Parental Involvement in Teaching: Equality Act

Lloyd Russell-Moyle Excerpts

Tuesday 25th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Godsiff]

I have made it clear that I am not giving way.

The parents therefore had their own meeting and, after asking the brother of one parent who is in the property business and is well educated and articulate, to be the co-ordinator, they began their protests, on which I will touch in a minute. The common theme that links these two schools is that parents at both schools were neither consulted nor involved in how the nine protected characteristics were to be imparted to children. Parents were excluded entirely from the process, although the Equality Act is not an exam subject, for example, like English or mathematics.

All schools call regular meetings of parents when they want to inform them about important issues. It is part and parcel of school life for regular meetings to take place with parents, but no meetings with parents were held at the two schools.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)]

Will he give way?

[Mr Godsiff]

I will not.

The question that those who have sought to characterise the disputes at both schools as a clash of cultures should be asking is, what have the headteachers and their staff at 256 primary schools got right with the support of their parents, while in two schools it seems to have gone very wrong? I turn briefly to the protests outside the school in my constituency.

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[Mr Godsiff]

No, I have given way on a lot of things.

Furthermore, the police who were present wore body cameras and were asked by the organisers of the protest to check whether any placards contravened the law. I understand that only one placard was deemed inappropriate at an early protest, and the people carrying the banner were told not to bring it again.

I make these points because I believe the parents have not had a fair chance to put their side of the dispute. They have been branded professional agitators, accused by a councillor of not having children at the school, called a “mob” and told that they are spewing out homophobic hatred. These mothers have been smeared, and the fact that the local Member of Parliament, having weighed up the evidence and listened to all sides of the argument, came to the conclusion that the people protesting had just reason to complain and protest merely added a target for the witch hunters and increased the lust for a sacrifice, irrespective of the facts.

I return to a couple of specific questions, which I supplied to the Minister before the debate. I ask these questions because I suspect many primary school head- teachers watching this debate, like their colleagues in Birmingham, want to know whether they are inadvertently contravening the law in how they impart the nine protected characteristics of the Equality Act to their pupils.

As I have said, 256 of 258 primary schools in Birmingham are, in different ways, ensuring that their pupils know when they transfer to secondary school that any form of discrimination, victimisation, prejudice or bullying of other people who fall within the nine protected characteristics is unlawful. They do this by engaging with parents to explain the nine characteristics, by having workshops about the individual characteristics, by having ongoing consultations with the parents and showing them the type of material they propose to use, and by engaging with parents about what age is most appropriate for the various characteristics.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

Have you read the material?

[Mr Godsiff]

I will come to that point in a minute.

The parents want clarification. First, they want to know whether it is permissible for headteachers to partner with parents to decide how the nine protected characteristics are imparted to pupils, bearing in mind that parents cannot have any veto over which characteristics are taught. Secondly, they would like to know whether the nine protected characteristics have to be taught all together, or whether they can be spread out and imparted to pupils throughout their time in primary school, taking into account at what age the head and/or parents consider it most age-appropriate for each protected characteristic to be imparted to the children.

I ask those questions because many primary heads are looking at what has happened at the two schools where controversy has arisen and do not want to be accused of discrimination, which is of course illegal, in the way they deal with the Equality Act and the nine protected characteristics. I would be grateful for clarity from the Minister, because this will affect the relationships education provision that comes in in 2020 and that can be introduced in September 2019, which is much more specific about the terms “consultation” and “age appropriateness”.

I have no opinion on the ages at which primary school children should be introduced to the provisions of the nine protected characteristics. For example, I attended a recent meeting held by the headteachers’ union here in the Commons, in Committee Room 9. A headteacher—he may have been a deputy head—from Manchester argued forcefully that the whole “age appropriate” concept should be scrapped completely and that children aged two should be introduced to the provisions of the protected characteristics. If the parents of the children involved are happy with that, who am I to say it should not happen? But parents, who in international law have the prime responsibility for the upbringing of their children, have to be partners with schools in the making of such decisions.

Likewise, I have no prescribed views about what teaching materials should be used. I believe that schools and parents should make the decision after proper consultation, which is what is currently happening in most schools. In respect of the question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Lloyd Russell-Moyle) from a sedentary position earlier, yes, I have now read most of the books that my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty) has given to me. Some of them are very good—“The Little Mermaid” is particularly good, and I have just got a copy for my grandchild—but my Muslim constituents would like to talk through some of the other books with the school to understand what the concepts are. They cannot talk it through with the school if the school will not have consultation.

I regret the controversies that have arisen around the two schools in Birmingham. I believe they could have been avoided if the schools had taught the provisions of the Equality Act in different ways and taken the parents’ concerns into account. For my part, I apologise unreservedly for any offence caused to any person of whatever sexual orientation by anything I have said or written. In particular, I apologise unreservedly to members of the LGBT community in Birmingham and throughout the country for anything I may have said or written that has caused offence to them. I assure you, Mr Speaker, that it most certainly was not intended.

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[Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)]

I grew up in a relatively white, and middle-class we could say, suburb of Brighton: a town called Lewes. The people of Lewes will hate me calling it a suburb of Brighton, but it is. And I could have lived my life as a child never really interacting with people of different faiths, and never really interacting with and learning about different kinds of family units. I grew up in a family of a mum and a dad who were married before I was born and who remain married now, but the reason why I understand that there are different family units and people of different religions is that from the very get-go at school we read books and were told stories about different families. When the school was going to introduce a book about a child who was perhaps Muslim, it did not call an all-parents meeting to consult and say, “We’re going to be introducing a book which will introduce a character this semester or term who might not quite look like the kind of characters that you see every day in Lewes.” No, the school got on with it, and parents accepted it because leadership was shown not just by schools but by many people in the community making it clear that that was the right thing to do.

These are often rather mundane books. Many of these stories and educational methods are pretty mundane and may be about a mermaid or two penguins, or whatever the particular story is about; they are not actually that exciting. When they are being introduced, do I expect the headteacher to have to call an all-parents assembly to consult on that particular fiction book that is going to be introduced, and which is at the right reading level and of course is generally appropriate for those children? No, I do not. Actually, I think it is rather dangerous to expect teachers to have to teach on that basis. It would be ridiculous if they had to call an all-school assembly every time they wanted to introduce something new in biology, for example, or if they were going to teach arithmetic this month rather than just equations.

The approach that we need to adopt in treating this issue is one of talking about all the different ways the world works through storytelling and narrative telling. This is not about telling individuals what goes in and what goes out; it is about talking about what love means. That is also important for keeping our children safe. If we do not teach children the basic facts about what appropriate relationships are, what friendships mean by comparison with loving relationships, or how relationships between adults differ from relationships between children, we allow them to be vulnerable to predators, either at that young age or later on in life.

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

The hon. Gentleman is making a really excellent speech. My daughter has just come back from school—the Scottish schools finish up pretty soon—with a whole bundle of things that she has learned in primary 1. A lot of that is about relationships and it is pretty basic stuff. Does he agree that if some children in a class are not taught the same things as all the others, they will find out about them from the other children in the class anyway? They might as well all get the same information and a good, responsible education from their teachers.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

Quite! We all know how the game of Chinese whispers works, and the danger is that if children learn things second hand, the message will have been garbled or lost by the time it reaches the third child down. If we are going to teach our children about these ideas of respect and if we are going to keep them safe, we need to do that in a whole way.

I was taught by my parents that of course it did not matter who you fell in love with. I can remember as a child hearing nursery rhymes about falling in love with different groups of people. That is the kind of family I grew up in, and I feel very proud to have had parents who introduced those concepts. My sister is a happily married heterosexual, and she had those songs sung to her as well when she was young. They did not make me gay, but they made me feel comfortable with who I was. Let us be honest, however. Parents are loving, but there is no qualification to be a parent. There are some good parents and some bad parents. My mother is a linguist and an English teacher, but she knows absolutely nothing about physics or maths—she dropped out of science at GCSE—and if I had been taught science by my mother, I would not have been able to go on to do my physics and chemistry A-levels, as I did. We understand that parents are the primary lovers of their children, but they are not always the best people to give them a holistic, rounded education, because they have not experienced all the different elements and aspects of the world.

People in positions of responsibility, whether they are teachers or Members of Parliament, have a responsibility in these debates to show leadership. It was the Labour Government between 1997 and 2010 who showed leadership. If we had followed the mob and listened to what the opinion polls were saying at the time, it is unlikely that we would have made much progress at all on LGBT rights. We would not have made progress on abolishing section 28, for example, because Brian Souter was busy ploughing money in to garner public opinion in one way. We as politicians have to recognise that public opinion can be whipped up by dangerous forces, and we have a moral responsibility to sometimes make a judgment, not on whether there has been consultation—that was a totally vacuous argument that had no content to it—but on the content of the objections, to analyse and review them. That is something that the hon. Member for Birmingham, Hall Green (Mr Godsiff) has failed to do in this debate even once. Not once did he articulate the problems with the content of the curriculum.

[Lilian Greenwood]

Like many Members in this debate, my hon. Friend is making a powerful and moving speech. Does he share my concern that although lots of parents are perfectly satisfied with what is being taught in schools and perfectly happy that their children are being taught about respect and about different families, the kind of protests we have seen could result in those parents feeling unable to express that view because they feel intimidated and unable to stand up for the things that they would like their children to be taught about and that children themselves want to be taught?

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

I totally agree. It is even more important that a Member of Parliament, and I would not want to tell anyone how to do their job, should not go and plonk themselves down on one side of the debate without analysing—my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty) gave resources to the hon. Member for Birmingham, Hall Green—the content of what is being discussed. It is extremely dangerous not to show that leadership, and that is why the debate was wrong from the beginning. The hon. Member for Birmingham, Hall Green has been deeply wrong in how he has handled the issue. Pandering to the mob is never right. It is always easy for an MP to do, but we go in the wrong direction if we do it.

Let us remember that one of the things that instigated section 28 was the book “Jenny lives with Eric and Martin”. It is a pretty mundane and boring book: Jenny goes and has an ice cream; Jenny has a book read to her by one of her fathers. It is hardly high literature. There was a backlash, against a backdrop of rising right-wing tension—[Interruption.] I thought you said something, Mr Speaker. Of course, that led to the introduction of section 28. I do not think that we are on the verge of section 28 being introduced again, but we must be vigilant about bringing people along on that journey.

I shall conclude with two points. First, there is a place for parents on that journey, not to consult them on whether something should be included in the curriculum or not but, to some extent, to make up for the fact that we had section 28 for so long. Many parents failed to receive that level of education and understanding. There is a purpose in reaching out to the community.

Secondly, before I became an MP, I wrote an education resource for the Council of Europe on how we talked to educated children under 10 about sexuality and different families. The Council of Europe hardly draws its members from purely progressive countries—it includes Russia, Turkey and Poland—and the resource was accessible in all those countries. I am proud of that resource, which a team helped to write. People in the Council of Europe, including British Ministers, helped to lead a debate at that level to change attitudes and run campaigns to change minds and educate people.

We have not really received an apology. What we heard was a defence of the position taken by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Hall Green, with a little apology at the end. I wish that he had just been honest about having real problems with the content of the teaching or said that he had not decided to take one side or the other. What we now have is a very disappointing outcome.

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[Nick Gibb]

I am happy to work with the hon. Gentleman. Of course, we work with the devolved Administrations on this and other issues in relation to education. The guidance was carefully crafted to build the widest possible consensus for this policy, which is why it went through this House with an overwhelming majority and the other House without a Division. Those people who are opposed to it are at the other end of that consensus. I am afraid that it is unlikely that we will bring those extreme ends of the debate into that consensus, but I am very content that we have secured the support of the Catholic Church, the Church of England and organisations such as Stonewall for the guidance we have created.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

I thank the Minister for describing the people who have objections as being at the real fringes. The difficulty is that if there is a requirement on headteachers to consult, and that opens the door for these fringe elements to hijack and disrupt, how should headteachers respond? Will the Department issue guidance to prevent that from happening? Will he ensure that even when consultation happens, it is not consultation with a veto by those fringe groups, but consultation to bring people along, as this is happening and it is not a question of if, when and how; this is just so that everyone can understand how. That is what we mean by consultation in this case. This is a bit unclear.

[Nick Gibb]

I will come to these points later in my comments, but let me say that consultation is not a vote. Ultimately, the decision about the content of the curriculum is for schools, and as I have said, we are today issuing materials, with the final version of the guidance, to schools to help them in the process of engaging with parents. But I listened to the comments about campaigning and standing up to the campaigns against RSE, and we will consider what hon. Members have said in this debate.

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[Nick Gibb]

I think that the hon. Lady is being unjust in how she is interpreting what I have said. I made it very clear that the school should consult parents. I made it very clear that the school is not bound by a vote of those parents—that ultimately the decision on the content of the curriculum, and how and when it is taught, is a matter for the school—and that we will support the school in that decision once it has been reached. We have also made it very clear that we do not support protests outside schools that require young children to—to use her phrase—run the gauntlet of screaming and shouting protesters. We absolutely do not support those protests. We supported Birmingham City Council in taking out the injunction against those protests. I think she is being slightly unfair in the way that she has heard my speech.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

I am slightly concerned that we are getting caught up in the wrong way about age-appropriateness. The Minister referred to the times when this education would be introduced, full stop—in other words, it could be brought forward or delayed. My understanding is that this education around being safe, around safeguarding of children and around what are appropriate relationships should start from the very beginning of school and go all the way through. Age-appropriateness is about what is age-appropriate at each level and how we address it at each level, not about whether it is introduced at each level. We need to be clear about this, because there was a danger that he started to sound like some of the few fanatical bigots that the hon. Member for Birmingham, Hall Green (Mr Godsiff) sided with rather than the people with progressive morals that we want to side with.

[Nick Gibb]

Relationships education is required to be taught from the very beginning of primary school, but of course it does have to be age-appropriate. It is about friends, and sharing, and learning about the importance of family. [Interruption.] No, there is no intention of delaying the introduction of relationships education. What is a matter for the school is when more sensitive issues are taught. That really is ultimately a matter for the school to decide. In doing so, it should consult parents, but that does not mean that parents have a veto on the decisions that it takes.

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[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

Will the Minister give way?

[Nick Gibb]

I will give way for the final time.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

Can the right hon. Gentleman clarify for me what we mean, in this context, by “sensitive”? Do we mean talking about families with single parents, and so on, or are we talking about trans issues? What is “sensitive”? I am a bit confused, and I am worried that that word will be used as a hook on which to hang things that we might not want to put on it.

[Nick Gibb]

That, again, is a matter for the judgment of the school. The school will know its communities, and that is why we are saying—and it is a requirement—that on these issues the schools should be consulting parents. All the best schools in the country consult their parents on a wide range of issues, and they may even consult them on issues such as arithmetic. It is very important to have parental engagement with a school. I know schools that talk to parents about how reading is taught in their schools—if they are introducing a new phonics scheme, they will want to talk to parents about such issues. So I think parental engagement is important on this particular curriculum.

The Secretary of State and I are clear that we support any school that, having engaged with parents and listened to their views, takes a reasonable decision to teach their pupils about LGBT people and relationships. The guidance on relationships education and RSE makes it clear that pupils should receive LGBT-inclusive relationship and sex education during their school years. The Department strongly encourages primary schools to teach about families with same-sex parents. In most cases that will be possible and will be an important part of the education about respect for difference that is right for all pupils. I hope that in all cases, parents will have discussed these topics with their child’s school and have an understanding of their approach. I hope that they will have satisfied themselves that the school is teaching the right things at the right age to complement what they teach their child on the importance of respecting other people.

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Birmingham, Hall Green for his views on this important topic. Parents are the primary educators of their children, and on matters such as equality, respect and relationships, schools complement what the child is taught at home. It is therefore crucial that schools and parents engage in constructive dialogue to understand each other’s views. Only through open communication can trust be built and maintained, and proper respect shown for difference.

Question put and agreed to.