Green MP Caroline Lucas’ Private Members’ Bill to make the teaching of PSHE compulsory in all schools had been due for its second reading on Friday (January 20).
However, a number of Conservative MPs made long speeches on a preceding Bill meaning that when her Bill was called, Ms Lucas only had minutes left to discuss the proposed piece of legislation.
It means that her chances of progressing the Bill through the House of Commons are all but gone.
When finally Ms Lucas was able to discuss the proposals, she accused some MPs of “filibustering” her Bill – a Parliamentary technique that involves talking at great length in order to prevent progress being made. Some of the speeches made on Friday lasted more than 30 minutes, with one lasting almost an hour.
The Bill seeks to make PSHE a statutory requirement for all state-funded schools, including academies, and to make sex and relationships education (SRE) and education on ending violence against women and girls, a statutory part of PSHE.
The campaign has widespread support, not least from the chairs of five House of Commons Select Committees, who last year wrote a joint letter to the Department for Education (DfE) calling for action. Meanwhile, more than 100 organisations have joined a PSHE Association campaign for statutory PSHE education, including Mumsnet, Stonewall, Girlguiding and the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners.
Currently, PSHE and SRE are not statutory subjects on the national curriculum. However, the national curriculum framework statutory guidance states that schools should make provision for PSHE and that secondary schools must teach SRE. Despite this, the only topic SRE must cover under legislation is HIV, AIDS and other STIs.
Some have argued that SRE is statutory because of the science curriculum, but this only covers basic sex education such as puberty and reproduction in primary science and the menstrual cycle and reproductive system in secondary science and it is not compulsory in academy or free schools.
Ms Lucas says that her Bill has received support from across the political spectrum.
Speaking before the debate on Friday, she added: “The demand for compulsory PSHE is growing by the week. Not only do employers support it, and groups from the Samaritans to the British Red Cross – but MPs from across the House of Commons do too. There is no more excuse for hesitation.”
- Details of the Bill can be found at http://services.parliament.uk/bills/2016-17/person...