Women and Equalities Committee - RHSE Review One-off Session 2.30pm Wednesday 10th May

[NancyDrawed]

For those who might be interested.

Link to session here

https://parliamentlive.tv/Event/Index/519616ed-f440-4e1d-9805-79ac4157fb4d

• Witness(es): Lottie Moore, Head of Biology Matters, Policy Exchange; Tanya Carter, Spokesperson, Safe Schools Alliance UK; Lucy Marsh, Communications and PR Officer, Family Education Trust

• Witness(es): Dr Sophie King-Hill, Senior Fellow, Health Services Management, University of Birmingham; Lucy Emmerson, Chief Executive, Sex Education Forum; Jonathan Baggaley, Chief Executive, PSHE Association

Tanya's response is bloody brilliant though, she's so calm and measured and just stating facts.

Dr Sophie King-Hill, Senior Fellow, Health Services Management, University of Birmingham

Oh dear. I have already heard her on File on 4 teaming gay and lesbian with Trans.

Just as any sentence containing the word "literally" tends to be aspirational, rather than factual, "I am not going to answer that" has come to mean 'it would show me in a bad light if I were to answer this truthfully".

The more I listen to politicians, the more I feel that they all need to be employees and given a fortnight's induction on safeguarding, GDPR, basic economics....

I'm halfway through, but the committee members don't seem to have a grasp of what the issues are.

I feel it did end on a positive note with the second three witnesses concurring that parents should be able to see what their children are being taught, any review needs to take evidence from a wide variety of stakeholders with differing views and study design should be rigorous.

Yes but within the confines of the most-oft uttered words in the second half: "pedagogy" and "academic" (it's almost like they had a bet how many times they could get these in!)

Cos parents are otherwise too stupid to understand things / prone to understanding the fuck off great red flags on the materials we can't see without a chaperone.

I unfortunately missed some of it but it was making me quite mad anyway!

This baffles me Resister - why, as a society, are we not collectively screaming?

I watched this earlier. Tanya was superb! That whole panel were excellent against some really snide strawmanning from several committee members including the Chair.

On the second panel I thought Lucy Emmerson and Jonathan Baggaley came across as reasonably sane but I don't think they got the seriousness of the safeguarding issues.

If someone provides evidence of serious child safeguarding issues, in a largely unregulated area that all our children are exposed to, then it's not good enough to say it doesn't happen often or that the vast majority are in favour of us having RHSE in schools.

I don't think JB understood what the previous panellists were saying about their difficulties accessing materials. He kept going on about how a pile of lesson plans would not be useful. I don't think that's what parents are asking for - my kids are grown now (thank fuck!) but I would want to see the actual materials my children were being shown.

Also he seemed to think that parents' objections to having to attend the school to view materials was because they didn't want to go to a session by the external providers to see the materials in context. That is a million miles away from learning about a session after it has happened, requesting to see the materials and being told you need to make an appointment with the head to come in and view them under supervision and will not be permitted to take them away with you because of commercial interests.

Sophie King-Hill's evidence had red flags all over it. She advocated very strongly for child-led education with no boundaries around it in terms of age or appropriate content. She said such boundaries would be dangerous. She views parents as a group to be 'educated' - i.e. as an obstacle.

Also, I think SKH was the only panel member to use LGBTQ.

Queer theory is incompatible with safeguarding. It's all about messing up boundaries, transgressing and breaking down social norms, e.g. the family.

Plea for smartphone school ban to tackle porn and upskirting

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/e0a98dcc-ef73-11ed-b02d-cefaa3091195?shareToken=d6e901ceabb5dbd5ed6332e6e0d97b4a

Great thread from Mark Jenkinson on yesterday:

https://twitter.com/markjenkinsonmp/status/1656568928074694660?s=46&t=WHoOZ_3Kv5G6-FyQuvE0LQ

"No-one in our @Commonswomequ hearing yesterday suggested restricting RSE children receive, other than all MPs and all participants agreeing that it should be age appropriate.

A🧵

For me, yesterday was a lesson in where our politics sits currently. As the only Conservative MP on yesterdays panel I was struck by the palpable fear of other MPs at the fact that people may say things they don’t like.

Thanks to Tanya of @SafeSchoolsUK, Lucy of @FamEdTrust, @specalot of @PolicyExchange, Jonathan of @PSHEassociation, @LucyEmmer of @sexedforum & @DrSophieKH who all gave their time freely to ensure we, as lawmakers, could robustly scrutinise the work of @educationgovuk on RSE.

I found it an incredibly interesting session, with 6 fantastic, knowledgeable contributors who each spoke eloquently and clearly about the benefits and the challenges across RSE education. We had more in common than divided, but some were reluctant to hear.

I’d hoped that we’d all go into it with an open mind.

In the event, the only hostility came from the elected members who simply failed to listen.

Where there was consensus, they didn’t want to hear it.

Committee staff had worked hard to develop lines of questioning that would elicit the information we require to produce a robust report.

There were agreed lines of questioning not asked by members of panel 1, I assume because there was a risk that they may not like the answers.

I sit on @CommonsBTC (hopefully soon moving to @CommonsESNZ) and @Commonswomequ. I go into every inquiry with preconceptions, as is human, but not predetermined.

I want to hear both sides, and I genuinely believe my Conservative colleagues on this committee are the same.

Yesterday was a poor example of democracy in action, and I’m sorry to all of those who freely gave their time to be met with such hostility.

MPs irrationally fearful of potential hurty-words do not good policy make."

He retweeted this from Kate Osbourne who tweeted a video of herself, swinging about in her chair, attempting a S28 comparison:

"Today I chaired @Commonswomequ discussion on Relationships & Sex Education (RSE)

It was of great concern to me to hear of moves to restrict RSE children receive.

We need to safeguard children and that means education - education enables them to protect themselves from harm."

twitter.com/kateosbornemp/status/1656354515530969092?s=46&t=WHoOZ_3Kv5G6-FyQuvE0LQ

Oh that is so good @ResisterRex

Kate Osborne was really awful and incredibly rude.

Great thread.

In the event, the only hostility came from the elected members who simply failed to listen.

That was my strong impression too.

Also what's she on about?

"We need to safeguard children and that means education - education enables them to protect themselves from harm"

No no no.

It is NEVER a child's responsibility to protect themselves from harm.

Yes her language is very troubling. She understands nothing about safeguarding.

I put this elsewhere but I wonder if anyone on the Committee could pass this test:

Or is this quiz fiendishly difficult? http://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/amiibeingunreasonable/4803039-or-is-this-quiz-fiendishly-difficult

Who said it? A member of the Paedophile Information Exchange (P.I.E), or the WHO, UNESCO or Renold & McGeeney (Welsh RSE)? One of the quotes is PIE, if I read it correctly.

twitter.com/genderisharmful/status/1655908690438791169?s=46&t=WHoOZ_3Kv5G6-FyQuvE0LQ

ResisterRex · Today 09:40
Also what's she on about?

"We need to safeguard children and that means education - education enables them to protect themselves from harm"

No no no.

It is NEVER a child's responsibility to protect themselves from harm.

From listening to File on 4 I think she was thinking of certain at-risk groups of children who have terrible lives and little care.

She feels their only protection is knowledge from as young an age as possible because of what they will come up against.

Because these certain children need that, she presumed all teaching should be based on the teacher being allowed to decide the parameters of knowledge suitable for any given group - if the curriculum were proscribed by the government on the other hand there would be a risk of these vulnerable children falling through the net.

So basically, ( if I have got the right gist and not inferred all this wrongly), all children, even very young ones, need to be treated as though they live with homophobic brutes; they are being fed hard core porn; they about to be sexually abused; they are having their trans identity denied.

The transcript is online and Mark Jenkinson says it needs a correction to a part of it:

committees.parliament.uk/oralevidence/13138/pdf/

twitter.com/markjenkinsonmp/status/1659268863714893840?s=46&t=WHoOZ_3Kv5G6-FyQuvE0LQ

Whenever you watch a session of the women and equalities committee, the defining stance of the 'trans ally' committee members is ouright hostility that is often indistinguishable from aggression.

It is purely an emotional - defensive response rather than a rational one. Being presented with someone reporting facts and giving evidence in a calm and informed manner really does seem to trigger fear and insecurity. The speaker is treated as an enemy threat.