Helen Maguire

I beg to move, That this House has considered relationship education in schools. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship again today, Sir Jeremy. Sadly, the relationship education that our young people currently receive does not address the realities of what it means to be a young person today. If we fail to urgently adapt and strengthen our approach to relationship education, we will fail to counter the inappropriate and often misogynistic ideas that our young people are exposed to, and we will therefore fail to protect women and girls from the violence that these ideas spur. Prevention starts with education and the creation of a space for our young people to have conversations about relationships. As a mother of three teenagers—two boys and a girl—I have spent many years having open and honest conversations with them about relationships. I have done my best to ensure that they understand what a healthy relationship looks like and how to treat others with respect. However, as every parent knows, children do not always see their parents as the ultimate source of wisdom; they look to their peers, the internet and the world around them. That is why relationship education in schools is so vital. If we get it right, relationship education creates a safe space where young people can discuss these ideas openly with their peers, guided by teachers who are knowledgeable about the challenges that young people face. The statistics paint a worrying picture: 41% of teachers have seen aggressive misogyny in classrooms, 51% have witnessed pupils advocating sexual violence, and only 43% of students feel personally represented and included by relationships and sex education. Young people are turning elsewhere to learn: 22% say online sources are their main source of information, while 15% say their primary source is pornography. The charity Let Me Know found that 60% of the young people polled did not know the signs of a healthy or unhealthy relationship. Those are shocking figures, which underline the urgency of getting this right.