Good, but not good enough

Responding to the Teenage Pregnancy Independent Advisory Group (TPIAG) 2007/08 annual report, Children's Minister Dawn Primarolo called on local authorities and health trusts to continue to prioritise this area of work. Since the start of the Teenage Pregnancy Strategy in 1997, the under-18 conception rate has fallen by 10.7 per cent and teenage conceptions leading to live births haven fallen by 23.3 per cent. Following recommendations from TPIAG and others, the government has announced that from 2011 sex and relationship education will form an element of Personal Social and Health Education, which in turn becomes a statutory part of the school curriculum.