Primary schools in the UK are being forced by some local authorities to teach sex education, leading family charity, the Family Education Trust, has claimed in a new report.

Education bodies in parts of the country are using an awards scheme called Healthy Schools introduced by Tony Blair, designed to promote healthy behaviour in schools, to impose “liberal and permissive” teaching on pupils, they warn.

The report found that a significant minority of local authorities were using the initiative to restrict schools’ use of outside agencies to teach the benefits of saving sex for marriage.

The charity said such lessons are not required by law or the Healthy Schools criteria to teach sex education in a certain way, including how to use a condom, and that schools have considerable autonomy in how they decide to teach sex education.

Commenting, Norman Wells, a Family Education Trust director, said: “It is very concerning to find some local authorities insisting that primary schools teach sex and relationships education as a condition of receiving the Healthy Schools award, when primary school governing bodies are free to decide whether or not to teach sex education after consultation with parents.

“Primary schools that make a principled decision not to teach sex education should not be stigmatised and denied a sought-after award for that reason.

“There is nothing inherently ‘unhealthy’ about a primary school that decides not to teach sex education.”

It found secondary schools were being told that such messages could only be taught in “Healthy Schools” if they were balanced by other viewpoints.

However, there was no such requirement regarding instruction on the use of condoms, according to the survey.

Mr Wells said: “It is ironic that in some local authority areas, the Healthy Schools programme is undermining the healthiest messages of all and depriving young people of learning about the physical, emotional and social benefits of keeping sex within a lifelong, mutually faithful marriage.”

The report calls on local authorities to be less prescriptive and to recognise that schools are responsible for determining their policy on sex and relationships education on a local basis, in consultation with parents.

Mr Wells said local authorities should respect the position of schools which, after consultation with parents, decide that they would like to use external agencies that emphasise the benefits of saving sex for marriage.

Meanwhile, the Coalition Government has revealed that it has no plans to force primary schools to provide sex education.

Prior to the last election, Labour said it wanted to make PSHE a compulsory subject which would have required all schools to provide sex education lessons for the first time.

Children were to learn about parts of the body, the facts of life and puberty in primary school. At secondary school, they would be taught about pregnancy, contraception, HIV and homosexual relationships, it was disclosed.

Under plans, all mothers and fathers would be able to keep children out on moral and religious grounds but will lose the right of withdraw when they turn 15 – affecting 600,000 pupils a year.

The controversial move was designed to ensure pupils get at least 12 months of sex education before finishing compulsory schooling.

It had been thought that the Coalition would proceed with the proposals when it came to power, although the Conservatives were in favour of retaining the right of withdrawal for all parents.

Now it has emerged that the plans have been dropped altogether.

A consultation into the future of PSHE by the Department for Education says the Government would only make the subject statutory “if there is clear evidence of the benefit to pupils of doing so and if… it is practical to do so”.

But it adds: “The Government has no plans to change the law on sex education or parents’ right to withdraw their child from sex education.