Please write to Peers now to Prevent State Intrusion into Parents' rights over Sex Education and Home Education

Andrea Williams

As the Children, Schools and Families Bill moves to the House of Lords for consideration, now is the time to act. With so many controversial proposals in the Bill there is the real possibility that Parliamentary time will run out before they can be agreed and the Bill passed. We need to lobby on the dangers of the Bill and pray time will run out for the Bill.

Use our Information & Action Pack and the example letters at the back of the pack to write to Peers, the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition, or use our bullet points to compose your own.

The Children, Schools and Families Bill will allow the State to begin a subtle programme of indoctrination of the children in England. Sex and relationships education (SRE) is to be made compulsory for children in England from the age of 5 unless parents withdraw them. Parents will no longer be able to withdraw their children once they turn 15, unless they live in Wales.

Pupils in England will have to "learn the nature of civil partnership and the importance of strong and stable relationships" instead of learning about the central importance of marriage. Principles are established by the Bill that will tie the hands of religious schools and force them to cover topics such as access to abortion and homosexuality, even though they will be allowed some freedom as to the way in which the topics are taught. Instead of Governors setting the content of the curriculum, it will be outlined by the Minister for Education and his advisers. The role of governing bodies will be reduced to determining the school's approach to the subjects covered in SRE in consultation with parents. Schools will be required to "promote equality" (that is, to promote the ideas that homosexual practice is equal to heterosexual practice). They will also be required to expose children to a range of viewpoints on sex and relationships in addition to the one that their ethos supports.

Parents who educate their children at home will be subjected to a new licensing system that will allow the State to monitor what children are taught and that will be enforced with the threat of fines. Parents will have to register their children every year (or every time they move to a new area) and they must provide an accurate statement of what they intend to teach their children. If they are registered, the local authority will visit them to check that the education is suitable. Parents and children can refuse to allow a child to be seen on his or her own, but such a refusal can lead to revocation of registration. The local authority can refuse to place them on the register for certain reasons. If a child is not on the register, or their registration has been revoked, the parents may be served with a School Attendance Order (SAO). If the parents are not successful in their attempts to appeal or revoke the SAO, they will have to send the child to school or pay a fine. This undermines parents' rights to have their children educated in accordance with their "religious and philosophical convictions". It also turns on its head the principle that parents are responsible for the education of their children-not the State.

In combination, the proposals represent an attempt to pressurise all parents to send their children to mainstream schools and to impose on them the Government's own pluralist sexual ethics when they get there.