Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 5:16 pm on 22 May 2018.
I completely agree with Llyr Gruffydd and, indeed, with the Cabinet Secretary. I salute the work done by my grandchild's nursery in preparing her for the emotional jealousy excited by the arrival of a young sibling. You know, this is essential. If we say we can't talk about this, we are going to create damaged children. We cannot have children having their period without knowing what's happening to them, thinking that they are in some way being wounded. This is absolutely terrible. So, you were very eloquent in saying all that.
I just want to pay tribute to the young people at St Teilo's who attended Just a Ball Game?, which I hosted on the international day against homophobia, biphobia and transphobia, because of the courage of these young people, speaking in a public meeting in front of a group of adults about their sexuality, about their right to respect, and their ability to confront the aggressive masculinity that unfortunately is a dominant feature of this pornographic-focused society that teenagers are growing up in. If we can't confront the problems that we have in Britain, which is that sex is absolutely everywhere, selling all manner of consumer products—. It's something that we in this country have not had the adult conversation about that they've had in the Scandinavian and northern European countries, which is why we have much higher teenage pregnancy rates in our country than they do in those countries.
So, there is huge amounts of evidence that children are less likely to have sex early on the more information they are given early on about what sex and relationships is all about. This cannot be overemphasised. This sort of mortal turpitude of some people is just really desperate. I salute the work of your expert panel, which points out really clearly that children aged three are arriving in school already bringing loads of baggage with them. They need to be given assistance to interpret the way of the world. They'll bring with them their own family circumstances, other people's family circumstances, and we need to support all young people to ensure that they are respectful of each other and respectful of difference.