Daily roundup: STI data, careers advice and child poverty

Young people aged 15 to 24 made up nearly two birds of new chlamydia diagnoses and 54 per cent of genital warts cases among heterosexuals, latest data shows. The statistics, published by Public Health England, show that there were 448,000 sexually transmitted infections in 2012, a rise of 5 per cent. Of the 1.7m chlamydia tests carried out among young people during the year, 136,000 diagnoses were made, a diagnosis rate of 1,979 per 100,000 of the population.

Face-to-face advice should be available for young people as part of a major upgrade in careers advice a report by the National Careers Council has said. The BBC reports that the council wants face-to-face advice to be available for all pupils from the age of 12, rather than being provided via a phone line or website. The council, which advises the government, found that fewer than one per cent of teenagers have used a phone line set up to offer them careers advice.

A report predicts that 3.4 million children, a quarter of all those in Britain, will be living in relative poverty by 2020. Donald Hirsch, an academic at Loughborough University said it would cost the country £35bn in welfare payments and spending on services to support these children, as well as lost productivity due to economic inactivity. His report uses data from the Institute of Fiscal Studies to make the calculations, which he outlines in a Guardian article.

The government’s new social mobility tsar has been forced to defend his statement that parents should not help their children find a job, after it emerged he employs his two daughters. The Independent reports that entrepreneur and Dragon’s Den participant James Caan argued that his daughters were employed through a "normal process" of recruitment, and were qualified for the jobs they were given. On the launch of the government's Opening Doors campaign yesterday, Caan said children should stand on their “own two feet”.

A future Labour government would not reverse the coalition decision to withdraw child benefit from higher rate taxpayers. The move, reported in the Guardian, is expected to be outlined by Ed Miliband at a speech on Thursday. He will say that Labour is prepared to impose limits on the areas of welfare spending that do not automatically fluctuate with the economic cycle. Ed Balls, the shadow chancellor, announced on Monday that Labour would accept the current spending plans for 2015-16, to be unveiled by George Osborne on 26 June.