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4.8 pm
Mr. Simon Hughes (Southwark and Bermondsey): I welcome the debate, and I shall not try to divide the House. Although it is right that we should debate the Bill, we should proceed carefully. My fear, and the fear expressed by many outside the House, is that, by legislating in such a way, we may not achieve the objective of the hon. Member for Worcester (Mr. Luff), or that of others who support his proposals. Thehon. Gentleman and I must accept that men of our age, even parents of daughters of his daughter's age, may not be the best people to form judgments on such issues.
The law is clear; it says that the age of consent for a girl is 16, and that should be reinforced in the House. Advice is clear--indeed, I concur with thehon. Gentleman in citing the advice of the British Medical Association, the General Medical Council and others--that it is better not to have sex before the age of 16; people are not normally ready for it. The Church, other faith groups and many others are even clearer, and say that sex, especially intercourse, should be left until marriage.
Even the most well-regulated households, however, do not necessarily manage to avoid under-age sex. According to all the evidence, one in five young people have had intercourse before they are 16 years old. That, of course, means that four in five have not. It is therefore not right for youngsters to try to influence their peers to have sex by saying that everyone else is doing so.
It is, of course, also true--I hope that thehon. Gentleman concedes this--that, although young people develop in different ways and have different interests at different times, the fact that some people may not have any form of sex until well after the age of 16 does not mean that most youngsters are not interested in sex well before then.
What should we do? It is a case of separating fantasy from fact. We regulate magazines, yet we do not regulate radio, television, plays, records, tapes, compact discs, newspapers, books or advertisments. Cinema is in part regulated. Records banned from being played on Radio 1 because they were regarded as--potentially--too sexy immediately shot to the top of the charts.
Young people say that they would rather receive information from parents or at school, but that parents and schools are often not very good at giving that information, and that their peer group and magazines are the best places to turn to.
In an article printed in the Evening Standard on Monday, a girl of 13, who reads two magazines--Shout and Sugar--said:
I am not aware that there has been any criticism that the information given in the magazines has been wrong, which is often not the case with information culled from other sources. It is also clear that young people ask questions and want answers about some matters about which people find it difficult to be explicit.
To be fair, the magazines generally contain substantially more non-sex parts than sex parts. Indeed, we must be careful not to overstate the amount of sex-related content on the pages that carry it. On the
problem page of a magazine published this month, sensitive responses are given to questions about family rejection, being scared in a home alone, being sexually abused and coping with arguments at home.
Only two letters out of eight dealt with sex. One concerned a reader's knowledge of her brother's under-age sexual activity. Advice was given that it is illegal, and that, if she could not persuade him to stop, she should inform her parents. The other letter was from a girl who had had sex and wished that she had not. The reply was good; it said:
Some of the difficult issues, such as pregnancy, petting, contraception and orgasm, need to be dealt with in a factual way, since people in their early teens ask questions about such matters and deserve factual answers. All the magazines that I am aware of seek professional, independent advice before writing their advice columns.
Mr. Hughes:
The hon. Gentleman is nodding. The Brook advisory centres are certainly regularly consulted on writing the agony aunt or agony uncle columns, as are the Family Planning Association and the Health Education Authority.
Very important to the defence of the present situation is the fact that there has been no great recent upsurge in the number of teenage pregnancies. Indeed, as advice has increased, teenage pregnancy rates in this country have gone down.
Secondly, there is no evidence that sexual education leads to more sexual activity. Indeed, some say that such education may delay the onset of activity, and that activity may decrease overall. Lastly, the countries with the most clear and uncomplicated attitude--such as the Netherlands--have lower conception rates than this country. Surprisingly, the rate of conception in the Netherlands is one seventh of the rate in England and Wales.
How should we proceed? First, we must not end up with an age marking that makes those magazines more rather than less appealing. Secondly, it is difficult to define an exact age when young people develop, and that applies to boys as well as girls. Thirdly, we must not make it seem that sex is talked about more than everything else, and, in doing so, make sex the centre of attention.
There is an equal danger of cultivating a view that other things that the magazines promote--a beautiful body, expensive clothes, designer life styles and a certain range of luxuries--are as desirable as anything else. We should be clear about giving the facts, but also about raising young people's horizons. We should make sure that there is proper consultation on the issue before we proceed to legislate.
We should be discouraging young people from having under-age sex, but not pretending that it is not entirely natural to be interested in it. We should be informing young people that most of their peer group are not having under-age sex, but tell them what happens when they do. We should not pretend that information that is not obtained in teenage magazines will not be obtained somewhere else.
We must proceed carefully, because hon. Members may not be the best people to teach parents in the rest of country how to manage these matters. If we proceed carefully, we may be able to have a healthy attitude to this matter, as we have with all matters of concern to young people.
Question put, pursuant to Standing Order No. 19 (Motions for leave to bring in Bills and nomination of Select Committees at commencement of public business), and agreed to.
Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Peter Luff,Mr. Michael Alison, Mr. David Alton, Mr. Nicholas Baker, Mr. James Cran, Mr. Harry Greenway, Mr. Frank Field, Mr. Andrew Rowe, Sir Timothy Sainsbury,the Rev. Martin Smyth, Ms Tessa Jowell and Ms Estelle Morris.
Mr. Peter Luff accordingly presented a Bill to require publishers of periodicals to display prominently on the front cover of their publications their own assessment of the youngest age for which they consider that publication to be suitable; and for related purposes: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday 1 March and to be printed. [Bill 54.]
The Secretary of State for Health (Mr. Stephen Dorrell):
I beg to move,
The Government have selected the subject for debate this afternoon for a simple reason: we believe that it is important to expose the double-speak that passes for Labour's health policy. That is true across the whole field of health policy, but it is particularly true of fundholding. I intend to remind the House of the claims that Labour makes for its health policy, and then to examine the reality of those claims in the context of its approach to fundholding.
Labour says that it favours empowerment of GPs, yet it remains opposed to the system that brought about the greater empowerment of GPs. Labour says that it favours innovation, yet when it sees it in the context of fundholding practices, it immediately retreats into verbiage about a "two-tier service". Most of all, Labour says that it is in favour of a system based on choice and diversity and encouraging professionals to develop their own approach to the profession that they practise. The hon. Member for Peckham (Ms Harman) shows in her decisions about her own family that she holds that principle dear, but Labour as a whole remains resolutely opposed to putting that principle into effect within the NHS.
Mr. Michael Fabricant (Mid-Staffordshire):
Is my right hon. Friend aware that virtually every general practitioner in the Mid-Staffordshire constituency is a GP fundholder? Is he equally aware that they are fundholders because they believe that it helps them to be better doctors and to make the sorts of choices that GPs ought to be making? They live in fear at the thought of a Labour Government, who would oppose GP fundholding, getting in and abandoning it.
"I think they are the best. They give you really good advice but I don't think I would ever actually write in. Reading about other people's problems is really helpful. I'd be embarrassed to ask my mum some of the questions they ask the agony aunts."
"relationships don't need to centre around sex, so this is a lesson for the rest of you".
4.17 pm
That this House pays tribute to the role that GP fundholders have played in kick-starting and developing innovative practice in both primary care and the acute sector; welcomes the advances that fundholding has brought to many patients; accepts that fundholding has acted as a lever to improve services; and consequently remains committed to the further development of GP fundholding.
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