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Mr. Hope: May I draw the hon. Lady's attention to page 90 of the report, which says:
- "Preaching is rarely effective. Whether the Government likes it or not, young people decide what they are going to do about sex and contraception. Keeping them in the dark or preaching at them makes it less likely they'll make the right decision."?
Dr. Tonge: Yes, but in other parts of the report it is emphasised that GPs will be given more guidance. Colleagues in general practice have told me that they are afraid of dealing with matters in a straightforward way and feel that there is pressure on them to counsel, which neither they nor the young people want.
The young person who meets a barrage of advice and counselling at the first visit is never seen again, in my experience. In my capacity as a senior doctor, I have had to tell off colleagues for putting young women off. The people about whom one is most worried, one does not see again. The same applies to young men. We must expand family planning facilities generally and leave it to the very well-trained doctors and nurses in those clinics.
The Government have already chickened out of making it easier to obtain condoms, emergency contraception and the regular contraceptive pill. Why cannot school nurses and GPs dispense condoms? Where is the progress on the morning-after pill, which I prefer to call emergency contraception? It needs to be available at pharmacies and from nurses, whether in schools or at GPs' surgeries. It is safer than aspirin and paracetamol. Why is it not simply on sale?
In Spain, one can buy the regular contraceptive pill from a chemist's. Why cannot we accept that some drugs are safer than drugs that are already on sale in pharmacies? Why do not we let people have a free choice? That way, many unwanted pregnancies can be dealt with and young people will be guided to clinics where they can get proper advice and counselling.
Mr. John Healey (Wentworth):
I congratulate the hon. Member for Billericay (Mrs. Gorman) on securing this debate. Her speech was informative and refreshingly iconoclastic.
In the area that I represent--Wentworth is part of Rotherham--we have a problem with high rates of teenage pregnancy. In parts of my constituency, one in six of all pregnancies are of women between 15 and 19 and one in 20 are of under-16s. The most telling index of the problem is the fact that eight out of the 22 wards in Rotherham have higher rates of pregnancy in those between 15 and 19 than in all the other age groups put together. There is a direct correlation with unemployment rates and other local deprivation indices.
Teenage pregnancy is both a symptom and a cause of social exclusion. In Rotherham, unemployment is the highest in Yorkshire and double the national average. The staying-on rates at school at 16 are 8 per cent. below the national average and the attainment at 16 of five or more GCSEs at grade A to C is 10 per cent. below.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley, East and Mexborough (Mr. Ennis) will testify, the problem is the same in Barnsley, Doncaster and Rotherham, across the former coalfield areas, where the teenage pregnancy rates are the highest in the Trent region, with the exception of the south Humber. The new health action zone in the South Yorkshire coalfield communities is therefore especially important. It will be a major way of co-ordinating efforts to tackle public health priorities. The health action zone has a specific objective to reduce the
number of unintended under-16 conceptions and reduce the number of young people risking their health through smoking, alcohol and sexual behaviour.
I think that the comments of the hon. Member for Billericay constituted a welcome to the social exclusion unit's report; I certainly welcome it. It identified three key factors that contribute to our internationally high rate of teenage pregnancy: low expectations about the future, which are the most important factor; ignorance about contraception and the reality of life as a parent, as the hon. Lady ably illustrated; and mixed messages from adults about sex and relationships.
I want to bring those three issues down to local level and talk about the Rawmarsh baby doll project, which exemplifies the difficulties and challenges that we face. The conception of the project--if I may use that term--dates back to the end of 1996 and stems from a concern among local youth workers and teachers who were finding a change in attitude among young girls--from expressing a rather vague desire to have a baby to declaring that they were actively trying to conceive--accompanied by a local rise in teenage pregnancies.
The project was created and co-ordinated by two youth workers, Ann Brown and Karen Kirby, based at the Rawmarsh youth centre, with funding of only £250. The aim is to improve the understanding of what it means to be a parent and change the attitude of 14 and 15-year-olds towards the prospect of parenthood. It involves a lifelike doll that is heavy to hold, is always hungry, cries to be changed and wakes up several times in the night. It involves planning and preparation lessons coveringsexual health and relationships, the problems and embarrassments of having a baby, costs and budgeting, dressing, feeding, changing, bathing and putting down a baby and trying to get it to sleep. The course culminates in the student taking the baby doll home on a Friday evening and returning to school on a Monday morning having looked after it over the weekend.
The evaluation of the course showed some success, but it highlighted some of the difficult dimensions of the problem. It was clear from the start that many of the under 16-year-olds had up-to-date information about contraception and sexual health. However, 20 per cent. believed that having a baby would have no effect on a relationship, and 70 per cent. believed that it would improve a relationship. The lack of information was not to do with sex, but with practical parenting.
The average age of the sexual partners of these girls was 21 to 26, so they were not their class mates. The majority of those men were unemployed, often living independently in rented accommodation. Some were involved in drug misuse.
Seven out of 10 of the young male students that participated in this project thought that responsibility to rear a child was nothing to do with them, whereas all the girls involved in the project stipulated that it was a shared responsibility. The majority of the male pupils did not complete the exercises and tasks, and only one took the baby doll home over the weekend. The parents of his school mates made all sorts of excuses about why their son could not participate in the programme and could not take the baby doll home, ranging from "the family is going to a christening at the weekend" to "we are going on holiday in the near future" or "we have to go shopping
for new clothes." One father was abusive to a youth worker, and insisted that babies had nothing to do with his son.
The outcome of the pilot project was that half the 14 and 15-year-olds who took the baby doll home said that it had significantly increased the age at which they wanted to have children. The families by and large said that it was a useful exercise, and that all school pupils should undertake such a course.
This pilot was the first of its kind in South Yorkshire. It was replicated elsewhere in my constituency in Wath upon Dearne, and with health action zone funding the exercise it will now be extended right across Rotherham.
We need national targets and the political priority that the social exclusion report provides. We need to develop local services, such as those that the health action zone gives us the opportunity to deliver. But in the end, it is work with individual boys and girls while they are still at school that will make the most telling difference.
The social exclusion unit plan is a good start. I particularly welcome a special feature of the report. For the first time, it has an edge to it which is directed at boys and men. For once, young men are singled out as also having responsibility for teenage pregnancies. The blame and shame that too often is directed only at girls, is also turned on boys. When girls get pregnant, they give up education or give up their baby for adoption or to their grandparents to look after, whereas boys go up in the estimation of their mates down the pub.
The proposal for the Child Support Agency to pursue fathers of children born to teenagers is important, because it underlines the fact that they have a responsibility for their children, including a financial responsibility, and that these babies are their children.
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