Sex and Relationships Education

Thérèse Coffey Excerpts

Wednesday 8th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)]

I want to make it clear that I do not propose to press this to a Division, but I give advance notice to the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) and his hon. Friends that there are many in the House, not just on the Government Benches but on both sides, who will fundamentally fight his proposals, because we believe that they are the wrong thing for this country. I believe that primarily because this aspect of sexual and relationships education is the fundamental, primary domain of parents within families.

The hon. Gentleman might not have intended to be disingenuous, but it simply is not true that there is not an obligation for elements of sex education to be present within our education system. It exists at secondary school level. One of the things that concerns me about his proposal is that it would introduce the concept of sex education for all key stages, which would include, of course, five and six-year-olds. I have a further concern. As is appropriate, curriculums are developed by school governors, with teachers and parental involvement. That is important. However, his proposal, which suggests a one-size-fits-all approach—imposing something from the centre—goes against the current thinking, which is about local schools knowing best, in conjunction with parents in particular. It is imperative that parents continue to be able to exercise the right to withdraw their children from lessons that they do not believe to be in their children’s interests, and if they would rather teach SRE themselves. He added the proviso that children should be able to make that decision for themselves, but I believe that parents should be able to override them until they become of an age when they are legally entitled to do other things themselves.

This imposition on primary schools is fundamentally wrong. Putting it on the statute book is heavy-handed and belies the fact that secondary schools already undertake elements of this education. The constant approach of getting the state to undermine and supersede parental authority is fundamentally flawed. What has been the impact of sex education? A campaigner for the British Pregnancy Advisory Service said:

“There have been a large number of studies about the impact of sex education on abortion rates and pregnancy rates, and these frequently tend to show they are not having the kind of impact that the family planning specialists want. They mainly make us feel good that we’re educating people more thoroughly, but they do not seem to have much impact on the abortion rate.”

Let us go further. The SHARE scheme in Scotland conducted a test across a wide number of schools using a well-documented control group. It is probably the most carefully designed and rigorously tested such programme in the United Kingdom to date, and at the end of it, the researchers concluded:

“This specially designed sex education programme did not reduce conceptions or terminations…compared with conventional provision. The lack of effect was not due to quality of delivery.”

They also said that

“complementary intervention should be suggested”,

including socio-economic interventions and parental influence. To be honest, we do not need a big research programme to know that parents are the best people to discuss with their children the concept of sex and relationships education. Dare I say it—I am not trying to be flippant—but perhaps for teenagers the very fact that their parents had sex to have them puts off the discussion. Perhaps that was the case when the hon. Gentleman was growing up. However, we should be braver than that.

In the evidence that the hon. Gentleman cited, he mentioned many different countries, such as Holland, which has invested in sex education. However, he might also have seen the article in The Times that read:

“The Dutch Government still penalises single mothers under 18, who are expected to live with their parents if they become pregnant. Until six years ago the Government gave them no financial support.”

That might be an example of socio-economic intervention.

The hon. Gentleman failed to mention Italy, which also has low levels of teenage pregnancy, but does not invest significantly in school sex education, so we should not follow the example of the Netherlands and other countries he cites, or indeed France where the abortion limit is at 12 weeks, and suggest that sex education from the age of six is the right way to reduce sexual intervention. Dare I say it, but in the last so many years when sex education has been the norm, the great experiment of the ‘60s—

[Chris Bryant]

It has not been the norm.

[Dr Coffey]

Oh, it certainly has, yet the percentage of people having sex under the legal age limit has doubled. That is not a record that this country should be proud of. I agree with the hon. Gentleman: I am not condemning teenage pregnancy—far from it. I do not think that the age of somebody always reflects whether they are a good mother. However, the fundamental principle is that families and parents know best, not the Government, so we will oppose this Bill fundamentally, every hour, every day.

Question put (Standing Order No. 23) and agreed to.

Ordered,

That Chris Bryant, Ms Diane Abbott, Sir Peter Soulsby, Jessica Morden, Nick Smith, Katy Clark, Mrs Sharon Hodgson, Luciana Berger, Karl Turner, Heidi Alexander, and Alex Cunningham present the Bill.

Chris Bryant accordingly presented the Bill.

Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 11 February, and to be printed (Bill 69).