Relationships, Sex and Health Education: Statutory Guidance

Lilian Greenwood Excerpts

Thursday 16th May 2024 Commons Chamber

[Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)]

The Children’s Commissioner has found that exposure to pornography is affecting children as young as eight— I am sure none of us would want that to be the case, but we have to deal with the world as it is, not as we might wish it to be. How will the Secretary of State support schools to manage pupils’ reactions to what they are seeing online—we know they are being exposed to things online that we wish they were not seeing—if those issues cannot be addressed in RSHE?

[Gillian Keegan]

Part of leadership and showing leadership is also dealing with those things we are not happy with. We are not happy that young children are having access to porn, which is why other measures are also being put in place through the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology. Of course, it is always possible that children get access to things that they should not see, and they might raise questions as a result of that. Usually, parents are the first educators of their children. Parents would be the first people to get that question, and they would certainly expect to help their child through those things. As I said, if a child raises a question with a teacher, the teacher will deal with that, but that is different from teaching and showing anything that is sexually explicit in a classroom. We want to ensure that children are not exposed to such things in the first place, because this is something that has changed, and we must show leadership to address that.