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Children, Schools and Families Bill

My Lords, I am going to continue to make a number of points that I am sure the noble Baroness will be interested to hear. I would argue that we must be concerned to do all that we can to tackle teenage pregnancy and all the other issues that noble Lords have raised. We know that children born to young parents are much less likely to secure the outcomes to which we are all committed. It is because of that that the provisions received such significant support in Parliament and more broadly across the sector, as well as among faith groups, as my noble friends Lady Gould and Lady Massey pointed out. I need to make it clear that the insistence that parents should have the right to withdraw their children until they reach the age of 16—the age at which they are considered to be mature and are adults in many respects—made it impossible for us to proceed. Both English and European case law does not support a continuing opt-out up to the age of 16. This would have meant that some children would have received no sex and relationship education at all, even when the subject was statutory. Just to make it absolutely clear, noble Lords will know that, on introducing a Bill to the House, I would have to sign a Section 19 statement confirming that in my view the Bill is compatible with the European Convention on Human Rights. I am advised that, if the Bill had been drafted on the basis of the proposed right of withdrawal until the age of 16, I would not have been able to sign such a statement.