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Education and Inspections Bill

My Lords, I support AmendmentNo. 91A and agree with what the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, has said. I declare an interest as a trustee of the Terrence Higgins Trust and as an ambassador for the National AIDS Trust. Twenty years ago I launched a campaign on HIV/AIDS. Our message was basically, ““Don’t die of ignorance””. We used television advertising, posters and we sent a leaflet to every household in the country. Among some it was regarded as controversial. I remember meeting the Chief Rabbi, who complimented me on the urgency of the campaign but set out no fewer than 14 different reasons why he opposed it. One of his arguments was that it encouraged promiscuity by introducing children and young people to ideas of sex entirely unknown to them. I did not agree with that argument. Indeed, I think effective prevention is—or should be—one of the goals of any government. As it happened, we were not flooded with a vast number of complaints after the campaign—in fact we had very few indeed—but the figures showed that knowledge increased very radically and infection went down at the same time, not only HIV/AIDS infection but sexually transmitted diseases generally. However, 20 years on, I am concerned by just how much those lessons have been forgotten. If you ran a commercial company and conducted a major advertising campaign, and then went off the air for the next 20 years, everyone would think you were fairly eccentric. But that is exactly what has happened; there has been no effective follow up. Because of medical advances, young people may not now be dying of ignorance, but certainly they are continuing to suffer in increasing numbers because of ignorance. That is basically why I support the amendment. The degree of ignorance in this country is of enormous concern to anyone who has looked at this issue. The European survey carried out for the European Commission, to which the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, referred, showed startling ignorance about how HIV/AIDS is spread and a startling avoidance of some of the most obvious methods of preventing it. It is a sad truth that for most young people today television, the media, playground gossip and rumours are their primary source of important information about issues such as pregnancy, sexually transmitted infections and HIV. And yet countless surveys in this country have shown that young people would like to see taught—and better taught than it is—much more sex and relationship education. As we have been told, some aspects of sex and relationship education are currently taught as part of the biology curriculum, but we also know that maintaining good sexual health involves far more than an understanding of basic biology. Currently, I think that provision is extraordinarily patchy. Some schools teach good-quality sex and relationship education, in others it is poor quality and some do not teach it at all. It should not be left to individual schools to make the decision or to make the case for it. It is quite a difficult case to make locally, where it does not necessarily come at the top of people’s priorities. Therefore, it is a responsibility directly upon Government to make that case nationally and locally. I should like to see the Government—this one or whichever one follows—face up to the challenge. There is an excellent document on the website of the Department for International Development entitled Talking about Health, Sex and Pregnancy. It sets out the department’s approach to promoting sexual and reproductive health and rights in developing countries, and says: "““People need the knowledge and skills to make choices and safe decisions about their sex lives. Sex education does not increase the number of sexual partners among young people. In fact, it helps them make safer choices, including delaying first sex, and reducing the number of sexual partners they have””." To support and fund good-quality personal, social and health education around the world, as it clearly helps young people to make sensible, safer choices to protect their own well-being, is an eminently sensible approach. It seems reasonable to ask the Government to show the same concern for young people in the United Kingdom and to ensure that all our young people get high-quality personal, social and health education as part of the national curriculum. This is a vastly important subject; it is right that it should be raised at this stage, and I very much hope that as a result of the Bill, we can at long last do something about it.