People call me the sex MP but we need to be educating

MP Samantha Niblett has launched officially launched her campaign, calling for lifelong sex education

When Samantha Niblett launched the Yes Sex Please, We're British! campaign earlier this year, it did not take long for the jokes and criticism to start flying - and for her to be given a new nickname.

"Now in times gone by, being referred to as a 'sex MP' would've been something quite sleazy and seedy. But thankfully, and hopefully, I'm helping to change that," the Labour MP for South Derbyshire says.

The campaign was begun to push education around consent, respect and healthy relationships, with the aim of preventing abuse and violence.

The MP wants to remove the stigma around sex, and says the backlash and ridicule she has received in response to her campaign - including from sections of her own party - is "half the reason" for running it.

A launch event for the campaign, dubbed "summer of sex", was held in London this week and later in autumn, Niblett will display a number of sex toys and sex education aids in Parliament.

Niblett (right), launched her campaign alongside sex educator Cindy Gallop (middle) and Lucy Litwick, the CEO of Coco De Mer in London

The Crime Survey for England and Wales found, for the year ending March 2025, that about 15.9% of people aged 16 or over (7.7 million people) had experienced sexual assault since the age of 16.

Of those, 1.9 million were victims of rape, and 1.8 million of rape victims were females, according to figures published by the Office for National Statistics.

Campaigners have long been calling to improve sex education in England. In 2017, the Local Government Association (LGA) said the lack of sex and relationships education in some of the country's secondary schools was creating a "ticking sexual health time bomb".

Another Labour MP, Alistair Strathern, has been calling for the government to make relationships and sex education mandatory for 16 to 18-year-olds.

He introduced the Relationships and Sex Education (Further Education Sector) Bill to Parliament in June.

That followed a petition by the survivor-led campaign group Make It Mandatory, which called for sex education to be mandated to 18 and gathered more than 106,000 signatures.

Niblett has partnered with sex educator Cindy Gallop, who wants to steer people from pornography as sex education.

In a TED conference, Gallop previously said access to online pornography, combined with a "society that is reluctant to talk about sex", had led to pornography becoming the "default sex education".

The campaign launch event was held at John Lewis in