Relationships Education: LGBT Content

Debate between Nick Fletcher and Elliot Colburn

Monday 18th March 2024 Westminster Hall

[Nick Fletcher (Don Valley) (Con)]

rose—

[Elliot Colburn]

I suspect that I will come on to both Members’ points. I will finish this point, and if they still want to intervene, I will gladly give way.

Many of the examples that have been used come from other jurisdictions—one is from the Isle of Man, and many are from the United States of America—and others are anecdotal claims that have not been backed up with any evidence. Indeed, in the case of the protests outside schools in Birmingham, a High Court judge ruled that what was being taught in schools was being grossly misrepresented.

That is not to say that sometimes things do not go wrong, and I will come to that, but the research suggests that the opposite is often the case: schools are not teaching young people key aspects of the curriculum, rather than going to the other extreme. The Sex Education Forum’s polling of young people aged 16 and 17 found that basic mandatory aspects of the curriculum, such as healthy relationships and how to access sexual health services, are frequently missed, with close to three in 10 young people saying they had not learned how to tell, for example, whether a relationship is healthy.

When providing a universal service such as education, it is naive to think that things sometimes do not go wrong, and I acknowledge the comments from the chief inspector of Ofsted that that has happened on occasion. There may well have been occasions where inappropriate things have been said or brought into classrooms, which is not acceptable, but there is a framework in place to deal with that, and we do not have to jump to erasing LGBT people entirely.

--- Later in debate ---

[Elliot Colburn]

The hon. Member is absolutely right. It comes back to the point I have been trying to make throughout: there may well have been occasions where things have gone wrong, but that is where we need to ensure that schools engage with parents and carers, fulfilling the statutory guidelines and allowing parents and carers to see the curriculum and help develop it. We also need to have these discussions based on fact.

[Nick Fletcher]

I thank my hon. Friend for what he has said so far. He has said that there is not enough evidence of this material. Will he meet me later this week so that I can set out all the evidence we have? I have also shared it with the Department for Education, because to say it is not out there is completely and utterly wrong. It is out there, and in my speech I will be mentioning all the different companies that are sharing it. I am afraid some it is completely abhorrent.

[Elliot Colburn]

I am always happy to meet my hon. Friend. We sit on the Petitions Committee together and I am sure we can happily have that chat. To clarify, I am not saying that the material is not out there. I think I have made that clear in my speech so far, but I apologise if I have not. I want to be crystal clear that with a universal service that everybody gets, such as education or health, it is inevitable that sometimes things go wrong. What I am saying is that there is no statistical data to back up the idea that this is a widespread problem, so rather than trying to erase LGBT people from existence in schools, we need to look at why teachers do not feel confident delivering such material and why, on occasion, people sometimes invite inappropriate stuff into the classroom. I agree with my hon. Friend that if material is not age-appropriate, it should absolutely not be in our classrooms. The point I was trying to make was about ensuring that schools feel confident delivering the information and that parents feel empowered, but I am always happy to meet my hon. Friend.

Transgender Conversion Therapy

Debate between Nick Fletcher and Elliot Colburn

Monday 13th June 2022 Westminster Hall

[Elliot Colburn]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention, which highlights the fact that we do need to have respectful debates on both sides of the argument.

It might help, for the purposes of today’s debate, to narrow down exactly what the petition asks for and what this debate is all about. To be crystal clear, it is not about reforming the Gender Recognition Act 2004, nor is it about access to single-sex spaces, trans women in sport, trans women in prisons, or any of the other issues that have caused such a stir in this place, in the media, in academia, and beyond. This debate and this petition are specifically about the harmful practices of so-called conversion therapy and whether we, as a House and as a country, think it is acceptable for anyone, regardless of who they are, to be subjected to such things with no recourse to justice. I will argue that nobody should be denied access to justice if they are being subjected to the abhorrent practices encapsulated by so-called conversion therapy.

[Nick Fletcher (Don Valley) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that there are enough laws already in place to cover the abhorrent practices that he talks about? We will be creating a problem with freedom of speech and people being able to talk to their children about the way they feel about themselves.

[Elliot Colburn]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention, but I am afraid I do not agree. There is nothing in the proposals and the consultation that the Government set out to suggest that there would be an impact on freedom of speech. Although a lot of the practices—a point that I was going to come on to in a minute—are already outlawed, there are many forms of conversion practices that are not, which is why a ban is necessary.