot expect adults to value vocational education if we do not value it throughout the system. Is there not a disjunction in Government policy?

[Mr Hayes]

I am, for the purposes of this conversation at least, the Department for Education, and I can assure the hon. Lady that the Secretary of State for Education is wholly committed to this route. Indeed, his oral statement to the House earlier this week cemented and reinforced his commitment to apprenticeships and vocational learning.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Helen Jones and John Hayes

Monday 15th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Helen Jones (Warrington North) (Lab)]

9. What discussions he has had with head teachers on the Government’s plans to end the education maintenance allowance.

[The Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning (Mr John Hayes)]

In reaching the decision to end the EMA scheme, we have focused on the evaluation evidence and other research which indicates that EMA does not effectively target those young people who need financial support to enable them to participate in learning. It will be replaced by a scheme that does.

[Helen Jones]

I take it from that that the Minister has not had any discussions with head teachers. When he does, does he think that they will welcome taking on the role of prying into family finances as well as their other duties? What implications does he foresee for the relationship between the young person and their school or college if they are turned down for financial support? Will there be an appeals system to ensure that the process is fair?

[Mr Hayes]

In my ministerial role, I have conversations all the time with head teachers and college principals. What I know—I am sorry that the hon. Lady does not know this, because she cares about these things deeply—is that such people are almost always best placed to make the sensitive judgments about learners that she describes.