Chris Bryant

I think it was John Prescott who said something about ancient values in a modern setting. As we move forward, we need to secure the liberty of the individual at the same time as we protect the vulnerable. My hon. Friend the Member for Leeds North West (Katie White) made the point that she has had twice as much correspondence on this subject as on any other this year. She made a really important point, which applies not only to this area, but to many other areas in which we work with young people: if we possibly can, it is very important to be able to extend the years of childhood that a child gets to enjoy. Many years ago, I wrote a report about teenage pregnancy in my constituency. That is another aspect of trying to ensure that where children delay their first sexual experience, it is almost certainly better for them and leads to better personal, social and other outcomes. My hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire Dales (John Whitby) made a point about children attending A&E with psychiatric conditions. I urge him to be slightly cautious about the statistics here, because the work that I have done on acquired brain injuries suggests that sometimes people are actually presenting with a brain injury, rather than a psychiatric condition. That is one of the areas where we need to be much more intelligent about how we get data that informs our research. We heard from the hon. Member for Esher and Walton (Monica Harding)—incidentally, I see “Esher and Walton” written down and think, “That must be a Conservative Member of Parliament,” so it is such a delight when I find that it is not.