Plans to impose a uniform sex education program on post-primary schools in Northern Ireland led a Tory MP to quit his government job.
Robin Millar, a Welsh MP who entered parliament in 2019, said the changes coming out of Westminster were a “conscience matter” for him, BBC reports.
The newly updated curriculum would force schools to teach their pupils about access to abortion services and prevention of adolescent pregnancy through use of contraception.
Before the change, all Northern Irish schools were free to autonomously decide on their sexual education policies, which allowed for religious positions on the matter to be presented.
In a written statement published on his personal website, Millar said his decision to resign came after a discussion over his reservations about the vote on the legislation with the Northern Ireland minister and the whips (Members of the House of Lords appointed by each party in Parliament to help organize their party’s contribution to parliamentary business).
He said that parents across the UK were “becoming more concerned about the Relationships and Sexuality Education (RSE) that their children are being taught in schools.” Sharing these concerns, he was “pleased” that the UK Government had “responded quickly with a review of RSE in England,” and would “urge the Welsh Government in Cardiff to do the same and listen to what parents in Wales are saying.”
However, he could not “in good conscience represent parents and at the same time ignore the conclusion of the House of Lords Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee: that more time was needed to consult with parents in Northern Ireland before enacting this Statutory Instrument.”
Since July 2022, the MP had been serving as parliamentary private secretary (the lowest rung on the ministerial ladder) to Welsh Secretary David TC Davies.
In the vote in the House of Commons on Thursday, June 29th, 237 Conservative MPs, including the prime minister and the Welsh secretary, voted for the new regulations. Millar was amongst 20 Conservative MPs who voted against the measures, and the only one to have resigned over it.
At the annual LGBT reception at Stormont, Northern Ireland Secretary of State Chris Heaton-Harris hailed the successful passing of the vote. One of his department’s key priorities, he said, was to “support greater inclusion, tolerance, and openness in Northern Ireland, where rights and equality of opportunity is protected and promoted.”
In 2019 he was proud to support the extension of same-sex marriage to Northern Ireland, he continued.
In early June, Heaton-Harris unveiled plans to amend the curriculum in Northern Ireland for adolescents, to make “age- appropriate, comprehensive and scientifically accurate education on sexual and reproductive health and rights a compulsory component of curriculum.”
While the changes to the RSE curriculum will come into effect starting July 1st, Northern Ireland’s Department of Education must issue guidance to schools by January 1st, 2024 on what they are required to teach.
This, Heaton-Harris said, would give schools six months for “meaningful engagement with teachers, parents and young people” about the changes. Parents, he added, could still withdraw their children “from education on sexual and reproductive health and rights, or elements of that education,” in which it would follow the approach taken in England and Scotland.
Unsurprisingly, the changes to Northern Ireland’s schools are a UN import, tailored to recommendations made in a WHO report, which asserts that “sexuality education starts from birth.”
