Sex and Relationship Education

Pamela Nash Excerpts

Tuesday 25th October 2011 Westminster Hall

[Pamela Nash (Airdrie and Shotts) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship for the first time, Mr Amess.

I start in the unusual situation of agreeing with everything said by the hon. Member for St Austell and Newquay (Stephen Gilbert). I congratulate the hon. Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom) on calling the debate, which is crucial and timely. It is right to discuss the matter now while the Government are reviewing the PSHE curriculum.

I also speak in the capacity of chair of the all-party group on HIV and AIDS, which has long campaigned for mandatory sex and relationship education at primary and secondary level. Its members are drawn from all political parties and we are extremely concerned about the rising levels of HIV infection in the UK, and the subsequent impact on public health. It is predicted that in 2012, the number of people in the UK who are HIV-positive will hit 100,000, a quarter of whom are unaware of their status. New HIV diagnoses in young people have risen by 48% in the past decade. That is horrendous.

My generation just missed the extremely successful Tombstone campaign in 1986. When I speak to my friends about HIV, it is not at the top of their list of priorities; they do not think it can affect them. The Minister recently told the Lords Select Committee on HIV and AIDS in the UK:

“When you have a survey that says one in four children are not taught about HIV, which is a deadly disease which can be simply avoided and simply caught, a lack of knowledge in this area is unforgiveable in our school system.”

A basic knowledge of HIV is essential to all our young people. HIV sadly remains a highly stigmatised condition, with the National AIDS Trust finding that one in three people diagnosed with HIV have experienced HIV-related discrimination. Research has shown a strong association between poor understanding of HIV and stigmatising attitudes. Good, comprehensive sex and relationship education would help to improve understanding of HIV, dispel myths and thus reduce stigma.

Lord Fowler’s recent Committee in the House of Lords reported that current policies to tackle HIV in the UK are “woefully inadequate”. One in four young people did not learn about HIV at school, which was condemned by the Minister. Young people simply are not learning the facts about HIV and AIDS, and that has to change if we are to make any headway in reversing the number of new infections.

I shall move on to the “Too much, too young” report, already mentioned. The hon. Member for South Northamptonshire is a known supporter of the report, which she launched earlier this year. Unfortunately, many of its claims are at best alarmist, if not simply false. The campaign suggested that children as young as five are being shown explicit cartoons and taught about sexual pleasure. If we look at the small print in the report, which I have with me, it is clear that the majority of that imagery is actually suggested for older children. I have found no evidence that younger children have seen such material. The sexual health charities that I have spoken to, including the National Aids Trust, the Family Planning Association, Brook and the Terrence Higgins Trust, are not aware of any school where that has taken place. Furthermore, they would never endorse that type of teaching.

All schools currently have the right to decide which resources to use when teaching children about sex and relationships, and have the right to consult parents and governors to decide which materials should be used. The suggestion that the materials that have been referred to are used as a matter of course, or that sex education campaigners would like materials to be imposed on schools is misleading and misrepresents the excellent work that many of those organisations do in campaigning for comprehensive, high-quality and age-appropriate sex and relationship education for all children.

We might like to live in a time when children did not grow up so quickly and their “innocence” was preserved until a later stage in life, but unfortunately that era, if it ever existed, is long gone. Children are curious about sexual relationships. We cannot and should not shield them from all the influences of the modern world. If they want information, they will find it from another source: teen magazines, the internet and gossiping friends in the playground.

In a survey by UNICEF and the Terrence Higgins Trust, three quarters of young people said that they used the internet to obtain information about sexual health. That risks children receiving inaccurate information. My fear about the suggestion by the hon. Member for South Northamptonshire of opt-in sex and relationship education is that many children would miss out. They would not receive sex and relationship education at home; indeed, they might be in a damaging and abusive situation at home.

I have no interest in promoting specific sexual behaviour or introducing concepts to children before they are ready to hear about them. Children are naturally inquisitive and will ask when they are ready to be taught. Primary school sex and relationship education is essential for laying the foundations to ensure that, when old enough, young people receive good sex and relationship education that gives them the information they need to make the right decisions to protect their health and well-being. Given that we have the highest rate of teen pregnancy in western Europe—it is falling, but slowly—it is clear that we are not getting that right, so I welcome the current Government review.

I want to raise a point about homophobia and the positive role that sex and relationship education at an early stage can play in tackling homophobic bullying, which has never been more prevalent in our schools than it is today. A recent YouGov poll found that nine in 10 secondary school teachers and 40% of primary school teachers have witnessed children being subjected to homophobic bullying in their schools. In addition, 75% of primary school teachers have reported hearing the word “gay” shouted as an insult in the school playground. Such words are used commonly by children, without comprehension of their true meaning, as a form of abuse. If children are not taught from a young age about the different possibilities of relationships and about the normality of same-sex relationships, it is not surprising that they grow up with those prejudices. To become active, appropriately behaved citizens, children must learn at that age about the possibilities of different relationships.

As pupils generally start puberty at the later stages of primary school, it is important that schools have an open and intelligent approach to same-sex issues. Basic HIV education should be taught in an environment where same-sex relationships are normalised, not stigmatised or off-limits.

In a recent report by Stonewall, a London primary school teacher is quoted as saying that

“the younger it is addressed…the more receptive the children are to believing that other ways of life are acceptable. You don’t have to shove it in their faces, just teach them that some people have other ways of life and it is just as normal as the ways of life they are familiar with.”

[Andrea Leadsom]

There is an age below which children have no concept whatever of sex, so I cannot agree with the hon. Lady. A four or five-year old has no concept of what on earth sex is about. Until children are pre-pubescent at the very least, they cannot get their heads around it, so to talk to them about different sorts of sexual relationship would be entirely pointless and probably quite frightening.

[Pamela Nash]

I thank the hon. Lady for that intervention, but her earlier remarks showed how strongly she feels about the importance of relationship education and how sex and relationship education should be paired together. I suggest that homosexual relationships are separate from sex education and sex.

[Alison Seabeck]

We must also bear it in mind that there is an increasing number of single-sex families of all types. The children of those families will be in school and therefore it makes sense to talk positively about relationships in that context.

[Pamela Nash]

I completely agree.

[Andrea Leadsom]

I just want to clear this up. I am saying that people should absolutely talk about relationships, but not sexual relationships, because below a certain age there is simply no point. I agree with the hon. Lady that there is a need to talk about relationships, but there is no need to talk with very young children about sex.

--- Later in debate ---

[Pamela Nash]

I thank the hon. Lady for that intervention, but I am not clear about the difference she is getting at between relationships of another sort and sexual relationships. My understanding from what she said earlier is that she is happy for people to talk about heterosexual relationships. I am happy to take another intervention to clarify the issue.

[Andrea Leadsom]

I thank the hon. Lady for her patience in giving way. I am specifically talking about very young children. For them, the focus needs to be on the relationship, not the sexual act. That is where a lot of the material being shown to children now is simply inappropriate, because they really do not get it. There is a point below which a child is not old enough to conceptualise what the act of sex means. I agree with the hon. Lady that it is entirely appropriate to teach that sometimes men love other men, but it is not appropriate to teach what sometimes men do with other men, for example. That is where I am drawing the line. I am saying that the relationship side can be separate from the sexual side at a very young age.

[Pamela Nash]

I thank the hon. Lady for that explanation. I am talking about relationships. I suggest that no images of sex between a man and a woman, between two men or between two women should be shown to very young children, of four or five. However, I do think that it is appropriate to teach young children about relationships, including same-sex relationships.

[Mr George Howarth in the Chair]

[Stephen Gilbert]

Without wishing to continue the love-in, I agree absolutely with everything that the hon. Lady is saying. As I said earlier, I have a four-year-old nephew who, from what he has said to me, is aware or beginning to become aware of sex as well as relationships. Does the hon. Lady agree that we need to deal with the world in which we live, not the world in which we would like to live?

[Pamela Nash]

I entirely agree. I have had similar experiences with the young children in my family. I have stories about comments on sex and relationships that they have made, even at the ages of three and four, that it would not be appropriate to tell here. They are inquisitive and they have that knowledge. They watch television and hear people speaking. They see people around them who are in relationships that might be different from what they see at home, and they should be taught that that is okay and why it exists.

I have been looking this morning at the UN convention on the rights of the child. Article 29 refers to the following:

“The preparation of the child for responsible life in a free society, in the spirit of understanding, peace, tolerance, equality of sexes, and friendship among all peoples, ethnic, national and religious groups and persons of indigenous origin”.

That is one of the rights of the child, and I believe that good relationship education is part of it and will prepare young people for a normal life.

Children must also be prepared to deal with their own sexuality. The high levels of self-harm among homosexual teenagers have been well documented. Again, high-quality and age-appropriate sex and relationship education will help to tackle that heartbreaking problem.

Let us be clear: sex education is not about the sexualisation of children, nor is it intended to promote promiscuity or a certain kind of lifestyle above another. Taught well, sex education is about teaching children the facts of life and how to handle their personal relationships.

The challenge we face is that SRE is patchy and inadequate. An Ofsted report in 2010 said that the quality of PSHE is poor in a quarter of schools and that teachers lack the knowledge and skills to teach pupils the subject effectively. My experience of sex education, which was not so long ago, involved an expert visiting my school and telling the 14-year-old girls in my class that they should not let boys touch them from the neck down. That was the message in its entirety, and I do not believe it was entirely adequate.

There is strong support from parents for teaching SRE in schools. A poll run by the Department for Children, Schools and Families in 2009—I am sorry these are the most recent figures I could get—showed that eight in 10 parents thought their children should receive SRE lessons, while only 0.04% had withdrawn their children from SRE. To conclude, we need high-quality, age-appropriate and mandatory SRE in all primary and secondary schools throughout the United Kingdom.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom) for raising this important issue. I congratulate her on an excellent speech on a subject that is of great concern to parents in my constituency and across the country. I welcome her positive contribution and her constructive ideas, as well as the fact that she has expressed concerns about some of the educational materials in primary school classrooms.

The debate is about how, when, where and what sex and relationship education should be promoted in primary schools. Crucially, it is also about involving parents in deciding content. Equally, it is about promoting the outcome I think we all want: a generation of young people who fulfil their potential in all areas of life, including personal relationships.

Although “Sex and Relationship Education Guidance”, which was published in 2000, gives schools guidance on working with parents, such work is not a requirement. The guidance says:

“Schools should always work in partnership with parents, consulting them regularly on the content of sex and relationship education programmes.”

In practice, that does not appear to happen, and there is no legal requirement for schools to enter dialogue with parents. The hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson) queried whether graphic content of the type that has been described was causing parents concern, but a group of parents came to see me in my surgery because they were concerned about the content of the sex education materials that it was proposed to use in a primary school; I think they were based on some of the media productions mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire. The parents felt there was no appropriate route for them to register their serious concerns about the content of those educational materials, so they had to come to see me about them. The opt-in requirement my hon. Friend proposes for parents would ensure that there was such a route.

My hon. Friend’s positive contribution is welcome. The previous Government should perhaps have considered rating the content that could be used in this sensitive and delicate subject. As the hon. Member for St Austell and Newquay (Stephen Gilbert) said, the evidence shows that this country should be far from proud of its levels of sexually transmitted disease, teenage pregnancy and relationship breakdown, and one cause among others for those things may be the lack of parental involvement in our sex education content.

We should be moving towards an environment where, as my hon. Friend said, parents make a more active choice regarding the material they believe is fit for purpose for their child, and where they can actively opt into the curriculum. If they participate in that way, it might improve the dialogue between themselves and their children, which might be a better way forward for our society.

[Pamela Nash]

I appreciate the point the hon. Lady is trying to make about parents being more involved in making these decisions in schools, but does she not agree that the children of parents who do not opt into SRE if they are given the option will be at serious risk of receiving no SRE at all?

[Fiona Bruce]

If we have a satisfactory procedure, such as that proposed by my hon. Friend, schools and the responsible teachers hon. Members have described should ensure that that does not happen.

Let me add another suggestion to those that have been made. To aid parents and schools, the Government could create a website where varied sex and relationship tools and programmes could be explained. That would offer schools, governors and, above all, parents a diverse range of options. The recently launched ParentPort website is a model of how we could move forward and engage parents and others who are concerned about content. The website was recently launched by the Prime Minister as a result of the Bailey review and is aimed at helping parents to navigate the regulatory media and broadcasting framework. I was struck by the fact that within a few days of its launch about three weeks ago, 10,000 people had registered concerns. That shows the desire of many—I am sure many parents were among those who registered concerns—to have a say over such issues.

I am glad the Conservative-led coalition Government are taking their localism agenda forward. For it to be a success, an informed citizenry is required, and that is as true in respect of relationship and sex education tools as it is of any other area.