Face up to the truth about teenage mums, says MP

Jan 28 2008 by Tomos Livingstone, Western Mail

LIBERALS need to face up to some awkward truths about teenage mothers – including that some girls become pregnant deliberately – a Welsh MP says today.

Chris Bryant, the Labour MP for Rhondda, says Conservatives and Liberals alike need to challenge their own assumptions, if Britain is to lose its unwelcome title of having the highest teenage pregnancy rate in Europe.

“Sex education in schools has to be mandatory,” Mr Bryant said in a pamphlet he has written. “That’s a problem if you’re a social conservative, but it’s also a challenge if you’re a social liberal.”

Conservatives need to forget the myth that girls get pregnant to get a council flat – 90% of teenage mothers live with their parents or their boyfriends – but liberals need to face facts too, he says.

“There are girls who are maybe being bullied at school, have a tough time educationally or at home, don’t feel loved or cared for… for them, some of them do deliberately get pregnant because they think someone will love them.

“They also get the message when they see someone else getting pregnant, they get a child psychologist, a doctor, a council social worker and everyone piles in to say ‘how lovely’.

“Some do it very deliberately, some do it carelessly. We have to face up to that.”

Wales has a higher teenage pregnancy rate than England, with 43.6 conceptions per 1,000 girls in 2005, compared to 41.3 in England. The highest rate in Wales is in the Cynon Valley, where the figure is 56.8. Mr Bryant’s Rhondda constituency has a rate of 42.7.

Half of all under-18 conceptions in the UK occur in the 20% of the most deprived wards, and Mr Bryant says teenage pregnancy is a major factor in the way poverty is passed down the generations.

“It’s true that some girls chose pregnancy instead of what they would see as a dead-end job,” he said.

The MP suggests a new housing scheme for teenage mothers, similar to sheltered housing programmes for the elderly, with wardens and doctors on site and facilities such as kitchens shared with other young mums.

Helen Mary Jones, Plaid AM for Llanelli, gave the idea a lukewarm welcome but said care should be taken not to stigmatise lone parents.

“There might be some young women who would find this helpful, but there are others who are already well supported by family and friends,” she said.

“Being a young mother does not make you a bad parent – my own mother had her first child as a teenager and all of her children went to university.”

Mr Bryant has discussed the issue with Education Minister Jane Hutt, and will raise his concerns in a debate in the Commons tomorrow.

Writing in his pamphlet, Mr Bryant says there needs to be “far greater political determination” to tackle the problem.

“We need to face the fact that youngsters are sexualised very early on television, in popular music, in young people’s magazines – and that the whole pressure for the media is towards early (and, incidentally, often illegally early) sexual experience.

“And we need to look at other countries’ experiences, because they have been far more successful in cutting teenage pregnancy rates.”

He adds, “Of course many teenage mums, against the odds, are immensely successful parents. And I may have got some of this wrong. But tackling teenage pregnancy is one of the most important challenges we face in areas like the Rhondda.

“It is one of the major reasons that poverty is handed down through the generations.”

Mr Bryant’s interactive website, Teenagemums.org.uk, goes live today. He produced a similar website on broadcasting policy last year, and plans a further site looking at intellectual copyright later this year.

The teenage pregnancy rate in the UK has fallen slightly over the last decade, but is still much higher than that in France, Holland and Germany. Other English-speaking nations like Canada and New Zealand have higher rates, and the US rate is twice as high as the UK’s.

In the UK half all teenage mothers are 18 – only 6% are under 16.

Mr Bryant also suggests a national scheme to provide free condoms to youngsters, and the extension of pilot programmes where chemists can provide emergency contraception for free.

Booklets to help parents talk to their children about sex should be produced and sent to parents on their child’s 11th birthday.