Northern Ireland MP's make further plea for funding of local sex education project during Westminster debate

Main Category: Sexual Health / STDs
Article Date: 09 Jul 2004 - 8:00 PDT


During the discussions on the Draft Budget for Northern Ireland at Grand Committee in Westminster yesterday a number of Northern Ireland MP's expressed their concerns that there had not been a commitment from the Government to fund local sex education charity Love for Life.

Mr Pearson Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland had been talking about the efficiency review in public services in Northern Ireland having said "Achieving greater efficiency will enable the Government to continue to improve standards by releasing additional resources for reallocation to front-line public services."

Rev Martin Smyth(UUP) commented about the Love for Life situation "The Minister is speaking about flexibility and redistribution in public services. Will he consider the question of the Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety and the Department of Education coming together in a community where there is great concern about under-age sex, children under 12 bearing children and the decision not to continue to finance Love for Life, which has been doing such a wonderful job in many of our schools? The schools cannot cope with the budget, and the Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety says that that project is not its business. Frankly, that Department will have to carry larger expenditure later if we do not curb the problem in the earlier stages."

Both Eddie Mc Grady(SDLP) and David Trimble(UUP) added their weight to the case for government funding of Love for Life work challenging the Governments lack of response to date to politicians requests for the project to receive mainstream funding for their work in Northern Ireland post-primary schools.

An Early Day Motion supporting the Love for Life project has also been tabled at Westminster by Mrs Iris Robinson (DUP)

Note for Editors

-- Love for Life is a Northern Ireland registered charity who work annually in over 150 local post primary schools presenting relationships and sexuality education programmes to over 30,000 young people annually.

-- For information contact Dr Richard Barr

www.loveforlife.org.uk
Mobile telephone: 07713166005

Excerpts from Grand Committee at Westminster 8th July 2004.

Full transcript available at publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200304/

Rev. Martin Smyth (Belfast, South) (UUP): The Minister is speaking about flexibility and redistribution in public services. Will he consider the question of the Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety and the Department of Education coming together in a community where there is great concern about under-age sex, children under 12 bearing children and the decision not to continue to finance Love for Life, which has been doing such a wonderful job in many of our schools? The schools cannot cope with the budget, and the Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety says that that project is not its business. Frankly, that Department will have to carry larger expenditure later if we do not curb the problem in the earlier stages.

publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200304/cmst

Mr. Eddie McGrady (South Down) (SDLP): The hon. Member for Belfast, South (Rev. Martin Smyth) mentioned the failure to support the ''love for life'' campaign. I wrote to the Minister a few weeks ago, and the kernel of his reply-I hope that I am not misrepresenting him-was that the Government could not support the campaign not so much because there are no funds for it, but because it is a private enterprise. That may be so, but if a private enterprise has expertise, experience and quality of service, there is no reason why those should not be purchased by a Government for a good purpose.

Rev. Martin Smyth: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the Government seem to be expert in consulting consultants and spending large sums of money in private enterprise? The argument that they have given therefore does not stand up.

Mr. McGrady: I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention, and I concur with him. I have a poor opinion of consultants because they simply deliver the report that is asked for-they tell people the time by asking for their watch.

Mr. Trimble: I was going to demur slightly at the use of the term ''private enterprise'', although I think that the Minister's term is ''commercial enterprise''. Both terms are unfair and inaccurate when dealing with a charitable organisation that has been formed for this purpose. The persons who are engaged in it are, in many cases, taking remuneration well below what they earned before they formed the charity. To call it a commercial or private enterprise is a gross distortion of the facts.

Mr. McGrady: I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that clarification and his clear explanation of his opinion of the difference between private enterprise and charity. The reason given to me in writing, however, was that the campaign is a commercial enterprise, and the charitable aspect of it was not mentioned or regarded in any form.

publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200304/cmstand/nilrelg/

-- For information contact Dr Richard Barr

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