Sex and Relationships Education (Curriculum)

John Bercow Excerpts

Tuesday 21st October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

I rise to oppose the Bill of the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson), but I should begin by congratulating her on the impressive doughnut she managed to arrange for herself, masking the fact that the people around the doughnut were the only Members on her side actually in the Chamber at the time. I give her full marks for her doughnut, which was better than her speech.

When a politician is faced with a problem—this is not necessarily a party political point—their solution always incorporates two ingredients. The first ingredient is that they have got to be seen to be doing something. I long for the day when a Minister stands up at the Dispatch Box and says, “Actually, that’s got nothing to do with the Government; that is for people to sort out for themselves.” They never do, however; politicians always want to highlight how important and powerful they are. The second ingredient in their solution is that what they propose does not really offend anybody. As long as they can come up with something that looks as if they are doing something and does not really offend anybody, that will be the solution they will go for, even if it will not make a blind bit of difference to the problem. [Interruption.] The hon. Lady’s speech today was a prime example of a politician who wants to be seen to be doing something with a proposal that does not really offend anybody, and which will make absolutely no difference at all to the problem she has rightly highlighted. [Interruption.]

The hon. Lady talks about the importance of dealing—[Interruption.] I know that Opposition Members are so intolerant of other people’s opinions that they do not like to listen to them—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. The hon. Gentleman was, I think, being heard, because he rarely has any difficulty in making himself heard, but the hon. Gentleman must be heard.

[Philip Davies]

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker.

When the hon. Lady talks about the problems of child abuse, everybody agrees; of course we all agree that there is a massive problem with child abuse and it needs to be tackled. She highlighted the problems we found in Rotherham, but I am not sure most of my constituents would think the answer to that is to make sex education compulsory. Actually, I think what most people identified as the problem was the culture of political correctness that Labour councils up and down the country were cultivating, which prevented good people from speaking out about the disgusting things that were happening. If the hon. Lady had introduced an anti-political correctness Bill in Labour local authorities, it might have actually made some real difference. Trying to pretend that the solution to this problem is compulsory sex education is completely ludicrous.

We have been having sex education in our schools for more than 40 years, and it was supposedly going to solve things such as teenage pregnancies and unwanted pregnancies. Most of my constituents would probably conclude that the more sex education we have had since the early 1970s, the more teenage pregnancies and unwanted pregnancies we have had. [Interruption.] Perhaps somebody might look at the evidence—[Interruption.] I know Opposition Members do not want to hear this, but they might want to look at the evidence and then they might think that perhaps we should try less sex education in schools—or perhaps, even better, no sex education at all. That might be a better tactic. [Interruption.]

I will point out—[Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Fiona Mactaggart, you are an excessively excitable individual on occasion. Calm yourself and seek to behave with restraint, and as the aspiring stateswoman you should want to be.

[Philip Davies]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. The Labour party is known for its intolerance of other people’s opinions. I am just pleased Labour Members are highlighting that so effectively today.

The sex education fanatics always point to Holland, because in Holland they have lots of sex education at a very young age and they have very low levels of teenage pregnancy, but the sex education fanatics never mention Italy. Italy has equally low levels of teenage pregnancies and unwanted pregnancies, but has very little sex education. A few years ago I looked at what Holland and Italy had in common, because then we might find out the true solution. What they have in common—and have had in common for many years—is that they have much closer family units, where families are much more likely to do things such as eat meals together. They have also historically been spectacularly ungenerous to single mothers in the benefits system and the housing allocation system. If we want to tackle issues such as teenage pregnancies and unwanted pregnancies, it would be much better to look at the benefit systems and the housing allocation system. That would make much more of a difference than this ridiculous obsession with more and more sex education.

As sex education has failed, people like the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North have said, “Actually, what we need is more sex education.” As we have had more sex education, however, the problem has got worse, as she has highlighted. She then changes tack and says, “Actually, what we need is better sex education.” Actually, one day everybody will have to conclude that what we need is less sex education, or even better, none.

The hon. Lady spectacularly failed to mention the role of parents. The message we should be giving to parents is this: “Being a parent is a very responsible business. You should not enter into it lightly and there are things that only parents can do and are expected to do, because the state cannot fulfil the role of a parent for you.” We have got ourselves into a problem by saying, “If you’re a parent, don’t worry about what you do. Don’t worry about whether you’re doing a good job, because if you don’t do a good job of it—if you don’t care about it—the state will pick up the pieces for you.” That is an appalling message to send out to people. We should be saying, “This is a serious business and an important matter and there are certain things that are your responsibility alone, and the state cannot take those functions away.”

Some parents may well be bad at teaching sex education, but who is to say that all teachers are good at teaching sex education? It may well be that many teachers are not very good at teaching sex education and that the parent would have been the best person to teach it to the child. We should not forget that point.

My job as a parent is to bring up my children with my values and the values I think are important to instil in them. I do not want my children to have the teacher’s values instilled in them, whether or not I like or support them. These are things that should be done by parents and parents alone. Teachers should be there to teach children about things parents are not capable of teaching, not about the things that parents should be teaching if they were doing their job properly.

If we want to tackle the problem of child abuse—which we all want to do in this House—let us look at the root causes: the political correctness of the Labour party that caused the problems in Rotherham. Let us not go down the route of this nanny state version of a Bill which is a complete waste of time and will make absolutely no difference at all, but fulfils the role I mentioned at the start, of a politician who wants to look as if they are doing something proposing something that does not really offend anybody. It offends me, and it offends people out in the country.

I will not delay the House by calling for a Division, as there is an important debate coming up and I would not want to highlight how silly some of the Labour Members are in the Lobby. So we will just leave it at that, but I hope this Bill goes absolutely nowhere.

Question put and agreed to.

Ordered,

That Diana Johnson, Simon Danczuk, Sarah Champion, Kevin Barron, John Healey, Mrs Sharon Hodgson, Lyn Brown, Barbara Keeley, Roberta Blackman-Woods, Andrew Gwynne and Wayne David present the Bill.

Diana Johnson accordingly presented the Bill.

Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 21 November, and to be printed (Bill 101).