RSE Curriculum: Northern Ireland Schools

Ian Paisley Excerpts

Tuesday 12th September 2023 Commons Chamber

[Carla Lockhart]

I want to get into that, in detail. The law on RSE in England changed three years ago and since then public concern has been building steam. Mistakes have been made, so much so that, as the hon. Lady says, the Government have had to bring forward their review of RSE and appoint an external body to assist the Department for Education here in its review.

What concerns me now is the risk of the same errors being repeated in Northern Ireland. I am asking the Government to take steps to ensure that we have a credible approach to RSE in Northern Ireland, which parents, teachers, schools and our community as a whole can have confidence in. Unfortunately, the Secretary of State has got off to a very bad start with his approach to introducing the regulations with a lack of consultation, scrutiny and the pretence of CEDAW—the convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women—being used to justify the move.

[Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)]

My hon. Friend must have been delighted at the turnout of over 1,000 schoolteachers, boards of governors and political representatives in her constituency last night, campaigning on this issue of letting kids be kids. Is that not the important message? As she rightly said, interfere in the education of our children at your peril. It will not be tolerated by people across the community in Northern Ireland. Is that not the message the Secretary of State should hear loud and clear?

[Carla Lockhart]

Absolutely. Parents, teachers and boards of governors are angry, frustrated and really concerned. That has been demonstrated through meetings held locally in Northern Ireland.

I am about operating in the realms of reality. I am not about platitudes or throwaway lines that will be forgotten. I am about protecting our children and young people. I come asking the Government to listen to the concerns and to make amends. The changes as per the Northern Ireland RSE 2023 regulations are deeply concerning. They will change RSE teaching in Northern Ireland in post-primary schools, forcing the teaching of contraception and abortion. That, coupled with the long-term agenda of implementing the RSE progression framework, has invoked so much anger and genuine concern.

When it comes to teaching about abortion, the Government have sought to reassure us that it should take place in

“a factual way that does not advocate, nor oppose, a particular view on the moral and ethical considerations of abortion”.

But such assurances are impossible to deliver. The very act of teaching about abortion is not morally neutral. It normalises it, presenting the subject—the taking of innocent human lives at their most vulnerable stage—as a mere moral dilemma about which people may be free to disagree, whereas for those who are pro-life, human lives are at stake. Further, it diminishes the value of life because if young people are taught about the legal availability of abortion and how to access it, they are more likely to do so in greater numbers. We have seen that in England and Wales since the Abortion Act 1967 was introduced. Indeed, the widely used Sexwise RSE resource in England and Wales even teaches girls that they can go and do it privately without their parents knowing—so much for assurances on parental consultation.

The Secretary of State also sought to assure us that education on so-called

“sexual and reproductive health rights”

should be “scientifically accurate”. Again, I would point out that this is a cause of significant contention. For example, many people in Northern Ireland and many scientists would contend that an unborn baby is, scientifically, a human being. The Education for Choice website, recommended as an RSE resource in England and Wales, asserts that

“before the limit of viability…the foetus is not considered a human being”.

Such a claim is highly contentious and, I would suggest, neither neutral nor scientific. The point is that it is not possible to be neutral on this issue, where science and ethics are interwoven. It is highly likely that resources in Northern Ireland will therefore end up being biased, as in England and Wales. In short, these are matters which should be left to parents, not schools. RSE is not just like any other school subject. It deals with issues on which there are a wide range of views and perspectives. It is a highly sensitive topic that involves very personal issues, and it is critical for parents, teachers and school governors across Northern Ireland to feel confident that the regulations and the guidance now being drawn up recognise that. They need to know that the Government will ensure that schools understand the sensitivity of the topic, and approach it appropriately and in a way that respects the range of views that exist.

Unfortunately, in recent times it has seemed that one view is not respected: that of the Christian, or of the citizen who values life and respects others. The pro-life view is scorned—the view that those who do not want to get pregnant should not have sex, the view that teaches faithfulness in relationships, and the view that subscribes only to the fact that a boy is born a boy and a girl is born a girl and there are not more than 100 different gender ideologies, and that it is ludicrous that people can now identify as cats, dogs and foxes. I say this not to provoke but because these are the views of the vast majority of people in Northern Ireland and throughout this United Kingdom, and unfortunately they appear no longer to be welcome.

The vote on the amendment relating to RSE in Northern Ireland took place on 29 June, and the Secretary of State announced the result that evening in a speech at the PinkNews Belfast summer reception. Let me say seriously that if the aim is to give stakeholders in Northern Ireland confidence that RSE will be balanced and not partisan, objective and not ideological, and sensitive to the communities that schools serve, that was an odd choice.

The position of school governors must be respected. A major part of their role is to safeguard the ethos of schools and ensure that a school serves its local community, and to do so they need a degree of flexibility and freedom to make decisions on the school’s approach and policy. That cannot be dictated in detail from Belfast, still less from Westminster. Indeed, a large proportion of schools in Northern Ireland were not established by Government but by the Churches, and were later transferred—not sold—into Government hands on the understanding that they would continue to provide an education in accordance with their Church foundations. Of course I understand that the Government can now make law on the education that takes place in those schools, as they have now done in respect of teaching on contraception and abortion, but it is crucial for teaching to be handled in a sensitive and balanced manner that does not disempower governors in their important role. That is my first ask: for school governors to have the autonomy that will allow them to produce RSE policy in line with the school ethos.

Most young people in Northern Ireland grow up to form healthy relationships. Many form the stable families that are so important to the upbringing of children, providing the care, personal knowledge and understanding that only a parent can give. Safeguarding is important, and we are right to be alert to the very tragic cases in which parents present a risk of real harm to their children, but those cases are extremely rare—they are the exception to the universal rule that parents make the best parents, not the state—so parents must be given the power to make the final decisions.

--- Later in debate ---

[Robert Largan]

I will be coming to that report from the other place shortly.

[Ian Paisley]

rose—

[Robert Largan]

I am very short on time; I have only three minutes. If the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, I would like to make some progress.

[Ian Paisley]

It will be a short intervention—

[Robert Largan]

In that case, I will give way.

[Ian Paisley]

The Minister should accept that he is very popular tonight on his debut at the Dispatch Box.

As my colleagues have said, the mechanics of teaching sex, the mechanics of an abortion and the mechanics of contraception are one thing; this is about the teaching of values. Going through life, as we all know, is about one thing: relationships—relationships with each other, how we build those relationships, whether they become sexual, and whether they take place in a loving environment. When those values are removed, what happens to the things that we believe in passionately? It is, “You can have an abortion because it is an inconvenience to have a child.” That is where the problem comes. Can the Minister give us an assurance that values will be allowed to be kept, so that at the centre of all our relationships we have value?

[Robert Largan]

I am not sure that was quite the short intervention that the hon. Member promised. I reiterate what I said earlier about the need to have the education done in a factual way. But that does not exclude parents being able to teach those values to their children, which surely would be the most primary thing when it comes to this.

The Department for Education has confirmed that it intends to have the opt-out regulations in force on the same day as the guidance on the updated curriculum, which is 1 January next year. On 1 September, the Department for Education launched a consultation on the guidance and the opt-out regulations. This will run for 12 weeks, until 24 November. I encourage hon. Members who feel strongly about this to engage in that consultation. Northern Ireland Office officials will continue to work closely with the Department for Education as it works towards implementation of the curriculum.

Hon. Members have noted in this debate that the House of Lords brought the regulations to the special attention of the House as a result of their concerns about the decision not to publicly consult on them. The Secretary of State has already addressed the issues in a subsequent debate on those regulations, but I just reiterate that, in line with the Government’s statutory obligations under section 75 of the Northern Ireland Act 1998, and in consultation with the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland, the Government completed an equality assessment screening, the outcome of which did not indicate the need to consult publicly on the policy. The Secretary of State’s duty is clear that it requires topics such as abortion and contraception to be compulsory curriculum components. A public consultation would not change this requirement. As I have mentioned, there is the consultation now open on both the guidance and the opt-out provisions.

In closing, I reiterate that the Government have only stepped in where necessary on this issue to deliver on a statutory duty. In bringing forward these regulations—