Homophobic Bullying (Schools)

Debate between Iain Stewart and John Robertson

Tuesday 12th June 2012 Westminster Hall

[Iain Stewart (Milton Keynes South) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to speak under your chairmanship, Mr Robertson, for what I think is the first time. Why do we need a debate on homophobic and transphobic bullying in schools? Is it not the case that any form of bullying is bad and should be tackled? I agree with that up to a point. Bullying is not a new phenomenon. It has always been the case that some children are cruel and will pick on others because they are perceived to be different in some way. Perhaps they are not wearing trendy clothes; they wear glasses; they are overweight; they have acne—there are all sorts of reasons. Schools should have in place effective anti-bullying policies, both to foster a general culture of respect, so that the likelihood of bullying is diminished in the first place, and to be able to nip bullying in the bud quickly when it does take place. That is certainly true, but I want to demonstrate today why I believe that there is a particular problem with homophobic bullying that needs to be tackled.

Research commissioned by Stonewall in 2009 and conducted by YouGov found that 90% of secondary school teachers and 40% of primary school teachers had regularly witnessed homophobic bullying in schools. An earlier survey of young gay people found that 65% had been bullied themselves and 98% were aware of homophobic language being used. Although we do not yet have the figures, Stonewall is carrying out a major research programme and will publish an updated set of figures in the next few weeks. That will demonstrate—I had a meeting with Stonewall last week—that the problem very much remains.

There is clearly a problem to be tackled, but statistics do not convey the human cost of bullying. I want to draw attention to the case of the Crouch family, which has been covered in the press in the past few months and certainly does show the human cost of bullying. Dominic Crouch was a 15-year-old schoolboy in Gloucestershire. During a school trip in 2010, he played a game of spin the bottle with his classmates. As a forfeit, he had to kiss another boy. That event was videoed on a mobile phone and quickly spread virally round the school. Dominic suffered severe taunting for being gay. It is not actually known whether he was gay, but the intensity of the bullying was so great that Dominic committed suicide by jumping off a tall building. His father, Roger, commendably and bravely, spoke up publicly about his son’s suicide, to help to raise awareness of the problem and to encourage people to take action. However, Roger’s grief was so intense that he could not cope and he took his own life last November. Those two lives were lost utterly needlessly.

Sadly, the Crouch family’s story is not an isolated case. Last year in my area of Milton Keynes, there were four teenage suicides. Of those, three were young gay men. Does that not tell us that there is a problem that needs to be addressed?

Homophobic bullying can leave very deep emotional scars that can take a long time to heal and sometimes will never heal. I know that from personal experience. At school, I knew that I was gay, but I did not dare admit it, either to myself or to others. It was inconceivable for me to do that as a teenager growing up in the west of Scotland in the mid-1980s. Indeed, with you, Mr Robertson, in the Chair, I will say that it was easier for me to admit that I was a Tory in Glasgow than it was to come clean about my sexual orientation.

[John Robertson (in the Chair)]

I find that hard to believe! [Laughter.]

[Iain Stewart]

I do not want to over-egg things. I was not physically bullied and the verbal bullying that I experienced was very mild and short-lived, but I was perceived to be different and it left deep scars. It was enough to make me feel isolated and introverted, and it took me a very long time to overcome. It is clear from the research that Stonewall and others have done that those consequences of bullying can severely impair a young person’s academic and social development. Further evidence shows that, where there is a culture of bullying in schools and particularly homophobic bullying, it drags down the performance of the class and the school as a whole, so it is not just those who are bullied who suffer; it is their classmates as well.

Social attitudes have changed enormously in the two decades or so since I was at school. Thankfully, we live in more enlightened times. However, it is wrong to think that homophobia does not exist among young people. I challenge hon. Members to read some of the horrifying stories in the recent special youth edition of Attitude magazine. Some pretty appalling things have gone on and are going on in classrooms in our schools today.

In preparing for this speech, I took the time to speak to some of the pupils in my constituency to find out what their experience of bullying in schools was. I found some pretty surprising and appalling things. One girl told me that she was doing a media studies class and part of the research involved looking at the portrayal of homosexuality in the media. The class had to view an episode of, I think, “EastEnders” in which two men were kissing. The phrase “dirty faggot” was shouted out in the classroom and clearly heard by the teacher, but the teacher did nothing about it. Such incidents take place; they are happening today. The girl also told me that a Facebook page was set up so that pupils at the school who were thought to be gay could be outed.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Debate between Iain Stewart and John Robertson

Monday 6th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[John Robertson (Glasgow North West) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Mr Turner), who made good sense; he made some excellent points, as did the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Mr MacNeil). A number of important points have been made about distances and sizes of constituencies.

I come from an inner city. I am the Member for Glasgow North West; it has affluent parts, but it also has very poor areas, and some areas of high deprivation. I have a problem, in that the people in those areas of deprivation do not vote. There are 5,000 houses in my constituency in which nobody is registered, yet I know that people live in them. That is 5,000 votes lost. Members mentioned how out-of-date the electoral rolls are, how that will make a difference, and the fact that by the time that we come to look at the issue again, they will be 10 or 20 years out of date, but the figures are regularly out of date. Even though we top up the rolls annually, there are still those 5,000 houses in which the people are not registered. There are also people who say that they live alone but do not. There are people who share their house, but who register only one person at that address, because that gets them a reduction in their council tax.

It is not beyond the wit of man or woman to work out a roll that does not just use the council’s way of carrying out registration. There are other methods by which we can gather information on who lives in a house, and who receives benefits of various types. We can do that, but not overnight. The Bill is a galloping horse that has taken off, and there is no stopping it, no matter what. The Deputy Prime Minister talks about fairness, but we on the Labour Benches are not kidded. We know fine well what the proposals are all about; they are about trying to put down the Labour party and Labour Members. They are about making sure that the Labour party never comes to government again. Well, we are going to stop that. It has been tried before, and the Labour party has always bounced back.

[Iain Stewart (Milton Keynes South) (Con)]

Judging from the Library note, the hon. Gentleman’s electorate number 61,000. If one adds on the 5,000 thousand electors that it is claimed are missing—or even if one adds 10,000—it puts the electorate for Glasgow North West at about 70,000. My electorate in Milton Keynes South number nearly 90,000. Is that fair?