Minister: We've failed to stop teen pregnancies

A bleak warning on the rise in teenage pregnancies was issued today by the new minister for children and families. Beverley Hughes said the Government was virtually powerless to prevent more school age girls becoming mothers without the help of parents.

She said ministers had "reached a sticking point" and were failing in the battle to persuade teenagers to postpone sex or use effective contraception and called on parents to do more.

Her admission that Labour is failing on its pledge to halve the rate of teenage conceptions by 2010 came as new figures on under-16 pregnancies were due to be released.

"I don't think there is any magic bullet from the Government's side and the local authority side and all the partners on the ground that we can identify that is now going to take another substantial step forward," she said in an interview with The Guardian.

"We really need parents now to see themselves as making an absolutely unique and vital contribution to this issue. It is a contribution that I don't think anyone else can actually make."

The last set of teenage pregnancy figures showed a modest fall nationally but marked rises in cities, including inner London. In Lambeth, more than one in 10 school age girls gets pregnant every year.

The UK has the highest teenage pregnancy rate in western Europe, with 43 out of every thousand girls under 18 affected in 2003 - five times the rate in the Netherlands, double the rate in Germany and three times that of France. The issue was spotlighted this week by the case

of three sisters in Derby who became mothers at 12, 14 and 16.

Ms Hughes described the case, dubbed the "baby factory", as "a tragic loss of opportunity".

The Government is spending ?40 million a year on a strategy, which includes working with schools, social workers and charities to give children advice on safe sex. But Ms Hughes, who has three children, is now urging parents to spend more time talking to their offspring about the subject and urging them not to have sex at too young an age.

She highlighted a 2002 study that found children whose parents openly discuss sex in relationships were more likely to delay sex and use contraception effectively. Ministers say parents can help by initiating chats, for example by asking their children about sex education lessons at school.

They could also discuss peer pressure to have sex and what their school friends feel.

Ms Hughes denied the Government had lost control on the issue and said: "What you are talking about here is not just changing people's attitudes, but often behaviour that will be decided on a spur of the moment."