Debate contribution: Relationships and Sexuality Education

Debate contribution by Mr Paul Givan on 2 November 2026.

MLA

Mr Paul Givan

Party at the time

Democratic Unionist Party

Date

2 November 2026

Type

Debate contribution (made as a minister)

Business

Committee Business

Heading

Relationships and Sexuality Education

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5807229

Read the official Assembly record

Text

The Chairman of the Committee said that we should be sensitive about the language that we use and aware of people who could be victims or who have been victims of sexual crime, yet I do not see anything that Mrs Michelle Guy just referenced in the report. Along with Mr Baker — an interesting alliance — she chose deliberately to politicise and weaponise the report. That reflects poorly on the Members, and it certainly goes against what Mr Mathison said. I will take the viewpoint of Máiría Cahill before I listen to Mr Baker on those issues. If you want to talk about abuse and paedophiles, talk about Liam Adams. Talk about his movement and the cover-up from your former president, his brother. If you want to talk about abuse, the paedophile-protecting former president of your party knows all about it. The difference between the DUP and Sinn Féin is that we put paedophiles out; you protect them. That is the difference between the DUP and Sinn Féin, yet that is the way in which Mr Baker and Mrs Michelle Guy took this discussion. Let me turn to the report. One of its striking features is how its findings about curriculum design mirror those of Lucy Crehan's strategic review of the Northern Ireland curriculum, although the review of the curriculum took six months and dealt with every subject, unlike the two and a half years that it took the Committee to consider only one topic. Two and a half years for a micro inquiry. I would hate to see what a full inquiry by the Education Committee would look like if this is the manner in which it goes about a micro inquiry.

It is inefficient and incoherent —

— and they use it to weaponise for political points.

Mr Baker has anger management problems. That is self-evident from this debate. He should take a leaf out of his colleague Ms Sheerin's book — although she is not here — about the need to be respectful. She then, however, went on to say to Mr Burrows, who had talked in his contribution about the horrors that were perpetrated by a teacher at his school:

"whatever ... sex education you suffered through".

That is what Ms Sheerin said in response to Mr Burrows. We talk about respectful discussion, but we certainly do not get it from those Benches. Let me go through the report. The Committee found that the lack of curriculum specificity creates real problems as key content is omitted, provision varies between schools and too many important decisions are left to individual teachers. It highlights the fact that the RSE curriculum fails to specify the key knowledge, concepts, skills and understanding that we expect children to learn. That means that provision is inconsistent, with pupils not securing the essential knowledge that they need. The Committee found that progression is weak, with one-off lessons, inconsistent sequencing and repetition of some content but gaps in other areas. It found that teacher confidence was undermined by insufficient professional development and a lack of high-quality resources. All those things are true of not only RSE but English, maths, science, geography, history, art and music, to name but a few. They are true of the current curriculum full stop. It is a pity that some Members cannot bring the same passion, urgency and enthusiasm that they show for sex education to literacy, numeracy or science. It seems that RSE must be prescribed to the last detail, yet reading can be left to chance. Sex education demands a clear framework, yet numeracy is to be left to schools. RSE requires progression, yet science is all but absent from the current primary curriculum. The issues that were found in RSE are precisely the issues that TransformED and curriculum 2028 aim to address across all subjects. They seek to provide a clear entitlement for every child in every subject through greater curriculum specificity, stronger progression, better support for teachers, enhanced professional development and high-quality curriculum resources. After this debate, however, the Committee Chair will propose a motion to slow down TransformED. Members call for reform in RSE, yet, on the very same day, they call for curriculum reform to be slowed down. That is not a serious position. Members are happy to diagnose the problem but unwilling to support the cure. If Members genuinely believe that the problems identified in this report are real, they should support the reforms that address them. They should support greater clarity, coherence and consistency across the curriculum. They should support the new curriculum framework. They should stop talking about change and start voting for it. The report's findings raise legitimate concerns about the quality and consistency of RSE provision. I share many of those concerns. The reality is that our current curriculum is too vague. It sets out broad aspirations but too often fails to provide clear expectations. The issues identified in the report are not failures of our school — quite the opposite. Many schools have worked exceptionally hard to compensate for weaknesses in the curriculum. They have filled the gaps, developed resources and created programmes that work for their pupils. We should not, however, have a system that relies on schools to reinvent the wheel. We should have a curriculum that does its job. Curriculum 2028 is designed to address those shortcomings. While the Committee was examining the consequences of a weak curriculum, my Department was getting on with the job of replacing it. In the time that it took to complete this inquiry, we have reviewed the curriculum, consulted on reform and drafted a new framework. Are Members interested in real reform? Through curriculum 2028, my Department has consulted on the introduction of personal, social, civic and careers (PSCC) education. That will be a new, distinct subject for every year group, providing for the first time a single coherent framework for learning. The proposed curriculum framework sets out the knowledge, skills and experiences that children and young people are entitled to learn throughout their education. I will not support the imposition of contested ideological theories through the curriculum. That is not what parents, families or wider society want. There is, however, as my party colleagues who sit on the Committee recognised, significant common ground on many issues, including safeguarding, online safety, consent, bullying and tackling violence against women and girls. In all of those areas, the current statutory curriculum is silent. The new curriculum removes that uncertainty. In doing so, it ensures that the content is sequenced and structured to support progression and aid learning. For the first time, we will have a coherent and sequenced framework from Foundation Stage to Key Stage 3. Over coming months, that will extend to Key Stage 4 and post-16 provision.

At Foundation Stage, children will learn about themselves, their emotions, relationships, belonging, safety, trusted adults and the fact that families can be different. The foundations of healthy relationships, personal well-being and respect for others will be established from the earliest years. At Key Stage 1, learning develops further. Pupils will learn about friendships, personal boundaries, keeping safe, emotional well-being and their responsibilities towards others. At Key Stage 2, pupils will build a deeper understanding of healthy relationships, online safety, cyberbullying, consent, personal identity, decision-making and citizenship. Critically, they will learn about different forms of abuse, including domestic and online abuse and grooming, and how to recognise, avoid and report them. At Key Stage 3, pupils will engage with more sophisticated and age-appropriate learning about relationships, sexual health, consent, exploitation, substance misuse, safeguarding and online harm. That will include the emotional, social and legal implications of early sexual activity, including the meaning of and age of consent. They will learn how to recognise sexual pressure, exploitation or harmful behaviour in person and online and how to access support in school or in the community. All those areas become explicit requirements in PSCC. Learning is deliberately sequenced, knowledge builds year by year, expectations become clearer and progression becomes stronger. Those are precisely the issues that the Committee identified in the current curriculum. The Committee called for greater consistency of provision. PSCC provides that common entitlement for every young person. The Committee raised concerns about teacher confidence and inconsistency. A clearer framework, supported by curriculum resources and professional learning, will help to address those concerns. If Members believe the findings in their own report — not that many of them even referenced it — they should recognise that the proposed PSCC framework is the answer. In all sincerity, I ask them this: have you even read the framework? The Committee identified the symptoms; curriculum 2028 provides the treatment. The logical response is not to slow down reform but to get on and deliver it. Nor can Members call for more specificity, coherence and consistency in RSE while ignoring them in every other subject. Let me turn to the report's recommendations on the new PSCC framework. The curriculum framework:

"should include content which reflects diverse ... family structures".

Done. The curriculum framework:

"must include consent and healthy relationships".

Done. The curriculum framework should include risks:

"that relate to the use of the internet including Child Sexual Exploitation [and] social media use".

Done. The curriculum framework:

"should ensure that RSE adequately covers tackling Violence Against Women and Girls".

Done. The Committee also recommends that children and young people should be key stakeholders in the curriculum review. My officials have held bespoke consultation and engagement events with young people on all aspects of the new curriculum, including RSE. The proposed PSCC framework was welcomed by young people, who praised the focus on emotional well-being, relationships, financial education, careers education and preparation for life beyond school, but you will not hear that from Members who prefer to weaponise and politicise the issue. The consultation report on curriculum 2028, including PSCC, will be published today. Members will note the positive findings on the content of the new framework. A substantial majority of respondents considered the vision statement and organising categories to be "adequate", "effective" or "very effective". A clear majority also considered the content to be "adequately", "mostly" or "very well" sequenced. I will take their endorsement ahead of the politically jaundiced position of Members who weaponise the issue in the Chamber. There is one recommendation in the report that gives me real cause for concern. The Committee recommends that the parental right to withdraw children from aspects of relationships and sexuality education should be phased out. I cannot support that recommendation. The courts have made it clear that, where parental withdrawal rights exist, they must be real, meaningful and capable of being exercised in practice.

I appreciate that courts' decisions and applying them do not sit well with the Members opposite, nor does it sit well with Mr Mathison, who wants to phase that out. I have taken every possible step to ensure that those rights are respected in RE. Indeed, the Committee has repeatedly sought assurances regarding the operation of the withdrawal rights in RE, yet, when it comes to RSE, the recommendation is not to strengthen parental protections but to remove them. I struggle to understand that inconsistency. The same people who would deny an opt-out to parents and children on sensitive issues campaign to allow their children to sit out of a nativity play. I fully recognise that not everybody shares my religious beliefs and nor should they have to. In a pluralist society, the role of the state is not to decide which convictions deserve protection and which do not; it is to respect the rights of those who hold those convictions. Elsewhere in the Committee report, it recommends that:

"RSE policies should be aligned to international standards on human ... rights."

Well, a week really is a long time in politics. Article 2 of protocol 1 of the European Convention on Human Rights requires the state to respect the rights of parents and to ensure that their rights are protected and that education is:

"in conformity with their own religious and philosophical convictions."

I will not have my children being indoctrinated by the woke LGBTQ+ transgender ideology of the Alliance Party or Sinn Féin. It will not happen on my watch, and we will stop it in the future. The report has taken two and a half years to produce. I trust that, on the substantive part, Members will recognise that I have got on and delivered through the framework. While they have dithered, delayed and procrastinated, I have got on with the job, so let us all get on with implementing what will be the new curriculum. I commend that curriculum, but I will vote against the motion on the report brought forward by the Education Committee.

You supported Mr Baker's comments. That says a lot.

Yes, if you will give it.

You invite an intervention but will not give it.

2,150 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

Flagged Gender, sexuality, abortion and related social issues

Jev’s structured answers

Assessed 4 November 2026 at 04:41 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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