Family & Education
MPs overwhelmingly back government’s new sex education guidelines, despite religious groups’ opposition
New guidelines which recognise importance of LGBT equality will come into effect next year
March 28, 2019 13:13
New guidelines which recognise importance of LGBT equality will come into effect next year
March 28, 2019 13:13MPs have overwhelming backed the government’s new guidelines on relationships and sex education, which have caused widespread concern among conservative religious groups.
While MPs failed to agree on a route to Brexit on Wednesday, they had no hesitation approving the RSE proposals, with 538 in favour.
Just 21 MPs, including the Conservative member for Hendon Matthew Offord, rejected the guidelines, which are due to come into effect next year, although schools are encouraged to start implementing them September.
While schools have flexibility in defining what to teach, the guidelines expect children to be taught LGBT content at “a timely point” during their school career.
Reaction to the guidelines has led to an increasingly fractious debate within the Charedi community, where the leadership’s belief in behind-the-scenes diplomacy has come under attack from activists calling for more vigorous protests.
The House of Lords is due to discuss the guidelines next week.
A Lords committee, which scrutinised the regulations, said they “raise highly sensitive issues about which many people feel very strongly”.
In evidence to the Lords, Lord Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, said the RSE guidance “requires all schools to affirm a definition of the family which differs from the conception of the family of many Christians, Jews and Muslims.”
Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis, who published guidelines on how to treat LGBT pupils in schools under his aegis last year, has previously said there was no contradiction between government policy and Torah values.