Personal, Social, Health and Financial Education
Debate between Amber Rudd and Andrew Turner(11 years, 11 months ago)
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Amber Rudd (Hastings and Rye) (Con)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley) on securing this important debate. I share many of her concerns and views, particularly her points about teenage pregnancies and the health outcomes for both mother and baby. With those in mind, I set up a cross-party inquiry into unplanned pregnancies at the end of last year, which was supported by the hon. Member for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock (Sandra Osborne) and the hon. Member for Solihull (Lorely Burt), who is present. We decided to look at whether we could establish the consequences of the level of teenage pregnancies in this country.
As a reminder, Britain has the highest level of teenage pregnancies in western Europe and is second only to America in the western world. It is five times the rate of the Netherlands and twice the rate of Germany and France. I pay tribute to the previous Government for the enormous effort that they put into the teenage pregnancy strategy from 1999 to 2010. They set out to reduce the level of teenage pregnancies by 50% and reduced the conception rate by 25%. It was a great achievement, but it was obviously not enough, and we remain at the top of this sin league of teenage pregnancies, with the accompanying bad health outcomes.
In the inquiry, we set out to examine the possible causes of teenage pregnancies and what recommendations we could make to the Government.
Mr Andrew Turner (Isle of Wight) (Con)
What ages are in the group that my hon. Friend mentions? Are they under-16s, under-18s or under-21s?
Amber Rudd
We looked at the figures for under-19s. In fact, the figure for under-16s is extremely low. We mainly examined the figures for those aged 16 to 19.
We had a genuinely open mind towards our inquiry. It was public, with several groups giving evidence. We thought that one of the causes might be access to contraception, but we found that relationship education was absolutely the key missing part. Let us not forget the men. Let us not think, perhaps like the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson), that the issue is more about men than women or women than men. The issue is about society.