Relationships Education: LGBT Content

Sarah Champion Excerpts

Monday 18th March 2024 Westminster Hall

[Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)]

It is always a pleasure to serve under your guidance, Mr Dowd. I thank the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Elliot Colburn) for his very reasoned speech and for sharing his own experiences; it was a very powerful way to open the debate.

When I was first elected, I was focused on trying to prevent child abuse and putting child protections in place. I set up a campaign called “Dare2Care” with about 40 organisations, charities and survivors of abuse. We looked at how we could keep children safe. The one thing we all felt to be the most powerful was relationship education from primary school age. I was incredibly proud —I think it will probably be my biggest achievement—that in June 2017, we got cross-party support for making relationship education mandatory from primary school and for making sex and relationship education mandatory from secondary school. I know that that is already empowering children.

What we are talking about with RSE, particularly in primary school, is teaching children to respect themselves and respect others. That is what we are discussing today, because relationship education is about equipping all children to be safe, to recognise abuse and exploitation, and to know how to report it and seek help.

LGBTQ+ people, children particularly, must be recognised and included in the same way as heterosexual people are in relationship education, quite simply because LGBTQ people exist. They will experience relationships, sex and emotional connections good and bad in the same way as everyone else, and they have the right to be educated on the joys and dangers that come alongside those things. Avoiding mentioning the very existence of LGBTQ people in front of pupils and denying them the access to relationship education that their peers will get does nothing to safeguard them. It also does nothing to protect them from the hatred that, appallingly, seems to be getting worse and worse in this country.

I want a UK—a world—that is tolerant and respectful, and that appreciates and celebrates difference. To exclude that leads us to a very dark place. We know that from our recent history, because there are distressing echoes of section 28. Section 28 was repealed in 2003, because parliamentarians understood the great harms caused by the legislation and the chilling effect and discriminatory culture that rippled out from it. Those lessons from section 28 have informed successive Governments’ policies ever since, and they inform the cross-party support for LGBTQ+ inclusivity in guidance on relationships, health and sex education. They informed a generation of teachers who want to do better by their pupils and a generation of parents who want their children to access LGBTQ+ education.

Those who seek to exclude LGBT content will argue that it is not appropriate or necessary to teach it to primary-aged children, but I wonder what they actually think is being taught. Why is it so scary to them? Why do they not trust teachers in this respect? In key stage 1, being LGBTQ+ inclusive is as simple as acknowledging different families, parents, carers and other family members who may be lesbian, gay or trans. Those people and families exist, and children in our school communities need to know that any family that provides love, security and care is a valid family.

If children already know that they are gay, as many adult LGBTQ+ people say they did right back in the early days of primary, they need to know that all the safeguarding messages in school are for them, too. No child should be excluded, made invisible, or made to feel that they are “other” or not deserving of support from a trusted adult, because that opens the door for exploitation and their abuse.

By key stage 2, when children are going through puberty and studying it, they will have their own questions about the relationship between their bodies and sex. Opponents of inclusive LGBT+ education claim that it sexualises children, but that reflects a very narrow view of LGBTQ+ people. We cannot read through a briefing from the anti lobby without hearing about particular sex acts, as though being LGBT+ and being highly sexualised are synonymous—the total of someone’s identity.

That also reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of inclusive relationship education. The lessons that I have campaigned for have always been about helping children to understand the core values that underpin healthy relationships: mutual respect, self-respect, kindness and trust. It is also about knowing how, where and when to seek help with safeguarding and mental and physical health. The lessons are not pushing an evil agenda to corrupt young minds. They are preparing all children for the world as it is, where LGBTQ+ people exist and relationships happen, and also the world where it is dark, with some pretty awful haters out there.

It would be a travesty in this place if we were to unlearn all that we saw during the horror of section 28 and go back to a place of suspicion and hatred, which would leave our LGBTQ+ young children feeling alone and fearful once again. We must ensure that the current generation of young people leaving school—all young children leaving school—have the tools, skills and support that they need to be safe, happy and respectful, not to tolerate hate and extremism, and to engage in healthy relationships that enable them to thrive in our society.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nick Fletcher (Don Valley) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dowd. I thank my colleague on the Petitions Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Elliot Colburn), for his opening remarks.

Currently, up and down the country, we have schools teaching our children that girls can be boys and boys can be girls. It is hard to believe, and that is the issue that I will specifically focus on today. Let me start with an analogy. If we told our children that two plus two equals five enough times throughout their education, would we be surprised if some—not all but some—started to believe it?

[Sarah Champion]

We do trust teachers to teach that two plus two equals four, so if we trust them in that respect, why do we not trust their judgment in all respects?

[Nick Fletcher]

I thank the hon. Member for her contribution. I will come back to my speech—I do not want to spoil the flow of it, as it were. From what I have heard, the consensus here is that what we are teaching children should be transparent and age-appropriate. I believe it should also be grounded in truth. There have been remarks from lots of people here saying that the literature being shown to our children is not there and that there is no real evidence of it. Members are literally burying their heads in the sand on this issue. If they did not and they actually worked with myself and maybe the Department for Education and looked at all the evidence I have, maybe we would not have to go on social media and say, “Look what our kids are being taught. This is abhorrent,” and then somebody jumps on my page and so on and so forth. If all the adults in the room sat down with the Minister and said, “Look, this is what is happening”—I have examples in my folder, but we cannot show pictures in debates.

--- Later in debate ---

[Damian Hinds]

It has, and later in my remarks I will come on to this very matter. As I was saying, the statutory guidance is clear that it is for schools to decide the point in their pupils’ education at which it is appropriate to cover matters related to LGBT.

[Sarah Champion]

I thank the Minister for his speech, and for all the work that he has done in this area. However, there is something that I have found increasingly frustrating. All schools were meant to have the necessary training by September 2021. I think that what we are hearing today are concerns that some teachers are not equipped, so they may be drawing on their personal experiences. Without giving every teacher the training, the Minister is leaving them somewhat exposed.

[Damian Hinds]

I recognise that there are questions around training. In truth, it is also the case that we cannot just say, “If only there was more training then none of these issues would arise.” That is just not the case. It is something that one looks at, and I recognise the issue, and the related issues around materials and their quality. I will touch on both of those later.

The RHSE statutory guidance is clear that it is for schools to decide the point in their pupils’ education at which it is appropriate to cover matters related to LGBT. That means that primary schools have discretion over whether to discuss sexual orientation or families that have same-sex parents. Earlier, the hon. Member for Rotherham outlined what the statutory guidance says. When we talk about LGBT in primary schools it is in the context of relationships and, in particular, families. The statutory guidance says:

“Families of many forms provide a nurturing environment for children. (Families can include for example, single parent families, LGBT parents, families headed by grandparents, adoptive parents, foster parents/carers amongst other structures.)”

There is no statutory content on LGBT in the primary curriculum tables.

Similarly, it is for primary schools to decide whether to teach any sex education. The RHSE guidance does not provide a definition of what relationships and sex education should include, but it is clear that it should be

“tailored to the age and the physical and emotional maturity of the pupils. It should ensure that both boys and girls are prepared for the changes that adolescence brings”.

Primary schools that do teach sex education must set out the details of what they will teach in their relationships and sex education policy, on which they must consult in advance with parents.

Secondary schools should provide an equal opportunity to explore the features of stable and healthy same-sex relationships, and ensure the content is integrated throughout the relationships and sex education curriculum. We trust our teachers to deliver this content in a suitable and age-appropriate way, respecting the beliefs and values of all pupils in the school. Our guidance says that schools are free to determine how they cover LGBT-related contented, and

“we expect all pupils to have been taught LGBT content at a timely point as part of this area of the curriculum.”

The majority of teachers do that well, and adapt to the circumstances of their pupils.

Some people may feel that covering LGBT matters contradicts tenets of their faith. I am conscious that religious faith is itself a protected characteristic. However, schools with a religious character can teach the distinctive faith perspective on relationships, and pupils should be able to have a balanced debate about issues that are contentious. A good understanding of pupils’ faith backgrounds and positive relationships between the school and local faith communities help to create a constructive context for the teaching of those subjects. Religions teach tolerance and respect, and those subjects are designed to help children from all backgrounds and faiths build positive and safe relationships.

We worked closely with the Catholic Education Service, the Church of England, the Board of Deputies of British Jews, and the Association of Muslim Schools on the support for implementing the curriculum. I know that some of those organisations develop their own materials that align the new curriculum with their faith prospectus. There is no reason why teaching children about the society that we live in, and the different types of loving, healthy relationships that exist, cannot be done in a way that respects everyone.

I also know that some parents are frustrated that they cannot withdraw their children from relationships education, as opposed to sex education; that came up earlier in a contribution from my hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley. They believe that the boundaries can be blurred with sex education, from which there is a right for a child to be withdrawn, and I recognise those sensitivities.

I also recognise that parents are the first educators of their children and may want to withdraw their child from lessons so that they can first discuss some topics with them outside school. All pupils should be taught about caring friendships and respectful relationships, and they need to understand how to keep themselves and others safe and what to do when they feel unsafe. It is important that parents know what their child will be taught in advance of it being delivered in the classroom, which is why there is a requirement on schools to publish their relationships, or relationships and sex, education policy. Schools must consult parents as they develop and renew that policy.

There has been concern, which has come up again today, over the materials that some organisations have prepared to teach relationships and sex education in schools. It is for schools to make decisions about what materials to use, and it is their responsibility to ensure that what is taught is safe and age-appropriate. For clarity, it is worth reiterating that it has long been the case in our school system that schools decide what materials they use for everything. We do not have a top-down system where some mandarin decides, “This is the textbook for such and such a subject,” and everybody learns from that. There has always been diversity, which sometimes creates challenges, but having it is a strength of our system. However, parents must have confidence that what is taught is safe and age-appropriate. We believe that transparency is the best—indeed, the only—way to be absolutely sure of that, so it is essential that parents know what is being taught in the classroom and what resources are being used.

My hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington was absolutely correct when he said that those requirements are already set out and clear. However, following concerns about things such as barriers because of copyrights, the Secretary of State has now written—twice—to all schools to remind them of the responsibility to make available materials, including relationships education materials, where parents want to see them, and that copyright law does not prevent them from doing that. We will ensure that the content of those letters is reflected in the revised RSHE statutory guidance when it comes out.