THURSDAY 16 JANUARY 2003

__________

Members present:

Mr David Hinchliffe, in the Chair
John Austin

Andy Burnham
Mr Simon Burns
Julia Drown
Sandra Gidley
Siobhain McDonagh
Dr Doug Naysmith
Dr Richard Taylor

__________

MS LORNA WEBLEY, MS TARA HALL, MS SARAH NICHOLLS and MR DAVID MORRIS, Wakefield Peer Group Research Project; and MS EMMA HENDERSON and MS EMMA BUIST, National Youth Parliament, examined.

Chairman

Colleagues, can I welcome you to this session of the Committee. Can I welcome our witnesses and express the Committee's gratitude to you for coming along to talk to us today, and also for the written evidence that you have sent in. Can I ask you each very briefly to introduce yourselves to the Committee.

(Ms Hall) I am Tara Hall from the Wakefield Peer Group Research Project.

(Ms Webley) I am Lorna Webley and I am from the Peer Group Research Project and I have been doing it for two years.

(Mr Morris) I am David Morris and I am from the Peer Group Research Project as well.

(Ms Nicholls) I am Sarah Nicholls, I am from Wakefield and I am representing the Peer Group Research Project as well.

(Ms Henderson) I am Emma Henderson and I am a member of the Youth Parliament for the district of Aylesbury Vale and Bucks.

Can I begin by asking the Wakefield witnesses to say a bit about the research you have done and what were the key messages that you gave to the local health service about the outcome of what you have done? Sarah, do you want to start and give us a little summary, not too long, about what you have done?

(Ms Nicholls) Basically the Peer Group Research Project, we decided that the sexual health services in and around Wakefield were not as good as we thought they should be, so we conducted interviews and interviewed 202 people aged between 13 and 21 to find out their thoughts and feelings on the sexual health services in Wakefield and what they actually wanted doing about them. We had quite a few recommendations. I will not go through them all, but I will just pick out the key ones for you. The biggest one was prevention, not actually having to access the services, therefore, making them better still, but prevention first through education perhaps. We recommend that education should start in Year 6 and work upwards and it should be approached with a multi-agency of teachers, including specialist teachers and peer educators. All issues should be raised, including male and female issues and they should do it in a variety of ways, including things like role play, CD-roms and sports events so that you can also capture the imagination of people who are not interested in formal education. Also, while we were doing these interviews, we interviewed people from youth clubs, from a young offenders team, young mums-to-be, so we also looked at how we could educate people outside schools and colleges. We came up with the idea that advertising should play a really big part in it. Obviously people do not know where the services are, they do not know that if they access the services, they can get refunded bus fares. People are scared to use the services, so one of our recommendations was that young people gave doctors and nurses from the clinics face-to-face training which we have taken up in Wakefield, so myself, David and Lorna have been out and we have done face-to-face training with people from the GUM clinic and things like that, just telling them what we actually feel and how we feel young people feel when they walk into a service. We also mentioned that waiting rooms could be a lot more young-people-friendly. This was also taken up in Wakefield's Options clinic where they have completely moved the whole of their waiting area so that it makes it a more friendly atmosphere for young people going into the services.

Did you have some sort of training to do this? Was there some work done to prepare you because you did the work and I think one of the things that interested me, when I talked to some of you before in Wakefield about this, was that the message coming over was that it was young people talking to young people. It was not some old codger going in and lecturing on something that perhaps he or she knew not a lot about in terms of the generation that you represent. That was an important part of it because the key message we are getting in this inquiry is of the importance of young people talking to young people, the 'buddy scheme' as it is called in some areas.

(Ms Nicholls) Yes, we basically based our issues on peer education. To start with, we all got together, we did an interview with Denise, filled out a form and then Denise ----

Can you just explain who Denise is? Denise is a professional worker?

(Ms Nicholls) Denise is a professional worker, our project leader who has run it from the beginning as a project. We also had Helen Humphrys who was the project nurse and gave us advice on situations. We went through all sorts of training with them, like interview skills, how to write the report. What else?

(Mr Morris) Confidentiality, IT skills, the professional approach, team-building, research methods and peer research.

(Ms Nicholls) Then we kind of got left to it to write our own interview and questionnaire. Denise and Helen and a few other people went through it, analysed it and made sure that it was all kosher and that everything was okay with it. We then went out and sent letters off to local youth services, asking if we could come and interview people there. We also interviewed our own friends and we collated the information together, so basically everything we did was our own with a little help from Denise, who is sat there (indicating), who took us through the training process to start with.

You mentioned that one of the issues that came up was sex education and you recommended that this should commence in Year 6. Just explain to those of us who want to know what age would that be?

(Ms Nicholls) Ten/eleven.

So you are talking of it being in primary schools?

(Ms Nicholls) Yes.

So the message we are getting then from Wakefield is that at the moment that is not happening in primary schools presumably or it has not happened in your case. So what age were you when sex education was given in your secondary education?

(Ms Nicholls) I got most of my sex education from my peer group, word of mouth from friends.

Informally, you are talking about, from friends?

(Ms Nicholls) Yes, informally.

What we are looking at is what formal sex education was there within your education? At primary school you say there was nothing basically?

(Ms Webley) A couple of videos.

(Ms Hall) They were old ones and not up to date, from about ten years ago.

(Mr Morris) It was a ten-minute peer review video and just general stuff really.

What did it give, just basic biology or what?

(Ms Nicholls) In primary school it was basic biology. From my point of view, as we progressed into secondary school, it became a bit more about sex education and what sex is all about, but to me I can only remember having, like, three sex education lessons and we did not really get anything done because it was, "Oh, we're having sex education instead of geography", so everyone was saying, "Hooray!", and nothing ever got done unfortunately. I know now since I have left school that programmes have come into school, like PSHE, but I never had that at school.

(Mr Morris) Another problem was that when you saw a video, it would give you brief details about sex education and things, but if you had any questions, the teacher did not have the experience or the training to answer the questions, so you never knew.

We will come back to this point later on, but did you feel perhaps that somebody other than the teacher might have done those sessions? Was it positive or negative that it was the teacher doing them because there have certainly been suggestions that somebody outside the school ought to do that, to come in, nurses or whoever?

(Ms Webley) I do not think people in schools like to have their teachers talking about sex education because you are with them day in, day out and you are more friendly with them, so you feel a little uncomfortable sometimes.

So was that an issue that you picked up?

(Ms Webley) Yes.

Dr Naysmith

You say that you planned a lot of this with Denise and Helen. Did you ever fall out with Denise and Helen? Did you ever want to do something and they kind of said no?

(Ms Nicholls) No.

(Mr Morris) It was very relaxed. We were allowed to do not all that we wanted in a sense, but as long as it was to do with the work, we were allowed to do it.

So sometimes it was your ideas and you driving the thing forward rather than being told what to do?

(Ms Nicholls) Helen and Denise were more there for guidance than to tell us what to do. It was all very nice and quiet and they took us on residential weekend and everything went up and we got really close as a team. We did a team-building exercise and got close as a team and we were able then to work together and produce this because of Helen and Denise's guidance. It was not like Helen and Denise telling us what to do. We would do something, take it to them and then they would say, "Right, you can use that, but not this really", or, "You could reword this", so we did most of the work ourselves and they were there as a rock.

The reason I asked that of course is that Denise and Helen, I presume, are older than you. I know it is difficult to say this in front of them, but what you are really looking for is what young people think. They are older than you, so do you think it was your ideas really driving it forward and that there are older people who can sympathise and empathise with what you are trying to do and that they would fall into that category?

(Ms Nicholls) Yes, Denise and Helen never put their own opinions forward while we were doing this at all. It was all our opinions and it was all young people's opinions. We went out into the streets and interviewed young people and Helen and Denise were really good with us. It was really good the way they worked because they never tried to push us towards something, but it was always, "Right, you tell us what you think", and then we always knew if we had missed something out because they would say, "Come and sit down", but they would never push us towards somewhere we did not want to head as a team.

Chairman

Emma, can you just say a word or two about the Parliament that you have formed?

(Ms Henderson) Yes, the Youth Parliament is obviously a group of youths being a parliament which is supposed to echo the main central government. In 2000 they collected a survey of 1,463 people all asking about sex education. There were five issues, but sex education was one of them, so we got a response from young people. There were 586 males and 877 females. That was all around Bucks, so it was all of the three main areas and from that we got loads of statistics about what they feel about sex education, how they feel it is taught and how they feel about sexual health problems. We basically did that because the south-east region has the highest teenage pregnancy rate in Europe and it is quite a worrying statistic. It promotes a negative image, to be honest, of the country as well and it has implications in terms of committing resources and local communities. It has an individual impact on young people's lives and their immediate families and friends, so it impacts on everybody, so it was quite an important survey and especially because it is not just a few people's views, but it is the views of everybody, individual people from youth clubs, from youth councils, from schools. There is a wide variety of people in there.

You identified the sex education question as a big issue. Would you concur broadly with what your Wakefield colleagues have said about their findings from their peer research?

(Ms Henderson) It is basically what they have said. The only difference is that we have statistics to prove what they have said, and I can take you through them, if you want me to.

I would be interested, particularly if you could briefly summarise the key points, so we are aware of them. Sex education, I have noticed from your evidence, was very important.

(Ms Henderson) Yes. The majority of people in Bucks were aware that there is the highest teenage pregnancy rate in Europe, so they are aware of it, but they do not know what to do about it and they are not really that bothered about it. Nearly 50 per cent consider that sex education lessons in school need to be improved and lots of people think that they are inadequate or that they should start earlier, and 798 people felt that they should start earlier, so from Year 6 primary school onwards and then continuing throughout the school as a compulsory lesson, something that is incorporated into the PSHE programme. Forty-four per cent felt a lack of confidence to ask question in sex education lessons, so that means that 44 per cent, which is nearly half, do not get to ask relevant questions and they do not get the relevant information that they want to know about because they feel uncomfortable asking their teachers.

Do you pick up the point which was made by either Lorna or Tara, I cannot remember which, that perhaps somebody other than a teacher might be more appropriate?

(Ms Henderson) I think that is definitely one of the points which has come forward. I think at the minute sex education is just like a token thing in schools in that it is taught, it is there, but it is not really taught, not the way it should be. We have English teachers to teach English, but we do not have sex education teachers to teach sex education, yet surely that has a bigger impact on our lives, so it is really not doing the job properly to have an English or geography teacher teaching sex education.

John Austin

I think Sarah has probably answered this because the research that you have done was clearly led by you with adult professional advice and support, but led by you. You have made a number of recommendations for change. How important do you think it is that those initiatives to improve sexual health should be peer-led or involve young people themselves?

(Ms Nicholls) We at the Peer Group think it is quite a big issue. I could go through the report, but basically when we have been talking and asking people who they spoke to about sex, who they spoke to about sex education, it has always been, "I have found it off my friends", "I talk to my friends about it". "If you have a problem, who do you go and see?" "I go and see my friends", and everyone goes to see their friends. Young people feel comfortable talking to people of the same age, we have found throughout our report, than they do when talking to someone older, so peer education and peer research, we felt, was a really big point in sex education. There is a quote in the report where one person actually said, "There should be more people like you coming into schools to teach us things that you already know". Because we have been educators of it, I find myself being able to help my friends and I think if I can help my friends when they are in a situation, why can I not help everybody. I do know that my friends do feel comfortable talking to me about it and, from our report, it is shown that young people feel more comfortable talking to young people, so we developed on that somewhere down the line.

Is that Emma's view as well?

(Ms Henderson) Yes, definitely. One of the things that has come through is that most people get their information from friends in school or magazines, so they do not feel comfortable talking to teachers or adults about it. Most of the time the atmosphere is not right to talk about it, it is not relaxed enough, and they do not feel confident to ask.

(Ms Hall) We have found that only 19 out of 202 would actually speak to a teacher about a sexual health issue as they would much rather speak to their friends, but they do think that sex education should be provided by the school.

But possibly not by teachers?

(Ms Hall) Yes.

(Ms Nicholls) Picking up on a point that Emma made, if you can have a teacher to teach geography that you might never use again, why can you not have a teacher to teach sex education that you need throughout your life?

Julia Drown

Is actually what you are suggesting that we should recommend maybe not having specific teachers, but actually having a programme whereby we ensure that there are people like you who can actually go into schools and each year group and then you actually have young people directly doing the teaching, not even a health visitor or somebody else? Would that work?

(Ms Nicholls) Yes.

I want to pick up on some of the statistics from Emma's survey and I have two questions. The first is where you said you would ask young people if they knew where to obtain, and what to do with, contraception and 21 per cent of people knew about condoms and 50 per cent the pill. Did your survey go into details of those who were sexually active? Did you get an impression that those who were sexually active knew where to get contraception or did it not distinguish between those who were sexually active and those who were not?

(Ms Henderson) I do not think the actual survey distinguished. It does not really matter if you are sexually active or not because at one point you will be, so you should know beforehand or while you are doing it, it does not matter, but it should be a well-known fact.

We have just got this summary here, but one of the points was about the morning-after pill and it just says that 53.5 per cent do not agree that the morning-after pill should be available on prescription. Can you just clarify what that means? Does that mean that it should be more freely available than that or what?

(Ms Henderson) I think what that statistic means is that although a certain amount of people do not agree with the morning-after pill, 53.5 per cent or actually 41.5 per cent do agree that it should be available. I think mostly the 53 per cent could be for religious reasons or moral reasons.

So they were saying that it should not be available at all, not that it should not be available over the counter?

(Ms Henderson) Yes.

Because it can be interpreted both ways.

(Ms Henderson) I think it could be, but I think also the fact is that some people felt that if you needed the morning-after pill, you should have to go to your doctor to discuss the issue. It is a big thing to do.

Chairman

I found that a very interesting answer and I was quite surprised by the number who appeared to feel quite strongly about that. Sarah and your Wakefield colleagues, was that something that you looked at at all? Were there any opinions from the people you talked to about the morning-after pill?

(Ms Webley) No.

Would you guess that the feelings of the people in your area were similar to Emma's? From talking to your peers and talking to the people that you go around with, would you feel that was so? I would have expected a far lesser figure to have said what young people in Buckinghamshire have said.

(Ms Webley) I think people would rather be able to go to the chemist and say, "Look, I need it", without having to explain why because they might just have had an accident, they might have been stupid, so they are not necessarily wanting to explain it all to the doctor and feel even worse about it. Then the cost of it is another thing.

That is a good Yorkshire opinion there! You may not go along with the findings of Emma's group possibly on that then?

(Ms Webley) No.

Julia Drown

You said that you do not think that the current education system is dealing very well with sex education, but can you outline for us what you think are the main worries, fears, questions and concerns for young people in the area of sex education and sexual health?

(Ms Nicholls) Sex education within school?

I should say sex and relationships really. What are the main concerns that you think young people have?

(Ms Nicholls) Well, we were asking about the services and what they actually thought about the services. The two biggest concerns about talking to someone about the services and talking to somebody else about relationships and things like that was what other people would think, and the second biggest issue was confidentiality. We found a lot of young people who were frightened to go to their clinic or talk to someone about it because they were frightened that they might go and tell somebody else. The confidentiality was not pushed for them. The attitude of others, obviously we personally cannot recommend anything to change that, that is a taboo, and everyone is always going to be worried about what other people think, that is society today. On the confidentiality, it is little things like we recommend in the Peer Group that it is put into practice that when a young person accesses a service, the confidentiality statement is gone through with them and it does not even have to be a big, formal one. We had a confidentiality statement which was about six lines long and took 30 seconds and in most clinics in Wakefield they had a TV-video combi. We made an advertisement about relationships and what-have-you and sex, and if you get young people together to do something on TV about confidentiality and the confidentiality statement within the clinic, you can put it on the video player and it can play through, so while they are sat in the waiting room, there is constant reassurance. That was one of the highest things which was of concern to young people.

And, Emma, in the work that you have done?

(Ms Henderson) I think most people are concerned about confidentiality. I think that is a main issue. Also I think they are concerned about what people think of them and they are concerned about how they will be viewed if they ask certain questions. I think they are embarrassed to ask certain questions as well. If they want to ask questions and obviously if they do not feel confident in themselves in the way that they are going about things, they are embarrassed by themselves, not by the other person, and that is a hard thing to get over, so they need to be reassured. What came out is that people in Bucks do not really know where the agencies are and 92.6 per cent do not know any support agencies for sexual health, so if they do not know about them., they do not get the support from them or the reassurance.

In some parts of this country there are specific youth clinics and also in some other parts of the world they actually have clinics associated with schools. Do you think that would get over some of the confidentiality problems or would young people be equally embarrassed to go into the clinic, thinking, "I might see one of my friends", compared to thinking, "It could be somebody much older than me, like my mum or my mum's friend could be there"? Would it help if it was around the school and if it was specifically a youth clinic?

(Ms Nicholls) In Wakefield we have our own clinic, a family planning clinic and the Options clinic which I was speaking about earlier. From the response that we got, people do feel more comfortable being in that environment where there are other young people, but our problem in Wakefield is that people do not know where the services are and they do not know the contact numbers. That picks up one of our recommendations where we are saying with the school planners, everyone gets the same school planner, so why can we not put the contact numbers in the school planner. It is a page in a book. With the Options clinic, when they changed the waiting room around, because you have the family planning clinic and then it changes on one night to the Options clinic, they changed the waiting room around a little bit for the Options clinic and I know personally from talking to friends that people do notice a difference in it and they do feel a lot more comfortable. It is one of those same old taboos which really needs breaking. "I saw her in the Options clinic", but at the end of the day that person who saw you there is there for the same reason as you. This is what we are trying to get through and I personally would like to try and work on this to get it through to people that it is not a bad thing that they are there, it is a good thing that they are there because they are doing the right thing, so the Options clinic works well.

You do not think particularly that it is necessary to have something around the schools as long as it is a youth clinic?

(Ms Nicholls) We came up with the recommendation that people should be allowed to leave school without stigma to go to certain clinics, so if there was a clinic run for an hour on a morning for the emergency morning-after pill, we recommend that pupils should be allowed to leave school without any stigma whether it is just to be given a card with a number on to hand in to the teacher to say, "This is where I've been. I've definitely been there", without any stigma. We are not necessarily saying that the clinics should come to the schools, but we are saying that the schools should work in alliance with the clinics.

Mr Burns

On that point, have you encountered any problems with parents about that sort of view or any overall view that parents in fact should be taking the decisions, not the pupils?

(Mr Morris) I do not understand what you mean.

Sarah was saying that she thought there should be a time during school hours when people could go to the clinic for whatever reason, as she outlined, and I was just wondering if there had been any feedback from parents about whether they felt that that was something that their children should be able to do without their permission or knowledge?

(Ms Nicholls) We did not actually speak to the parents about it. We only spoke to young people.

Presumably if your suggestions were to be adopted, parents would find out fairly quickly what their children were able to do in school hours.

(Ms Nicholls) When we say this was our recommendation, we do not mean that they should be allowed to go to the sexual health clinic for any reason whatsoever. It was mainly for things like the morning-after pill. I know from a personal experience of a friend that she had had unprotected sex and she wanted the morning-after pill, but they would not let her out of school, so she was panicking because she could not get out of school. It is things like that, but I am not personally saying and I do not think the Peer Group is saying that you should be allowed out of school to access all sexual health services.

Right, but if we just take the narrow example you have given, presumably there is a counter-argument that instead of this individual going to school and then panicking that the school will not allow them to go, the individual could say to their parent or parents at breakfast, though they will not, I suspect, for a number of reasons, but what I am saying is that if the school were automatically to allow pupils to go for the reason you have given, sooner or later the parents will find out, or presumably they will find out, that the school are allowing pupils to go during school hours. I was just wondering if parents have had any input with their views on that suggestion that schools should do it.

(Ms Webley) I think that if that recommendation were to be adopted, then the school and the parents and the sexual services that are in question should all come together and discuss it so that everyone knows where everyone stands and what is actually happening so that no one is left in the dark.

Would you anticipate though that parents would have strong views or do you think that it is only a relatively small section of parents who would have strong views?

(Ms Nicholls) I think a lot of parents would have very strong views about it. Like I say, we cannot comment because we have only spoken to young people. If parents do, it then comes down to whether the parents would mind them missing half an hour of school or have the chance to sit there with a baby. Like Lorna says, it would come to a point when the parents, the teachers and some youths would have to sit down and would have to discuss it and draw certain outlines so that it cannot be taken advantage of. It might be that they are only allowed to go during the school break or times like that, but it would have to be discussed. It is something we feel people are not going to because they are getting stigma from it and they are getting hassle at school from it and that is one of the reasons which is stopping young people accessing services.

(Mr Morris) I think it should be confidential to young people as well. If they want to tell their parents that they have been to the clinic, that is up to them.

At what age should it be confidential?

(Ms Nicholls) Every age.

Most parents presumably would never accept that.

(Ms Nicholls) It is not done for the parents at the end of the day. The confidentiality statement is there for a reason and one good reason that young people are not accessing services is because they are frightened that their parents will find out, so we are trying to reassure young people that their parents will never find out about anything. Therefore, if they are going to leave school and it has all been sorted out, the parents need never find out. No one should ever be told about anything because it is all confidential and the confidentiality statement should, therefore, keep it drummed into young people so they do know.

Chairman

I would just like to welcome Emma Buist who is a late arrival.

(Ms Buist) Actually public transport is another issue for the Youth Parliament!

The Transport Committee is down the corridor! We are very pleased to see you. I noticed that when Sarah and her colleagues were answering Simon's question, you were in agreement about the issue of parents. Do you want to say your own views on that? Your views concurred presumably with the Wakefield views.

(Ms Buist) I have a question on that. I completely agree with what they were saying about confidentiality as it is one of the most important issues with sexual health, but a lot of questions are asked about whether the parents should be informed and at what age should they be informed. There is an assumption that they should be. I ask what is the real concern with letting parents know every issue and that always seems to come up, at what age should we tell the parents, but why is it so important to let the parents know because we feel that it is a very, very private issue if you are having sex even if you are under age?

(Ms Henderson) If they feel that they are old enough to start having sex, even if they are not legally old enough, then they have a right to confidentiality.

(Ms Buist) It is not a subject to be shared. The parents would not expect to share their sexual lives with their children, so why should the children be expected to share theirs with their parents?

Mr Burns

Because up to a certain age, the parents are responsible for the actions of their children in other fields and if they have to, metaphorically, carry the can if their children or if young people commit certain breaches of the law that they may be responsible for, then logically, if you carry it across, if they have responsibilities in that area, then surely they have responsibilities in all areas of the upbringing of their children, hopefully through consent between the parent and the child or young person, and that would be the answer.

(Ms Buist) That is a very good point, but you have to remember that having sex as a teenager, especially a young teenager, is a very, very delicate issue and there are unfortunately living environments where if it is the law to tell your parents and for the parents to be informed, that will create real problems at home. There are some environments which are abusive and where they will not hesitate to kick them out. It is unfortunate, but it is true. That is why we feel that it should be completely confidential and that is one of the reasons because it is such a delicate issue and there is such a stigma attached to it, and unfortunately we cannot really do all that much about the stigma, and it is unfortunately where we have to treat the symptoms and not the cause.

(Ms Henderson) I think also you are talking about logic and law. There is definitely law and logic behind it, but if you try and tell someone who is under age having sex that there is logic behind what they are doing, even now there is not logic behind sex, people just do it, so if they feel in their minds that they are old enough to have sex, then they are going to have it. There is no logic behind it. Therefore, no law applies to them in their minds.

Chairman

You are saying that this issue of the parents being notified is one of the reasons why we have such big problems?

(Ms Henderson) Yes.

That is a very interesting point you are making.

(Ms Buist) It is terrifying.

(Ms Hall) My mum got a letter from the school. My brother is 14 now and it was a permission slip for my brother to watch a sex education video.

So you feel that should not have happened?

(Ms Hall) No. He is 14.

Chairman: I have a 14-year-old actually. I am very sympathetic to what you are saying and I think it is very relevant and very important and I think we have gained some very key and important messages from your evidence, but, as a parent, if my 14-year-old came home, having seen a video that I knew nothing about and started asking questions, and I would like to think that she would do if there were issues she felt uneasy about on it, should I not have been aware of what was going on? Do you follow the point I am making? I think one of the problems we have got in this country compared to maybe Sweden and the Netherlands is that teenagers and parents do not talk about these issues. Other countries are different and I think one of the things we have got to address is why we are different. How do we ensure that parents are aware of the issues that are being looked at and the questions which might be asked? John, do you want to come in on that?

John Austin

Just really to ask a question on that. Would you all agree that it would be useful if all parents knew what was in the sex education programme in the school or is Tara really saying that the parents should not have a right to exclude their child from that education?

(Ms Hall) I do not think that the parents should, no.

Because they could do with educating too?

(Ms Hall) The parents should be aware of what is exactly in the programme, but they should not be able to say whether their child can watch it or not because it is up to that child to say, "I want to learn" because it is prevention again.

(Ms Webley) What if one of the parents actually wrote and said that they are not allowed to watch the video? Then they would be excluded from the rest of the pupils and all of their friends are going to be talking about it anyway.

Chairman

So essentially what you are saying is that I could not object to it, but would you accept that it might be helpful if I knew what was in it in case my daughter or son asked questions about it?

(Ms Buist) It is all about raising awareness, so that is the awareness of the parents as well, that is what is happening, so definitely, but they certainly should not have the right to turn around and say, "I want to deny my child sex education" because it is a right and it is a damaging one to remove.

(Ms Nicholls) I would just say that the fact that it is the first letter he has had in school, and he is 14, asking if he can watch a sex education video, to me, is out of order. If sex education was in school how we think it should be and how we recommend it should be, the parents at the beginning, when their children start school, could even get a list of everything that is going to be covered over the five years within school. The fact that he is only just getting sex education when he has turned 14 and the school are asking for permission to watch a video, that raises another really big point that they are not getting it early enough.

Julia Drown

If a parent for religious reasons, Catholic, Christian, Muslim or whatever, did not want their child to learn about sex in school, maybe they say, "I'll teach my child about this when I think the time is right and in a way which I think is right", should they have the ability to say, "I don't want my child to be taught sex education in school"?

(Ms Henderson) I do not think so. If it is the religion of the parent, I think the child still has the right to choose. If they are of the parents' religion and they agree that they want their parents to teach them and not to see the video, then yes, but the parents still do not have the right to decide. It is the parents' religion, not necessarily the child's.

(Ms Buist) A lot of religions dictate, "No sex before marriage", and that is fine, but I think they worry that sex education and teaching them about sex, teaching them what contraception is and how and where to get it will somehow encourage them to just run out, get contraception and start having sex. I find that illogical and ridiculous, but, on the other hand, if it is taught correctly by saying, "We are not encouraging you", if they explore the emotional side, then the parents really should not have anything to worry about. Even if they do, if the worst comes to the worst and they do think, "Hooray! I can get condoms. I know what to do, so I'll go out and have sex", at least they will be doing it with contraception. To be honest, I think it is a lack of clarity in their minds that it will encourage them and I think that is unfair.

Dr Naysmith

Following up on Julia's question, there was something I wanted to ask about. I was going to ask it about the sex education system as you had experienced it, but I can probably predict that you are going to say that it is so useless that it does not matter anyway. What I was going to ask about was the fact that in Britain nowadays in many classes, with 30 being the top size of class, there will be lots of diverse backgrounds represented in that class in many parts of the country, different religions, as we have just been talking about, different rates of development and different sexual orientation and that kind of thing. What would you think a sex education programme should do about the fact that there is all this diversity? How can you do it in a way that stops individuals feeling excluded and not part of the group? Clearly Tara has been talking a bit about sex education, so what do you think about that to start with?

(Ms Hall) As one of the people from the Youth Parliament said, it is the child's right to choose what education they want and with sex, yes, parents may have an input into it, but I think basically it is down to the young person.

I am not so much talking about the parents' attitude now, but the fact that you need to teach different things to different youngsters.

(Ms Webley) Each person should be taught about each issue, like being attracted to the same sex is never talked about in schools, so people do not understand it, whereas everything should be taught to everyone, so whichever way they are, everyone is okay with everything because they know all the ins and outs of everything that is being taught.

That would have to mean a totally different kind of programme than the one we have got now where you get a couple of lessons for everyone.

(Ms Buist) I think another problem is the fact that sex education is tokenism and it is taught by PE teachers or English teachers. We have trained English teachers to teach English, we have trained maths teachers to teach maths, so if there were specialists to teach sex education, it would be more than just token information which is largely patchy and left out. I have always felt that they have had an information pack thrown at them and they were told to read out what was on the sheet. They did that in my school. Some people were not very mature about it. I just think that because it is so token, if we got specialists to do it, that would certainly make it a lot more valid.

Dr Naysmith: How does David feel about it as the only young man on the panel?

Chairman: A very brave young man!

Dr Naysmith

Should they be taught in separate groups?

(Mr Morris) I think it should be appropriate to people. Also education about people liking the same sex should be taught as well and a different variety of things. That is my opinion.

Chairman

Can I just press you on this issue of whether it is better to have separate sessions for males and females because we picked up in Manchester that there is a lot of tittering among the lads sometimes and perhaps less maturity sometimes for obvious reasons, so would you have felt, David, and I do not know what sex education you had in your school, but looking at what you have picked up from the work you have done, do you feel that we should be recommending that it should be done in separate sessions or do you feel that it is quite reasonable to do it in mixed sessions?

(Mr Morris) When I was at school it was separate sessions. The girls went off and did their thing and the guys went off and did their thing. I think it does not really matter whether it is the same sex or not. Maybe some people prefer it to be separate because then the girls can talk about girl issues and the guys can talk about guy issues rather than being embarrassed about it in front of their boyfriends and things like that. I think it depends on the person.

What is the feeling of the other witnesses?

(Ms Nicholls) We actually have a recommendation on this, that there should be a multi-agency teacher approach, including specialist teachers and all issues should be raised, including male issues and female issues. Now, this does not just mean that we are going to take the blokes off to talk about bloke things and take the girls off to talk about girl things. The females, the young ladies, should be allowed to get just as much sex education and information on what goes on with a boy as they should with themselves because at the end of the day they are both coming together to have sex, so they need to know what is being offered in both parts. With sex education with the lads tittering, obviously you do always get the, "Oh, that's really funny!", so we were recommending doing different things like role-play, using CD-roms, putting on sports events. It could be something like putting on a football match where every person represents something different. Little things make a big difference when it comes to sex education, especially the difference between different cultures and things like that. My best friend is Catholic and in her school they do not get sex education and it is a really big shame, but obviously everyone is taught about the Catholic religion in RE because you do not just get taught Christianity, but you get taught Buddhism and everything, so why not get taught about everything in sex education. It just seems to be on a one-way track of, "This is what sex is, two people together", and it is not and there are so many other paths which need to be gone down regarding sex education.

Sandra Gidley

Are you saying that what you are taught is actually very mechanical and basic and you do not explore the emotional aspects or the relationship aspects and it is all taught in a bit of an embarrassed way?

(Ms Nicholls) Yes, it was kind of, "Boy meets girl, girl meets boy. Boy likes girl, boy and girl kiss", stuff like that. I remember the only lesson we had on sexual health, there was nothing about chlamydia or syphilis or anything like that, but it was a leaflet passed around the class about AIDS and HIV which then got taken back to the form teacher at the end of the lesson to use in next week's lesson with a different group.

Do you think that your parents should be educated? I have two teenagers. My daughter can talk to me about anything and my son is, "Oh, Mum!", and it is all very difficult, but a lot of teenagers cannot talk to their parents and the parents find it equally difficult. Do you think there is a need for actually putting a course on for the parents so that they can actually talk about these things more realistically with young people without it all getting reduced to the very personal sometimes?

(Ms Webley) I think it would be a good idea to do that, yes. I remember once when I was in small school that you got a leaflet about the changes you would be going through and then there was a little booklet for your parents which did explain the changes that we would be going through and how to help us through it which I thought was really good, but since then there has never been anything else. That was just it, so I thought, "That's a good start, but you need to give more information for when the changes occur", but it stopped there.

Dr Taylor

I am more and more interested in the place of the parents, although I think that is going to come up a little bit later. I wanted to go to the Wakefield people to learn a little bit more about the Options clinic. Is this open access, walk in any time?

(Mr Morris) It is evenings, two nights a week.

Where is it physically?

(Mr Morris) It is out of town and it is not signposted or anything.

(Ms Nicholls) It is in the family planning clinic and the worst thing about the family planning clinic is that it is directly behind Wakefield College. Now, no one can see it because it is directly behind Wakefield College, yet there is a door to go into Wakefield College that you can walk straight through and then straight out of the back door and it is there, but no one knows how to go around Wakefield College to get to it and there are no signposts for it or anything.

Is it meant for sexual health matters or for support on any matter for young people?

(Ms Webley) It is for relationships as well as sexual health issues.

Is there a stigma in going to that or can you creep in because it is so hidden without anybody knowing?

(Ms Nicholls) The worst thing is that you have got to ask someone where it is to actually be able to get there.

Going on to services for young people with sexual health problems, we have rather skated over the sexually-transmitted diseases. You just began to mention them. We have got to avoid personal questions, so these are very general questions. Do you feel that the education even attempts to cover the risks of the sexually-transmitted diseases? There are lots of shaking heads behind.

(Ms Hall) When we were doing the questionnaire, I found that more people were concerned about getting pregnant than they were about HIV and STDs.

We have heard that time and time again, that the risks of the infections are felt to be far less than the risk of getting pregnant. If any people in your area had worries about a sexually-transmitted disease or infection, how would they know where to go? Would you know where to go? Is that information available or not?

(Ms Webley) I would never know where to go.

You would not know where to go?

(Ms Nicholls) No. This is what we are saying, that there is not enough information or contact numbers for young people. This goes back to the school planners. We say why can they not put a page in the school planner with all the contact numbers on? Advertising is a big part.

(Ms Buist) It is our job to know, not personally.

(Ms Nicholls) Why can they not put posters on the back of buses or in pubs and clubs, on the back of toilet doors? Most people come to us because we have been educated on it obviously.

(Ms Buist) That took a lot, to find out where everything is. The best description I could get was, "It's behind Boots". It was not behind Boots, but then of course there was a great big thing, saying, "Sexual health this way", and there was a winding path you have to go down with everyone looking at you and you just want to say, "I'm just here for research!"

(Ms Nicholls) The GUM clinic in Wakefield, I had already been there twice before, but I had always gone by car, but this time I had to catch the bus because I was going from college and I could not find it. I asked someone on the street if they knew where the GUM clinic was and they said to me, "The nearest dentist is just down the road"! I gave in and walked to the hospital and they had someone on work experience behind reception and by this point I was bright red. I was not really that bothered, but I thought, "Oh no! People are looking at me now", so I walked in and said, "Can you tell me where the GUM clinic is?" and he said, "I don't know". There was nobody else around, so he had to ring a nurse to come and get me to escort me round. I had to walk all the way through the hospital and I got there, but I actually could have just got off the bus and walked down one street, but there was no signpost to tell me that I could have got off the bus there and walked down that street. If I cannot find it when I have already visited it and I do all my research there, how are young people supposed to find it?

(Ms Buist) That is something they all ask really, about the level of inaccessibility.

So what would be your ideal service? What would you like? Where would it be? How would you access it? Would it be connected with school or how would you access it?

(Ms Nicholls) One of our recommendations was that sexual health clinics could be put in other areas, like there could be a sexual health clinic in a sports centre, for example, so everyone knows where the sports centre is, they can go into the sports centre, access the clinic and maybe if they are a young mother, the children can get discounts on activities or they could perhaps get a discount on an activity. Walking into a sports centre, everyone knows where it is, but no one knows what you are actually going into the sports centre for because you are going to the gym, are you not, so it is things like that. We are really trying to push this, for all the services to be under one roof which we know is so terribly difficult because you have got all the equipment, but the worst thing is people going to the family planning clinic and then being sent to the GUM clinic which is about a two-minute walk away, but they cannot find it. Then on the way up there they are panicking already because they have been sent to another clinic, thinking, "Oh my God!" It is a hit-and-miss situation basically. If you can get to the family planning clinic and they can give you everything you want, you are sorted, but otherwise you are not. One of our recommendations is alternative venues, even if it is for two hours a week in a room in a sports centre, like I say, because everyone knows where it is.

That is a very good idea to have it in sports centres. Do you access your own GPs or would you access your own GPs for these sorts of problems or would you try and avoid that?

(Ms Nicholls) I personally do because it is a family GP and it is a two-minute walk from my house, whereas to get to the sexual health clinic, I have to catch a bus into town, which is another problem for young people because they think they cannot afford it and they do not know that certain clinics do actually refund your bus fares, so that is another thing we are trying to push forward. Our GUM clinic refunds the bus fares and no one knew this, so we said to them, "No one knows", so they have actually put a poster on the wall now, saying, "We will happily refund your bus fares", but no one knew about two months ago that they would do that. It is a big situation that needs a lot of work. It is not something obviously that can just be done overnight, like with the waiting room being swapped around, but it is one of the main reasons why young people will not access services because they cannot get to them. They do not want to go to the GP because it is their family GP or they cannot afford to get there.

Dr Naysmith

There are clinics like that in the Bristol area which operate for a couple of hours in an evening and that sort of thing, but one of the criticisms of them, and there are not enough of them, but one of the criticisms of them is that young people just turn up there because they know that they can get free contraceptives.

(Ms Nicholls) This is the point that we went through. We have not actually recommended anything on it but it is a point that we went through. The main thing was that we needed to let young people know the difference between protection and contraception to start with and the fact that even if they are only turning up at the Options Clinic to get contraception and to get free condoms, it is better than them not turning up at all.

What we really want is where people will talk about things in a deeper way rather than just collecting free contraceptives. Is that not what we need?

(Ms Nicholls) Yes. We came up with the Buddy Scheme as well which was one of our recommendations, that perhaps young people could actually work for our Options Clinic; they can be there waiting and, when someone comes, they can sit with them and explain to them what is going to happen and explain to them what they can actually get out of the Options Clinic and even go into the room with them if they wanted them to but again that comes down to confidentiality. If they had someone there to actually talk to them and say what is going to happen, that you can get this, this and this and that you do not need to just come in and get your condoms and leave, that there are a number of other offers you can get from the sexual health clinics that would help the process, then people would not just think of it as a free condom machine which is one of the main thoughts at the moment. People do not know that, at the family planning clinic, you can actually go and talk to a doctor about family planning. It is not all about contraception. You can sit down and say, "Do you think this is the right time for me to go? Is it the right time for me to have a baby?" Obviously this does not involve young people as much, but young people do not know that that offer is there and available to them if they want them.

We saw some clinics in Sweden which is much, much wider than that, where people can go and talk about all sorts of relationship issues and they are comfortable and welcoming places. These are for young people up to the age of 23. There are not many of those in this country and you would obviously want to see more of that.

(Ms Nicholls) Yes. That sounds like a really good clinic.

John Austin

This has been partly touched on by something Sandra Gidley said earlier regarding the different relationships she may have with her son and her daughter but, in previous inquiries on other health issues, there has been general evidence that women are much more in touch with what is going on in their bodies than men are and are much more likely to talk about that and share that with peers than men or young men are. I do not really want to put Mr Morris on the spot but a number of people have said that young men feel excluded from sexual health services, perhaps through embarrassment or perhaps through lack of knowledge. What do you think can be done to improve services and accessibility for young men?

(Mr Morris) I think that a number of young men do not go to the services because of this macho thing with their friends and they are embarrassed to go, but I think women are as well. I think that maybe having a separate clinic for guys as well as women in the evening is a good idea. It is mixed at the moment but, if they had one for men and one for women or mixed, they could go to whichever one they wanted to and that would be a big help. Then they would not turn up when their girlfriend's friends are there. I think that would help.

(Ms Nicholls) There is a well women centre for women obviously and there is MESMAC which is for bi-sexual people sexual health services but, off the top of my head, I cannot really think of a service that is typically aimed at males and males only.

(Mr Morris) There is one but it is more about rape and trauma for men. That is about it really. There are no male clinics, it is all mixed. There are a number of women ones about and I think that, if there were more male ones, it would be a lot better.

(Ms Nicholls) Even if it is not so much the well women centre, which is obviously a full centre in itself, and even if it is not a full centre like with the Options Clinic, like Mr Morris said, if it were lads night only at the Options Clinic ... You could make a joke out of it: "Lads Night Only - you can put the footie on the TV!" Do you know what I mean? For the women, pictures of Gareth Gates, Will Young and what-have-you can be stuck on the wall.

Chairman

What do you have on your bedroom wall?

(Ms Nicholls) I have David Hinchliffe on my bedroom wall! It is true. We had his photo taken for the paper and my mum was a bit excited about it because it was all about coming to London, so she put it in a big frame and stuck it on my bedroom wall!

John Austin: I hope that is not going to devalue any of the evidence you have given us! Lack of judgment and all that!

Mr Burns: Your street-cred has been undermined!

John Austin

On the embarrassment and accessibility point and you have spoken about the need for confidentiality, do you think there is a case for having an even more anonymous service available such as a telephone counselling and advice service that people could ring up?

(Ms Nicholls) A text message service came up really, really strong. One young lad said, "I can text to see how my football team is doing, so why can't I text to get advice on sex?" A number of people have modern technology nowadays - your thumbs are defined from texting people all the time. Why can there not be a sex line through text messaging or even through a phone line/ I do know that there is the 0800 282930 number. However, when we were younger, I do know that they received a number of prank phone calls. It was not a big thing. When we launched our report, they made a card somewhere with a picture of Ali G on it and he stood like this and was saying, "I is itching!" It is a free-phone confidential help line. If you could do something like that or even in a drop-in centre and in the clinic - you could have a phone in the clinic where you could just ring someone and talk to them in the clinic. The text messaging thing is a big recommendation for us because so many young people use mobile phones nowadays, so why can they not just text somewhere to ask advice?

Chairman

Who provides the phone line that you have just mentioned?

(Ms Nicholls) Who provides the advice?

Yes.

(Ms Nicholls) Trained people like peers, specialist people who are actually trained up in this and people like our project leader. People who actually know what young people are thinking. It is all very well somebody sending a text message and you sending them back a load of jargon. It all needs to be young people friendly. If you send a text message and there are young people there who can advise or even who are employed to answer it themselves, who can answer the question because they know what they are talking about, as long as it is young people friendly, that is what we are aiming for. In the sexual health clinics, there are leaflets about chlamydia and everything, but it is all full of jargon and no one understands what it is actually going on about. Even if you have put a project together like we have and gave a number out and saw how it went for three months and then, if it went really well, you could carry it on from there. You can always build it up. It is just getting young people involved again. Our problem was that we did not get any formal feedback. We had a number of phone calls saying, "Yes, your report is brilliant" but we did not get any formal feedback and I think that is what stops young people doing projects like this because they are worried that it is a waste of time. I think they need to know that it is being taken on board. From my point of view, I think you will find that, if you let young people know that you are taking on board what they are saying, you will get a lot more out of them and a lot more people will be willing to help in the situation.

John Austin

Do you know which organisation set up the phone line and who started it?

(Ms Nicholls) It was called Sex-Wise. I only remember it because there were numerous times when I was 13 on the street with my bottle of cider ringing that number and saying, "Ha-ha, sex line" and putting the phone down! Perhaps I should not say that in public. It was something that we all did at that age and that is the only reason why I know of that one.

(Ms Buist) People would not want to waste their text credit on that!

(Ms Nicholls) You can text certain people and certain numbers free, so why not have a free text line? It would cost enough but it would not cost that much to actually run it. All you need is a free phone line and a computer and someone sat at the other end typing the answer back and sending it out.

(Ms Buist) And you could send people that we are sending to school to teach sex education.

You mentioned the Internet. Do you think many people use the Internet to access information about sexual health or do you think it could be developed?

(Ms Nicholls) I personally do not because I know that, at college, if I went onto the Internet to access something about sexual health, it would come up barred because it has the word "sex" in it. Young people within schools and colleges cannot access the Internet for sexual health services because they are all barred. It is anything to do with sex. It is the same in libraries and everything, unless they are using it from home but I know that my dad can trace everything I do on the Internet and he willingly reads my e-mail addresses and things like that. So I know that, if I went on there, he could access where I have just been. That also is the perception of young people and young people nowadays know more and more about computers and they do know that they are going to be able to access it. So, I do not think that people use it that much. I might be wrong but it was not really one of our questions.

(Ms Henderson) I think it could be the last resort. If they could not get any information anywhere and they were really worried about something, I think they would be forced to go. They would not want to go anywhere and it may be as private as they feel they are going to get. So, the Internet would be a last resort but I do not think that it is in common use.

(Ms Buist) It is not confidential enough. As you said, it can be traced and, at school, it is just not going to happen. Anything with the word "sex" in is barred. So, the Internet is really not a big one to use, unfortunately.

(Ms Hall) Some people do not want to speak over the phone or go to a clinic. I would prefer to look over the Internet because there will be a piece of information there which is illustrated and is easy to look at. It is not like reading a book. It is right in your face on the screen. I would prefer to use the Internet.

(Ms Webley) We did not do any research on this, so we cannot give you any statistics.

Sandra Gidley

Just to pick up on something that was said earlier, I am getting some quite alarming messages about the quality of the sex education you are getting, which does not seem to have moved on much from when I was at school, I am afraid to say. You mentioned pregnancy and that is obviously covered at school and somebody said that the sexually transmitted infections were very sketchily covered; you were thrown a leaflet. Is that a common experience because part of the reason for doing this inquiry is that there has been a huge increase in the rate of sexually transmitted infections? How many young people are even aware of something like chlamydia?

(Ms Nicholls) Not many. We do have some statistics on it somewhere but it will take me a while to find them. Not many people know about it and the worst thing and the scariest thing with chlamydia is that you could have it for years and not even know that you do. About half-way through doing this project, I had never seen any advertisement for it at all, but then I picked up my mum's magazine yesterday - bear in mind that this was not a teen magazine, this was in Best or whatever it was, my mum's magazine - and there was an advertisement which was black and had lots of things on it and it said, "Do you want to play the sex lottery?" I thought, God, what is this doing in here? Obviously it should not be in here.

Was that because it was your mum's magazine?

(Ms Nicholls) Yes. My grandma reads this magazine! The sex lottery - I thought they had put the wrong advertisement in! Then you read down a little further and it says, "You're playing the sex lottery every time you have sex without using a condom. You can catch things like chlamydia." It was really bold and in your face and you could not get away from it. However, all the information on it was about that small written across the bottom of the page. It is only just very, very recently that you actually start to see things in teen magazines. They do the whole, "You can have this disease", but that is only very recently and people just do not know enough about it . People may have unprotected sex but the main issue for me, now that I have done all this, would be, gosh, have I caught anything? When you go into the public with young people, their main issue was, am I pregnant?

(Ms Hall) STIs do not seem to be covered in a lot more depth. A number of people are aware of the pill and think that, if you are on the pill, you are protected against STIs. They are taking the pill for absolutely ages thinking they are fine and they may not be. They just do not know enough about it.

Should that information be given at school?

(Ms Hall) Yes.

Or should you pick it up from magazines?

(Ms Nicholls) Yes.

(Ms Buist) People are not aware of things. They know the word "syphilis" and they know the word "HIV" and "AIDS" but they have never heard of VD, gonorrhoea, chlamydia or anything like that. It is really worrying and it needs to be taught not, as you said, with a leaflet, "Have a look at this, kids."

(Ms Nicholls) It should be taught in sex education. While we were doing the project, we all had statements that we kept saying all the time just to remind us of what we were doing and what I used to say all the time was, "Young people need to know the difference between protection and contraception" because, if you go to the clinic for contraception, some people think that contraception and protection are all in one. Young people especially need to know that, even if they are on the pill to protect themselves from getting pregnant, they still need to use protection to stop them from catching sexually transmitted diseases. It is a really big thing but it just seems to have taken a back seat, if you know what I mean, to pregnancy, which is obviously important, we do not want young people getting pregnant, but that seems to have been pushed forward and it seems that, as pregnancy has been getting pushed forward, sexual health has been pushed back. In my opinion, you could kill both birds with one stone. You could do it. It is simple enough - contraception, protection, all at once. If you think you are mature enough to make the decision to have sex, you should be mature enough to make the decision to do it properly.

(Ms Buist) I think that the reason sexually transmitted infections have taken a back seat is because we are young, we are immortal. When you get older, you start to realise your mortality. You are more sensible to the fact that you could get diseases. Right now, we think, oh my God, if I had a baby, it would just ruin my life and it would change things dramatically. No one really thinks about STDs because health issues are not our main thing at the moment because we are young and immortal! I think more importance for that needs to be drummed into us.

Mr Burns

We have had evidence in this Committee in the past from people who obviously want to use the fear of STDs as a reason for inhibiting young people from having sex. Do you think that it could be turned round in that way and used in that way and what would you think of that if it was?

(Ms Buist) It needs to be because contraception, as you said, is not just about pregnancy, it is about STDs and it does take a back seat. Instead of saying, "Use contraception so that you do not get pregnant", say, "Use contraception so you do not get STDs and also pregnant."

We cannot use "contraception" but maybe "condoms".

(Ms Buist) Yes.

You have to get a different message across to young women you are using the pill.

(Ms Buist) Yes. It is all about awareness. I could not believe it when it was said that some people think they are protected from STDs while using the pill. That alarms me very, very much.

That was a very alarming message.

(Ms Buist) It means that they really do not know what they are talking about and I think that, yes, it definitely does need to be stated very, very clearly that it is to stop STDs as well and what does stop STDs and what does not. That has alarmed me.

Sandra Gidley

Can I just take up the feeling that you are immortal, you are young, you are having relationships and all the rest of it. We have talked about the influences on the education but, when it comes to young people making decisions about relationships and sex and sexual health, what are the biggest influences on you then?

(Mr Morris) What influences us to do it?

Yes. For example, there is some evidence from a group of young people in Manchester - and I do not want to put words into your mouths - who felt that some of the media images that they are bombarded with were not exactly -

(Ms Nicholls) Alcohol. When we asked the question, "What was the biggest influence on young people to have sex?" - and I have it here - the influence of alcohol was the highest:107 out of 202 people said alcohol; 88 people said peer pressure; 36 people said taking drugs; 15 people said pressure from a partner; and 15 people said pressure from the media. That, to me, is another issue. If young people are being pressured into having sex because of alcohol, I do think that it is a really bad thing. The next one down is peer pressure with 88 people, which is what we are trying to wipe out in a way by doing the peer education, trying to say that we are not all the same, we are not all saying, "Go on, have sex. I have done it, so you might as well do it as well." We are saying, "Take your time. Do what you want. Do not do what your friends are telling you to do." The biggest influence to have sex, without a doubt, was alcohol.

(Ms Buist) I find that really alarming because the two biggest ones, alcohol and peer pressure, are the ones that are going to be the most difficult to change. That will be so hard because, to reduce the influence of alcohol means that we are going to have to try and make young people not drink. Oh my God, how are we going to do that? There does not seem to be anything on earth that will stop young people drinking! Peer pressure - again, this is about changing perceptions. If anyone has any ideas, I would love to hear them.

Mr Burns

I would assume, from looking at your backgrounds, that most of you are still at school, secondary school. I am just doing that simply on your ages. How many of you are still at school?

(Ms Webley) I am.

(Ms Buist) I am in sixth form, year 13; only for the next four months but I am still there.

(Ms Nicholls) I am still in education; I am at college.

Going to secondary school rather than college, how much do you find that your friends and other people at school are interested, in a serious way rather than the normal kind of jokey way, in the issues of sex, the problems, the responsibilities and the precautions that you have to take? My other question is, for those of you still at secondary school, how many of your fellow pupils do you think are actually engaged in sex?

(Ms Webley) It is funny you should say that because only about two weeks ago, I was having a conversation in a group and I was so shocked because I was sure that no one in my form was sexually active and it turned out that nearly everyone was. It was, "Over Christmas, I did this" and I was so gobsmacked.

Is that just snogging or actually intercourse?

(Ms Webley) Intercourse and I was so shocked.

(Ms Nicholls) Snogging is not a big thing any more as in, if you went out on a night and you snogged a bloke, it was like, "Yes, I have snogged a bloke" and you would tell everyone, "I have snogged this bloke." If you go out on a night now, to the park or whatever, you snog a bloke and you snog another bloke and then you sleep with a bloke and it is like, "Yes, I have slept with a bloke", which is where the badness comes into it. I know that when I was at school, if I snogged someone it was, "Wow, phew", I was really excited about it. Nowadays, it is just not good enough anymore, they need to go that one step further and that is a really big issue. It has only been two years since I left school and, within those two years, people who I talked to who were actually at school, were saying, "I did this" and "I did this" and it turns out that more people at school are more sexually active than most of my mates who are 18, 19 and 20. It was one of my friend's seventeenth birthday; he had slept with 50 people - his fiftieth was on his seventeenth birthday - and I was disgusted. I was just like "done". Do you know what I mean? You are putting yourself at risk here. It is not big and it is not hard.

On that point, if we can get back to the first part of my question. How much do your friends, for those of you at school, discuss sex, the problems and the potential threats and what action to take about it in a serious way and how much is talked about sex in the normal kind of jokey way?

(Ms Webley) I would not say being serious was that often.

(Ms Nicholls) It is common. With doing the project, everyone knows that we know what we are talking about, so it is hard because people do tend to come to you now for information and advice because they know you know.

(Ms Henderson) To be honest, when you are younger, especially in the lower part of secondary school, you do not. It is a jokey thing to talk about. You are really embarrassed about it.

Is there a realisation that there are serious health problems and also life threatening problems?

(Ms Henderson) I think that there is a realisation as you get into sixth form because, as you get into sixth form, you mature more and you become more comfortable talking about it. So, I think that it is with age and with maturity that you feel more comfortable and not necessarily with the amount of sexual activity.

(Ms Buist) On that note, I noticed that, when you asked the question, you said, "How many of your friends?" and I think it is worth remembering that our own personal experiences are not irrelevant as such but it has to stay very clear in everyone's mind that we are actually a representation of thousands and thousands of people. This is what we have experienced, but just keep it in the front of your minds that there are thousands and thousands of young people at stake here and this is to do with their sex education and with their right to it. Do not take everything that we say as the exact situation because these are just our experiences.

John Austin

Can I just bring together some of the things that Ms Nicholls said then and some of the things she said earlier. When you were talking about resisting pressures and about doing things in your own time and really talking about empowering the individual and learning negotiating in relationships. Earlier on, you were talking about the use of role play in the classroom. Do you think there is enough in the sex education programmes that deals with those issues about empowerment and negotiation in relationships?

(Ms Nicholls) No. Yet again, it is the situation that, when you are doing sex education, you learn about sex and you need to be able to talk about your relationships and you need to be able to sit there and say to your students, "Peer pressure is a problem, but you do not have to do what everybody else is doing." It is the same with everything. It is fashion. You do not have to buy the same shoes as everyone else does, but you do it anyway. It is a really big thing. I think that peer pressure and people having sex is a really dangerous mix because it influences.

Andy Burnham

Can I just broaden things out a little and ask about the kind of world that we live in and the messages we get from the media. When Simon Burns was at school, having a snog was a really big deal but now apparently it is not. Obviously society has changed and the taboo has changed as well. What do you think of the messages from the Internet, music and films because the expectation is that you will be sexually active at a young age? Do you think that is an issue?

(Ms Webley) Do you mean getting it from the media?

Yes. The kind of bombardment of images.

(Ms Webley) Yes.

The expectation is that you are ...

(Ms Webley) You feel like it is something that you have to do and, if you do not do it, then you are left out and you are the odd one out.

You have to do it? Do you mean that you would be weird if you were not doing it?

(Ms Webley) Yes. It is the same as before. If everyone is doing it, then you are going to do it and, if it has been advertised, like you say, in the media etc, you just feel as though you are being pushed into it.

Pushed? You think it is that strong?

(Ms Webley) Yes. You do not feel confident enough to say, "No, I want to wait."

One has a go at the media all the time, but do you think that they are pushing it too hard sometimes?

(Mr Morris) I think people should be advised that it is a really big thing but that they do not have to do it because their friends are doing it. They should do it when they are ready and not get pushed into anything.

(Ms Nicholls) The whole Britney Spears thing was ace - when Britney Spears said, "I'm a virgin, I'm a virgin" because everyone was saying, "I want to be like Britney. I want to be a virgin".

It did not last long!

(Ms Nicholls) Now she has turned into this really cheesy pop act who wears nowhere near enough clothes and, if she was performing in England, she would catch cold without a doubt! It has just changed round and, to me, she looks like a slut.

(Ms Buist) That is the word because "virgin" is a term of insult but then so is "slut". You are a shrivelled up, sad, little virgin if you have not had sex and then, when you have, you are a slut. Not with men - this is why it is more concentrated on women - because they are a stud if they do it and, if a girl does it, she is just publically downgraded.

At what age is one really under pressure?

(Ms Buist) If you have not done it by the time you are 17, you are an outcast.

(Ms Nicholls) If they are 15, 16 or 17 and they have not had sex, it is like, "What is going on with you? We need to sort you out." It is awful.

(Ms Buist) But, when you do it, it is catch 44, it is worse than a catch 22. It is so infuriating.

I was going to get onto that point about the mixed messages in British society. I think that, in some of the other countries that we visited as a committee, yes, there is that pressure, but society is more open - the kind of formal society parents, so there is not quite the mixed message. We have picked up from other young people in Manchester that it was confusing because there is this constant pressure from the media and the message from the school is that you need permission to watch a dusty, old video from 1963. Do you know what I mean? There is total contrast between, let us say, what the formal world gives out and what the media gives out to you. Do you feel that that confuses young people?

(Ms Buist) Very much so and there is a real feminist issue here as well. There really is. Not so much on being virginal, that falls on both girls and guys, it is very much, "Oh my God, you have not yet" kind of thing, but the flip side of that is where you get publically humiliated and downgraded for having had sex and you get rumours spread about you and things like that is on girls. If a guy were to sleep with two women in a week, he would be a hero, he would be a stud.

Dr Naysmith

That does not gel together what you are saying. What you are saying is that virtually every girl has done it by the age of 17, so they cannot all be sluts, can they?

(Ms Buist) No, that is the point. This is the complete mixed message that has come out. If they have not, it is like, "sweet little virgin" and, if they have, "oh, dirty". It is completely frustrating. Personally, I cannot pin it on the media.

Andy Burnham

Just to be clear, there is massive pressure to become sexually active and, when you do, there is pressure from another quarter of society telling you that you are bad and wrong.

(Ms Buist) Yes. It is not even pressure to not do it, it is just telling you that you are, as you said, bad and wrong.

(Ms Nicholls) Unless you are a bloke and then that is a good thing.

(Ms Buist) Then you are a stud, you are a sexual hero. The man is always the sexual hero.

Do you not think that the mixed messages are the same for men as they are for women?

(Ms Buist) They are not the same.

So, the message for men is to become sexually active and that, when you are, it is more acceptable?

(Ms Buist) Yes.

That is interesting. Would you back that up, Mr Morris?

(Mr Morris) Yes. It is like a macho thing for guys, "I have had sex" and everyone respects you then. It is true with girls that, if they have sex with loads of guys at a young age, they do get names.

(Ms Nicholls) Named and branded and it will follow you forever, unfortunately, all the way through school, whereas with a bloke ... It is so frustrating and I cannot pin down why it happens. I do not think that it is a good thing that it happens but if a bloke sleeps with three girls in one week, he is the champion at school.

Dr Naysmith

We are not talking there about having sex, what we are talking about is promiscuity - having sex with more than one partner or a lot of partners.

(Ms Buist) It does not even have to be as far as having sex but that is the worst form of promiscuity and then, when you are not doing it, you get made fun of as well.

Andy Burnham

Obviously we have a high teenage pregnancy throughout this country. People have touched on it - it is very high in Wakefield and it is very high in my area, Wigan, and we will hear about that in a minute. Do you think that the net result of these mixed messages has something to do with this high pregnancy rate because there is pressure to become sexually active but the support services, the advice and the information, as we have been discussing all morning, is not there, so the net result of pressure is unprotected sex and people are ill-informed? Do you think that the two are linked?

(Ms Nicholls) The pressure to have sex is a hell of a lot higher than the pressure to go to a sexual health clinic and sort it out once you have had sex or even go to the sexual health clinic before you have sex to get your contraception. If the two were equal, if the pressure for sex was on the same level as the pressure young people are getting to go to the clinic, it would be fine and I do not think there would be so many teenage pregnancies. However, because this is lacking slightly behind -

There is an imbalance?

(Ms Nicholls) Yes, there is not a balance.

(Ms Buist) We know that there are many confounding factors to the high teenage pregnancy rate and we believe education is one of them, but 28 per cent of people did not know that Britain has the highest teenage pregnancy rate. What we are saying is that education is not the only reason. We are not saying that if we had perfect sex education, there would be no teenage pregnancies. Of course not. That is ridiculous. Anyone who is sexually active can fall victim to pregnancy. What we are saying is that when sex education is improved to the level that it needs to be, having sex would be an informed choice and then it will not be the fault of education and then they can make an informed choice and it will be down to them. We are not looking for a scapegoat here. We are not blaming Parliament or the education system or anything. This is for an informed decision and that is it. The rest of the factors are another issue.

Chairman: I am conscious that we have run nearly half-an-hour longer than we intended with the session because I think you have been such a brilliant group of witnesses and we have learned a great deal from you and I want to thank you on behalf of the Committee for being so honest and open and telling us as it is, quite clearly. You have given us some very important messages. Please stay for the next session and we will talk to you informally at the end of the committee meeting. Thank you very much all of you for your help.

MS NATALIE STUART and MS ANNA EAGLE, Young mums-to-be project, Swindon, and MR JAY BAILEY, MS GEMMA MINTY, MS RACHAEL WARD and MR SCOTT WILLIAMS, Wigan Borough-wide Youth Council, examined.

Chairman

Can I welcome our second group of witnesses. Thank you for being willing to come before the Committee. You have a hard act to follow, I have to say, but you have seen the general direction in which we have been going. Can I ask each of you to briefly introduce yourselves, starting with you, Ms Minty.

(Ms Minty) I am Gemma Minty; I am 16 years old. Basically I am here today to tell you about the issues surrounding sex. I am part of the Wigan Borough-wide Youth Council which deals with a whole range of issues.

(Mr Williams) I am Scott Williams and I am part of Wigan Borough-wide Youth Council which is made up of representatives from all over Wigan borough of townships and action groups and I am obviously here to tell you anything you would like to know.

(Ms Ward) I am Rachael Ward and I am part of Sex Talkers, which is a peer education group in Wigan borough.

(Mr Bailey) I am Jay Bailey and I am part of a young lesbian gay and bi-sexual project across Wigan.

(Ms Stuart) I am Natalie Stuart; I am 18 and am from Swindon and have been on the young mums-to-be course.

(Ms Eagle) My name is Anna Eagle; I am 17 and I was on the young mums-to-be course as well.

Can I begin by speaking to the two of you from Swindon. Obviously I have a little idea of what you have done because of the evidence we have and Julia Drown has told us a little about your project. Can you tell us a little about how your mums-to-be course works, how it operates and the way it has helped you in the situation you have been in.

(Ms Eagle) When you go there, you are all the same age, so people are not looking up at you or looking down at you and you can go there and talk about how you feel.

Do you feel that it has been very helpful to you?

(Ms Eagle) Yes. I did benefit from it a lot.

Do you think that there are things that could have been done differently or better that might have benefited you even more?

(Ms Eagle) No. You have your own confidence and everything and, if you need anyone to talk to, there are people there. People come in from the hospitals and talk about pregnancy and it is OK.

Ms Stuart, can I ask you more generally about whether you feel that the school in your area and the health service and GPs might have done things differently or better for somebody in your situation.

(Ms Stuart) Do you mean when I was pregnant, what did they do different for young mums to be?

Yes and what could have been done differently or better perhaps.

(Ms Stuart) I know from my friends who became pregnant at school that they went to talk to them and told them that they had to leave the school. So, the schools do not give any support at all. I am not too sure, really.

You picked up some of the questions that we were asking the first group and one of the key ones was about sex education. You are young mums and you obviously have an opportunity to put to us your thoughts on the issue of sex education. Do you think that you received good education or any sex education? If not, what should have happened that did not happen in your circumstances?

(Ms Stuart) I did a child care course at college and, when I was on the young-mums-to-be course, we had an electronic baby. You knew what to do with the baby and the baby went off and you did everything with this doll that you would do with a baby. I actually received the doll when I was pregnant and I reckon that, if I had received it before, it would have made me see things differently. When I was getting in the shower, I had to do it quick before the baby started crying to be fed and I had to feed it for 45 minutes. I had to go to town and I had to do it in the time that the baby was not going to cry. That works a lot more than some video that people were laughing and giggling at. You do not really get to learn much sex education at school because people are immature and you are too frightened to ask questions.

So, your message to the Committee is that that is a very important area that we have to look at as the previous witnesses said?

(Ms Stuart) Yes.

Can I come on to our witnesses from Wigan. I do not know who wants to answer this question but can you tell us a little about the programmes that you have been involved in and how they work.

(Ms Ward) I will take about my peer education project. It is called Sex Talkers and we are a young peer education group. We go through a 12 week training course. At the moment, we have seven young people: five young people who have already been through the training course who are peer education workers, which is like myself, and then we have two young workers who we are training up and we do the course with them. It is six weeks' confidence building, which is like going through workshops, contraception, HIV and AIDS, pregnancy and choices, sex and alcohol, sex and condom use, sexual relationships and then we do the six weeks' workshops. We go out and do workshops to other young people and we train them up to go through the workshops in order that they are not being chucked in at the deep end and they know what they have to go out and do. What we are doing seems to be successful.

The message you are giving and that others have given us is about the peer issue. It is very important that people are receptive to talking to people from their own age group. That is a very important message. What other benefits have arisen from the work you have done? Mr Williams, we picked up in the first session the position of young men. How do you feel that this is related to the concerns of young men?

(Mr Williams) In relation to sex education relevant to schools, it is not up to scratch really form the male point of view. Males can be sat in mixed group classes. I have discovered from a questionnaire that young men would rather chat to a male teacher on their own or, as has been discussed, a peer from Sex Talkers, but it would have to be a male because you are able to talk to a male more easily and, if they know what they are talking about - like the previous group said, if it is a geography teacher, you do not really want that - and they are well educated in what they are talking about, you listen to them more and listen to what they are saying. Whereas, if you do not really understand what they are talking about and they are not really qualified, you are not really going to listen. The males found that the videos were women orientated - how the pregnancy was and how the woman should do such things. There was a minor bit about how to put a condom on appropriately - "There it is, it is gone, there you go. Have you learned?" "What?" That was it. Obviously the teacher who taught you geography was quite embarrassed about what he was telling a group of young students and obviously the males are a very immature breed when we are young -

And when we are old!

(Mr Williams) We do giggle and laugh at stupid little things.

Andy Burnham

I would like to ask all of you a little more about how good schools are in all this. I went to a local Catholic school and, to be honest, it was biology and a little bit in the old fourth year and there was not a great deal more than that. How good was your sex education in schools? When did it start, for instance? For us it was 14.

(Ms Ward) When I was in primary school, it was more like puberty sex education where you got shown how to use a Tampax. So it started there and then we had nothing and it started again at 14/15.

In your view, is that way, way too late?

(Ms Ward) Yes, it was because we already knew it all anyway. It was the in thing to know and, if you did not know it, like the other group was saying ...

From your experience of being involved in the project, how much kind of misinformation is out there? How many young people have the wrong understanding? We heard about some of the ideas people had about what the pill can do. Do you think there is a lot of mis-information out there?

(Ms Ward) Yes.

Because it starts too late?

(Ms Minty) There are a lot of myths around in sex. No one has actually sat down and told young people and straightened all these myths out. A few weeks ago, one of my friends told me that her little sister became involved in foreplay and, after that, she came running into her room crying her eyes out thinking that she was pregnant. To say that she was a 14/15 year old girl, it is pretty ridiculous that she did not know the basic facts around sex, foreplay and things like that. At primary school, you get given all these strange objects: tampons and sanitary towels. Then there is a huge gap before you get to high school and then, when you are at high school, you are expected to know and no one has the confidence to speak out and say, "Actually, I do not know what sex is and I do not know this and I do not know that."

What age would you give? I feel that it should not start too early because, going back to the earlier conversation, you should not be putting pressure on people to feel that they should be sexually active when they do not feel that they want to be. If you could pinpoint a kind of age, when would you say it would be?

(Ms Minty) I think the basics of sex should be taught in the last year of primary school, but that it should go into more detail around about the age of 13.

Just as you are making the transition?

(Ms Minty) Yes.

Once you have found your feet in secondary school, around that age?

(Mr Williams) It has been shown that young girls have become pregnant. There was a girl from Essex who was pregnant at the age of 12. Obviously they must have found out about sex because they did it, but where was the education before that? At the age of 12, I feel she is still a very young age and she should not be pregnant at such a young age. If I were the father, I would break the boy's legs, to be honest! The education should start to inform them because, if she is having sex, obviously she knows about it, so why should she not be taught the right way to go about it?

Dr Naysmith

This raises an interesting question and you probably heard me asking something similar to the previous group. You have all this diversity that exists in classrooms in British schools, different religions and so on and different stages of awareness and different stages of readiness and Ms Stuart told us that she received some advice when it was too late. Maybe you need to tailor it to people much more because you do not want to make individuals - and maybe Mr Bailey might want to say a word or two about this - feel left out of the group. So, it is not just a simple statement of saying, "At age five, you get this; at age seven, you get that; at age nine, you get that; and at age 14 you get something else." We need something a little more individual. Would you agree?

(Mr Williams) Maybe the peer advice is more one-on-one. Is that what you are talking about?

That would be very expensive.

(Mr Williams) We have a service in Wigan called Connections, the connection service, and they have personal advisers. It is a one-on-one basis and it is very, very confidential. It is for young people. We have been involved in organising connections in Wigan as part of the Youth Council and we have interviewed certain PAs, as we call them, personal advisers, to ensure that they are the right sort of people that we want because you need young people and friendly people. No offence but you do not want to be chatting to an old person whose moral issues are very different to yours. It is like chatting to councillors and MPs now, you feel a little intimidated as such. I do not, but some people do feel intimidated. We need that one-on-one and we think that our PAs should be able to give us condoms and relevant and informative but friendly advice. You do not like lectures, do you? You do not like sitting there. It is like the Youth Service now. If you ask them for condoms, they have to talk to you and they have to give you the information and a lot of young people want the condoms to have the sex. They do not want the jargon. They sit there and they do not listen to you because you are older then them. They do not give two hoots. I think the peer issue is a lot better because, if I were to tell a young person that what they are doing can seriously damage their health when they are older with all sorts of cancers and infections, then I think it would scare them but with an older person, like our youth workers, telling them, they do not give two hoots.

Julia Drown

Can I just be clear that you are saying that it is waste of time to have a teacher talking to a whole group of people, but it would be OK for a peer?

(Mr Williams) A peer or someone like a nurse or someone who is person friendly because not all teachers care about young people. They are just there to do their job and you just think, well, you do not give two hoots, so why should I?

Dr Naysmith

Ms Stuart was saying that she received information after it was too late. If that had come earlier, would that have been the right thing for everyone else in your class?

(Ms Stuart) Yes, it would have.

Or was everyone developing at different rates or coming from different backgrounds?

What do you think?

(Ms Stuart) Do you mean with the dolls? If everyone had had a doll? Yes. Obviously they are expensive - I think the dolls are £300 - but we had to sign a contract to say that, if we broke it or anything, we would have to pay for it. We were there to do it properly and use it properly because we did not want to pay the money. You cannot turn it off and that does really, really help. It would have definitely changed me and I think it would have changed other people as well. When I was pregnant, my boyfriend helped me look after the doll because it goes off at 5.00 in the morning as well and it changed his view as well and he knew exactly what was going to happen when he was going to be a dad. It was not the same anymore. It was not that he did not know what was going to happen because he did. The doll gave him a sight of it.

John Austin

How much do they cost?

(Ms Stuart) I think £300.

Julia Drown

Ms Eagle, did you have that doll as well?

(Ms Eagle) When I went to the Young mums-to-be course, that was the only time I saw one. I had never seen one before, but I do reckon that it is good.

Would you say that everybody in a class -?

(Ms Eagle) Yes, I do reckon that they should have them in schools, in like PSE or whatever, and let them take them home for a week or something. I reckon it will change people.

(Ms Stuart) I had mine for a weekend and that was enough! By Monday morning, I was skipping to college to give it back!

Can I just pick up the point that Andy Burnham was asking about your sex education. Was it similar in that you had that bit in primary school and then a gap and then just a tiny bit in secondary school as well?

(Ms Eagle) Yes.

Do you share the view that teachers may be not that good at teaching it and would you have preferred to hear from peers?

(Ms Stuart) We did PSE and that was mainly about drugs. I can just remember doing drugs all the time; I cannot actually remember much about sex. When we went to the health clinic because I had to go and get condoms there, you are in a quiet room like this and there are people sitting around and they can hear what you are asking for, so you do not want to go in and you do not want to say, "Can I talk to someone" even if you think you have a disease or anything. You cannot even ask them because people are around and they say, "Pardon?"

And you are having that in a waiting room effectively?

(Ms Stuart) Yes. Say this is the desk and this is all the waiting room and there is a woman sat there who says, "Yes, can I help you?" and everyone can hear - it is like having a microphone.

Later, do you get an appointment and go in to talk to somebody quietly or not?

(Ms Stuart) No because, if you ask for an appointment to see somebody, they ask what for. "Why do you want to speak to someone?" because they want to make sure that you speak to the right person. So, if I wanted to speak to someone about my leg, they are going to put me through to someone who can help with my leg.

So the issue there about confidentiality is important.

(Ms Stuart) You have to speak up in front of people and, in the end, I walk away.

In fact, that was not in a family planning clinic, that was a general health clinic?

(Ms Stuart) Yes, a health clinic but you go into a room where it is all sexual health, it is that kind of clinic, but they are still saying it out loud as well.

The other thing Andy Burnham said was that he felt that people should not learn about sex too early because that could create a pressure for people to have sex. Do you think it is right that having sex education can create a pressure to have sex?

(Ms Stuart) I do not think from too young because I can remember that I did not pay attention because I was embarrassed and you sat there with your head down and they would say, "Any questions?" and you would say, "no" because you did not want to ask any questions. I cannot really remember what I was taught at school. I think that, if they are too young, they will forget. I do not think that they would think about peer pressure really.

(Mr Williams) If you give the relevant and informative sexual education in a not very informative and a very relaxed way, then it would probably restrict people to go out and try it because some sex education is dead brief, really brief, which could - I am not saying that it does - promote people to say, "I want to know more" and go out and do it. You tell a baby not to stick their hand in the fire and what does he go and do? He tries to stick his hand in the fire. We like to know why. So, if you say, "Don't have sex because it is bad for you and because you will get pregnant and you do not want a baby", you will think why? I will go out and try it and see. If it is relevant and it is very informative instead of being brief, then I think that would be a better way of producing sex education.

Dr Naysmith

I still want to get Jay's views on this. "One size fits all" in sex education seems to be the norm in schools. I just wonder whether you felt that it was helpful to you. I know it is much more difficult -----

(Mr Bailey) Was sex education helpful to me? Sex education was not helpful to me because of section 28. Whenever I went into school to get sex education I never wanted to go in because I was either embarrassed or I had different problems of homelessness; there was isolation and there were family problems. You did not want to go in because you would be embarrassed telling your teacher, "Oh, excuse me, teacher. I'm gay." You get picked on, you get bullied by the pupils. I never did a sex education lesson.

How would you like to see it structured then? I know it is very difficult.

(Mr Bailey) Abolish section 28.

Dr Naysmith: We are working on that now. That will happen before the end of this session.

Chairman

Jay, one of the issues that we have talked to other witnesses about is the whole question of how you deal with questions from pupils about orientation and at what age that would be something that a person may wish to ask questions about. Clearly we have heard messages that the top end of primary school would be an appropriate time to start doing something. Scott talked about 13 and we might come back to that because I am not so sure that that is not too late. If the average age of first intercourse is now 16, 13 will mean that there are quite a number of people having sex already. I am concerned on orientation - at what stage would you have felt it appropriate to talk to somebody about your own concerns?

(Mr Bailey) To begin in secondary school.

So you are talking about 11-12 time?

(Mr Bailey) Yes.

Dr Naysmith

I do not know whether you would want to do it in a mixed class, a big class, or whether what you really want is more individual chatting about it and information.

(Mr Bailey) I do not know. I would probably do it in a range of people. I would not want to do it on my own because I want other people to learn about it. If you do it on your own there are other pupils that may be thinking if they are gay, lesbian, bisexual and they may want to learn about it and if they learn about it then they can come out to people.

You are prepared to say definitely at the moment that it is a total inhibition because of section 28?

(Mr Bailey) Yes.

Is the subject never discussed?

(Mr Bailey) The subject is never discussed in school because teachers are scared -----

Could I just ask someone else because you told me you never went to a sex education lesson. I just want information.

(Ms Minty) I think that first of all you need to break down the barrier between young gay, lesbian and bisexual people and straight people because at the moment the barrier is so high. You can see kids running round and saying, "Oh, your shoes are gay", without them actually knowing the meaning of the word "gay". If they were taught from an early age that some people choose to have two Dads or two Mums, then the barriers would gently fall and then perhaps sex education could be more open, you could explore the alternative ways of having sex.

It is wider of course than sex education. It is about relationships and that sort of thing. I just wanted to establish whether it is in fact true that none of you has ever had a chance to discuss other kinds of relationships in school.

(Ms Ward) No.

(Mr Williams) I attended all my sexual lessons - PSE, they were called - because I had to and I have never heard anything about lesbians, gays or bisexuals. I think we chat so much about heterosexual relationships and all manner of "normal" relationships, why can we not, when we start off heterosexual education, start off lesbian, gay and bisexual education as well, because people are gay, lesbian, bisexual when they are young. They know; it has been proven. Jay himself knew. Obviously they need to learn. Before section 28 people were told and people knew about it but when section 28 was brought up people stopped, and that is when the barriers came up, because people do not know. Now I do not know properly about lesbian, gay and bisexuals and that causes friction between heterosexuals and lesbians/gays/bisexuals, because you do not know about them so you think it is not the norm. You think they are weird; they are the outcast. If we learned about it the same as heterosexual education lessons then I think the barriers would slowly drop because people would become accepting again of it.

I just want to ask if Jay has got anything else to say because I cut him off rather sharply when I wanted to get the others' views.

(Mr Bailey) Eighty-five per cent of young people in our study stated, "We were affected at school as a result of our sexuality", whilst the other 15 per cent who stated that they were not affected indicated that this was because they chose to keep their difference secret. Seventy-seven per cent of those surveyed stated that there was no support structure in place to deal with the issue of homophobia in the schools for sex education, and one young person stated, "Teachers at school know about my problems and are aware of it but sit back and they do nothing".

Andy Burnham

Before we go off the area of education, because I think it is important that we cover it in full, as I said, I went to the local Catholic school in the same area as you are, and I still would suspect that something very different is going on there than elsewhere in the borough that schools are doing. How important do you think it is that what is delivered to young people is absolutely regardless of where they go to school, that there is no lottery involved and we know that every young person is getting a basic sex education?

(Ms Minty) I think it is absolutely vital that we all receive the same sex education, no matter who we are. At the end of day at one point in our lives we are going to go through the same emotional conflict between ourselves and we are all going to have sex and perhaps start a family.

Would you be arguing that that should be part of the curriculum?

(Ms Minty) Yes.

(Ms Ward) It is just like a jobs lesson.

Schools might have some flexibility as to how they go through it but it should not be a matter of discretion, something they could do or they could opt out of? Would you say that is right?

(Ms Minty) Yes.

Did you all go to different schools?

(Ms Minty) Yes, every one of us.

If you were to mark them out of ten on how they did in sex education, what would you give them?

(Ms Minty) Three.

(Mr Williams) I would give them a five because Lowton High was a good school.

They made an effort and they tried?

(Mr Williams) Yes, they did try. Because they do not chat about homosexuality because of section 28 then I would have to give them a five, because they did the relevant information. It was very quick and very brief and that is why I would give them five.

What do you say, Rachel?

(Ms Ward) Maybe one. I do not know. Like Scott said, they did try, but they need to improve a lot.

The issue is that they need more support from, let us say, the centre, from government, as to what they should be doing and what options they have got?

(Ms Ward) What they can and cannot say because if they feel they are saying something they might be saying it wrong because they have not had the training or they do not have the knowledge to say about it. They are just saying what they think they can say.

So you are saying they are making a bit of progress but they need a lot more support?

(Ms Ward) Yes.

And presumably, Jay, you would give them a very low mark, would you?

(Mr Bailey) A minus.

Mr Burns

Listening to your suggestion or your belief that everyone should have sex education, just looking at you, it could be argued that you are not necessarily representative of the school population in this country in that you are all white. I do not know if any of you are Catholics. What would you say, if you had them, to pupils in your school who happened to come from a very strong Catholic family or happened to come from a Muslim family, or possibly other ethnic minority families who would not share your view that everyone should have sex education at school but that they and/or their parents should have a right to withdraw from it?

(Mr Williams) Like you said, it is an option.

(Ms Ward) It should be optional?

(Mr Williams) Did you say it could be taken as optional? Was that the point you made?

Andy Burnham: When I was at school it was part of the biology option. You did it in what was the old fourth year.

Mr Burns

The answer Gemma gave, unless I misheard her, was that she believed that there should be sex education for all at school. My question is, what would you say to someone in your class at school who happened to be a staunch Catholic or happened to be from an ethnic minority that might have a very different view in the whole area of sex education and would not, or their parents would not, or both they and their parents would not want them to have that sort of education in a school but would want it from either their own family at home or from a religious support group within their religion?

(Ms Minty) Perhaps religion should be brought into sex education. Perhaps it should be taught from the Muslim point of view and the Catholic point of view as well. Me personally, I would not laugh at someone that did not have sex education at school. I would feel sorry for them in a way because they did not have it.

Mr Burns: But do you not think that is a slightly intolerant and intellectually arrogant view because it does not take into account the views of other -----

(Mr Williams) In schools you have a lesson, RE or RS. It is Religious Studies and you are taught in those lessons about the different religions and their views. Therefore they are taken into account in certain lessons. Maybe you could set up minority groups in a school situation whereas someone from their community would teach their certain group about sex. But, I do think you should say that because everybody has sex and if you are giving a basic education about sex, whether it is the view of Muslims or whatever it is, you should give a basic education without any views of any religion, just a basic education - "This is how you should use a condom", -----

I was not suggesting that because of their religious views this should be the case. What I was suggesting was that because some people from religions different from the Anglican Church of England have very strong views on where and who should teach them or their children sex education. It is nothing to do with the differing religious interpretations of the meaning of sex, to put it simplistically. Some people just do not believe that sex education should be provided at school, but that it should be provided in the home or from others. I am not saying that is right or wrong. I am just saying that some people have a very strong view that it should not be at school from teachers; it should be elsewhere provided. I am just asking what is your view if one of your friends in your class came from that sort of viewpoint and they felt that sex education should not be across the board for every pupil at school.

(Mr Williams) Then that would be a personal opinion and I could not fault them for their personal opinion, could I? If they wanted to learn their sexual education in a way that they have to re the religion, then if I was a head teacher I would invite their religion into the school and give a PSE lesson on their religion, their views on sexual education. Therefore, you are teaching everybody about every other person. You could have mixed sex; a white man with an ethnic minority person could have sex and therefore they would like to know the views of their religions, would they not? That is what I would do as a head teacher of a school. I would invite their ethnic minority groups in either via church or via the families to come and give a talk from their religion point of view in a PSE lesson. That is how I would do it.

Dr Taylor

We heard from the last group that the education that you did have was mainly about contraception and protection from STDs was rather neglected. Has that been so with the little bit of education you have had, talking to Anna and Natalie first?

(Ms Stuart) I had this book that was passed on from my friends. It was called Love Stings and it is about someone who went to a party and he had sex with a girl and then he ended up getting something and he had to go and have a test, and that always stuck with me. That is where I got all mine from. That was always drilled into my head then about catching anything. I did not actually know; no-one else told me about that. I only got it from that book.

So was it a scare tactic?

(Ms Stuart) Yes.

We are told scare tactics do not usually work.

(Ms Stuart) Yes, it did, I suppose, because it made me think, because when I go to a party I do drink. There was a film as well called Kids. I do not know if anyone has seen that. That made me think as well because it was about some teenagers that go out and drink every weekend and one of them had HIV and he was sleeping with all these girls and they were catching it. That was drilled into my head and that would scare me because it is so easy. You would not think, would you?

(Ms Stuart) Other than that I would not really say I had got much.

Does information about STIs come across with the limited education you get?

(Ms Ward) Yes. It is like the other group were saying, that pregnancy is more of a big thing rather than STIs, where STIs should have priority more than pregnancy. I am not saying it is not but in a way it can stick with you for ever. I know a baby can but it is more dangerous to your health. It is more important in a way and it is like they are getting more education on pregnancy and stuff like that rather than STIs. That is why some of our workshops are on STIs as well as pregnancy and it is trying to get it across to the people. No-one even knows what it is. People still think it is STDs and it is like, "No, we have moved on. It is infections now". They think that STDs is if you have got a disease, you can cure it.

So you think the word "infection" is more powerful to you?

(Mr Williams) More suited.

(Ms Ward) Yes.

It brings it home that it is something you catch?

(Ms Ward) Yes.

To both groups, we heard from the previous witnesses that access to sexual health services is very difficult, that they are hidden behind Boots or wherever it is. Is that the same in your area? Would you know, if you needed to, where to go? Could you find sexual health clinics?

(Ms Eagle) There are not many places I know about, but when I went to the YMTB they gave me a leaflet on everything and phone numbers and everything like that, so if I need to get hold of anyone I can just ring them and they can tell me where it is then.

So with TB you got the services very easily?

(Ms Eagle) Young Mothers-to-Be, yes.

Again, are your services hidden or would you know where to find them if necessary?

(Mr Bailey) You could know where to find them but the waiting lists -----

(Ms Ward) Only for some. It is just like our GUM clinics. They are three weeks waiting lists and it is appointment only, but that is for SDIs and stuff like that. We have got a Brooke service - I do not know if you have heard of it - which is really popular in Wigan for the young people. Like the young man was saying before in the other group about having young men sessions, Brooke in Wigan are starting up a young men's session. Because of our outreach work we have had information back off them, that they feel that they cannot go and sit in a waiting room and they feel a bit intimidated, "Oh, that's my girlfriend's mate over there", and they say, "I'm waiting for my girlfriend"; they make up excuses and then the nurse will shout out their name and they say, "It isn't me, it isn't me". They always wait till last to go in when everyone has gone because they seemed ashamed. At the end of the day I do not think they should be separated but because of the information we have had back they have got a session opening for young men.

(Mr Williams) The GUM clinic, we have found a lot of problems with it actually. We have got quite a big list. We found out that it is just geographically inaccessible. I live in Lowton and the nearest one to me would either be Wigan, which is seven miles away, or Bolton, which is another, say, seven miles away, so the accessibility for these clinics is not that good. Whether it is because funding or whatever, I do not know, but they should be widely accessible

Andy Burnham

It is a long bus ride, is it not?

(Mr Williams) It is, actually, and if you go there and you find you cannot see someone, you think, "Oh well, I will not come again then". This waiting list we were talking about last night in the hotel. We rang up for someone to ask for an appointment and we were quoted a three-week waiting list. If you have got an STI and you are waiting three weeks, the mental frustration and worry you go through -----

That is at Wigan Infirmary?

(Ms Ward) There is a Bolton one.

Bolton was a three-week wait, was it?

(Ms Minty) Yes. It can be longer in some cases. Say, for example, you are a young gay man and you wanted to go for HIV screening and the waiting list was phenomenal. There is a three-month gap before you get the results and that three months is so traumatic for a person sat there thinking, "What if the results are positive?"

Is it your view that young people need more services?

(Ms Ward) We need more services and easy to get to.

Dr Naysmith

Even before you get there and start looking for a place, how do people know it exists?

(Ms Ward) It is either word of mouth, youth workers, or posters, advertisements. Because we have got Brooke this is where all the posters - I have got posters and leaflets for Sex Talkers(?) and Brooke. It is very colourful and bold and really noticeable. This is for our Sex Talkers thing but this is where they go. We have had some put up in college but they are just ripped down by young people because they see it as offensive and they do not like seeing it.

Dr Naysmith: Despite your work, and it is obviously great - I like that poster. Can you hold it up again -----

Chairman: Can you leave it with the Committee?

Dr Naysmith

Despite your work, how many people know about it?

(Ms Ward) We have got a pack of all of our stuff.

Have you any information on how many people know about or how widespread it is?

(Ms Ward) I have done my own research with my young people round our area. Because they all know me and why I am a peer educator they all seem to come to me and I direct them in the same way, but some people that I do not know, they do not like going to their GPs because it is not confidential. If you go for a HIV test it is then on your record and when you go to a job, even if you have not got HIV or AIDS it is still on your record that you have been for one, and it can be very judgmental. Your local clinics and stuff like that, which is for young groups, it is not really aimed at young people, like they were saying about the young, friendly clinics and it is not.

Dr Taylor

GUM clinics are terribly overstretched throughout the country and they are relatively few and far between. Where I live the nearest one is 18 miles away. One answer to this that clinics near me are doing and others that we have heard about is that they have scrubbed the appointment system and you have to ring up the day before from eight o'clock onwards to make an appointment for the next day. Obviously, the appointments for the next day are all filled in the first half to one hour but people, from what I have gathered, appreciate this as a way of getting an appointment the next day. Even if you miss it one day then you get in even earlier the next day. How would that strike you as a system?

(Mr Williams) I think it would be a good system.

(Ms Ward) You are thinking, "Oh, I have got three weeks to wait. I am not even going to bother ringing up", whereas if you actually ring up you might have a chance of being seen in three or four days.

I think a lot of places are doing this because by having a six-week/three-week wait, people do not turn up and there are wasted appointments.

(Ms Minty) I think they will also to look at the opening times because our local clinic is open Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday between quarter past one and four o'clock. Obviously, most people under the age of 16 are in some kind of education. How can you go out of schooling to go to a clinic like that? It is not possible.

There is no weekend opening at all?

(Ms Minty) No, nothing at all.

(Ms Ward) Brooke, because it is for young people and is serviced by young people, we specialise for young people. Our opening times are Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday daytimes, which is four till 6.30, because we thought that Mums might be worried that their kids are coming home from school, "Why are you home from school so late?", and then they get into trouble, so we have a Saturday afternoon which is two till 4.30 so they could just be going shopping.

In Manchester they bring a lot of medical services into the Brooke centre there. Is that something you would like to do if you could do it?

(Ms Ward) If you could, but it is staffing it and getting the funding for it because we are really struggling with funding at the moment.

Dr Taylor

In Swindon or Wigan do you have anything like the Options Clinic that we heard about from Wakefield?

(Ms Ward) That is what Brooke is.

Brooke does the same thing?

(Ms Ward) Yes.

Chairman

Nothing in Swindon?

(Ms Eagle) There is the Confine Clinic.

And that is for young people only?

(Ms Eagle) Yes, I think so.

Julia Drown

You will have heard from the last group that they did some research on the influences on people in terms of when people might have sex, issues about sex relationships and sexual health, and their research came out with alcohol being the biggest influence and peer pressure, and the media was lower down. In your experience is that the same? Is that what you think from you and your friends?

(Ms Eagle) Yes.

What would you like to see being done about that?

(Ms Stuart) You cannot really stop teenagers from drinking, can you? There is nothing you can do. I stand there for ages and someone will eventually get it for me. There is nothing you can do about the alcohol bit. I think there is more pressure on boys sometimes, because boys, even if they are friends, they sit there and make fund of them, but girls obviously, - with Anna I would not start saying, "Oh, go on, go on", and force her into it if I am her real friend, but boys do even if they are friends, do they not? Yes, from your friends there is pressure.

(Ms Eagle) I think it is more like a competition with alcohol. It is like, all your mates are drinking, you have to drink with them, otherwise you feel like a loser or something or you feel left out or something like that.

Do you think in terms of alcohol everybody seems to be agreed is really difficult to tackle?

(Ms Eagle) Yes.

With the peer pressure some talk about having education, having young people coming to talk to young people, maybe giving them different views. Do you think that would help?

(Ms Eagle) I reckon that would not be a bad idea, having young people do it and people you do not normally see in school because you would not get so embarrassed to talk about it.

(Ms Stuart) And maybe if they speak to them on their own as well because they can ask their own questions, or in small groups. If you are in a class and you have got a question, and everyone is acting like they know what they are talking about and you are the only one saying, "What is that?" - I think you should do it. If you are going to have a teacher I think you should do it one on one because if they have got something to ask they can ask it and they are not going to feel embarrassed. You might feel a bit embarrassed with a teacher, but I do not know.

Natalie, you were saying earlier that one of the things in class is that people are giggling and not taking it seriously. Do you think it would be better to have peer education but single sex - young women separate from young men?

(Ms Stuart) I think it would be better.

You think it would be better?

(Ms Eagle) Because if you have women teaching women or girls, you are going to talk to them more. If it is a man doing it, you would be, "I am not going to talk to him about it".

(Ms Stuart) I know, because I can remember things like, we will be sat in there and the teacher would explain about a certain thing and then a boy would shout out, "Oh, yeah, you know all about that", or something like that, and you are all blocked off then. You do not want to know any more. You do not want to say anything. You feel embarrassed. I have seen the look when people do that to other people. I have seen how people get shamed really quick, so it is the end.

What about from Wigan, would you share the view that alcohol and peer pressure were the top two?

(Ms Ward) Yes.

Have you got any suggestions about what else we could do about that?

(Mr Williams) It is image as well. For men image is a very big thing. If you are part of a group of males and they have all done it,, then obviously they are going to really intimidate you and really put you out and try their hardest to make you an outcast, so therefore you think, "They have done it. I have got to do it or else therefore I am not part of the gang". It is male image. You have got to be the man as such.

Do you think the media should take more responsibility or change the way they portray some of these issues?

(Mr Williams) Yes, sometimes. I think they should be more supportive of young people.

(Ms Minty) I think sometimes, especially in the newspapers, they stretch too far with celebrity kiss-and-tell and things like that. That is really giving a bad reputation to the whole idea of sex and stuff like that.

John Austin

Can I follow up what Scott was saying about the macho image? David in the earlier session referred to that when I was asking about men and access to both sex education and sexual health services, and that often they are excluded. What do you think can be done to improve both access to education and to sexual health services for young men, and how do you get them turned on to it?

(Mr Williams) We need to overcome the image first, do we not, and make it acceptable? I do not know how you are going to do this. Do not ask me how. We need to get over the image of young men have to do it. Young men have to go out and have sex. That is how it is seen. If you are 15 or 16 at school and you have not had sex - after you leave school the pressure is off because when you go to college people do not know you. You are in a whole different ball game. At school people know you and if you have not had sex it is like you are a divide: men that have had not had sex are geeks and men that have had sex are popular. We need to get over this image. I think the sexual education would be better for this because it would probably destroy the image totally if young men found out that them having sex, like the young lady said before about her 17-year old mate who had had it 50 times - if he had found out what he could have caught or what he could be carrying, or cervical cancer or whatever he can get when he is older, I do not think he would have had sex with 50 ladies because obviously he would have known the consequences. I think sex education would be better for breaking down the image. I have got a bit here, if you do not mind me moving on to contraception, with young men. Where do young men get contraception? We get it from public toilets or from pub toilets. We go in quick, put our two pounds in, push the button, and if anybody comes in you stand in front of the condom machine, "Hello. All right, mate?", and when he goes out you take your condoms and you run. Another thing about the pub toilets. It is a very big thing, if you pull the girl, you go into the pub toilets, you get some, you might get lucky. But they are poor quality condoms. They are really poor quality condoms and they should be quality condoms because they are supposed to stop or help prevent pregnancy, with also other means of contraception. And they are overpriced. Condoms are so expensive it is unbelievable. It is like paying for sex. They are unbelievable, extortionate prices.

(Ms Minty) Some people have actually turned to stealing condoms from the shops because they cannot travel to Brooke because it might not be open at the time when they need them. They are too embarrassed to go in the pub, so they go in the chemist's and grab a couple of boxes, put them in their pocket and run out again. It is disgraceful that the prices are so high and people cannot afford to buy them.

(Mr Williams) And that brings in unsafe sex then, which is probably why we have got such a rise in STIs. The price of condoms could reflect on the rise in STIs because if you are not having safe sex there are going to be some issues in that. I have got some ways in which we get condoms. We steal them. We get older people to get them for us. If you are young, chemists are very moralistic and they might look down on you and think, "Are you old enough to have sex? I cannot sell you condoms because you are not old enough."

Dr Naysmith

Is that true? Does that happen?

(Ms Minty) Yes.

(Mr Williams) Yes, it does happen.

People refuse to sell you condoms?

(Mr Williams) If you are under age you are not supposed to be having sex and chemists might feel restricted because of the law. That is why we result to stealing them, or you might dare your male to go in and get them. Males are dead embarrassed about walking in and asking, - "Top shelf", you know. "I dare you to go and get a pack of condoms. Go on - I dare you." And I think, "Yeah, I'm a big man". It is a dare. You cannot back down to a dare, so you go in and buy them. "Oh, you bought them", so I wink and I have got a packet of condoms. Chemists are not very confidential, and neither is your doctor. You walk into your doctor's or your chemist and one of your Mum's mates is in there. "I saw your kid in the chemist's the other day".

Andy Burnham

It is quite reassuring that there is still that taboo around.

(Mr Williams) It will not change.

John Austin

Let me pursue something else about attitudes of men. It is said that a lot of men believe that the taking of precautions and contraception is the woman's responsibility.

(Mr Williams) I think that is very stereotypical in a way because a lot of men that I talk to and lads that I talk to at college are very conscious about when they are having sex and the precautions because we now k now about pregnancy. When you are at college and you are trying to make a life for yourself you do not want a baby, do you? In some circumstances - I do not know; you will be better at this - does it stop you from doing things? Does it shorten your life?

(Ms Eagle) Yes. It stops you doing stuff you want to do because you have to walk around with a child.

Let us move away from the pregnancy. Suppose someone was on the pill. To what degree is there an awareness among young men of the need still to take precautions?

(Mr Williams) If a girl was to say, "I am on the pill", I would probably step back and say, "Yes, fair enough. You are on the pill. There is not a big chance of you getting pregnant, so let's go for it." But thinking about the STIs, that should come in again and say, "Well, I should use it just in case I catch something". It is all relating to sex education again and how poor it is really in some circumstances. It all needs to link to each other, that if you have sex, fair enough, she might be on the pill, but you might catch something sleeping with her unsafely.

Andy Burnham

I asked the last group about these mixed messages that society throws at you, that you have images of sex chucked at you from all quarters, films, music, media, internet, and pressure to become sexually active at a young age and then the other side of the coin is very poor services, very poor sex education in schools, the British "we do not talk about that kind of thing". Do you feel that is confusing for young people, that mixture?

(Ms Minty) Yes, because you read through magazines and you see all these people who are really pretty and they are all dressed up in their really sexy, slinky clothes, and you think that is acceptable. But then again you have your Mum or someone else going, "Oh, no, you can't go out wearing that. You look like a trollop", and stuff like that. It is so confusing because you do not which category to fall into.

(Mr Williams) The media is contrary to what your Mum is saying and you do not want to go with. You want to be in with the group and wearing the nice clothes but you do not want to go against your family.

Who is wrong though? Is the media wrong for forcing it down your throat a bit too much?

(Mr Williams) Yes, actually, I think it is wrong, because they always put the nice-looking girls or the nice-looking men in the nice suits and on the adverts they put the girls round them, like "the Lynx effect". They do that with a lot of adverts, do they not?

But a lot of young people like them. It sells magazines, does it not?

(Mr Williams) Oh, yes, it sells magazines, but it should be -----

Less in your face?

(Mr Williams) Yes, and less provocative.

Do you feel the same?

(Ms Eagle) Yes, we do.

That there is this mixture. It is like society cannot make up its mind about sex. On the one hand it would rather not talk about it and on the other it is everywhere.

(Ms Eagle) You look somewhere and see one thing, and you look somewhere else and see another thing.

Does that lead young people to have unprotected sex, do you think, because they are encouraged to be sexually active but there is not the information for when they do become sexually active?

(Ms Eagle) And they can.

Dr Taylor: We have mentioned briefly the importance or lack of importance of parents. What messages would you like to send to people's parent, your parents, about talking to you about sex or avoiding it? What are your views?

Chairman

Let us make it parents in general rather than their parents.

(Mr Williams) I was watching TV the other day and there was a statistic on about 30 per cent of girls get told off their mothers about sex but only ten per cent of males get told off their fathers. That is an issue, is it not, because that would also jump to men not knowing about sex a lot and then we would have to go to the all-male clinics and so on. If men do not know about it they will just hear word of mouth and they will go out and try it, so I think we need to make it knowledgeable.

Do you think the people you have talked to would have appreciated more discussion with their parents about it?

(Ms Minty) Yes.

(Mr Williams) I do not think parents but with more information, be it with parents, be it a leaflet, be it adverts. You could have a better advert for a condom showing a man buying his condom safely or a man pushing a pram, or saying, "Oh, what have you got in your trolley?" "I have got a pack of condoms", and not to feel ashamed for buying them; to feel safe. It is just publicity again. It is all a lot of things melded together.

Julia Drown

Do you think through schools we could try and encourage parents to do more to talk to their children about sex, about STIs etc? Do you think that would be helpful?

(Ms Stuart) I think it depends what the parents are like though. If you have some real hard Mum who all of a sudden tries to talk to you about this stuff you are not going to want to listen. I could always speak to my Mum so I never felt ashamed to say anything to her if I did not understand something that someone told me. I asked my Mum and she told me.

Andy Burnham

So you all think the onus should not be on parents? It is good if your parents will support what the schools are doing but they should not be the ones primarily responsible? Is that it?

(Ms Stuart) Yes.

Chairman: Can I thank you all for a brilliant session. You have all been remarkably good witnesses - professionals, in fact. We do appreciate your coming along and we look forward to talking to you later on. Thank you very much.