When Samantha Niblett launched the Yes Sex Please, We're British! campaign earlier this year, the jokes and criticism started flying almost immediately – and with them came a new nickname: 'the sex MP'. “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 said.
Her campaign is designed to push education around consent, respect and healthy relationships, with the aim of preventing abuse and violence. The need is stark: the Crime Survey for England and Wales found that, for the year ending March 2025, 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 female, according to figures published by the Office for National Statistics.
“Labour MP Samantha Niblett launches 'summer of sex' campaign to tackle sexual violence despite criticism.”
Niblett says the backlash and ridicule she has received – including from sections of her own party – is “half the reason” for running the campaign. A launch event, dubbed a “summer of sex”, was held in London this week. Later in autumn, she will display a number of sex toys and sex education aids in Parliament.
Campaigners have long called for better sex education. In 2017, the Local Government Association warned that lack of sex and relationships education in some secondary schools was creating a “ticking sexual health time bomb”. More recently, fellow Labour MP Alistair Strathern introduced a bill in June to make relationships and sex education mandatory for 16- to 18-year-olds, following a petition by the survivor-led group Make It Mandatory that gathered more than 106,000 signatures.
Niblett has partnered with sex educator Cindy Gallop, who previously said in a TED conference that access to online pornography, combined with “a society that is reluctant to talk about sex”, had made pornography the “default sex education”. Niblett hopes the launch will “silence some critics, or at least make them think again”.