Teenage Pregnancy: Regional Variations

Edward Timpson Excerpts

Tuesday 19th April 2016 Westminster Hall

[The Minister for Children and Families (Edward Timpson)]

As ever, Mr Chope, it is a delight to serve under your chairmanship.

I begin by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Telford (Lucy Allan) both on securing this debate and on her extremely well-judged contribution to it. Her contribution had at its heart something that I believe all Members could feel comfortable signing up to, which is the need to make sure that all children and young people, irrespective of their background, get a real and enduring chance to be the best that they can be, for themselves and—in the future—for their own families. I welcome the other contributions to the debate, by my hon. Friends the Members for Torbay (Kevin Foster) and for Eastbourne (Caroline Ansell), and by the hon. Members for Strangford (Jim Shannon), for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss), for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner) and for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson).

To underline the genuine importance of this agenda, my hon. Friend the Member for Telford reminded us that it was the Prime Minister who set out in a significant and perceptive speech in January his intention for the Government to make improving the life chances of the most disadvantaged children and families in Britain a central tenet of our work over the next four years. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Telford, I welcome that commitment to cross-Government work to tackle some of the deep-rooted social problems that exist, and, in doing so, to help to transform children’s lives so that they can meet their full potential.

As my hon. Friend acknowledged, although teenagers might still have the highest rates of unplanned pregnancies, we have seen a steady and impressive decline in that rate, to the extent that there are now 50% fewer teenage pregnancies than in 1998. In fact, teenage pregnancies are at their lowest since records began in 1969. That is important progress, which has a significant impact on young people’s lives and improves their life chances, whether in Telford, Crewe or elsewhere in the United Kingdom. We heard about similar progress in Northern Ireland and Scotland.

However, although the rates are coming down, and doing so at a faster rate than elsewhere in Europe, they remain higher than in comparable western European countries. As the hon. Member for Strangford said, we simply cannot afford to take our eye off the ball, and as the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West said, there is certainly no room for us to be complacent. Reducing the level of teenage pregnancy must remain a high priority, not only at national but at local level. My colleagues in the Department of Health have recognised that by including teenage pregnancy rates as a key indicator in the public health outcomes framework.

How will that outcomes framework be supported to deliver what is required? As we know, since 2013 local authorities have had responsibility for commissioning sexual health services. To support local commissioners, Public Health England has a teenage pregnancy expert adviser, whose role is to provide support to national teams by integrating teenage pregnancy data, evidence and best practice into relevant work programmes. It is good to hear about areas such as Leicester, Caerphilly and Wandsworth—in particular, Wandsworth sounds hugely impressive—that are helping to add to that best practice. The expert adviser also provides Public Health England with a teenage pregnancy link to the Local Government Association and relevant Department of Health policy teams.

The Government also provide support by facilitating the sharing of information and learning with local areas about what works in reducing teenage pregnancy. We have heard contributions this afternoon that touched on exactly that point. Most recently, in March this year, Public Health England and the Local Government Association produced an updated briefing for councils—I have even come to this debate armed with a copy. It is entitled “Good progress but more to do”, which probably sums up the message that has come out of this debate. Having been around for only a few weeks, it has already been downloaded more than 5,000 times, which suggests both a high degree of interest in the subject and a welcome continued commitment at local level to actively do something about it rather than just look at figures on a page.

As I am a Minister in the Department for Education, it would be remiss of me not to set out what the Government are doing to improve education standards for all children. As we have heard, education has a key role to play in keeping children on a positive path in life. I know from having visited Holmer Lake Primary School in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Telford that she believes strongly in the power of education to change lives. She will be aware that we have published a White Paper setting out how we will seek to achieve educational excellence everywhere. As the Secretary of State set out in the White Paper, it is imperative that we extend opportunity to every child, whatever their background. That is why we are completely committed to ensuring that all pupils receive an excellent education.

Since 2010, 1.4 million more children have enjoyed an education in a good or outstanding school. To support that, we have taken a number of measures to drive up performance: matching failing schools with strong sponsors; driving up the numbers of national leaders of education to support other schools, from 250 in 2010 to more than 1,000 last year; and providing schools with significant extra funding to raise the attainment of disadvantaged pupils through the pupil premium, which is worth £2.5 billion this year. We have protected that funding at per-pupil rates for the duration of this Parliament.

We must of course build on that, so that all children and young people receive the same standards of education enjoyed by those in the best schools. We acknowledge that some parts of the country suffer from acute problems and will need additional support for all children to achieve their potential. The White Paper identified areas of the country where low school standards are exacerbated by low capacity to deliver improvement. To support improvement in those parts of the country, we will designate achieving excellence areas, where we will work with local leaders to diagnose the underlying problems and then target our national programmes to help them secure sufficient high-quality teachers, leaders, system leaders, sponsors and governors. We will trial that approach from September this year and roll it out more widely from September 2017, with the aim of delivering lasting improvement to standards in those areas.

I am sure my hon. Friend will agree that in order to ensure that all children can benefit, we must keep absences from school to an absolute minimum. Overall absence rates have followed a general downward trend from 6.5% in 2006-07 to 4.6% in 2014-15. Although we have made progress, with almost 200,000 fewer pupils regularly missing school than in 2010, we must keep our foot on the gas.

Why is that important in the context of this debate? With regard to educational underperformance and teenage pregnancy, my hon. Friend rightly pointed out that there is a correlation between teenage conception, deprivation and low educational attainment. In 2013, the Centre for Analysis of Youth Transitions, funded by the Department for Education, published a research report on teenage pregnancy in England. The report set out the evidence on the relationship between deprivation, low prior attainment and likelihood of teenage conception and maternity.

The research found that girls who are eligible for free school meals and girls who are persistently absent from school are more likely to become teenage mothers, both because they are more likely to conceive and because they are more likely to continue with their pregnancy. Researchers also found that girls who attend higher-performing schools are less likely to conceive, and that deterioration in academic performance between key stages 2 and 3 is associated with teenage pregnancy. Girls who make slower than expected progress during the early years of secondary school are significantly more likely to conceive, and to continue with the pregnancy after conception, than those who progress as expected.

Free school meals eligibility, persistent absenteeism and slower than expected academic progress during early secondary school can therefore be thought of as key individual risk factors associated with conceiving as a teenager and continuing with that pregnancy. That is exactly the sort of evidence-based research that we need to proliferate around the system so that those at local level can gain a much better understanding of what works.

As such research demonstrates, various risk factors are associated with increased teenage pregnancy rates, including educational underachievement. Schools can help all children to make better decisions in their personal life through high-quality teaching of personal, social, health and economic education. Unfortunately, time precludes me from rehearsing the many arguments of the past few weeks and months on the role of PSHE in equipping pupils with the knowledge and skills to make safe and informed decisions and in preparing them for adult life.

I think we can all agree that we want to equip young people and children with such skills. To achieve that, we need to ensure that PSHE is of the highest quality possible. That is why, with the support of the PSHE Association and after consultation with a wide variety of agencies and PSHE practitioners, we have produced a suggested programme of study, based on the needs of today’s pupils and schools. We have said that we will keep the issue under review, as we set out in our response to the report of the Select Committee on Education. We will do that in all seriousness, to ensure that as the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West rightly said, we provide children with the arsenal that they require to meet many of the harder challenges that life throws at them when compared with our own childhoods, and at a much younger age.

Much is going on in government, including the provision of support for children in care and care leavers so that they are ready and prepared for adult life. The number of mothers who were previously looked-after children has declined over the years between 2011 and 2015, but as my hon. Friend the Member for Telford reminded us, about 20% of female care leavers become teenage parents, so we need to do even more. That is why we have committed to deliver real reform of social care services. We have our £200 million social care funding programme, as well as the Pause programme, with funding from the innovation fund, which I urge hon. Members to look at carefully. Pause breaks the cycle for the many young mothers who have repeated pregnancies only to have the child removed from their care, which we need to stop in future.