My Lords, my Amendment 57, which had a great deal of support earlier on in this Committee, was on roughly the same subject as and to a great extent coincides with the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Massey. I congratulate her on an amendment which I almost—almost—entirely support.
I have two things to say here. First, there is a decision to make. The opposition amendment—shall we call it that?—puts the burden upon the state to list the things that schools must do. The amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, and my amendment both place that obligation on the schools themselves. That has a number of implications. I will not go into those in any detail but it will make schools think harder and it is more in line with what I believe to be the Government’s policy, so perhaps it is more likely to happen.
The other point about these two sets of amendments, particularly the second set, is that they are only about sexual relationships. If you think about life, other sorts of relationship are equally important. Particularly in the context of sexual relationships, the relationship between a parent and their child is crucial. I would like to see built somewhere into these amendments a reference to other important forms of relationship. For goodness’ sake, no one can tell me that relationships in the workplace do not matter, or when dealing with clients, in social life or looking after older people and children. Sexual relationships are frightfully important and I agree that at that stage of a child’s development it is important that they should be given the detail and information, and be able to question and think about those relationships, but it should be done in the context of all interpersonal relationships.