Tories Oppose Statutory Sex-Education
Remember the previous post about the pre-general election ‘wash up’? The Tories are now making mischief with sex education. From Ed Balls’ letter on his website to his shadow Michael Gove:
I am especially disappointed that, despite our conversation yesterday, you could not agree to make PSHE statutory in all state-funded schools. There is now widespread agreement that statutory PSHE is essential to prepare young people for adult life, and our reforms would ensure that by reducing the age of parental opt-out to 15, all children receive at least one year of compulsory sex and relationship education (SRE).
There is a large body of evidence showing that good SRE leads to young people taking greater responsibility and waiting longer to have their first sexual experience and thus reduced teenage pregnancy rates. It is because of this the provisions of the Bill had received such significant support in Parliament and more broadly across the sector, with faith groups and with parents.
As I explained yesterday, your insistence that parents should have a right to withdraw their children until they reach the age of 16 – the age at which they are in many respects considered adults – makes it impossible for us to proceed. Both British and European case law do not support an opt-out up to the age of 16. As I explained when we discussed yesterday, that amendment would have meant that the bill would not have been compliant with the ECHR. Your insistence that the age limit must be increased to 16 would have made the entire bill non-compliant with UK and European law and, therefore, our lawyers advised me that, as Secretary of State, I had no choice but to remove all the PSHE provisions.
This is a very significant set back, which will deny many young people proper and balanced sex and relationships education. I also strongly disagree with your insistence that children and young people attending academies should be excluded.
What a surprise. From the Shadow Home Secretary’s stumble over gay rights, we now move to the Shadow Children’s Secretary showing no interest whatsoever in empowering young people. And of course Balls (albeit hypocritically) shows they have no interest in human rights – they’re committed to repealing the Human Rights Act after all. The closer we get to May 6th the more the Tories start to reveal themselves as just as nasty as they were last time they were in power. Don’t be fooled for a moment about what these people are really like and for Heaven’s sake don’t vote for them.
Time to Lock Up Teenage Mums!
Of course it’s not, but the Tories think it is. Compassionate (or intelligent) conservatism? Judge for yourself:
Children who have sex under the age of 16 are breaking the law and should be prosecuted, a senior Tory has said.
Raising the prospect of criminalising teenage mothers, Tory children’s spokesman Tim Loughton warned there were no apparent consequences for those who had under-age sex.
He said: ‘We need a message that actually it is not a very good idea to become a single mum at 14.
‘[It is] against the law to get pregnant at 14. How many kids get prosecuted for having under-age sex? Virtually none.’
Asked if was advocating more prosecutions, Mr Loughton said: ‘We need to be tougher. Without sounding horribly judgmental, it is not a good idea to be a mum at 14. You are too young.’
While Mr Loughton’s remarks will alarm children’s rights groups, he won support from experts who pointed to a worrying rise in teenage pregnancies among very young girls.
Ann Furedi, of the British Pregnancy Advisory Service, said: ‘Let’s just say that I don’t think jailing young mothers is a sensible way to address teenage pregnancy in Britain.
‘It’s widely recognised and accepted that young people are having sex at an earlier age. The notion of criminalising that activity, and in particular criminalising motherhood at any age, is abhorrent.’
But sociologist and author Patricia Morgan said: ‘The age of consent is there to protect children up to a certain age because they can’t necessarily judge things for themselves.’
The age at which children can have either heterosexual or homosexual sex is 16. The law presumes that when a girl is under 13 she is not mature enough to consent to sex.
That means anyone who has sex with a girl under 13 is committing statutory rape – even if she has consented. However, the number of prosecutions of teenagers who have sex with each other is very small.
In most cases, even if police refer a case to prosecutors it is deemed to be ‘not in the public interest’ to proceed. Miss Morgan added: ‘I agree with Tim Loughton that we should be sending a message out. There should be more prosecutions.
‘When I was growing up, young men were very frightened about going all the way with girls under the age of 16.
‘Now we are just telling children they can be sexually active whenever they are ready and we will make it safe for you.’
It’s the old favourites getting trotted out in advance of the general election in May. Teenage mums are leeches on society, it’s their fault they get pregnant (and we’re not talking the middle class ones, nor teenage fathers), and there’s always a handy ‘sociologist’ to prove that sex education is part of the problem rather than the solution. What’s most sinister though is the Tories’ position of actually threatening to prosecute young people for what they’re going to do anyway, and that their biggest advocate is Ed Balls’ Tory shadow. Sure they would never be able to do this in reality, but it does send out a pretty strong signal that the Tory party hasn’t changed one iota, doesn’t it? Shall we move onto refugees next?
