Education Bill

Baroness Crawley Excerpts

Wednesday 26th October 2011 Lords Chamber

Lord Elton: Perhaps I may distil what my noble friend has just said with the Latin phrase—“expressio unius est exclusio alterius”: if you have a list, the things that are in it matter and, by inference, the things that are not in it do not matter. Lists are very dangerous things.

Perhaps I may distil a parent’s view on the particular aspect of the amendment on which your Lordships have chosen to concentrate. I think that the parent has the best idea of when a child is ready for the various stages of his or her understanding of sex, and the best way is to answer truthfully every question when it is asked and at the age at which it is asked—sometimes wrapped up a little. I do think—and your Lordships have generally expressed a view—that to teach advanced sex, if one may call it that, in primary school is entirely inappropriate. I add my name to the list of those who admire greatly what the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, has done in Parliament for young people over many years, and I have been rather feeble in supporting her. However, what she was not asked to do was a demonstration of the material that is not only available but recommended to be used in classrooms; and recommended not only by non-government bodies but by local authorities, sometimes at an age less even than that recommended by the publisher. It was hair-raising. I hope your Lordships will understand that for that reason anything that tends to open the door to that is to be resisted.

The noble Lord, Lord Clarke of Hampstead, put it succinctly—he distilled it. He said that the inference in paragraph (c) of proposed new subsection (5C) is that this subject should be taught in all schools. It is for that reason and with great reluctance that I oppose the amendment. Its intention is good and if it could be tweaked at Third Reading to exclude that inference, I would be friendly to it.

[Baroness Crawley]

My Lords, I rise in support of my noble friends in their amendment and acknowledge their tenacity in pursuing these important and sensitive matters. It is a welcome opportunity for me to leave the substitutes’ bench, even for a brief period, in the passage of the Bill and to take part in this significant debate. A colleague said that timely substitution can often win matches. However, looking at our recent voting form, I am not going to hold out too much hope.

In Amendment 80, my noble friends Lady Massey of Darwen, Lady Gould of Potternewton and Lord Layard have called on the chief inspector to report on school policies on bullying, healthy eating, the delivery of citizenship education and the delivery of personal, social and health education, including sex and relationships education. In proposed new subsection (5D) in their amendment, they say:

“In reporting on the matters listed … the Chief Inspector must take into account the age and stage of development of the pupils”.

That is very important for us to remember in the context of our debate tonight. There is no question in the amendment of any compulsion for inappropriately aged children.

Education for Life, with a capital “L”, is crucial in our modern, complex, choice-led, resource-scarce society, but I know that the force of my noble friends’ arguments will not be lost on the Minister, who carries his brief with enthusiasm and compassion. To quote the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, in Committee:

“Children may not go on to get first-class degrees but they will all have families, relationships, friends, personal finances, responsibility for their own health and safety … and jobs”.—[Official Report, 13/7/11; col. GC 344.]

Also in Committee, my noble friend Lord Layard quoted, at cols. GC 349 and 350, some revealing international evidence that personal, social and health education assisted children in their academic achievements. He said that it was not a case of either life skills or academic attainment but of both. Many noble Lords around the House are convinced by evidence such as this, by what parents themselves have said about PSHE and by the experience of PSHE in schools over recent years. I know that there has been a patchy nature to some of that teaching. One reason why my noble friends have tabled this amendment is to ensure that there is monitoring by Ofsted of the quality of that teaching and of the kind of training that must be given to those who deliver PSHE, whether it be generically through the school or as a separate subject.

Although we on these Benches welcome the end-of-consultation date for the department’s internal review of PSHE—which I believe is 30 November, as elicited through an Oral Question from my noble friend Lady Gould of Potternewton—we still have a slight suspicion that this review set out to be one that featured a certain acreage of long grass. In that context, I ask the Minister why PSHE was removed entirely from the original independent review.

We do not have a lot of time tonight. I want to say simply that we have a generation of children who face enormous and complex problems when it comes to sexual and personal health pressures. These are young people who come up against enormous problems, such as HIV infection, drug abuse, teenage pregnancy, alcohol abuse, obesity and smoking—the list goes on. It cannot be the role of a responsible Government overseeing education to allow chance, discretion or benign neglect to be the official response to the bewildering array of problems that face young people. I was as shocked as I am sure many noble Lords were at the recent evidence of sexual cyberbullying and the increasing amount of cyberbullying that goes on, particularly of young girls. It is imperative that we give young girls all possible confidence to resist such pressure. How do we do that? We do it by arming them with clear and rational argument. As the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, said, schools can make a difference. We also need to give young boys—here, I look towards the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, and the work that he does—the confidence to act in a responsible way and to resist their own peer pressure. This is where PSHE comes in. The correct teaching of PSHE, with proper training, can only be a good thing for the next generation.