LBC presenter Iain Dale compared the government’s plan to ban lessons about gender identity in schools to infamous legislation from the 80s.
Speaking on BBC Question Time last night, Dale hit out at the new strategy which would prevent all children under nine from having any sex education, and stop all students from being taught about trans issues.
PM Rishi Sunak claimed this new draft guidance would stop children from being “exposed to disturbing content”.
However, Dale argued that this ban just echoes Section 28, a damaging Thatcherite policy enforced between 1988 and 2003 where schools were prevented from “promoting” homosexuality.
Dale told BBC Question Time: “Young people always have questions.”
He continued: “In an ideal world, our parents would be able to answer those questions. But we don’t live in an ideal world.
“There are many parents who just will not go into this area whether it’s gender identity of just sex education, so therefore it’s left to the teachers.
“What I don’t want to see is a repeat of what happened in 1988 when Section 28 was brought in and teachers weren’t even allowed to mention the word homosexuality.
“We don’t want that to be here – if young people have got questions about gender identity, they have personal issues, they should be able to approach people [like teachers] for whatever.”
Host Fiona Bruce pointed out: “So the government aren’t suggesting that it wouldn’t happen, but they’re saying it wouldn’t be taught.”
“Well, if I was a teacher I wouldn’t find that very acceptable,” Dale said.
He said that governments are always “years behind developments”, and pointed to the rapid advancement in the field of pornography as an example, saying children are exposed to it now.
He said: “Therefore, if you try to sweep this under the carpet and say nine-year-olds actually shouldn’t be taught that this [pornography] is wrong in school, I think that’s a problem.”
Dale continued: “I don’t want young people today to experience what I did in school where you have the head of needlework and head of geography doing the sex education.
“Neither of them wanted to do it, neither of them really knew anything about it.”
He said the solution was to have “professionals teach sex education”, going from school to school, and “doing it properly”.