Clegg calls for schools to update sex lessons in web age

The Deputy Prime Minister also said he believed guidelines should apply to more schools but he could not get agreement from Education Secretary Michael Gove and other Tories.

On his weekly LBC radio phone-in yesterday, the Sheffield Hallam MP was challenged by a 17-year-old girl who warned of the pressure on children to behave like porn stars.

“My own view is that yes the guidance should be updated,” the Liberal Democrat leader replied. “The last time the guidance was changed was 13 years ago and the world is a very different place now.

“In many respects it’s a more liberating place, not least because of the internet, but it’s also a more menacing place particularly, but not only, for young girls.”

Mr Clegg indicated that Mr Gove had blocked efforts to extend use of the guidelines, which provide the basis for teachers’ lesson plans.

“I suspect all parents want their teenage sons and daughters to be, not just given if you like the biological facts of life, but also to be given some sex and relationship guidance,” Mr Clegg said.

“I think it doesn’t matter what school they go to, that should be made available to them. At the moment there are lots of schools, academies, free schools and so on, who don’t need to follow the guidelines, even the outdated ones.”

He went on: “I haven’t been able to persuade Michael Gove and the Conservatives to move all the way on this. They’ve moved some of the way.

“For instance, there is now going to be a guidance in the national curriculum on IT classes, which has some bearing on this.”

Mr Clegg stressed that Mr Gove was a “perfectly intelligent bloke” and they had “compromised”.

But he added: “I just happen to think in this instance, given how menacing this is particularly for young girls, my own view is this is an area where actually we do need to both update the guidance... because it hasn’t been updated since 2000, and really raise the expectation that all schools do this properly in the classroom.”

Mr Gove told BBC Radio 4’s World at One that the Government had recently reviewed the guidance and practitioners had suggested there was no point in attempting to update it “when technology changes so rapidly”.

“The most important thing is to make sure that we provide the resources that teachers need, that we trust teachers to deliver sex and relationship education in the right way, but we give them the chance to talk to experts,” he added.

And he said the Government was giving money to charities that had expertise in child protection.