Teenage pregnancy strategy a disaster says academic

Professor David Paton, chair of industrial economics at Nottingham University Business School told a Westminster health forum seminar on unintended pregnancy and access to contraception that the strategy has failed on a number of fronts. Launched in 1999, the strategy aimed to halve the under-18 conception rate by 2010, and establish a downward trend in the under-16 rate.

Paton, who has worked as a government advisor, said the rate of decline in pregnancy rates has decreased since the strategy was published while sexually transmitted infections (STI) figures have grown.

"The hope was the more money you spend the faster and faster the declines -  in fact we have seen the opposite, the declines have decreased," he said.

He added: "There has been good work in certain areas of raising aspirations and bringing young mothers back into the education system but if you look at how good it has been at reducing pregnancy rates it has been absolutely disastrous."

Paton's comments come on the back of statistics released last month showing the number of teenage pregnancies in England and Wales rose for the first time in five years.

Simon Blake, chief executive of Brook, defended the success of the strategy at the forum. "People talk a lot about evidence and whether the teenage pregnancy strategy is working," he said. "On the whole progress has been made. "We do accept not everything is in place everywhere therefore until we we have got everything in place we are not going to see the progress people would like." 

He added that an increase in STI rates is likely down to an increase in tests taking place.