Plea for mandatory sex and relationships education to help tackle abuse

Sex and relationships education (SRE) should become mandatory in schools, the chairman of the Education Select Committee has said.

Neil Carmichael told MPs that SRE is needed in the face of threats to children through sexual abuse, as he urged the Government to take action.

The Tory MP for Stroud said it is “a pity” no measures had been included to address the problem in the Children and Social Work Bill, as it had its second reading in the Commons.

Labour’s Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) also told MPs she would be tabling an amendment to the Bill to make SRE compulsory for all young people.

Mr Carmichael (pictured) said: “It does seem to me that with over 70,000 children effectively children of the state, and so many more children subject to sexual abuse, and the historic sexual abuse that has gone on, our failure to address this issue of SRE, front and centre, is becoming increasingly obvious.

“I do think that the Government really does have to go full-on into a consultation process to give assurance that there is going to be something done about this most important matter.

“I ask the minister to confirm to this House that we are going to have a realistic and meaningful consultation on the introduction of statutory SRE.

“We do need a full, meaningful and comprehensive consultation on this important matter.”

Mr Carmichael added that he had organised a letter signed by five select committee chairs backing statutory SRE, which had been sent to the Education Secretary last week.

“All of these committees effectively said precisely the same thing: we need to see SRE introduced statutorily in our schools,” said Mr Carmichael.

The Government has so far ignored a recommendation in a new report by the Women and Equalities Committee to make SRE mandatory.

Ms Creasy said: “We cannot say that we safeguard our children in this country when we make sure they are taught about composting, but not consent, in their lives.

“Now many of us may have stories of our own sex and relationship education. I might fear that I was forever scarred by having fallen asleep once in a classroom only to be awoken by somebody waving a female condom in my face.

“However, the truth is that it is no laughing matter in this country. Many of us are acutely aware of the many pressures on our young people that we need to be able to address.”

She added: “We are failing our young people if we keep kicking this issue into the long grass.”

Conservative former minister Maria Miller said children need “the knowledge about how to make good decisions” on consent and controlling their personal space and bodies.

She said schools have a “crucial” role in relation to children’s welfare, adding: “If this Bill is to do as it sets out to – to promote welfare for children – it also needs to make sex and relationship education compulsory, to make sure it is doing absolutely everything it can to protect children’s welfare for the future.

“What is compulsory in secondary schools at the moment is the science of reproduction.

“The rest is guidance, but it was last updated at the turn of the millennium in 2000 – which makes no reference to pornography, which we know is a way more young children are finding out about sex.

“We also know that 40% of schools do not teach sex and relationship education very well.

“And perhaps all of this is why organisations like Barnardo’s are clear that a development of an early understanding and respect for each other’s bodies, and when to ask for help through PSHE, can help build resilience and understanding of what healthy relationships look like, and also to mitigate the effects of exposure to things like pornography.”

Tory Tim Loughton, a former education minister, asked Mrs Miller if she agreed one way of getting better quality teaching on the issue is by bringing in experts from outside of schools.

He said: “Particularly young youth workers and others who can empathise with young people, who they will listen to, take notice of and act on their advice, rather than trying to allow Mrs Miggins the geography teacher – who just happens to have a couple of free periods on a Thursday afternoon.”

Mrs Miller said expertise is needed and she agreed under-trained teachers are not the best people to ensure “effective” sex and relationship education.

She went on: “I think all teachers – whether they’re Mrs Miggins teaching geography or anybody else – need to have an understanding about how they can stop the sexual harassment and sexual violence that too many young people told us they took for granted in their everyday school life – things we would have never taken for granted as adults.

“I think all teachers do need to have some sort of training in this sphere because they are responsible for the wellbeing of our children while in school.”

Education minister Edward Timpson said he recognises the importance of SRE and that the Government already issues statutory guidance on its teaching.

He continued: “But I have heard the call to go further in this area to help build the resilience and confidence of children and young people in tackling what the modern world throws at them, not least online.

“This is of course a topic on which there are many, and strongly held, views and it will be important to look at those in the round, not least because PSHE and SRE are inextricably linked.

“But it is a priority for the Secretary of State and to that end I have already asked officials to advise me further on these matters, but will ask them to accelerate this work so that I can report on our conclusions at a later point in the Bill’s passage where everyone in this House will be able to look at them and have their say.”

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