Statement on Vera Baird QC’s support for compulsory sex and relationships education

Vera Baird QC, chair of the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners, has launched a campaign calling on sex and relationships education to be made compulsory in all schools. The Sex Education Forum has issued the following statement in response.

Error message

User warning: The following module is missing from the file system: uuid. For information about how to fix this, see the documentation page. in _drupal_trigger_error_with_delayed_logging() (line 1156 of /srv/ncb.org.uk/public/htdocs/includes/bootstrap.inc).

Lucy Emmerson, Coordinator of the Sex Education Forum, said:

‘We welcome Vera Baird QC’s call on government today to make sex education compulsory in all schools, at both primary and secondary levels. Sex and relationships education (SRE) is every child’s right and recent reports highlight just how vitally important it is for children’s safety and wellbeing.

‘Introducing SRE in primary school and building on it year-on-year, will enable young people to understand a wide spectrum of issues, including consent, sexual health and the difference between acceptable and abusive behaviour.

'Government cannot continue to ignore the groundswell of support for SRE from parents, teachers, politicians, and especially young people themselves. With a new Cabinet in place there is a new opportunity to act with clarity and speed and ensure that the next generation of children are not dependent on the internet to help them understand sex and are properly protected from abuse. ’