When Jack McConnell picked up The Sunday Times last weekend, any thoughts of a quiet start to the new parliamentary term were banished. The front-page headline, “Cardinal blasts sex education”, signalled the end of summer for the first minister.
Cardinal Keith O’Brien was launching a potentially damaging campaign against the executive’s new sexual health strategy.
It was barely 7.30am and McConnell had just arrived at a commercial radio station in Glasgow where he hoped to set out his agenda on a few hand-picked policies.
On Monday he would be announcing plans to look again at Scotland’s failing comprehensive schools; on Tuesday he would pave the way for a ban on smoking in public places. Later in the week, he would proffer some well-chosen words on the need to kick-start the Scottish economy.
In the event, he would spend most of the week trading metaphorical punches with the leader of Scotland’s Roman Catholics over an issue the cardinal warned could eclipse the repeal of section 28 in terms of its ferocity.
“I think it’s fair to say that Jack nearly had a heart attack when he picked up The Sunday Times,” said a Labour ally. “He knew how damaging it was and he wanted the story closed down.”
The story was based on a 2,000-word article by O’Brien that centred on two recommendations contained in a consultation document published last year by the Scottish executive, entitled Enhancing Sexual Wellbeing. With the consultation ended and the executive’s sexual health strategy due to be published later this month, O’Brien felt the time was right to voice his concerns.
The first recommendation stated that local authorities should fully implement the findings of the McCabe Report, a sex education study by an executive working group published four years ago. It said: “In line with the McCabe recommendations, sex education should be defined as sex and relationships education (SRE), introduced in pre-school.”
The second recommendation that alarmed the cardinal concerned proposals to formalise links between schools and the executive-backed Healthy Respect programme, currently operating in parts of Scotland, referring teenagers under the age of 16 to clinics for contraceptives and contraceptive advice. It said: “NHS boards, in partnership with community health partnerships, local authority education departments and other stakeholders, should detail plans to improve links between schools and sexual health services.”
As far as the cardinal was concerned, the proposals were unequivocal: that sex education should be introduced at nursery school level and that schools should improve links with agencies that provide contraceptives to young teenagers without their parents’ knowledge or consent.
His response was unapologetically emotive. The proposals amounted to “state- sponsored child abuse”, he said. He urged the executive to rethink its strategy or, he warned, “the passions ignited by the section 28 debate could be a mere flicker compared with the protests of parents”.
Yet by the time McConnell had hit the commercial radio circuit in time for their mid-morning news bulletins last Sunday, he was denying that any such recommendations had been made.
“He (O’Brien) suggests that we are going to have sex education for under-fives, which I can absolutely guarantee is simply not going to happen,” he told listeners.
The first minister even denied a suggestion nobody had made — that the morning-after pill was to be handed out in schools.
It was a risky strategy. Spinning so blatantly against political rivals is part of the cut and thrust of the politics business. To do so against O’Brien, who represents the views of 700,000 Catholics and is the leader of one of Scotland’s most powerful interest groups, was a massive risk.
McConnell’s minders gambled that the media blitz would take the sting out of the cardinal’s comments and, in the short term at least, it appeared to have worked.
The Church of Scotland said it was not concerned by any significant issues contained in the sexual health strategy. The Scottish Parent Teacher Council said it was satisfied with McConnell’s reassurances and accused O’Brien of “irresponsible scaremongering”. Mike Rumbles, the Liberal Democrat health spokesman, said O’Brien had been badly advised.
But McConnell’s comments appear to have raised more questions than they answered.
During an interview on the BBC’s Newsnight Scotland programme on Wednesday, the first minister was forced to admit that issues of pre-school sex education and the availability of contraceptives to under 16s were part of his own consultation.
O’Brien’s comments have caught a prevailing mood in other communities. Osama Saeed, the Scottish spokesman for the Muslim Association of Britain, welcomed the debate, claiming that morals were being eroded.
There is also a growing backlash within the Church of Scotland, which previously stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the Catholic Church on issues of morality, over its muted response to the cardinal’s comments. A Sunday Times poll of 100 kirk ministers found that 84% agree with the cardinal that “pre-school teaching of sex and relationship education is inappropriate”. A further 63% agreed that access to contraceptives for teenagers under 16 without parental knowledge, was unacceptable.
“The view that has been presented is one view,” said Anne Allen, former convenor of the kirk’s Board of Social Responsibility.“People are entitled to hold that view but they are not entitled to promote it as the view of the Church of Scotland. As a church, no decision has been made on this material.”
McConnell and O’Brien agree on one thing: the status quo is not an option. Scottish teenagers have the worst sexual health record in western Europe, according to a recent United Nations survey. Only America has higher levels of teenage pregnancy, and cases of HIV are at their highest level since the Aids epidemic of the 1980s.
But there is no agreement on what to do about it. At the heart of the problem lie two philosophies that each claims to be acting in the child’s best interest, and which require radically different solutions. On one side are the Catholic Church, Scottish Muslims and pro-family organisations. On the other are the sexual health experts, health professionals, government agencies and quangos.
The Catholic-led lobby argues that a simple message of encouraging abstinence is the best way to tackle teenage pregnancy. They believe it is scandalous that the executive has not backed an American-style True Love Waits programme while directing millions into projects such as Caledonia Youth and Healthy Respect.
Campaigners point out that the Healthy Respect project, launched in the Lothians three years ago, resulted in a sharp increase in the number of teenage pregnancies. Similarly, earlier this year, Professor David Paton, head of industrial economics at Nottingham University, argued that an expansion in family planning clinics had led to a rise in the rate of sexually transmitted infections across the UK.
Those on the other side of the argument condemn the Catholic Church for wanting to keep children ignorant about their own bodies and fearful about sex. And they back the findings of the government-appointed expert panel — including a representative of the Catholic Church — that agreed a strategy known as “abstinence plus” — urging children to delay sex but giving them information to help keep them safe if they choose not to.
Susan McColl, an adviser to the Scottish Schools Ethos Network, said: “It’s all about education. I am absolutely delighted for my daughters to get as much information as possible. I’d much rather they talk to trained sexual health professionals than put up with the views of some rural GP who can only be described as appalling, old fashioned and judgmental.
Ideally, children would be able to discuss these issues at home but some find it very difficult to talk to their parents.”
O’Brien’s suggestion that there was something to fear in the draft strategy’s plans for “sex and relationship education” for pre-school children generated an angry response from educationalists. They said this work was simply intended to encourage children to play, develop self-esteem, express themselves and be respectful to others.
But some groups claim anatomically correct “persona dolls” are being used in nurseries to talk to children about their bodies and sexual issues.
“We need to desexualise children, not oversexualise them,” says Allen, who is now an executive member of the pressure group Family and Youth Concern. “I do not want my grandchildren playing with overt sexual equipment at nursery school. The idea that the more information we give children the better hasn’t worked.”
The executive does not currently stipulate which teaching material should be used in sex education lessons. The Family Planning Association (FPA) has urged the executive to encourage more sex education at nursery level. Anne Weyman, its chief executive, believes that the earlier children learn about sex the better. She supports the idea of encouraging pre-school children to name parts of their bodies, including sexual organs, and rejects any suggestion that this amounts to the sexualisation of the young.
Once again, McConnell has chosen to lead from the front, believing he can do a better job than his health minister, Malcolm Chisholm. Senior figures in the Catholic Church see Chisholm, who is more socially liberal than McConnell, as part of the problem. McConnell, on the other hand, is someone with whom they believe they can do business.
The ferocity of O’Brien’s attack is said to have shocked McConnell. Professor Tom Devine, the Catholic historian, believes the attack is a sign of greater confidence within the church, reflected in the increasing number of its members entering the middle classes and professions.
By showing McConnell that the church still has the power to stir up a national debate, O’Brien also sent a warning that the first minister should think before he continues his march towards shared schools, which many in the church believe represents a threat to their identity. The day after the cardinal’s comments appeared the Catholic Church submitted a formal request to Peter Peacock, the education minister, asking him to rule in its favour over the ongoing dispute about new shared school campuses in North Lanarkshire.
Last week McConnell was up against a new political foe in Alex Salmond, the recently elected SNP leader. But perhaps the opponent McConnell really has to fear is the one in the red hat.
Additional reporting: Kenny Farquharson, Darrin Mathie
