My Lords, I go back a long way on the whole business of citizenship, which is what I shall call it. When I came into this House, a new Government arrived shortly afterwards and my noble friend Lord Northbourne was keen on promoting something called citizenship. Suddenly there was an idea that citizenship was actually going to be taught. I think we assumed that citizenship would encompass some of the less explicit things we have been talking about in the debate, and an awful lot of them were going to be taught within this subject. However, it did not happen. The subject was spread around a lot of other different subjects being taught, and nothing was made of it.
We have seen a huge change in the influences bearing on young people and on families more generally. I listened with great interest to my noble friend Lady Kidron, who is writing a book or making a programme—I do not know which it is—about this whole area. My goodness, what she has uncovered and described to us is something that I am afraid we are becoming more aware of every day.
What I would like to see, along with the superb amendment moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, which we all support, is real attention being paid to how we can address this issue. I am afraid that we have moved much further up the sexual agenda. I am grateful for the comments that have been made about my Private Member’s Bill, but having listened to what has been said in this debate, I almost feel that it is out of date. However, there is a lot of emphasis on this in the redraft and it is still awaiting its Second Reading; I hope that that will come soon. There is a lot more about education and support of that kind in the Bill. Judging by the number of noble Lords who have
talked about this subject today, I hope that we shall see lots of them in the Chamber when the Bill is debated.
I will not go into the specific details of what I would like to see being covered, but I hope that the Minister has, above all, listened to what has been said. My noble friend Lord Cormack—I call him that we because we have known one another in different capacities for many years, although we do not necessarily always agree on every subject—made an extremely telling contribution. Again, I hope that the Minister will pay a huge amount of attention to what is set out in this amendment and to what has been debated. It is absolutely the gist of what we have to deal with in the future if we are to bring up the next generation, particularly young women, with sufficient self-esteem, knowledge of and confidence in themselves to play their full role. I fear that all too many young women are regarded as objects in today’s world, which is a terrifying comment on what we have failed to achieve so far. This is a major challenge, but I will not go on because we have had a very good discussion. I hope that the Minister will be able to reassure us that this issue is going to be taken seriously.