I recently spoke about how we teach sex and relationships in our schools.
When I chaired Plymouth's Violence Against Women and Girls Commission, one of our recommendations was to ensure a whole-school approach to tackling the attitudes and behaviour that can lead to violence against women and young girls.
To achieve that end, our youngest generation must grow up in an environment which values relationships built on common decency and respect - basic principles which all parents can agree on.
Equally, to build healthy relationships in schools we must get a grip on the online harm and impact of pornography. One in 10 children have watched pornography by the age of 9 and 4 out of 5 have seen pornography involving violence by the age of 18.
The effect that this has on children's mental health, their understanding of healthy relationships, and the normalising of abusive sexual behaviour is undeniable.
Ensuring we have sex and relationship education policies that reflect and embed this is essential. As is remembering that schools are part of the solution, not the sole fixer of the problem. We have to support parents too.
This 60 minute debate just scratched the surface, especially when back bench contributions like mine were squeezed to 2 minutes! You can read the whole debate here: https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/2025-04-01/debates/22EA811F-D535-…
