Documents show clergy failed to back efforts to limit HIV

THE clergy acted as a roadblock to efforts to halt an explosion in Scottish HIV deaths during the 1980s, recently declassified documents have revealed.

Records of a government committee, set up to co-ordinate a response to a disease causing widespread public panic, show that MPs courted churches to win support for sex education classes in schools and also needle exchange projects for drug addicts in a bid to prevent the spread of HIV.

While they were largely supported south of the Border, the schemes faced hostility in Scotland despite the soaring number of cases in Dundee and Edinburgh. It has also emerged that proposals to secretly test hospital patients for HIV, to gain a more accurate picture of the number of people affected in the UK, were rejected on ethical and legal grounds. In the summer of 1987, Defence Secretary George Younger, then an Ayr MP and former Scottish Secretary, asked for those living with the virus to be forced to leave the armed forces. But it was opposed by other senior figures in the UK Government who expressed “serious misgivings”.

The papers, released today by the National Archives, reveal that ministers spent months debating whether an animated depiction of how to use a condom should be shown in schools to 13 to 16-year-olds. The Department for Education pushed strongly for the feature to be included in the sex education video. However, Malcolm Rifkind, serving as Scottish Secretary, said that reactions in his patch had been “less favourable” prompting “strong reactions” from the Catholic Church and less vocal opposition from other religious groups. Despite the opposition, Mr Rifkind insisted that the video was sent to local education authorities.

“The reactions of the churches in Scotland and Northern Ireland were more hostile to the Government’s handling of the problem than the Church of England had been,” one entry states. “The Free Presbyterian Church in Scotland had, for example, reacted adversely to the recent announcement of limited schemes for the supply of clean hypodermic needles to drug misusers. The cooperation of these churches with the Government’s campaign could not be taken for granted.”