Relationships Education, Relationships and Sex Education and Health Education (England) Regulations 2019

Lord Russell of Liverpool Excerpts

Wednesday 24th April 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cashman (Lab)]

My Lords, I refer your Lordships to my registered interests as well as to my role as patron of the Terrence Higgins Trust. I begin, unusually, by associating myself with every word of the contribution of the noble Baroness, Lady Deech. I think she got it absolutely right. I also agree with my noble friend Lady Massey.

Interestingly, I too received the letter referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Storey, but I did not throw it away because it reminded me of the opposition to equality, tolerance and understanding—three things that should be at the very heart of all education. The letter said that lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans relationships were short and lonely. Perhaps my 31-year relationship with Paul Cottingham was short compared to others—I do not know—but certainly it was never lonely and I felt completely fulfilled.

What about the children in schools who come from same-sex families—who have same-sex parents? Are not their relationships and their families’ relationships as important and as viable? Should they not be properly represented, discussed and given equivalence with other loving relationships? Of course they should.

As soon as we put sex and education together, the bonfire starts—especially the bonfire of misinformation. Of course parents will and do maintain control. As was said earlier, whether a parent wishes to teach a child outside school according to their faith or none is entirely up to them. But, please, let us remember that people of all faiths and none are also lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans. It is vital that children and LGBT children receive comprehensive and inclusive sex and relationships education. In this regard I recommend to your Lordships a book to be published in June entitled Celebrating Difference: A Whole-School Approach to LGBT+ Inclusion by Shaun Dellenty. I have been privileged to see an advance copy.

I commend the Government for the guidance and regulations, and the noble Lord, Lord Agnew, for the way in which he has presented them this afternoon to your Lordships’ House. I am grateful also to the organisations that have made contact: the Terrence Higgins Trust, the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, the Children’s Society, Barnardo’s and the National Children’s Bureau, which provided excellent briefings.

I will finish on a couple of points provided by those organisations in their so-called Sex Education Forum. They state:

“The majority of parents want schools to teach RSE”.


Some 92% affirmed that in an independent poll in 2016.

“Effective RSE is a partnership between parents and schools. Parental involvement is integral to the new RSE guidance … Education, not ignorance, is the only way that children will be able to recognise abusive behaviour and know how to seek help. 1 in 20 children are sexually abused and 1 in 3 did not tell an adult (Radford, 2011). Sexual abuse can happen to any child, so the only way to safeguard children is to ensure Relationships Education has no opt out … Bullying and … mental health affect LGBT young people at alarming rates. Nearly half of LGBT pupils (45 per cent) are bullied for being LGBT at school”,


as shown in the Stonewall survey of 2017.

“Schools are already required to teach in a way that does not discriminate on protected characteristics, so an LGBT inclusive approach to RSE is nothing new … Teachers need training in RSE so that schools can offer the high quality provision. 80% of parents want teachers to have training in RSE”,


according to the Sex Education Forum 2018.

I would like to see HIV and sexual health become a core part of the RSE curriculum if we are to empower and inform children for the real world in which they will live.

[Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I also thank the Minister. This is the second time we have interacted today; he was brave enough to go into the lion’s den of the weekly Cross-Bench meeting earlier this afternoon, and received in general a very positive reaction. It is also a pleasure to listen to my noble friend Lady Deech, as somebody else has said, and to find myself for once agreeing with everything she has said. Long may that continue—let us not go back to the other subject, if you please.

I declare an interest as a governor of Coram. For 24 years I had the privilege of being the chairman of the largest educator into primary schools in the United Kingdom of health and drug education. During the course of my chairmanship we reached about 5 million children. We have quite a lot of experience of the challenges of teaching children about difficult subjects appropriately. I shall return briefly to the subject we spoke about this afternoon in the Cross-Bench meeting: it is difficult to teach an extraordinarily difficult and sensitive subject such as this really well. It is an enormous burden to place on a primary school teacher, with all of the pressures on them from all sides, to teach this really well; in a way that makes them feel proud as a professional; in a way that makes the children feel that they are learning something important; in a way that the parents feel respects the family and their own code of morality, but which is also appropriate for the strange and complex world of the 21st century in which the children are growing up. We cannot run away from it—it is all around us. Children spend an inordinate amount of time on social media and on their phones; if somebody does not teach them appropriately, you can guess where else they will learn it from, and whatever they learn, it will almost certainly be hilarious but perhaps disastrously wrong.

Young People

Lord Russell of Liverpool Excerpts

Thursday 13th December 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Baroness, Lady Armstrong, for initiating this debate. I declare my interest as a governor of Coram, the children’s charity. Part of Coram, Coram Voice, delivers on behalf of the Department for Education the national advocacy safety net and advice service for looked-after children and care leavers, which goes under the name Always Heard. Our role is to attempt, as best we can, to voice the needs, concerns and experiences of the children and young people who are not represented here in person and who, in most instances, do not yet qualify to have their voices heard through exercising their right to vote.

The Prime Minister, yesterday morning, in what was perhaps even by her standards a rather busy day, said that she wants,

“a thriving economy with nowhere and nobody left behind; a stronger society where everyone can make the most of their talents”.

Those are laudable aims, but Brexit is, and has been, so all-consuming and reactive that it has allowed far less focus on those in danger of being left behind than they deserve. Debates such as this remind us of other pressing priorities. Surely, helping children and young people who are in many instances being left behind is a priority in which we all have a personal stake.

I will focus first on the issue of providing adequate independent advocacy for the more than 70,000 children and young people in England who are reliant on the state for their care and well-being because their families cannot safely care for them or they have suffered abuse or neglect. The complexities of and inconsistencies in the system mean that many children and young people are unaware of their rights and unsure where to turn for help, and they struggle to access the support to which they are legally entitled. An independent advocate could ensure that children’s views and wishes are communicated clearly and are taken into account—a point made clearly by the noble Lord, Lord Addington.

A 2016 report from the Children’s Commissioner for England indicated that half of local authorities were supporting less than 8% of the children they considered eligible for advocacy. Less than 10% of children in care and care leavers accessed a service in half of local authorities.

Secondly, I want to highlight the concern that many local authorities are struggling to provide timely or effective support to children who present as homeless or at risk of homelessness. The charity Centrepoint estimates that 103,000 young people in the UK presented to their council in 2017-18 as homeless or at risk, and less than half received effective support. And this is nearly 10 years since the Government issued clear joint guidance to children’s services and local housing authorities about their duties to secure or provide accommodation for homeless 16 and 17 year-olds—guidance that has recently been reinforced as a result of the Homelessness Reduction Act 2017. An important part of that Act is a new data-collection initiative, H-CLIC, which has the potential at last to create a central uniform hub of information that can be used to inform wider policy. What progress has been made on implementing the H-CLIC software and putting in place the necessary staff training programmes?

I suggest four ideas to the Minister for the Government’s consideration. The first is a duty on local authorities to provide an active offer of advocacy support. The second is the right to an independent advocate, enshrined in law, for all children and young people receiving or seeking care or support from the state, including those leaving care to adoption. Thirdly, there should be a requirement for local authorities to ensure provision of independent advocacy support and its active promotion to any child approaching local authority children’s or housing services. Fourthly, there should be a requirement to collate data on children presenting as homeless, including how many receive support under Section 17 of the Children Act 1989, how many receive support under Section 20 and how many were refused support.

Data is king; without it one is flying blind. It is difficult to identify trends, good or bad, in a timely fashion without it. It is essential in helping to identify best practices, and without reliable data it is impossible to establish appropriate key performance indicators, which create an easily intelligible shorthand to understand and analyse the extent to which we are succeeding in our legal and moral duty to help these children and young people.

Children: Welfare, Life Chances and Social Mobility

Lord Russell of Liverpool Excerpts

Thursday 1st November 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I too thank the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, whom I think of as my noble friend. We are both members of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, and I can speak from direct experience of how highly regarded she is there for the wide range of work that she does. People listen to her very carefully. I should also declare an interest as a governor of the children’s charity Coram.

What a pleasant change it is not to talk about Brexit and to focus on something that, frankly, is of equal importance: our children and giving them the best possible future. As I thought about this subject and researched it, I suddenly felt myself morphing into a male version of Doctor Who entering the TARDIS. I emerged 30 years ago, when, amazingly, I was a rather younger and more hirsute Member of your Lordships’ House. I was actively involved with the all-party parliamentary group on drugs misuse and had become involved with a charity called Life Education Centres—now part of Coram and the largest provider of health education in primary schools in the United Kingdom.

The environment that we were navigating through was very complex in terms of delivery. There were far too many interested parties, lots of fragmentation, and three often competing and divergent government departments—education, health and the Home Office—apparently following a policy of “divide and despair”, “accept limited responsibility”, “avoid any blame”, “try to avoid the difficult subjects” and, above all, “keep your head down”.

The end of that impasse came with a demonstration of genuine leadership and courage from the then Prime Minister, John Major, who I personally very much regret is not a Member of your Lordships’ House, as I think that his counsel would be of great use at this time. He initiated the first ever joined-up holistic review of all aspects of drugs policy. He identified an outstanding civil servant, Dame Sue Street, who in 1995 produced Tackling Drugs Together, a landmark publication that recognised the problem and accepted joint responsibility for a joined-up and properly thought-through and funded approach to trying to do something about the issue.

What is the lesson for us today from that experience? The Early Intervention Foundation, in a very timely publication this week called Realising the Potential of Early Intervention, has essentially said that there are great similarities with the situation of 30 years ago that I described, and it proposes a very clear holistic review of the whole situation. We know that there are four key areas of focus. We know that there is the physical aspect, and we know that we have to look at social and emotional needs, cognitive needs and behaviour. We also know that there are three key red-flag areas that indicate potential problems for the future: substance misuse, risky sexual behaviour and child maltreatment.

We also know that late or ineffective intervention is costing us a staggering estimated £17 billion per annum. There has been a huge reduction in Sure Start centres. The following local authorities have closed more than 70% of their centres: West Berkshire, Camden, Stockport, Bromley, Oxfordshire—a flagship example of a leading Conservative local authority—and Staffordshire. I am afraid that it is not a great list to be on. Our poorest children are already 11 months behind their peers when they start primary school.

There are five key flaws in our current approach, including inadequate and inconsistent funding; short-termism—a besetting political disease; and a fragmented approach across no less than five departments of state: education, health and social care, work and pensions, housing, communities and local government, and that graveyard of political reputations, the Home Office. We need to deliver only what works and, above all, we need to use evidence, evidence and more evidence. So what can and must we do?

First, we need someone to emulate John Major’s leadership and courage, and that needs to come from the top. As the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, suggested, we need a cross-government task force under Sue Street mark 2 and an initiative that will join the dots and provide clarity of understanding, direction, long-term intent and commitment to resource allocation. I suggest that the report it produces should be called “Working Together for our Future, our Children”. Secondly, we need to create an independent expert panel to advise the Government and to develop and refine strategy and best practice. Thirdly, we need to accelerate concerted support for local areas to deliver effective and timely intervention. Fourthly, we need long-term investment backed by cross-party commitment.

I have three specific questions for the Minister, two of which he already knows about. First, will he identify the John Major of today, with the courage and leadership to put children first, and put the case to him or her with all the force he can muster? Secondly, what steps are Her Majesty’s Government taking to explore proposals to impose a legal duty on local authorities and other statutory deliverers to provide effective early intervention? How do they propose to ensure that sufficient funds are available, particularly for those areas that have been most impacted by severe reductions? Lastly, do the Government agree that a key performance indicator must be to measure early intervention’s ability to improve social mobility—and, if so, how are they going to measure it?

I would like to put on the record my admiration for and gratitude to the Sutton Trust and Sir Peter Lampl, who would be a great Member of this House, for setting an example to us all and reminding us of the talent we possess and what young people are capable of.

Vulnerable Children

Lord Russell of Liverpool Excerpts

Thursday 14th December 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I also thank the noble Baroness, Lady Dean, for securing this debate and for the manner in which she opened it. If she is able to do that from a sitting position, one can only imagine what she can do when her back is better. I hope that will be soon.

I declare an interest as a trustee of Coram, which is the oldest children’s charity in this country, founded in 1739. We have a range of activities which, I suspect, touch every single one of the 32 groups the Children’s Commissioner identified. I was fortunate to be present at the briefing she gave here in this House on 27 November, and I thank her and her team for all the hard work that has produced this “work in progress” report.

Frankly, the reaction from those of us at that meeting was, how on earth did we get into a mess like this? There were some much more knowledgeable and experienced people than me in the room—for example, the noble Lord, Lord Warner. Several of them spoke of a long and tangled history of attempts to get a better handle on these statistics, and of failing again and again. There were comments about the persistence of a silo mentality across departments, agencies and regions; an embarrassment of data—most of it disaggregated and much of it confusing and contradictory; and myriad pilot schemes, which departments seem to be particularly fond of, most of which are expensive and now long forgotten. Governments change and Ministers come and go but, inexorably, vulnerability seems to have got worse and worse.

However, we now have an opportunity to be genuinely innovative, and there is some good news, which I will come back to. I have some questions I would like to pose to the Minister which I think his team is already aware of, so I hope he has the answers ready. First, on looked-after children with unresolved immigration issues, what is the department doing to identify those not in the asylum system, including EEA nationals? Secondly, how are the Government ensuring that local authorities have sufficient resources to regularise the status of looked-after children with unresolved immigration status? This is exacerbated by the lack of legal aid and by a hideously complex application form and expensive application fee. Thirdly, did the Government ever consider the vulnerability of children in care with immigration issues when they decided on a 10-year resettlement programme? Fourthly, what steps are the Government taking to help children excluded from school who have special educational needs? That is a particularly complex problem.

To return to the opportunity to be innovative, we live in an era of big data and data analytics, and we are entering the exciting but rather uncertain world of artificial intelligence. It is a sad truth that many of the large social media companies often know more about vulnerable children than all the different arms of government put together. I refer your Lordships to some investigative work—I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, for pointing me in this direction—carried out in May of this year by the Australian newspaper. It published a story about Facebook’s having shown one of its advertisers its ability to determine whether young people were feeling—in its words—“stressed”, “defeated”, “overwhelmed”, “anxious”, “nervous”, “stupid”, “silly”, “useless”, or a “failure”. It was also rather proud that it was able to give data on people who had body confidence issues or concerns about their appearance. It is a bit worrying that Facebook and other social media companies genuinely probably know more about these vulnerable young children than we do.

Now for the good news. In 2017, Parliament passed the Digital Economy Act. An organisation—which I will mention in a minute—says, on the implications of this Act, that it,

“enables the transformation of personal information held by government departments into an immensely valuable resource of anonymised datasets for research purposes”.

That may sound rather dry but it is actually rather exciting. It means we can have cross-sector, longitudinal analysis which can give us real insight and, best of all, knowledge. That organisation is the Administrative Data Research Network, which is under the ESRC, which is part of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. I appeal to the Minister, his officials and other departments to find out about this resource and use it, and to embrace 21st-century technology. We have an unprecedented opportunity to be child-centric. For the children’s sake, please go and do it.

Finally, I suggest to the Minister some Christmas reading: 210 pages of the OECD’s Integrating Social Services for Vulnerable Groups: Bridging Sectors for Better Service Delivery. It will keep him awake.