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8.40 pm
Mr. Gerald Howarth (Aldershot): Having served as a councillor in the London borough of Hounslow for about a year before I translated to this place, I have some modest qualification, but none as extensive as those of the hon. Member for Blaenau Gwent (Mr. Smith). I shall study his detailed recommendations.
I shall concentrate on clause 91, the proposed repeal of section 28 and the whole business of homosexuality and teaching in schools, principally because it is a matter of grave concern to people throughout the country. The Government are obsessed with homosexuality and race. The Bill is not the only measure in which we are faced with the issue. The Government's caving in to the European Court of Human Rights and admitting homosexuals to the armed forces also affects my constituency. Even as we are debating the Bill, the other place is debating the age of consent. The Government wish to impose on the other place a requirement to reduce the age of consent to 16, notwithstanding the clear warning issued by the Waterhouse report on the abuse of young people in north Wales.
This Bill and the Learning and Skills Bill show that the Government are in a shambles on sex education in schools. They face not just both ways, but all ways. The Home Office has published a document called "Supporting Families". The Home Secretary is keen to encourage us all to believe that marriage presents the best framework within which to bring up young people. I think that the Secretary of State for Education and Employment also holds that view. As the Bill before the Lords today shows, the Government want not just to appeal to middle England through "Supporting Families", but, through other measures, to square the circle with the minority groups that the Labour party is always in the business of seeking to appease.
The hon. Member for Witney (Mr. Woodward) sought repeatedly to dismiss as prejudiced those of us who disagree with him.
Mr. Howarth: It is fine for the right hon. Lady to say "Hear, hear"; dismissing one's opponents as prejudiced is very simple, but it does no credit to her or her party. There is a legitimate view on the other side of the argument. I wonder whether she says "Hear, hear" to my support for the Bishop of Lichfield, whom I was pleased to call a friend when I was the Member of Parliament for Cannock and Burntwood. He referred to the stabilising benchmark of section 28, but I suppose that in the right hon. Lady's terminology, he is prejudiced too.
Parents are writing to all of us in droves about the issue.
Mr. Swayne: The Minister thinks that they are all prejudiced.
Mr. Howarth: Of course, in the Minister's view they are all prejudiced. She will know that many correspondents explain that they are not homophobic, but they do not believe that normal heterosexual marriage can be put on the same moral basis as two men or two women living together. That is what nearly all of them said, and many of them are teachers--I believe that the Minister herself used to be a teacher.
Some of my hon. Friends from England may not be aware that in Scotland the issue is dominating the debate. The Daily Record, which is not known as a Conservative newspaper, reported on 19 January "2:1 against gay lessons". Some 66 per cent. of those surveyed wanted to keep section 28, which shows what the people of Scotland want. An anonymous Labour Member was quoted in the Daily Record yesterday as saying:
- The problem is that someone decided that they were going to make the abolition of section 28 a crusade.
We have lost the support of a large section of the electorate and we have lost the support of Scotland's leading Catholic cleric.
The country is up in arms and the Government have no solution. They will remove clause 117 from the Learning and Skills Bill, which was amended by Baroness Young in the other place. They will try to reinsert into this Bill the repeal of section 28 which they were prevented from doing in the other place. We are in limbo. Meanwhile,
the Secretary of State for Education and Employment has published some guidelines that have been roundly criticised by those who do not believe that they represent a proper instruction to our young people.The Government say that section 28 does not prevent homosexuality from being taught and promoted in schools. In that case, why do they wish to repeal it? Why is it necessary for the Government to engage in that confrontation with two thirds of the nation? There is an inconsistency, because originally the Government told us that they wished to repeal it to prevent bullying. Now they tell us that it is because it does not prevent homosexuality from being promoted in schools anyway.
We are all against bullying in schools, of any description or on any grounds. To suggest that anyone is interested in protecting section 28 to allow bullying is unworthy of Ministers and the Government. They know that the chief inspector of schools, Chris Woodhead, has made it clear that it is nonsense to suggest that section 28 stops schools tackling the issue of bullying. Indeed, Mr. David Hart said at one stage:
- The Government needs to be very clear why it is going down this road. Section 28 has not caused difficulties but has constituted a protection which by and large has been welcomed.
The hon. Member for Witney said that schools in his constituency have expressed concern that section 28 stands between them and stamping out bullying, but that has not been my experience in my constituency. I suggest that many of my hon. Friends would agree.
Parents do not wish to see the flood of pornographic material, for that is what some of it is, which was coming into our schools previously. Parents' view of how the matter should be treated is summed up in a publication that is produced by the Christian Institute and makes the case for extending section 28. It states:
- Civilised societies have always restrained sexual activity. Until comparatively recently, social control strongly promoted marriage. Homosexual proselytism seeks to reverse this and to manipulate young people into seeing homosexuality as an acceptable and morally right lifestyle.
Section 28 was enacted in 1988, when I was a Member of Parliament. As Nick Seaton of the Campaign for Real Education has said:
- Before Section 28 came into force we were getting considerable numbers of parents complaining to us about the promotion of homosexuality in schools. After Section 28 it almost disappeared as an issue. If Section 28 were to be repealed it's almost certain that the promotion of homosexuality would become a huge bone of contention between parents and schools.
- Elements of sex and relationship education are also provided by a range of people in the wider community including health professionals, social workers, youth workers, peer educators and visitors.
I draw the attention of the Under-Secretary, with whom I had the pleasure of serving on the Select Committee on Home Affairs, to a document that has been published by Camden and Islington community health services NHS trust, which is entitled "Colours of the Rainbow". It contains some pretty disgraceful stuff, and I urge the hon. Lady to read it. It is not something that might be available in the event of section 28 being repealed. It is available now because there is no control over the material that health authorities can put out.
We have a key stage 1 lesson, the purpose of which is to
- consider one explanation of a family.
- Finish by making the point that different people live together as a family and what is important is that they love and care for each other.
There is another example of an attempt to equate homosexuality with normality. We are told that research has found that
- about 50 per cent. of women and men have experienced a sexual attraction to someone of the same sex.
- nearly 40 per cent. of all men had sex with another man at some point in their lives.
The publication refers to resources and to the "Playbook for kids about sex" by Joanie Blank and Marcia Quackenbush, published by Sheba Feminist Publishers in 1982. For the assistance of the House, I have a copy of the playbook. I shall not explain some of what it covers, but one passage reads:
- When grown-ups choose someone to be one of their sexual partners, they sometimes choose a person of the same sex and they sometimes choose a person of the other sex. Some big words are sometimes used to name people by the sex partners they choose.
The biscuit is taken by the health promotion service in Avon in a publication entitled "A Practical Guide to Challenging Homophobia in Schools". Here we have "Roles for the 'Race' Game". That wholly contradicts the Prime Minister's understanding when he went to the Ayr by-election and found ghastly posters stating that there was no question of role play taking place in the schools in that area. In fact, it is happening today, and I have the evidence. Children as young as 12 are being encouraged to be
- a female sex industry worker--
- a Chinese bisexual 15 year old Young Man,
a transvestite cabaret artist, a Black Disabled Lesbian who is a wheelchair user and a nun.
Hon. Members may laugh, but the most disgusting literature of all is the "Gay Sex Now" booklet produced in Glasgow. I gather that £50,000 of public money was used to produce a booklet that children as young as 12 are seeing. I invite the Minister to have a look at it.
Members of the House of Lords, led by Baroness Young and the Bishop of Winchester, and Mr. Brian Souter and some other public-spirited people are the only ones who want to protect our children by standing in the way of the Government's ambition, for which the Bill is the chosen vehicle.
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