Relationships and Sex Education

Debate between Helen Jones and Seema Malhotra

Monday 25th February 2019 Westminster Hall

[Helen Jones]

All of this is about trying to reach a sensible compromise.

[Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Helen Jones]

I want to make a little progress.

One thing to note is that primary schools are not obliged to teach sex education, but it is recommended that they take steps to prepare children for puberty. As puberty happens much earlier in children now, that seems sensible. Crucially, on the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry South (Mr Cunningham), the guidelines say that schools must take into account the religious beliefs of their pupils when drawing up their programmes, and that faith schools may use their faith to inform their teaching. In fact, the guidance suggests that a dialogue should take place on issues regarded as contentious.

When I taught years ago, that is exactly what we did; it is not new in any way. I spent my teaching career in Catholic schools. We would teach—particularly our older children—what the Church taught and what others believed, and we would have a debate about it. There are good reasons for that. First, schools do not want to produce people who cannot put forward a rational argument, and faith schools certainly do not want to produce children who cannot defend their faith. Secondly, I have yet to find anyone who can stop a teenager arguing about any of this.

There are, of course, those who say that all this should be down to parents, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Warley (John Spellar) mentioned. Parents are clearly crucial in all this and should be partners with schools. However, let us be honest: some parents do not do it, and some increasingly find themselves all at sea in dealing with online risks, domestic violence, grooming and so on. I was struck, even years ago, by the amount of wrong information and misinformation that children have in their heads. That was before the internet.

[Helen Jones]

I do. As I said, all of this is about trying to reach a sensible and reasonable compromise between competing issues.

[Seema Malhotra]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Helen Jones]

If my hon. Friend will forgive me, I must make a little progress, because lots of people want to speak.

Before the internet, children had enough wrong information in their heads. With the rise of the internet and stuff available at a few clicks, it is essential that we give children a proper education that protects them from some of the wrong information and ideas online, and that shows them what good, healthy relationships look like. Research from the Children’s Commissioners shows that many of our young people do not know what a healthy sexual relationship looks like and do not understand the concept of consent. That is very dangerous. It is why four Select Committee Chairs wrote to the Government in 2016 asking for relationships and sex education to be made mandatory in schools; it is why the Women and Equalities Committee, in its inquiry into sexual harassment and sexual violence in schools, asked for the same thing; and it is why that request is supported by Members from across the House.

This is about applying a bit of common sense to this situation and looking at the world that our children are growing up in, which is not the same one that we grew up in. I say with great respect to parents who think that their children are not seeing all this online stuff that, although they may think that they are controlling what is on their children’s phones or iPads, they are not controlling what their children see with their friends or what is passed around in the playground and so on.

It is shocking that 28% of 11-year-olds have viewed pornography. Unless we want them to grow up thinking that what they see is normal and a proper relationship, we need to do something about it. By not doing anything, we are not leaving our children innocent. We are actually leaving them to the worst possible teacher: the internet.

[Seema Malhotra]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[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.