JOHN SMEATON, DIRECTOR OF SPUC: Education bill imminent: urge new government not to revive sex ed plan

Friday, 28 May 2010

Education bill imminent: urge new government not to revive sex ed plan

The new Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government has launched a new education bill, aimed at reforming the school system. One of the stated aims of the bill is to give individual schools more control over the curriculum. We hope this means the previous government’s plan to force state-funded schools to provide sex and relationships education will not be revived by the new government. We know, however, that the pro-abortion lobby will attempt to revive that plan. The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) has taken up the anti-life agenda through new draft guidance which recommends that teenagers are given comprehensive, confidential access to so-called ‘sexual health services’ (i.e. abortion and abortifacient birth control), including through schools.

Please write to the government and to your MP, urging them to resist pressure to revive the previous government’s plan to force state-funded schools to provide sex and relationships education. Please write to:

Rt Hon Michael Gove MP (pictured), secretary of state for education, and Nick Gibb MP, minister of state for schools, both at the Department for Education, Castle View House, East Lane, Runcorn, Cheshire WA7 2GJ You can also email Mr Gove and Mr Gibb via a web-form on the department’s website
your own MP at the House of Commons, London SW1A 0AA. You can also email your MP via http://www.spuc.org.uk/mps (where you can also find out who your MP is if you are not sure).

Please read SPUC's critique "Sexual health in schools" for facts and arguments about sex education in schools that you can use in your letters.

Please remember to forward any replies you receive to SPUC by email to political@spuc.org.uk or by post to SPUC HQ.

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About Me

I became involved in SPUC after graduating, when I established a branch in south London in 1974. I have worked full-time for SPUC for 42 years. I became chief executive of SPUC in the UK in 1996, having been general secretary since 1978. I was elected vice-president of International Right to Life Federation in 2005. At UN conferences in Cairo, Copenhagen, Beijing, Istanbul and Rome, I helped coordinate more than 150 pro-life/pro-family groups resulting in pro-life victories in Cairo, Istanbul and Rome. I was educated at Salesian College, London, before going to Oxford where I graduated in English Language and Literature. I qualified as a teacher, becoming head of English at a secondary school. I am married to Josephine. We have a grown-up family and we live in north London.