Violence against Women and Girls Strategy

Wera Hobhouse Excerpts

Thursday 18th December 2025 Commons Chamber

[Jess Phillips]

The new curriculum is for children aged four to 16. It is compulsory in schools and should be done in an age-appropriate way. Through the new funding, we will create a series of interventions, so that, if there are worries that a kid is sharing images, or young people are disclosing abuses in their relationships, for example, schools can send people for interventions. I can absolutely assure my hon. Friend—mother of a son as she is—that that provision will be age-appropriate across the board.

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)]

I was a secondary school language teacher before I came to this place, and I had to deliver lessons on relationships. I have also raised two women and two men, so I was not exactly uncomfortable around young people, but I felt uncomfortable teaching those lessons, and it seems that I am not alone. About half of secondary school teachers do not feel comfortable delivering those lessons. I know that the strategy includes training for teachers, but, with busy school days and lots of other stuff going on, is it realistic to expect yet another bit of training to result in positive outcomes? Should we not have a professional in each school to deliver those lessons?

[Jess Phillips]

As somebody who was one of those professionals who went into schools, I could not agree more with the hon. Lady. I attended the same school as the Home Secretary, so when we were building the strategy, we kept talking about which of our teachers we would not have wanted to talk to about these issues, which was quite amusing. No offence to the teachers at our school in the ‘90s, but not many of them came out well when we were thinking about talking to them about consent, pornography or other things. What is being announced today is the use of specialists, but the point is that eventually teachers have to comfortable with talking about these matters. I think that my kids’ teachers are more comfortable than mine were, but there has to be development towards that.