I thank the hon. Lady for her helpful intervention.
We sometimes worry about raising the issue of sex and relationships in the House because we feel that we are taking away a primary function of parents, but that is not the way parents see it. Research conducted by YouGov shows that 90% of parents want compulsory SRE because they understand the pressures that their children are under. Those pressures have the potential to undermine the welfare of those children, especially when they are at school. Teachers understand that, too. They understand the importance of helping young people to navigate, in an appropriate way, the pressures of being a teenager in the internet world.
There is overwhelming evidence of the need for change and I make no apology for underlining it today for the Minister’s benefit. Five Select Committee Chairs have made the same point as a result of work that their Committees have done, and the Department for Education itself told the Education Committee that good PSHE underpins good academic achievement. We know that children who have received sex and relationships education and PSHE more broadly are less likely to engage in risky behaviour and much more likely to seek help when things go wrong. Children need to be able to recognise abuse, grooming and predatory behaviour. As Alison Hadley of the University of Bedfordshire told the Education Committee, if children have no
“ammunition to understand these things, no wonder they are ending up in very dangerous situations.”
Educating children about this is not an optional extra; it needs to be mandatory and an integral part of the Government’s safeguarding strategy.
In January 2014, in response to the Education Committee’s report, the Government said that they would work to ensure that all schools deliver high-quality PSHE, but 40% still do not. In November 2014, the Government established an expert group for PSHE, which recommended that PSHE should be a statutory entitlement for all pupils. Two years on, can the Minister update the House on the progress that has been made on the issue, which 90% of parents want action on, and which Girlguiding, End Violence Against Women, the NSPCC and Barnardo’s—the list goes on—are calling for action on?
I call on the Minister to put in place a timetable for action, including a comprehensive consultation to ensure that we get this right. No one is calling for rushed measures but, as Members have said, the issue of making SRE compulsory has been ongoing for some time. Of course the education should be age-relevant in all cases, and any proposal should be implemented in a way that brings the whole House together, because that is always the best way to handle such important cross-party issues.
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