Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:01 pm on 28 January 2020.
Can I thank Darren Millar for the points that he made? I absolutely accept the point about the rights of parents to educate their children, and nothing that we are proposing here takes away from that. I'm sure all of us would agree that the vast majority of parents are in a position to do that successfully, but not all of our children are so lucky, Darren; not all of our children are so lucky to have parents who can do this for them for a whole variety of reasons.
Darren, you've spent a great deal of time talking about the rights of parents, which I don't want to undermine, but my perspective comes from the right of a child; the right of a child to receive a broad and balanced education and to be able to access every single part of the curriculum. I understand the sensitivities associated with this and they're often coming—. I understand.
We are committed to working hard over the next two and a half years before there are changes to the right to withdraw to reassure parents and communities about the nature of the curriculum. And as I said earlier, I think it's really important that all children, when thinking about relationship and sexuality education, have lessons with regard to rights and equity, learning about relationships, learning about sex and gender, learning about bodies and body image, as well as sexual health and well-being, and violence, safety and support. And those will be the principles that underpin our approach to RSE, and I'm not aware of any child who doesn't need to learn about those things if they're to grow up to fulfil one of the purposes of our curriculum, which is to be happy, confident individuals. Relationships are fundamental to us as human beings, and we need to ensure that our children are educated so they can form successful and happy ones.