Lord Sandhurst:

Moved by Lord Sandhurst

466: After Clause 62, insert the following new Clause—“Relationship, sex, and health education curriculumAll external resources used in schools within the relationship, sex, and health education curriculum and teaching time must be published, citable, and accessible for public and regulatory scrutiny.”Member’s explanatory statementThis Amendment seeks to ensure that only resources that are accessible in the public domain are used to teach the RSHE curriculum.

My Lords, I will also speak to Amendment 467. These amendments have the support of the noble Baronesses, Lady Morris of Yardley and Lady Cash, who are not here at this late hour. I also support Amendment 502YE, to which I put my name, in the name of my noble friend Lady Barran.

Both my amendments are concerned with RSHE and the rights of access by parents and carers to the relevant teaching materials. In doing this, I stress that I support the teaching of RSHE. But it is a sensitive area, as I think we all know, and it is important that parents know what is being taught. Not least, that is because—although I hope they will not—parents have the right to request that their child be withdrawn from some or all of sex education to be delivered. If parents can be reassured about the content, they are less likely to be suspicious and to remove their children.

However, schools have been entering contracts with external providers of RHSE teaching materials which forbid the schools from showing them to others. This has created suspicion and unhappiness and, on occasion, parents and carers have resorted to litigation. That is not helpful to the education of our young, and makes it more likely that children will be withdrawn.

The National Parent Survey 2025 was published last week. It found, among other things, that 23% of parents say that their child has been exposed to inappropriate content in an RHSE class and 71% think it important that schools consult them on the content of such lessons. Parents must be entitled and should be allowed to see the materials from which RHSE is being taught, but they have faced spurious legal arguments of commercial confidentiality or copyright. We must make the content accessible and remove cause for suspicion. The purpose of these amendments is to create a statutory obligation on schools to make all resources for use in RSHE properly accessible to the public.

Since my amendments were laid, excellent new statutory guidance has been issued. I shall quote from two core parts. Paragraph 55 says:

“Schools should take steps to pro-actively engage parents and make sure they are aware of what is being taught in RSHE”.

Paragraph 56 says:

“Schools … should ensure that parents are able to view all curriculum materials used to teach RSHE on request”.

This is excellent. However, we must not forget that this can be amended or, more importantly, withdrawn at any time by a future Government who have a change of heart. My amendments would seek to entrench them in statute, not just in statutory guidance, because statute would mean that any new Government who wanted to depart from these principles could do so, but not without the approval of Parliament, and that is the point. There would then be proper debate and Parliament would have to approve it.

The fact is that until now parents have not had proper access to examine the external resources. Too many schools have failed them. They have been pushed by external providers to hide such materials from the eyes of carers, and we do not want to return to that. It has caused people to withdraw children from a most important part of the curriculum. We must make sure that the content is accessible and not cause for suspicion or rumour. In these circumstances, I would argue that it is difficult to see what arguments can be made against these two amendments, not least because the Government now accept that there should be statutory guidance in the form of that from which I have quoted. On that basis, there should be the obligation to make these materials published, accessible and not capable of being removed without the oversight of Parliament. I beg to move.

My Lords, I support my noble friend’s commendable Amendment 466. He is right about the misuse of the concept of commercially confidential contractual relationships between the education provider and the company providing the material. We need to go back to an accountability that we had with the old-fashioned model of school textbooks. They contained knowledge that had been honed over the ages and was visible and accessible to all, and rightly so. It is the heritage that we need to pass on to our children. What we have seen are some examples of RSHE and other school resources that are low-quality, unscientific, ideological or political. These resources are often provided to schools as worksheets by online school resource providers and they are not in the public domain Indeed, the business model requires them to be available by subscription only. I have some examples that I could draw to the attention of the Committee, but I will not go into too much detail.

The point is that teaching works when it can bring pupils together with a shared educational experience. Often, some of the contested issues around microaggression, casual racism, critical race theory, et cetera, and particular preposterous, unscientific nonsense around gender ideology—which can have an impact on young, vulnerable children and their families—are not open to the transparency and clarity we really need. Education should be a unifying experience and not divide children in this contentious way.

To give one example, moving away slightly from RSHE but pertinent to this amendment, there is a resource I have seen which states:

“The wealth of the British Empire was built upon the enslavement and labour of people from across the Empire”.

That is historically ignorant, in that the United Kingdom —Great Britain—gave up a third of its national wealth to destroy slavery, so there has to be context.

There is a pattern here. The internet has made so much knowledge accessible to all, but it has also allowed harmful nonsense to flourish, as is widely recognised. That is why this amendment is timely. As a society, we are looking at how the internet and technology usage are impacting our schools and children in ways that may be harmful. We should extend that exploration to this area. The business model of online resource provision to schools has grown and flourished over 20 years or so, largely unregulated and unreviewed. In the area of RSHE, it is already clear that contested nonsense has been allowed to flourish, much of it by online resource providers.

With this amendment, we could all see what we are teaching our children in RSHE. There would be accountability and transparency. Let us ensure that it is done using only resources that are fully available in the public domain. On that basis, I support my noble friend’s amendment.

My Lords, I support my noble friend’s Amendment but would like to speak to Amendment 502YE in the name of my noble friend Lady Barran. The Conservative Government published draft gender-questioning children guidance in December 2023, followed by a consultation which lasted until March 2024. The Government have now had well over a year to examine the guidance and the responses, but there is still no explanation as to why the response has been so delayed.

Much of the draft guidance is a reassertion of existing requirements for schools. I will not go into that now—although I would like to—but what is being taught at the moment that is so contentious, and why are we are so keen to have the guidance confirmed? Here are a couple of examples. Stonewall tells primary schools:

“Everyone has a gender identity. … This might be the same as the gender they were given as a baby, but it might not be”.

EqualiTeach tells schools:

“If a transgender young person wishes to change their name and pronouns, this must be respected”.

Brook and Gendered Intelligence advise teachers:

“Schools should support young people to use the facilities they wish to use”.

This bad and confusing advice needs to be addressed. We were talking earlier about the well-being of children. One of the reasons why they are so confused and upset is that they do not understand what is going on.

Groups supporting parents are still regularly contacted by distressed families who report a challenging and sometimes hostile response from schools when they raise their concerns about social transition. When parents request that schools take into account the Cass report, statutory safeguarding requirements and the Supreme Court judgment, they are met with claims that “no official guidance has yet been released”. By the time some families discover their child’s adoption of a trans identity, the school has already been fully complicit in encouraging the child in their new identity without the parent’s knowledge. Family relationships can be undermined, putting the child at high risk of estrangement.

I have much else that I would like to say, but the crux of the matter is, why has the publication been so long delayed and will the Minister tell us what the Government’s plans are?

My Lords, I briefly speak against Amendment 502YE and the consequent amendment. We need schools to have clear guidance to support gender-questioning children, but rushing out the statutory guidance will help neither young people nor schools. I am sure that the Government acknowledge that they need to take the time to get this right.

With regard to the other amendments in this group, and just to respond to the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, on tried-and-tested knowledge, textbooks and things that have been there for decades, we are of course talking in an age when, thankfully, Section 28 is long in the past. Rampant homophobia, misogyny and so on were in our textbooks for many decades and we should be very much celebrating that that has disappeared. It is also worth noting that we do not need the internet to spread very harmful ideas in this space. I will note that there is an MP in the other place who, until this week, was sitting on the Tory Benches and has now shifted to the Reform Benches. He is on record as saying that

“the only possible basis for a safe and successful society” is marriages between men and women. His new party leader has expressed approval of such sentiments. We need to acknowledge that we have many places where harmful ideas are being spread in our society.

My Lords, there are two important things in this debate. First, as the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, acknowledged, the Government have already taken action on many of the amendments he has proposed, which is of course to be welcomed. I would however, like to seek some assurance. Supporting schools to make sure that parents approve of materials is absolutely fine, but how can schools be supported to resist the one or two parents who might object to materials, when doing so risks depriving all pupils of those resources? Those parents of course have every right to remove their children from RSHE, but they should not be able to deprive everybody else of materials that have already been approved and are of a high enough standard. The high standard is something this Government have already mentioned.

Turning to Amendment 502YE, we would all agree that schools need clear guidance to support gender-questioning children, but rushing out statutory guidance will help neither those young people nor the schools. I would therefore much prefer to let the Government take the time to get this right. Everybody acknowledges that it is a sensitive issue, particularly right now.

My Lords, my Amendment 474 would encourage this openness towards parents to be extended to all curriculum materials.

My Lords, I support Amendments 466 and 467, proposed by my noble friend Lord Sandhurst, and Amendment 502YE, proposed by my noble friend Lady Barran. My noble friend Lord Lucas’s amendment is substantially the same as one of the other amendments.

On RSHE, we know that there is something of a free-for-all on what is taught in schools to give effect to the statutory requirement. It is an aspect of education that many teachers feel underequipped or unconfident to teach, and many schools and teachers rely on external providers to supply curriculum programmes and resources. Some of these external providers are excellent, and some topics are uncontroversial, but there are some real tensions. One is around age-appropriateness. Some PSHE providers appear to start from the position that no child is too young for detailed and explicit sex education, with the associated terminology. There is little recognition that parents have a wide range of views about and a legitimate interest in what is appropriate for their children’s age and stage, especially at primary school but also in lower secondary school. There are elements of the RSHE curriculum that relate to issues that have become highly politicised, with some providers producing materials that reflect their ideology, rather than a factual curriculum or the law.

Many schools have embraced teaching about gender identity, sometimes downplaying the importance of teaching about sex, by which I mean the protected characteristic, not the activity. In the light of the Cass review, it is clear that the claim that we all have an inner gender identity that is more important than our biological sex has spread confusion and caused much damage. Vulnerable children have been encouraged towards social transition and puberty blockers. Choices that should not be contemplated before adulthood are still being floated at children who may already be in distress and need clinical help. Yet, in our schools, change has been too slow.

Last year, the Government’s draft guidance, which was meticulously drafted and worded with enormous care and attention to language, said that schools should not teach gender identity. That was a sensible safeguard, but this summer the Government weakened the position to say only that it should not be taught as fact. There is still a lot of confusion about what is really in children’s interests, especially those who are already vulnerable.

Yes, the new guidance at least gives parents the right to see what their own child is being taught, which is welcome, but individual parents should not need to keep constant watch over teaching materials. We need more visibility and wider public discussion about what is being taught to children to make sure that unsuitable materials are identified and that it is easy for schools to know this and to avoid those programmes.

Ever since 2004, Ofsted has been seriously constrained in its capacity to look at what is being taught, and the latest inspection proposals will limit this still further. Unless the Government change their policy, there is no chance of these problems properly surfacing through that route. That is why Amendment 466 is so important. It requires all RSHE resources to be published, citable and open to scrutiny. If they are good enough to be taught to children, they ought to stand up to public debate.

My Lords, I rise to speak on this group of amendments with some trepidation, not just because it is incredibly late but because, as my accent suggests, I come from Scotland. This an England and Wales only Bill, and a Scot speaking on education, given our recent performance, may seem a little unusual.

I wanted to speak on this group of amendments because 25 years ago, as Minister for Local Government in the very early, young Holyrood Parliament, I piloted the repeal of Section 28. On this very issue of school guidelines, 25 years ago our founding phrase, which was very much rooted in the language of the time, was that “We do not honour marriage by denying the validity of other relationships well established in our society”. In that context and the context we discuss today, it is about not denying the validity of relationships and identities established in our society. Those watch- words of inclusivity, tolerance, transparency and age-appropriateness still hold good a quarter of a century later.

Of course, the question of school guidance and resources for RSHE is inevitably challenging when you are trying to balance preserving the preciousness of childhood for children, parental beliefs, and building inclusive societies. What does this mean in terms of the amendments before us now—Amendments 466, 467 and 474?

The Government should be encouraged to step up and create age-appropriate materials and not leave it all to third parties, although I think that doing so by retaining statutory guidance is the right way forward. Yes, parents should have access to all the materials that are taught in schools, and yes, individual parents should have the right to withdraw their child from individual lessons if they so wish. What would not be right is for one parent to censor the educational rights of others. In the parlance of today, this is an issue of free speech. The role of schools is not to judge but to educate, and it is not for parents to interfere in other children’s education.

Education for RSHE, on society’s behalf, includes recognition of and tolerance for the most marginalised, including the LGBT community. Language like talk of gender ideology takes us very close to denying the experience of some of the most marginalised in our community.

My final point is on the speed with which we issue guidance on gender-questioning children. I fully accept that there is a desire on the part of schools for that to be issued. I just caveat it with one comment. The ECHR rushed out guidance almost immediately after the Supreme Court ruling. It then had to redefine it as interim guidance to be followed by a new consultation, then a submission to the Government, then a government review, then further impact assessments. Let us learn from that experience and let government officials concentrate on getting it right the first time by building the broadest possible consensus on the guidelines. The priority is to get it right for gender-questioning children rather than to compel a hard and fast deadline, I look forward to the Minister’s response.

My Lords, I will very briefly say, from what is left of my own Benches, that when it comes to this, remember that this is guidance for the child to take forward into adult life. At certain points, they may differ from what the parent thinks they should do and wants them to do, and we have to make sure that the knowledge is given to them. I cannot remember the exact details of the discussion we had, but at a certain point the parent has to stop having that ability to deny.

I hope that the Minister will tell us that the idea of giving people the knowledge they need at certain points is still embraced. Value judgments will come into it from various people coming round, but the fact that you do not like something does not mean to say you should not know about it.

My Lords, I start by stressing how much I support the Amendment in the name of my noble friend Lord Sandhurst. As we have heard, the RSHE curriculum exists in a delicate area between the responsibility of the school and the values and beliefs of a child’s parents. Amendment 466 would ensure absolute transparency on what a pupil is being taught and avoid some of the very regrettable instances in recent years that noble Lords are well aware of.

My Amendments 502YE and 504B would require the Secretary of State to publish guidance for schools regarding gender-questioning children. I was slightly surprised at this new idea that things are being rushed through. As my noble friend Lady Jenkin said, the previous Conservative Government published draft gender-questioning children guidance in December 2023 and ran a public consultation on its contents in early 2024. This was in response to evidence of schools socially transitioning children or affirming children as being of the opposite sex, sometimes behind their parents’ backs.

As my noble friend Lady Spielman suggested—and as I can confirm to be true—I cannot describe the care that was taken over every single word in that guidance, and I pay tribute to the longest-suffering, most patient official in the DfE responsible for leading that drafting. The guidance said:

“In recent years, we have seen a significant increase in the number of children questioning the way they feel about being a boy or a girl, including their physical attributes of sex and the related ways in which they fit into society. This has been linked to gender identity ideology, the belief that a person can have a ‘gender’, whether male … female … or ‘other’, that is different to their biological sex”.

Since the publication of this draft guidance, there has been a growing consensus that gender ideology harms. There is no science or evidence behind the idea of gender identity—it is an ideological assertion. Social transition or cross-sex affirmation for children is not a neutral act. It is a harmful one, and it sets vulnerable children on a pathway to bodily disassociation and psychological confusion.

The draft gender-questioning guidance established a number of clear principles, including the duty of schools and colleges

“to safeguard and promote the welfare of all children … Schools and colleges should be respectful and tolerant places where bullying is never tolerated … Parents should not be excluded from decisions taken by a school or college relating to requests for a child to ‘socially transition’ … Schools and colleges have specific legal duties that are framed by a child’s biological sex … There is no general duty to allow a child to ‘social transition’”.

The guidance gave a number of clear directives to schools, including that they should keep accurate records of every child’s sex. In addition:

“Primary school aged children should not have different pronouns to their sex-based pronouns … For older children, schools do not need to specify pronouns to be used about each pupil and can decline a request to change a child’s pronouns … Schools must always protect single-sex spaces with regard to toilets, showers … changing rooms” and dormitories. It continues:

“For all sports where physical differences between the sexes threatens the safety of children, schools … should adopt clear rules which mandate separate-sex participation … Single-sex schools can refuse to admit pupils of the other biological sex”.

I cite these because they are clear directives that will help schools struggling with this complex issue and will help the children and families impacted by this ideology.

I urge the Minister that it is urgent to act. We know that the Secretary of State is under huge pressure from some of the unions to move away from the Supreme Court judgment, as we heard in her speech at the TUC conference, but I very much hope that the Right Honourable Lady will hold her nerve against this and that the Minister can reassure us that that will be the case.

I turn first to Amendments 466 and 467, both of which were tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst. Amendment 466 seeks to ensure that all external resources used in schools within the relationships, sex and health education curriculum are published, and Amendment 467 seeks to ensure that the department issues guidance which includes an instruction not to prevent parents from requesting to view copies of RSHE school material and not to enter into commercial confidentiality agreements that would prevent schools from showing materials to parents.

In July 2025, we published updated RSHE statutory guidance, which now makes it clear that there is a public interest in parents being able to see what their children are being taught. This is particularly important regarding RSHE, where, as noble Lords have suggested, content is often sensitive and covers issues on which there are differences of opinion.

The legal requirement for schools to publish their relationships and sex education policies, and to consult parents on them, has been in place since 2020. However, we have gone further in our revised statutory guidance, which is now clear that schools should ensure that parents are able to view all RSHE materials on request. As the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, identified, these issues are expressed particularly clearly in the guidance from paragraph 55 onwards. To reassure noble Lords, I will quote some of the key sentences in the guidance. Paragraph 56 is clear that schools

“should ensure that parents are able to view all”— the word “all” is underlined—

“curriculum materials used to teach RSHE on request”.

On the important point made by my noble friend Lady Thornton, the guidance is also clear that parents are not able to veto curriculum content, and that schools must consult with parents when developing their RSHE policy. It is right that parents can see what their children are being taught, especially in relation to sensitive topics, and schools should respond positively to requests from parents to see material.

Several noble Lords referred to the issue of copyright and contractual restrictions, which I know has been of concern to some schools in terms of sharing information. The guidance is very clear that, when contracting with external providers, schools should not agree to any contractual restrictions on showing parents any content that the school will use. Schools should communicate to providers that they are legally obliged to have regard to this statutory guidance, including the expectation that all content can be shared with parents. Paragraph 58 of the guidance states:

“Where contractual clauses exist that seek to prevent schools sharing any material at all with parents, they are void and unenforceable”.

I think that provides the clarity that noble Lords are looking for on the sharing of information with parents.

I am afraid that I do not agree with the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, that including the small element in the amendment in the Bill would strengthen the clarity, depth and range of advice that statutory guidance is able to provide for schools. The guidance is statutory; schools are required to follow it. As the noble Lord himself identified, placing something on the face of a Bill does not mean that it could not be changed in the future, notwithstanding the fact that it would be a more difficult process. This Government have taken seriously the requirement to fulfil the spirit and the letter of the case made in these amendments, and I have identified how we have done that.

Amendment 474, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, seeks to ensure that all external resources used by schools are publicly accessible. I have said that we expect schools to be open with parents and let them see any resources that they are concerned about. If parents have concerns, there are ways of dealing with them. Maintained schools and academies are already required to publish details on how parents can access further information about a school’s curriculum.

Amendments 502YE and 504B, both tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, seek to require the publication of statutory guidance for schools and colleges on gender-questioning children on the day that the Bill is passed. As a Government, we have constantly reaffirmed our commitment to placing children’s well-being at the centre of education policy. I am sure that the noble Baroness is right that care was taken over the draft guidance that she quoted from, but that was draft guidance that was then subject to a consultation.

In response to the consultation on gender-questioning guidance for schools, I assure the noble Baroness that we are considering the evidence equally as carefully as happened previously. We are now in a position to include the findings of the Cass review as part of that consideration, and we will confirm our next steps shortly. My noble friends are right to emphasise the need for this to be produced thoughtfully rather than quickly. I understand the concerns raised by noble Lords about the difficult decisions schools are having to take; nevertheless, I think that they would expect this to be done with equal care and bearing in mind both the consultation and other factors, such as the Cass review. As I said, we will confirm our next steps shortly. On that basis, I hope that the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw his amendment.

I thank the Minister for her reply. By introducing the statutory guidance in this form, the Government have recognised the points which needed to be made and the health and protection for which I have argued. I made it plain, I hope, that I think that the current guidance is excellent. It really does fit the bill. I still fail to see what would be lost by accepting these amendments, which are consistent with government policy. I will consider the matter again on Report but, for now, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment 466 withdrawn.

Amendments 467 and 468 not moved.

House resumed.