Children and Social Work Bill [ Lords ] (Sixth sitting)

Debate between Stella Creasy and Kate Green

Committee Debate: 6th sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 10th January 2017 Public Bill Committees

[Kate Green]

I find the whole sentiment behind this discussion rather disappointing. I think it is very clear what the concerns of young people, parents and teachers are and why my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow has tabled the new clause. She, of course, can speak for herself. Of all my colleagues, I think it is fair to say that, but may I say on her behalf that if this proposal is not perfect, we are amenable if the Minister wishes to produce something better, but we want it now. We have waited too long for something to happen, as opposed to warm words and expressions of enthusiasm.

The hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle is absolutely right to point to the importance of the debate in the context of all the attention the Government are giving to mental health and wellbeing. If we look at the record of previous Governments, including the coalition Government and the present Government, on a whole lot of related issues, it seems a great shame that we are not supporting those steps forward, which have been made with cross-party support in relation, for example, to female genital mutilation; in relation to stalking, which will be the subject of amendments in Committee later this afternoon; and in relation to coercive control, mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow; in relation to same-sex marriages; and in relation to the very good follow-up which has been put in place following some of the appalling child sex scandals of recent years. It is tragic that the Government and previous Governments, having made great social steps forward in all those areas, are unwilling to underpin them with really good education for our young people so that they can understand their rights under that legislation.

[Stella Creasy]

I always stop my hon. Friend when she gets going at my peril because she is such a powerful advocate. Can I give reassurance to the hon. Member for the constituency which I cannot think in my head right now but I am sure is a wonderful place?

[Stella Creasy]

That’s it—a lovely place. Personal and social education is already part of the curriculum, but what we have seen over the past couple of years is a diminution in time allocated to it. The new clause would make the provision of lessons on these particular issues part of the safeguarding element that is inspected, and so prompt schools to ensure that these issues are covered. That does not preclude any of the points that have been made and the wider debate we can all have.

There is cross-party consensus about the value of PSHE and concern about the diminution in its delivery over the past couple of years. However, the measure would ensure that these subjects were part of the framework on which schools were inspected. If they were not providing lessons and guidance on these issues, that would be a matter for failing by Ofsted.

Ofsted looks at the provision of sex and relationships education, as we have seen, and has shown that it is of poor quality in many schools right now. However, at the moment it is not part of the safeguarding duty that they inspect. By making it part of the safeguarding duty, the measure gives Ofsted stronger powers to push schools to do it. It is not about PSHE being restrictive—the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle is reading the proposal in quite a literal way—it is about Ofsted’s powers. If the hon. Gentleman wants to have a conversation about Ofsted, I would be happy to talk to him, but I suspect it is beyond the scope of today’s debate. I hope that reassures all my colleagues as to why we want to make sure that these particular topics are covered.

[Kate Green]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I want to pick up the point that the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle made about teachers’ confidence in dealing with this subject. As my hon. Friend has explained, in embedding in the inspection regime an expectation that safeguarding standards are part of the way in which the curriculum is delivered, we create a need to ensure that teachers are properly equipped to teach that curriculum. That will have an effect on what is taught in teacher training colleges and on teaching practice. It will have an effect on the way in which schools organise, manage, support, mentor and develop their staff and on the way in which staff time is allocated, to ensure that teachers are able to teach the subject properly.

From talking to teachers, I do not think that their worry about this subject is so much about whether or not they have time to do it—they think it is important and want to make the time—as about a fear that they do not know how to do it. It requires proper attention to equip and educate them to deliver top-quality teaching.

We know that quality is an issue. My hon. Friend pointed out that one in seven children are receiving no sex and relationships education at all. Of those children who are receiving such education, half told the Terrence Higgins Trust in research it carried out that the teaching they received was poor or even terrible. There is little point in offering a poor or terrible education to our children. We have to raise the quality. That is not an excuse for doing nothing. It is an excuse for embedding firmly an expectation and an obligation on schools, along with an inspection regime to ensure that they meet it.

I am troubled that despite all the social progress we have made in my adult lifetime, and particularly the immense progress in relation to equality between women and men, young people’s attitudes to relationships between the sexes remain primitive in so many ways. We have seen shocking research in recent years, which has shown that young men and young women—teenagers—believe it is acceptable, for example, for a boy to hit his girlfriend if he sees her talking to another bloke or for a man to expect the woman in a partnership to put food on the table when he wants it.

The fact that those attitudes should still be pervasive among young people shows that there is a very real need to educate them in relation to not only in the biology of sexual relationships, as my hon. Friend said, but on the much broader dimensions of respect and equality. We have delivered those things in so many other ways—in legislation and social practice—but they need to be underpinned in our education system.

I want to conclude by saying, on my behalf if not on behalf of my hon. Friends, that if the Minister thinks the new clause is deficient, I insist he introduces something else as a matter of urgency. We would be happy to consider that. As my hon. Friend said, time is running out. If such a proposal is not available in Committee or on Report, there is no further chance to achieve the intention that is constantly expressed in this House and which is the will of the House and the wider public: to do so much better than we do now. I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say. Without strong assurances that things will now change, I am pleased to support my hon. Friend’s new clause.

[Simon Hoare]

I am the father of three young daughters of eight, six and four. The moment I am dreading is when they start asking what we used to call “those questions”. I am rather hoping my wife will be on hand. I am sure she will then promise to give me some sex education after she has dealt with the children.

This is such a complex and complicated issue, as the hon. Member for Walthamstow set out. I rise to make a few remarks against the backdrop of having attended a faith school and as a practising Roman Catholic. My wife is a member of the Church of England, but my children are Catholics. I very much support what lies behind the hon. Lady’s new clause. I see nothing contradictory in being a practising Christian and wanting to ensure our next generation is equipped with as much resource and education as possible for the challenges that face modern youth—challenges that I, as a 47-year-old, could never have envisaged when I was 14, 15 or 16.

I remember the acute embarrassment—teenagers like to do this to their teachers—when we had a spinster nonconformist Methodist biology teacher in a Catholic state school who was asked by a friend of mine during this biology lesson—one where we had those pictures that were never quite clear anatomically—“Miss, what does a man do if he wants to have sex, but they do not want to have a child?” He knew full well what the Catholic teaching was on artificial contraception, but it threw this nonconformist spinster into an absolute tailspin and her answer was, “I think you should go to talk to the school chaplain”—she did not know how to answer. So it is as much about educating the educators as it is educating those who need the information.

The hon. Member for Walthamstow has been in this place longer than I, and I am reluctant to give her any advice about it—the new clause, that is, not anything else—[Laughter.] Before my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham and Mid Kent chips in with anything slightly “Carry On Laughing” or whatever, I think there are some omissions between 2 (a) and (e). For example, it is important to have something about transgender. Likewise, while the hon. Lady said at the start of her remarks that this was not solely about digital, given its huge impact on perception, the curriculum should include an element on digital and the internet.

We have all bandied statistics around, but I remember reading that today most teenage boys that have accessed pornographic websites, just out of interest and teenage curiosity, actually believe that most women do not have pubic hair. That is a direct bit of education from the internet that affects the mindset and changes how we think about ourselves and our potential partners in a relationship.

I also notice—and it slightly belies what has actually been support from my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle and I hope, certainly in theory, from the Minister—that the new clause is tabled solely in the name of Labour Members of Parliament who all happen to be women. This is an issue that should command cross-party support and certainly representation from both sexes. A father, a husband and a boyfriend have as much interest in ensuring a high quality of PSHE as women do. The hon. Member for Walthamstow might want to think about that point, which is why I hope that she will not press this new clause to a vote today but instead think about some proactive cross-party working on Report. That is not to kick the issue into the long grass; it would just help to create a better base.

Some wording—some form of protection—is needed for those who run faith schools, all faiths, to make the position absolutely clear. I have little or no doubt that I will receive emails from constituents who happen to read my remarks. They will say that this is all about promotion, and this or that religion thinks that homosexuality—or another element—is not right. So to provide a legislative comfort blanket, for want of a better phrase, the new clause needs to include a clear statement that we are talking not about promotion, but about education, and where sex education is delivered in a faith school environment, those providing the education should not feel inhibited about answering questions such as “What is the thinking of our faith on this particular aspect of sexuality?”