Episode 9 The Big Questions

Today on The Big Questions: Sex in the classroom,

pictures of us the police have on file, and slashing

the human birth rate to save other species.

Today, we're live from the Students' Union at Northumbria University

Welcome, everybody, to The Big Questions.

On Wednesday, the Education Secretary, Justine Greening,

announced that all schools, including academies and private

schools, must provide age-appropriate sex

From the age of four, all children will be taught

about relationships between adults and what is appropriate

behaviour between children, and between adults and children.

And in secondary schools, sex education lessons will cover

today's fastest growing risks - sexting, cyber-bullying

Should porn be on the school curriculum?

Clare McGlynn, law school, Durham University. What is it about the

modern world, how things have changed which means schools really

have to refocus and address this? The guidance schools have on sex and

relationships education is 16 years old, completely out of date. We

welcome the government's announcement this week. We need to

give guidance and help to our young people to talk about what you

mentioned, consent and sexual relationships. We need to talk about

this online world that is so new to all of them and that many parents

don't understand. About 16, online pornography, cyber bullying.

Importantly, we need to give them this guide of -- about sex sting.

This is part of a broader strategy to reduce the prevalence about

sexual harassment and violence against women and girls. APPLAUSE

On this particular issue, cyber bullying and sexting and porn, this

is about equipping children to deal with the world as it is, not the

world as you would like it to be or the world as it was. Absolutely. I

don't think anyone would disagree that we need to equip children.

There are some questions around what's actually going to be in the

curriculum, we don't know yet, the content hasn't been published. As

soon as the announcement was made, there was quite a strong campaign to

remove the parental opt out. Quite a campaign to say that the religious

protection and protection of religious education should be

removed. Isn't there a problem that those who would opt out and take

their children out of these classes are perhaps disproportionately the

very parents who would be less likely to address these issues at

home? That's possible. The question is, how do we empower parents to

have this conversation? The evidence is very clear that parents want to

have these conversations with their children. And children would prefer

to have those conversations with their parents as well. Parents don't

know what to say, they don't know how to have conversations in terms

of online threats. Their children are much more technologically savvy,

they don't know how to deal with it. One of the things I will be

campaigning for while this debate is going on is, what are we doing to

empower parents as well as empowering students? And also, what

are we doing to secure the family? The biggest influence on any child

when they are growing up is their family. I don't actually see

anything in these proposals that say we will be talking about building

strong families. The government's own evidence... In what sense?

Stronger, traditional families? Strong families where adults love

their children, children learn to love and be loved, trust and be

trusted. Places that are safe for their children. Should there be a

parental opt out? I don't think so. We need to think about the child's

rights. What about religious sensibilities? This is for the

children. We owe our children the education and guidance they need to

deal with consent, sexual relationships and the online world.

We can't let parents opt out of this because we need to give the skills

to the child. If we are going to reduce sexual harassment and sexual

violence, you can't opt out of that. Everyone needs to know about

consent. Everyone needs to understand what is necessary in

consent and sexual relationships, we can't have an opt out. I think you

absolutely have to have a parental opt out simply because the child is

the child of the parent. The parent should have as much control as

possible over their children and should decide these things. To say

the state should have the ability to override parents, whether it is

religious reasons or personal reasons, to take their child out of

sexual education is frightening. That is a frightening prospect to

say the state should have more control about what their children

are taught rather than their parents. It is actually about

collective response of the leading role of us to educate our children

and young people on these issues. We can't have parents just opting out

of these choices. What about the sex culture? Rape culture that people

talk about, male violence in our schools and society generally. This

comprehensive evidence was put before the cross-party select

committee. It is a problem and the best place is starting in education

in our schools. This is part of a really gross panic about the levels

of sexual harassment. We don't have a huge levels of sexual harassment

at school, we are talking about teaching, four-year-olds about adult

issues. This new call for greater sex education with things about

pornography and sexting and relationships is about making sex a

big deal for kids that they are panicked and frightened before they

need to be. Liz, you are moving so much in your chair, I am worried for

the safety of the furniture! Audience in a second. The reality

is, we deliver relationship and sex education to 24,000 children and

young people each year. More than 2000 parents as well. The reality is

very, very few parents actually withdraw their children from

relationship and sex education. Especially when they understand what

it covers. We send out letters to say that we will be working with

three-year-olds, up to 18-year-olds. And from aged four, we will be

covering issues such as pornography, sexting. Such as that. This brings

loads of parents in because it's like, panic, what on earth are you

going to be doing? Over to the experts? Yeah. When they see the

age-appropriate resources that we use, parents are completely at ease.

They understand that the world that we are moving into is very, very

different from when they were at school. Casper, why are you shaking

your head? I would definitely want to opt out for my children. I

actually think the agenda behind a lot of this stuff that is being

suggested to be taught, and is being taught, is a really degraded notion

of what it is to be human. It implies that all men are a problem a

lot of the time. It problem ties is normal sexual behaviour. It is

really outrageous. It is disturbing. What do you mean it makes problem...

To thinking that way. What do you mean it problematizes is normal

sexual behaviour? Basically, it encourages young

people to see everybody else as a potential threat. To see all sexual

activity as potentially dangerous. It's a really unhealthy way of

looking at the world. Look at all the child abuse cases in the past

which are horrific and horrendous. Any right minded person is brought

to tears reading about it. Dan, let me throw that, from the Catholic

Herald, I don't mean to beat Italy point at you for that reason, but

the Catholic Church has had huge problems -- I don't mean to

particularly point. Maybe if children were empowered and knew

what it was right and wrong to touch, what was right, what was

wrong, what somebody should not be doing to you, taught from a very

early age, that would have stopped some of these horrors in the past

visited on them by clerics? You are right, we can't do enough to

safeguard children and the Catholic Church is one of the institutions

which has bailed out that. In the past when it comes to sex education,

not a one agrees about the guidance -- which has failed in that in the

past. One of the leading guidance on sex education, as part of their

definition of sexual healthy development include 413-year-old

having sex with those of a similar age and develop mental

13-year-olds. You may agree with that but a lot of parents would want

to opt out of that. That is why it should go back to the parents and

not too what are often quite radical agenda being pushed. Radical

agendas, we will get onto alleged radical agendas, actual radical

agendas in the second -- in a second. Good morning. Is this

appropriate in school at an early age? Going back to a point raised

earlier, I am surprised to hear from a young girl in myself that she

doesn't believe there is sexual harassment in this day and age.

There certainly is. International women's day is coming up and in

preparation a teacher at my school asked a group of girls together to

ask about our opinions. Our daily experience of the sexual harassment,

does it exist, and it certainly does exist. Good education at a very

early stage and in primary school and secondary school, would it

militate against that? Certainly. People who believe that teaching

about porn at school will somehow people will then imitated is

certainly not true. If you believe that porn is dangerous, there is

more reason to teach about it. You can't educate ourselves out of a

social problem. We really have to take a step back and see that there

is such a hype and panic around sexual harassment and sexual

assaults. Which is inflating stats and is untrue. The biggest losers in

this conversation are women and young girls that are taught sex

education in this very panicked, very frightened we. It teaches them,

as Casper said, to see all sexual relations as problematic. They are

taught to tick box for things like consent in a very unnatural way,

which makes them grow up to be women who encounter sexual relations as a

potential threat, as a problem, rather than a great part of life. An

emotional formalised codification. Absolutely. Good morning. It was

quite interesting how one of you was going on about making good families.

I find it important that schools should be a safe place for children.

Especially if you are from a broken family, from divorced parents. And

both parents don't have that communication to talk to one

another. About sex education. And it is left completely by itself. You

have children who have no support from parents who don't want to talk

to one another about sex education. And they only see school as a safe

place, a safe environment where they have this, kind of, antagonistic

behaviour at home. So they rely on their teachers. People who they see

five times a week. For the good part of eight hours a day. They rely on

teachers. Especially from a very young age. It's incredibly important

to have sexual education in schools. APPLAUSE

Whilst it is important to have this, this ought to be done in very close

cooperation with parents. If parents feel that they are left out of this

initiative, I don't like it can work. OK. I completely agree with

that. I called you lose early on. You went on regardless, which is

exactly the right thing -- I called you Liz. What is appropriate for a

three-year-old, teaching a three-year-old or a four-year-old?

And how that is done. When we go into primary schools, we work with

the nursery children first. It is a little session, about ten minutes.

We show them little drawings, little cartoon boy and cartoon girl, to

explain that boys' bodies are different to girls' bodies, their

bodies are private and nobody should touch them unless they want them to.

And we go through the four area that nobody should touch unless they want

them to, the mouth, the chest, always have a Venus and girls have a

joiner and bare bottom. We get them to do the action and they think that

is great fun. -- always have a penis and girls have a vagina. Parents

liked seeing the resources. Why are you looking horrified? This is a

terrible intrusion onto the innocence of children. Children

played doctors. It is a great thing. Adults exploit innocent children.

We're not talking about adults, we're talking about children's

interactions with themselves. The previous point about educating

children about where they should not be touched, a small three-year-old

will not be able to stop an adult. Can I just say, nothing takes away

children's innocence. It does if you say this is bad. From sexual abuse.

Kids play! The great thing about kids, they figure out a lot on their

own. They figured out a lot on their own and between each other. They

played doctors and nurses, all this kind of stuff, lines are drawn and

they work it out between themselves. You are damning parents' ability to

take care of their children. Surprising to see people very

concerned about the family of children, the nine children --

denying children the power to protect themselves. When people say

that should be for the parents, there is nothing about educating

children in schools that stops parents from educating them at home.

They are really saying, I don't want my children to know about this. I

won't tell them, I don't want you to tell them because I feel it is

mysterious and scary. They probably are not going to find out about it,

they will not look into it. If they tell you about it they will be

interested and find out about porn, sex doing -- sexting and

relationships. They will find out about porn. Casper.

It is scary to tell a child they should be worried about a person

touching them? Or grid that is an adult responsibility, three-year-old

can protect themselves. It is not about a child being able

to protect themselves, it is the child having the knowledge to go to

an adult and seeing it as inappropriate.

APPLAUSE If the parents were doing such a

good job without the state then we would not have some of the scandals

we have seen. This is adding to what parents do

and protecting young people, it should be encouraged. Education is

about giving the knowledge skills for people to go into the world,

being aware of sexual expectation is some of the knowledge they need.

There is an issue with the underpinning ideology of a lot of

the campaigning. We skated over that, what is the underpinning

ideology? You are from Christians in Education. The underpinning ideology

is that there is no right or wrong, good or bad, society should do as it

wishes and let's teach children to defend themselves. When we teach

children how to cross the road we do not teach them about different cars,

we teach them that can stop at a red light and they can cross safely. Why

are we not talking about moral red lights amongst adults if society?

Give some examples. I have not seen anything about teaching young people

about abstinence, faithfulness and exclusivity within marriage. Why are

we not teaching those? John, you made a strange phase. I apologise if

it was nothing to do with what was said.

Children have rights completely separate to the parents, it has been

touched on already that sometimes parents do a terrific job and I

think the programmes described can help parents in that, but children

have rights completely separate to parents, and I think probably the

programme talked about here is to enforce children's' writes as

separate individuals. What was it like for you, growing up in Ireland?

My own case was happy enough but Ireland generally, we had enormous

problems with abuse, particularly among religious orders and so on, it

was a huge com huge problems. Religious control of education in

Ireland meant that lots of people were abused and there was no

reporting system, children were disabled from reporting and there

was a whole generation of broken adults out of that system. Would

knowledge have been power? Absolutely. How can knowledge be

power? There is a difference... Knowing to tell an adult... An adult

to abuse as a child usually it's in -- intimidates, lies, tells them

they are at fault and not to tell, all of these things you see in

actual abuse cases. You will not protect a child by telling them this

stuff and you are not allowing... That is a sinister manifestation of

something they pretend is love, that happens quite often. Let's take it

back to abstinence. You are missing the point about what is damaging

about teaching people in this way. Children will have a terrible view

of adults. Lots of people say fidelity and abstinence and

constancy, should that be taught? These are part of a discussion about

relationships. There are some real misunderstandings here. This is not

about telling children what to do. The worst thing you can do as

children is as as adults say this is what you need to do and how you do

it. It is giving them a forum to discuss issues, the young women

themselves are asking us to give them these opportunities. The bottom

line is that if we do not educate them they are going online, looking

at pornography online, as many do, it is deeply racist, deeply sexist,

often violent, sexual lies as young girls and does not give a healthy

view of sexual relationships. It is distorted. -- Id sexual lies as

young girls. If we do not educate them, they will get this distorted

view of what is going on. APPLAUSE

Who decides what the content is? Who decides what children should and

should not know? That is what worries me. The Internet the sides,

hence the sexting, pornography, cyber bullying. It is decided for

them. We really need to stick up for parents, we get a lot of parent

bashing. When people are given sex education, my own family are very

good at talking about sex education, there are other families that are

not and that is where school needs to step in. You are saying but some

parents are abusing their children by not teaching them about sex ads,

whether that is religious parents or parents who want to hang back and

let their children because well -- by not teaching them about sex

education. They are very important and special family units in which

parents have control over their children, it is worrying. I grant

you the last word. How do we allow kids to be kids? All of us working

together, schools, parents and specialist organisations working

together to keep children safe. The one thing we seem to have made the

assumption about in the debate here is that where children are abused it

is adults. One out of every three children that are sexually abused is

abused by another child. It is educating children to speak out to

trusted adults, whether at home or at school. Thank you all very much

indeed. APPLAUSE

Interesting thoughts. If you have something to say

about that debate log on to bbc.co.uk/thebigquestions,

and follow the link to where you can We're also debating live this

morning in the Students' Union at Northumbria University,

is your image public property? And does the planet need the Vatican

to accept contraception? Get tweeting or emailing on those

topics now or send us any other ideas or thoughts you may have

about the programme. The Police National Database,

which covers England and Wales, is storing pictures and videos

of people they may have questioned, arrested, or observed

at demonstrations or festivals, many of whom were never

convicted of any offence. 19 million items are from

custody images alone. With DNA evidence and fingerprints,

the police are legally obliged to automatically destroy any records

they hold of people found And in 2012, the High Court ruled

that keeping images of innocent Yet, despite this ruling,

the police continued to amass Now the Home Secretary has ruled

that images of innocent people should be deleted

but only if the person concerned specifically

asks for this to happen. The snag is that many of us have no

idea whether our image Paul, Lord Scriven, you have been

campaigning on this for a long time. Who is on this database? We don't

know, that is the issue. If you have been into custody, false arrest, or

the court found you innocent, you are on, because the guidance that

just comes out says that the database and the software they are

using does not have the ability to wipe you offer. The software does

not know if you are innocent or guilty so you remain on, there are

millions of people. They are scanning Facebooked, scanning people

who have been to festivals who have been uploaded. Why should people be

worried? The whole basis of British law is you are innocent until proven

guilty. I have no problem with the police using good detective

techniques and appropriate images, but to say that the Government has a

right to have your face on a database which is not just used by

the police but many other Government agencies because of the fact you

have been to a festival or they have been scanning your face page or you

were wrongly arrested and uploaded onto the system, that they can keep

and use it for enquiring about a crime or about... You could get a

photograph of every single person in this audience by googling it,

looking online, you could probably get that of anyone within two or

three minutes, it is out there. There is a difference between you

and I as an individual citizen going on to Google and uploading something

on Facebook, and the state holding millions of innocent images for the

purpose of its own use. That is the issue.

APPLAUSE You are a body language and

deception detection expert, a former cop, why is this useful?

Digital policing for a digital age? In terms of gathering evidence, I

would agree that capturing people's images carte blanche is not really a

good idea, but I think if people have been convicted of offences, for

example DNA came in many years ago, it is something we accept now. A lot

of offences come to light now, historically, that otherwise would

not have been convicted. It has got a place, providing it is regulated

and not used, again, just to capture innocent people's images, that could

be potentially dangerous. How reliable is it, even DNA, which is

amazing, there could be mistakes with contamination, lots of people

look like each other? There are lots of systems at the moment in terms of

capturing biometric characteristics, fingerprints, we all use

fingerprints on phones, biometrics and things like that are very much

out there in part of normal society at the moment. If you were a

criminal, how would you circumvent this, 3D masks are coming out? I saw

that in the press. For most systems there will be a loophole, but it

comes down to the fact that if you are not engaged in terrorism or

crime, you generally have nothing to worry about, providing the system is

regulated. You have nothing to worry about? Have you got something to

worry about? I worry about my relationship with the state and the

police treating me as a potential criminal. I am not a potential

criminal, I hope I am not. In this instance, my right to privacy and

not to be treated as a suspect, but also it is not actually effective

for the police to have a bigger database, it does not make it

better. The DNA database this year has been more successful than ever

because it is not clogged up with millions of innocent people that the

police do not need their information. Police don't need my

photograph. To have it does nothing to improve their detection rates.

APPLAUSE I look at it from a legal point of

view, we have a right to privacy, article eight of the European

Convention on human rights, it is qualified because if it is necessary

in a democratic society for the state to interfere which, in this

case, could be the police, to prevent or detect crime, it is

qualified. The High Court ruling in 2012, that

is untrue. Article eight, they said if you are innocent or convicted,

the police, the state, cannot use your image in that way. The

guidelines that have just come out say that the Home Secretary has

said, whether you are innocent or guilty and you don't ask that your

image to be taken off that you may not know, they will store it for up

to ten years and use it in the same way as a convicted person. The issue

is not police using it, I believe it has a role, the issue is that people

not convicted of anything are having their face used by the state and

presumed guilty rather than innocent, that is the issue.

I think the issue, I agree, if the person is arrested, I don't like

that wrongful arrest, the person arrested with insufficient evidence

to charge... That is the classic argument, nothing to hide, nothing

to fear? Is a person is arrested and there was insufficient evidence to

charge and they are acquitted in court and they have no other

offences, I agree, destroy the image. There are individuals who

have a criminal background who are still being investigated, it is

useful. People failing to answer bail, it is useful. It is useful for

identification purposes. Our faces change, I look at people my age,

some have lost their hair, we all change, it is useful. That is why

you constantly need to update? Your face is not as private as your DNA

or fingerprint. People adding photographs taken at music

festivals, they are not aware that is happening. I can't justify why

they are doing that. Let's go to the audience, good morning. Your face is

on a TV screen! That may be useful, but I would

prefer if my pers -- my permission was sought, that is the big

difference. No matter how useful something maybe, if someone is

aware, at least, that their image is used, that is a lot more helpful.

They can have a choice in the matter. Moving along to you in the

brown jacket. The problem would be false

positives. With an increasing amount of civilian population you run the

risk of having false positives. The other notorious bad fact about

facial mapping is it can't do contrasting in darker tone in skin,

if you're going to implement something that takes away freedom

and miscarriages of justice, surely there is no reason to involve

innocent people into it? If you have ten people lined up and the picture

is all with an ethnic minority, surely there is nine times out of

ten a chance for false positives? It is not guaranteed you will come up

with the culprit. A couple more audience members

first. As a person who chance Harry Krishna

mantras, I've come to understand that 24-7 surveillance by Krishna or

God. That's not a problem, sometimes I am comforted by it because I

understand he loves me and he's my friend. The issue we have with state

surveillance is that that trust that the state is our well wish is being

eroded. Dodgy dossiers, wiki leaks, etc. Divine Big Brother is one thing

that the state, Kim Jong learned in the sky... Fine that erosion of

public trust is a problem because it morphs into our own relationships

between each other. It creates paranoia and distrust amongst

people. Spiritual practice has a role to play in mitigating that. It

helps us to understand that we are all connected and we are loved

amongst each other. Interesting link with the first debate, sowing the

seeds of paranoia. It is not paranoia if you are being watched

and monitored, is it? Are they not out to get you? It is absolutely

true. The vision of the police and the state as a friendly Big Brother.

That it's OK if you have nothing to hide, nothing to fear. That's a

terrifying concept. Any freethinking member of society would absolutely

stand up for the fact that I am innocent until proven guilty. This

could prove your innocence as well. It could go the other way. We are

increasingly living in a culture which is much more comfortable with

putting your picture on Facebook, putting a picture on the intranet.

That is one thing when it is in your own personal control but the

police... They must have hundreds of pictures of me because I've been on

many demonstrations. That makes me feel nervous. The police have a

history of not exactly being to the line and write about using images.

They have a history of fitting crimes. We can't ignore that. This

is a worrying concept. -- and being right about using images. There can

be a degree of paranoia about state observation. It is not just about

photographs. A recent piece of legislation came out late last year.

It was highly scrutinised in my view. But this is about people

worrying about what's on their social media. Andrew at MI5 18

months ago before the Parliamentary committee said we haven't got the

resources to monitor everybody's social media. It's about risk.

Journalists, it's a very good resource for journalists, social

media. When a story comes out about somebody, they are straight in

there. There are photographs of them from social media all over the

newspapers. The police still police by consent in this country. We still

have that notion. But where is the consent from the millions of people

on this database that are being used? There is no consent. It is a

bit trite to say the police at the moment police by consent. There is

no consent. I worry that it is undermining confidence in the

police. I come from South Yorkshire where the police has been undermined

by bad policing. I believe this will... Rotherham. This will lead to

bad policing. From what the young man said. There is an issue about

racial profiling in terms of facial imaging. It has proven that people

with dark pigments and darker skin, facial software gets it wrong. Only

one test has been done on a database of 1 million faces. Everyone says

this is about 90% perfect. The examples have been done on databases

of between 12,000 at 20,000 people. The one case that has been done in

America which is on 1 million shows it goes down to only 33%

effectiveness. There is an issue about the technology not being

effective. Compounded by the fact that there are millions of people on

here. If you have somebody that is suspected of being involved,

terrorism things like that, the states have already got the systems

in operation and I agree it is by no means foolproof, things like

polygraph. It is not evidential. It just eludes to certain behaviours.

But if it may be helps to prevent something happening, it's got to be

a good thing, hasn't it? If I am on a plane and there is somebody taken

off that plane that is suspected and it's been detected through facial

recognition, you know, again, you've got to have the evidence but surely

it's a good thing? What if they are wearing a burqa? Are you saying that

the assumption in our society should be that they should show their

faces? Not necessarily. If there is intelligence, for example, I would

to a conference recently and I saw this software first-hand. It is not

perfect. But if people have been tagged for intelligence, they are

suspected of being involved in offences, this software was actually

quite accurate in picking out... Tagging the delegates. Saying

imagine you I suspect, walk towards us in a group and it facially trips

it, red flags them. It all comes down to the fact that, for me, it

has to be evident regulated. Not everybody should be on this

database. It is a dangerous concept. But people that have been convicted

are suspected. It's a good thing. But it is the old point, isn't it,

Carol, they might have these photographs, they might be collating

all of this information, but it's like the Stasi, the Soviets Soviet

Union. -- the Soviet Union. I went to work towards the end of the

soviet union. There is so much stuff, for practical purposes, you

cannot wade through it. That is one thing we have to think about. We are

infringing on rights. We are encroaching upon this idea of

trusting the police and policing by consent. We have to do that in a

balanced fashion. To say, what are the benefits? Are we benefiting from

this? Is it an effective use of police resources to have a database

with 90 million if mostly they will get false positives? Or if it will

impact on police. I disagree horribly with the idea that because

it's your image, that it's less intrusive -- disagree homely. The

police officer can't see my DNA profile and then start questioning

me or suspect me of something because my but they can because of

my face. I can't hide that. If a police officer sees my photograph

because I've been supporting the NHS at the weekend at a march and they

see me at a shop and is triggered something in their mind that she's

on the police database... That impacts on their behaviour. Would

you be happy if the police were to take photographs of everybody on a

BMP much? They haven't done anything wrong by being on a BMP March. If

they have committed crimes or suspected of committed crimes, the

police have measures they can date. Or in March of jihadis. The police

are given powers in society. They are allowed to abrogate our rights

in certain instances but we don't give them every power under the sun.

David, do you think they are certain demonstrations... I do, without

doubt. There are some groups who are maybe bordering on being described

groups under the terrorism act. That will be... We are talking about

people like Anshan Choudhury. A group like that. Some of those

people have never committed a crime that you want to film them. The

police have the right, if somebody is suspected of about to commit a

crime, they can monitor them. That's within the law. Let me ask you

again, people on rallies supporting somebody like an jam Choudhury,

there might be 25 people. You have seen them with placards, should you

not be filming those people? Absolutely not. If the police have

determined that the lower case march is lawful.

If the law says that it is lawful, people have the right to march. If

there are individuals who the police know of, who are potential suspects,

under the law, they are able to do that. It becomes a very slippery

slope if you start saying some marches are good, some aren't. Is it

legitimate to say he is newcomer he hasn't been on a March before, let's

keep an eye on him? It is people's democratic right to protest. On

certain marches like certain groups like David said, I think there are

under certain circumstances, the police film things for intelligence

circumstances. It is not right. You either have a

right to do that without being filmed or monitored or you don't.

You can't make an argument for freedom, but not for freedom for

others. This is what the police does, this technology is the way I

see it, more advanced version of stopping and searching. Targeting

certain groups. The police are taking pictures and videos, there

was a hilarious example, frightening, people tweeting a

police of Michael McIntyre from a helicopter in sky. And that was a

wake-up call. What they do is they target demonstrations, they target

areas they think crime should happen. Very problematic in terms of

racial profiling. This says certain people need to be watched. If you

believe in freedom of expression and people's right to privacy and the

belief that you are innocent until proven guilty, no matter if you are

on an Antrim shroud it march or NHS March, you can't have a freedom

but... Let me know. I'm going to curtail your freedom of speech.

LAUGHTER Thank you all very much for taking

part in that. If you have something to say

about that debate log on to bbc.co.uk/thebigquestions,

and follow the link to where you can We are in Canterbury next week,

Cardiff on March 19 and Oxford after that.

This week, the Vatican held a conference on the

Half of all the species alive today could be extinct

by the end of this century, unless steps are taken

to improve conservation and to change humans' behaviour.

One of the most contentious issues is the growth

At the time of Christ, around 300 million people

Today there are 7.4 billion people, and experts say with 250,000 net

added every day now, the world's population

will reach 11 billion by the end of this century.

The Pontifical Academy of Sciences, which organised the conference,

says that in 1970 humans were using around 70% of the earth's

Yet 800 million people are chronically malnourished

and 100 million are on the verge of starvation at any one time.

Huge problems you can read about in your newspaper this morning.

Changes must be made, they say, or there will be a sixth mass

Does the planet need the Vatican to accept contraception?

Karen, 11.2 billion by the end of the century. On this Little Rock

spinning in this part of this universe. Can the cannot cope? The

answer to the question is that we really don't know. We are taking a

big gamble with the future lives and well-being billions of people, many

of whom are life already. Children today have a good chance of being

alive at the end of the century of see whatever it is we have created

for them come to fruition. Where will the resources come from?

Exactly. People often say we already produce enough food for 10 billion

people. I haven't yet seen people say 11 billion. This is perfectly

possible, the numbers, as much as 13 billion is well within the range of

certainty. For the UN's projections. No one is saying... They are saying

we already produce quite a lot of food and we will be fine. What they

don't mention is that we are producing food in an unsustainable

manner. We are producing food in a way that destroys productive

capacity of the earth. Some techno optimists might say, we will figure

something out. We might. I certainly hope we will. But we just don't

know. We are pretty clever, some of us. We are pretty clever but we

certainly don't know it will happen and we don't know if we will solve

this problem. The population is not set in stone, the trajectory is not

set in stone, people can change their minds about how many children

to have. A lot of people today are not using contraception. Not because

they want to have a lot of children, but because they feel it's wrong.

They've been told it's wrong. It's full got to decide how many children

to have. They are often feeling internal turmoil because they would

like to provide for the children they already have. So we are in

trouble? It is trouble for them. They feel unsupported by their

culture religious leaders. In their wish to have a smaller family. So we

could so easily make people's lives better and reduce this enormous risk

to human beings and to our life. It's not coincident that we've lost

more than half of wildlife -- coincidence that we've lost. As the

same time as human population doubling. Lots of coincidences. Dan

from the Catholic Herald, we actually... You might not

particularly care for the wild or for wildlife, but we need animals.

Because we need forests. Animals sustained forests. With no animals,

there are forests. It's all about needing space, humans

going into ever more areas. The ecosystems are so important. How

much does it bother you that we are, for example, annihilating and

destroying our closest relatives, the great apes, because of habitat

destruction for palm oil? For biscuits, charcoal, does that

trouble you? It is a huge issue both the future

of the human race and the beauty of the. If there is a threat to the

environment does not come from overpopulation, it comes from

overconsumption. Look at fossil fuel emissions, and major threat to the

environment. The average American produces the same amount of carbon

emissions as 250 Ethiopians. The poorer half of the world's

population produces 7% of the omissions. The problem is one with

the ritual's consumption. Palm oil is a very good example. Sure. And,

surprisingly enough, the rich world, instead of saying we need to look at

how we consume and our society works has said that the real problem is

poor people in Bangladesh being selfish and having more than three

kids. I think we need to look urgently at what the West does.

Those are the people that would be covered in the floods and suffer

from famine, those will be the people... It is not a case of saying

don't have any more children, it is saying that if we have too many

children, you are the people who will suffer. Population growth is

overwhelmingly in place is not creating the environment or

problems, if we need to look urgently at the environment we need

to look at... And a lot of people worried about overpopulation,

population scientists like Stewart Brand who was very involved in the

70s with the great panic about overpopulation, they say we got it

completely wrong, we did not understand that the more people you

have, the more creativity and ideas you have. They are now worried about

under population, you will get to the middle of the century... Good

luck with getting President Trump to halve the living standards of the

American population. We asked him to appear on the programme but he does

not like the BBC! John, the Pope said this is about greed, Dan put it

very well, if we consumed less and properly managed agriculture,

properly respected and protected the wild and the beautiful scent

self-aware wild animals and dung beetles as well, and bumblebees, we

would be all right. It is all about being sensible? Of course it is. I

have to agree with Dan, consumption is a dagger at the heart of the

natural world. However, consumption is one of the crunchers that we

face. Population can never be extracted from this. For example, we

have this idea and I think Dan referred to it as under population,

the danger of under population. We are currently adding 80 million

people a year to the world population, greater them the

population of Great Britain, about the population of Germany being

added to the world population every year. The strange thing is that

according to UN figures, approximately 80 million people have

unintended pregnancies every game. If we simply enabled people to

control and manage their own fertility in the way that they wish

and enable girls and young women to postpone first pregnancy and

complete their education, we would offer an economic benefit to the

poor... I want to come onto that in a moment, that first of all let's

address the natural world. People say that the acidification of the

ocean, the Wales, it is their planet. Look at what is happening in

Africa. It is their planet, these wonderful species. Are enough people

aware of the fact that these are very often sentience, self-aware

animals with an inner life? When I started primary school in 1970, we

had at that time 58% more wildlife in the world than today. It is

collapsing at that rate. The reason I bring that up is that my kids are

in primary school and they have asked me, well, look, if in your

lifetime, that 40 year period, about two thirds of the animal world has

been wiped out, what will happen when it comes to us when we are

adults? When I am asked that question, the short answer is that

if we continue on our current trajectory there will be no natural

world by the time my kids are adults. It looks like an

extraordinary statement, that is the trajectory. Population is part of

that, overconsumption is, but they all work together. Do we respect the

natural world enough, the sentience of some animals? Absolutely not,

there is a wonderful book called Beyond Words which explores the rich

psychological lives of intelligent creatures like, for example,

elephants, amazing social creatures who live in long-standing families

headed by matriarchs up to 60 years of age. We humans have not a clue

about the natural world. We are terrific at expressing and

articulating our own needs, desires and wants, but we are blundering

like lumbering giants into the natural world. This is the ultimate

own goal, if we destroy the natural world which, by the way, we are

right on progress to do, if you insist Roy the natural world, human

society would collapse, no two ways about it. -- if you destroy the

natural world. APPLAUSE

What about the resources, mining? We do not have the resources, they are

finite. How will we cope? I don't buy any of that. What didn't you

buy? Everything that was just sad. I don't believe in sentience being

comparable to Allah sentience. There was recent peer-reviewed science,

but we will move on from that. What about resources? -- I don't believe

in sentience being comparable to our sentience. Silicon has only recently

become a resource. I don't want to try to predict to the end of the

century, that is ridiculous. When I think about what has changed in my

lifetime I have no idea what will be the main resources we will be using

for whatever purpose by the end of the century, which is quite good.

The young kids of today will invent the world that will exist and 50, 70

years. Will they look around and say there is no more wildlife, no weld

animals, no ecosystems? That seems very, very unlikely. We are

exploiting resources on those habitats. Oil exploration in the

Veranda National Park, you finish off the mountain drillers, they are

self-aware creatures with an inner life, a right to be here. -- you

finish off the mountain gorillas. I am not sure about that. About what?

Whether they have a right to be year. Because nothing other than

humans have a right to be here?! So the 500 million years before humans

arrived, we have only been here 200,000 years, so apparently nothing

mattered before humans arrived. An extraordinary conceit. May I take up

the argument that we don't know what resources people will be using in

future? I think we can be pretty sure we will still use freshwater

for a lot of survival needs, people will still need food, they will

still need livelihoods and sources of energy, all of those things are

and a significant strain and it is quite irresponsible to say, oh, we

will figure something out and continue as we are when we say it is

just the trajectory of our culture and population. Aren't we too set on

material comforts and benefits? It is extremely hard to change

consumption. People say it is all about consumption. They all to

suggest ways to do that. I don't want to underplay the importance of

finding ways to reduce consumption but it is incredibly hard. But to

make as though population does not matter is showing a tremendous lack

of compassion not only to wildlife but to people, to human beings in

countries experiencing fast population growth, where

unemployment is rising... And for women, can I pick up the point that

you started with? Dan, we have a situation here that we have a church

run by men who have never known a woman telling women that they should

have lots of children. Not at all, the Church nudges bishops in Rome,

it is the biggest charitable organisation beyond any comparison

on earth -- the church is not just bishops in Rome. It includes

doctors, nurses, missionaries, many, many women. What about reproductive

rights? The data I have shown suggests that there is a vast

distribution of contraceptives across the developing world, often

at the expense of the health care women need and the real needs of

people in the developing world. For instance, there is an archbishop in

Ghana... It is a sin to take... And Archbishop and Ghana said he ran a

network of clinics and they could not get support from the major NGOs

and agencies because they refuse to provide abortion and contraception,

that is prioritising and ideology of population control over what people

need. There are innumerable stories of medical staff who say women come

to me needing penicillin for their sick children, needing malaria

medication, they don't have it, what I have is shelves full of condoms

because that is what the NGOs... Privileging and ideology? If we

privilege the rights of women and girls, that is fine by me.

APPLAUSE We need to alter the Vatican's view

on contraception. It seems like a win-win, we might

help the population but we would also help reduce poverty and also

have a better economic situation, that is a win-win all round. There

is no chance of this happening on contraception? Something simpler

solecism can change, this is one of them. I don't think it should be a

worry -- some things in pathology is cannot change. The church noses...

Knows the causes of deprivation, wall, corrupt political structure.

The Democratic Republic of Congo is threatened by war and resulting

Common. Who is negotiating a peace deal? The church. Who is handing out

a medical aids, educating, giving help to more people than any of

institution? The Catholic Church, I think we should trust them. Trust

the church is great, let's take the Philippines, the highest birth rate

in Asia. In the Philippines, we have half a million illegal abortions are

yet, 2500 Filipina women each year die as a result of illegal abortions

-- half a million illegal abortions EGF. That is the result of the

Catholic Church in the Philippines. It has resisted and taken 12 cases

to the Supreme Court in the Philippines. The idea you can't get

penicillin for your child because the shelves are heaving with condoms

is... The Philippine medical Association say differently, they

have opposed legislation in the Philippines to provide more

contraception because this way that many macro would be better spent on

maternal care. Who controls -- who controls the Philippine medical

Association? I imagine Filipino doctors. Lots of people say on

health grounds we need more funds for maternal care, many, many

Filipinos oppose the introduction of contraception and abortion because

they say it is a foreign eye geology are not what we need. On foreign

ideologies, I am a little sceptical, maybe it is coming from Ireland, we

were effectively a catholic state of the first 70 years of our

independence, we sought the brunt of the church's interest in babies up

to the moment of their birth. Beyond that point they lost interest in

them. APPLAUSE

The secular state in Ireland finally wrestled some control away from the

Church and I personally find it tragic to see the same mistakes

being made in countries like the Philippines right now that we in

Ireland were the victims. At overlooks the huge contribution made

by the Church, which is not equalled by any other body in the world. How

do you keep population down? Do you need to, when so many population

scientists say... Yes, we do. I hope you will not tell is 100 billion

people will be fine, these are all possible worlds... The UN projection

is wee peek at about 11 to 12 billion, that is the same until

2300. -- the UN projection is that we peak ad. This is building a lot

of assumptions that fertility will fall, they are extrapolating from

current trends, I was quite interested in how you think that

family planning is not something that women need, that what they need

is medical care but they don't really need birth control. We will

have to leave it there. Thank you all very much indeed. As always, the

debates continue online and on Twitter.

Next week, we're in Canterbury, so do join us then.

But for now, it's goodbye from Newcastle and have a great Sunday.

Thank you. APPLAUSE

I attended Mr Delaney's funeral and a ghost appeared.

I witnessed and participated in darkness that you cannot conceive.