Warning over teen pregnancy strategy

Measures aimed at reducing the number of teenage pregnancies are causing an increase in sexually-transmitted diseases, an expert has warned.

A Government campaign to provide the morning-after pill and expand contraception services for the under-20s is encouraging more young people to have sex, said professor David Paton.

This has led to an increase in diseases such as chlamydia.

He says infection rates have soared by 30 per cent among 16-19-year-olds since the launch of Labour's £63million Teenage Pregnancy Strategy five years ago.

There has also been an a rise in the number of teenage pregnancies. Sexual activity and sexually transmitted diseases have also been shown to have risen fastest in the areas where the strategy has been most actively pursued.

Professor Paton, an economist at Nottingham University Business School, will tell the Royal Economic Society's annual conference in Swansea today that the rise in risk- taking behaviour seems to have " outweighed any positive impact of family planning policies".

A report from the National Office of Statistics last week showed that sexually-transmitted diseases among the under-20s had doubled in the last decade. It highlighted a particular rise in the number of cases of chlamydia.