Ofsted Review of Sexual Abuse in Schools and Colleges

Debate between Vicky Ford and Siobhan Baillie

Thursday 10th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Vicky Ford]

The sex education curriculum that we have had in the past has not been fit for purpose in a digital age, and that is precisely why we have gone through this exercise over the past few years, with deep consultation and many experts working on it, to bring the new RSHE curriculum into place. This will be compulsory from September.[Official Report, 17 June 2021, Vol. 697, c. 6MC.] There are already many excellent examples of schools teaching it well, although we do hear, as we have through the Ofsted report, that teachers would like more support and advice on how to deliver it, and we have promised today that we will set that out. That is also why we are asking, or encouraging, all schools to take an inset day and dedicate time to this. They have the curriculum; there is a wide range of different tools to help them deliver it and it is absolutely key for our children that they get supported by this curriculum, because it will help teach them about what is safe and what is not safe.

We are in a digital revolution and we have been for many years, and for a lot of children, especially during the pandemic, being able to be with friends online is absolutely key, but it also does bring harms and what we have seen, sadly, through the pandemic is the acceleration of some of these harms, particularly in areas such as online pornography. That is another reason why it is absolutely right that we are acting now.

[Siobhan Baillie (Stroud) (Con)]

I want to give credit to Stroud High School girls, who took the initiative to gather evidence of harassment of their peers and to get me in to talk about it. It makes my blood boil now even to think about what they are enduring, sometimes on a daily basis, wearing their school uniforms in the street. We know that online abuse is fuelling poor real-life behaviour. These are hidden horrors. A lot of the abuse is anonymous and parents are, frankly, terrified. Many of the questions to the Minister today have been about the online world. The Minister cares an awful lot about this issue. Can she confirm that the Government’s flagship online harms legislation that is coming through is going to help protect young people, and will she tell us a little bit more about how it will prevent the sharing of unsolicited images?

[Vicky Ford]

May I also thank the girls from Stroud High School? It takes great bravery and courage to do that, yet it is actions like that by young girls and women across the country that are helping to make the world a better place for future children.

As I said earlier, I can confirm that the strongest protections in the online safety Bill are for children. It is particularly important that companies will be required to protect children from illegal and harmful content, including self-generated content when it is on their platforms. There is, however, still the challenge of peer-on-peer sharing. That is one of the reasons why I believe so strongly that the Home Secretary is right in her firm statements about the risk of end-to-end encryption that we already see, for example, on WhatsApp, but which is potentially coming into other areas. That is another issue that will be need to be considered.

It is really important that we have asked the Children’s Commissioner to do this deep piece of work. She is an extraordinarily experienced former school leader who brings great passion into this world. In fact, I met her only this week to discuss the issue. We must take every step. We know that legislating in the digital world can sometimes be challenging, but we are ahead of the world on this and are absolutely committed to the end objective: ensuring that our children are, as far as possible, as safe online as they are offline. Again, this is also an issue of helping to change the cultural dial.