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Children, Schools and Families Bill

My Lords, people manage despite all kinds of disadvantages, and somehow people managed to procreate. But sometimes they regret the ways in which they went about it. I am not referring to myself in that case. As I was saying, 81 per cent of parents want it, and a survey by Parentline Plus shows that 97 per cent of parents believe that drugs-and-alcohol education should be delivered in schools. Secondly, making the subject statutory will improve quality and enhance parents’ confidence that it is being taught appropriately by improving teacher training and inspection. The Macdonald review concluded that effective learning in PSHE is dependent on the quality of teaching. The preceding reviews into sex-and-relationship education and drug-and-alcohol education both provided evidence that the quality of PSHE education being delivered was too variable and was failing to meet children and young people’s needs. In all cases, the conclusion of these reviews was that PSHE education should become statutory to compel schools to tackle this. Children and young people themselves regularly report that the quality and quantity of their PSHE education is failing them. While the PSHE continuing professional development programme has gone some way to improving this situation, there is currently a limited number of specialist PSHE teachers, a situation which, along with the low prioritisation of the subject in schools—because it is not statutory—means that the quality of PSHE provision has remained unacceptably patchy for too long. Ofsted has confirmed this. Statutory foundation subject status will mean that the subject is not only prioritised in curriculum planning but will lead to an upsurge in teachers specialising in PSHE through initial teacher training and other routes. Statutory status would impact on not only the consistency of provision but the quality of teaching and, subsequently, learning. Making PSHE education statutory should make consultation with parents and their engagement with the subject stronger, not weaker. PSHE is unique, in that through sex-and-relationship education in particular it places a premium on building relationships with parents in order that they can understand and exercise their rights and responsibilities in this area. Additionally, school governing bodies will consider the delivery of SRE in PSHE education—increasing the potential for parent scrutiny, accountability and engagement. Making this type of education statutory provides a lever through which parents can exercise their need to understand and question the quality of provision with a degree of certainty that is not available while PSHE delivery remains so variable from one school to another. I should like schools to publish an annual statement on their approach and provision on this subject as part of encouraging parents to engage. The third reason is that PSHE supports academic achievement in other subjects and helps children and young people to develop key life skills, including skills for work. Educationalists recognise that children do not learn well when they are in emotional turmoil. That is why the Government introduced the SEAL programme which has been so successful. Many barriers to learning lie outside the classroom, and supporting children’s personal development and well-being, in part through learning PSHE, impacts positively on raising standards of achievement in all subjects. It is self-evident that the knowledge, skills and understanding that children and young people can learn or develop through effective PSHE in school have the potential to be vital in life and work. While it is hard to quantify the impact of PSHE on academic achievement because of the indirect nature of the skills taught, such social skills are widely accepted to be important in schools and the workplace. These life skills include perseverance, conflict resolution, emotional intelligence, self-management, self-respect, teamwork, time management, financial capability, risk competence and managing stress. The Tomlinson report on the 14 to 19 curriculum, the Steer report on behaviour and the Ofsted report on PSHE have all emphasised the importance of children and young people developing life skills to help them to learn, to achieve and to gain employment. Fourthly, PSHE promotes health, well-being and, crucially, safety. It helps to achieve the Every Child Matters agenda so close to the Government's heart, and connects directly to the five outcomes by helping children to understand what it means to be healthy, to stay safe, to enjoy and achieve, to make a positive contribution and to achieve economic well-being. Evidence from organisations concerned with the safety of children shows us that PSHE is crucial to safeguarding children. Good PSHE education helps them to learn about personal safety and to improve their understanding of respectful relationships—including parenting and family relationships—as well as recognising abusive, harmful or inappropriate behaviour. Every week, hundreds of children are involved in, or witness, domestic violence, and experience physical or sexual abuse. It is a major and expensive problem in our country. We will never address the problems unless we start at the beginning with the children. Good PSHE teaches about what is acceptable behaviour, about personal space, about appropriate and inappropriate touching, and about being self-confident and assertive in maintaining personal integrity. It also helps children to develop the skills to ask for help. This can contribute to a reduction in childhood abuse and neglect. Similarly, evidence shows that PSHE education is an important intervention for the prevention of bullying. Yet these are the things that the Conservatives do not want to ensure that every child is taught. I am disgusted by that, and so are the many organisations and millions of children who have campaigned for it. Fifthly, PSHE teaches about values, including respect, morality and an understanding of cultural diversity. It plays a key role in promoting inclusion and reducing inequalities. It provides myriad opportunities to explore difference and diversity, and learn skills for living in a multicultural and diverse society. The Qualifications and Curriculum Development Agency has long recognised the important role that PSHE plays in promoting respect for diversity and difference. Sixthly, making the subject statutory will improve access for all to PSHE. Although the most recent report from Ofsted suggests that on balance provision has improved, there are serious inconsistencies in delivery and children confirm this. The current non-statutory status of much PSHE education means that some schools are not prioritising the subject and not allocating sufficient curriculum time to it. Some schools are not delivering it at all. This runs counter to the belief that access to high-quality learning that can have a positive effect on well-being should be an entitlement for every child and young person in English schools. Finally, in primary schools the Understanding Physical Health and Well-being primary curriculum area of learning would provide the right framework for PSHE topics to be taught in an age-appropriate way. Perhaps those noble Lords who do not wish to listen to this speech could leave the Chamber in a courteous manner. The current laws regarding PSHE are confusing. Secondary schools are obliged only to teach the biological aspects of sex, contraception and sexually transmitted diseases. These are usually covered in science lessons, giving children no opportunity to discuss the issues that face them in real life. Human beings are not diagrams on the page of a biology textbook. They are much more than that, and we should recognise this in 21st century education. There are many myths about PSHE. Some say it would mean sex lessons for five year-olds. It would not. Learning about growing up should start in primary school and focus on empathy, respect for self and others, diversity, understanding relationships with family and friends, looking after yourself and being healthy. Some say that SRE does not work and that it encourages early sexual experimentation. This is not true either. There is good international evidence that SRE, particularly when linked with contraceptive services, can have an impact on young people’s knowledge and attitudes, delay sexual activity and reduce pregnancy rates. In countries where it is taught well, the rate of teenage pregnancy is much lower than it is here. The Minister herself, in her letter to the noble Baroness, Lady Verma, of 24 March, referred to this research. She said that two-thirds of the curriculum-based sex education programmes that were considered had positive effects on teenage sexual behaviour by either delaying the initiation of sex, increasing contraceptive use or both. Nearly all the programmes that were studied had a beneficial impact on young people’s confidence to say no to unwanted sex. They were also shown to improve knowledge and communication with parents. Some say that SRE will make children lose their innocence. No, it will not. Children need it not only to answer their questions but also to provide balance to the range of often misleading and inappropriate messages about sex in the media. Good-quality SRE provides children with factually correct information and helps them to challenge and be critical of the media. Children have a right to all this information under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. The Minister herself emphasised this in two references in her letter of 24 March. Responding to the Second Reading debate on the rights of parents to withdraw their children, she said: ""Parental rights exist for the protection of the child, not to serve the interests of the parent. The most fundamental and important aspect of the convention protocol, to which the noble Lord, Lord Alton, referred, is that a child has a right not to be denied education. The European Court has consistently held that respect for parental philosophical and religious convictions is a secondary consideration and not a trump card"." Later in the same letter she said: ""With the greatest respect to them, parental rights do not and should not take precedence over those of children themselves"—" a point that was made very eloquently by the noble Baroness, Lady Deech. I agree with the Minister’s words. This brings me to address the attempt by the noble Lord, Lord Morrow, to raise the age up to which parents may withdraw the child to 16 years. Evidence shows that there is widespread support for abolishing the right of parental withdrawal or lowering, rather than raising, the age at which parents can withdraw their child from SRE. A recent nationally representative poll found that the majority of parents believe that the right of withdrawal should either be removed or cease when the child is 11 years old. In the England submission to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child in 2008, more than 100 non-governmental organisations endorsed a report recommending that the Government should remove the right of parents to withdraw their child from SRE in school. The right of parental withdrawal is a relatively modern provision, introduced through the Education Act 1993 and later consolidated in Section 405 of the Education Act 1996. It currently affects any child or young person up to the age of 19 but the Conservatives would like to make it 16. This is nonsense. It would mean that a young person had no right to any SRE until they reached the legal age of consent. This ignores the reality of children’s lives. Each year in England and Wales about 300 children under the age of 13 become pregnant. They become pregnant—in case I need to spell it out—because they have sex without any protection.