Justine Greening, former education secretary, has stressed the importance of updating sex and relationship education for young people - a change that she put in motion while still in office.

In an interview with The Sunday Times, the former education secretary said that the Conservative Party should listen to young people more and the reforms to sex and relationship education were part of that.

“You can no longer ignore the voices of many young people in our country who were saying that they felt they needed this to be updated and made more relevant for them,” Greening said. “We have to get that guidance updated.”

In March 2017, Ms Greening announced plans for sex and relationships education to be made compulsory in all schools from September 2019 - and for the curriculum to be updated to cover topics such as online pornography and sexting.

Changes to the law mean that there is now a duty on the education secretary to make the new subjects of relationships education at primary and relationships and sex education (RSE) at secondary mandatory. Relationships and Sex Education will replace SRE.

But a consultation about what the curriculum guidance should contain is still ongoing.

Former Association of School and College Leaders’ president Ian Bauckham has been asked to provide advice on relationships education and in December 2017, a consultation on how to update the curriculum guidance was launched. The consultation will close on 12 February. 

Social mobility

Ms Greening was asked to become work and pensions secretary in the recent cabinet reshuffle, but rejected the move and instead left the cabinet, saying that she wanted to work outside the government to improve social mobility. Damian Hinds became the new education secretary.

She said she is now working to launch a “LinkedIn for social mobility”, bringing together organisations to share ideas on what action is needed.

“Making the most of our biggest asset, our people, is going to be the difference between whether we are successful as a country or not,” she told The Sunday Times.

While the prime minister Theresa May had made it clear she wants to see the return of grammar schools, Ms Greening was seen as unenthusiastic about the idea.

“For a lot of people growing up in areas without grammar schools, it was not a debate that was relevant. They don’t want grammars back,” she said.

Ms Greening also told the newspaper that she thought her party should not dismiss the argument for lowering the voting age from 18.

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