Young people's sexual health and policy

Polly Toynbee

How conflicted Britain is about sex and young people. Rampant commerce uses sex to sell everything to young people, yet good quality sex education, access to contraception, and school nurses to dispense advice and condoms remain haphazard.

Those who provide these services are often maligned in the same feral press that publishes luridly raunchy tales and photographs of half naked young girls.

Adults' anxieties about sex are turned into admonitions to the young. No wonder Britain scores so badly in world statistics on sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and unwanted pregnancies among young people. Mixed messages produce unmixed bad results - as Brook has always pointed out.

It's extraordinary that sex and relationships education (SRE) is not compulsorily well-taught in all schools, since it is proved to cut unwanted pregnancy, and to delay - not encourage - first sexual experiences. After 13 years of ambiguity, Labour finally built SRE into one of its very last bills - perhaps as a mischievous challenge to the Conservatives? As expected, it was struck out in the 'wash-up', the last minute horse-trading of bills as parliament was dissolved before the general election.

As a result, SRE is still taught in many schools reluctantly, as the minimum curriculum requirement - a little bare biology on reproduction and STIs in science lessons. Under the Academies Bill, a new generation of academies and 'free schools' will mostly create their own curriculum, with no Ofsted inspection, and only a duty to 'have regard' to guidance on sex education.

Labour started out setting a bold target for cutting teenage pregnancies - but as with so many targets, the ends were willed, but the means were ducked. It required bravery to face down the moralistic media to provide a well-funded, well-advertised service open to all young people, with open talk about sex from a young age. Without those ingredients, the target was missed by a mile.

Nonetheless, by 2008, following the setting of a ten-year strategy, pregnancies among under-18s had fallen by 13.3% in England. Better still, the number of live births dropped by 25%, showing that a more positive approach to abortion had its effect. Good employment opportunities and more young people staying in education for longer during those years no doubt played a part. Higher horizons give young women a reason to delay becoming mothers. The danger is that figures will slide back again during a prolonged time of youth unemployment, when motherhood can easily seem the most satisfying life choice.

Will funding for the best services - such as Brook's - be a serious casualty of the cuts to come? Already, Brook has experienced cuts in funding from statutory sources, some of them ruthless, with promises of more to come. There could hardly be a greater error: this short-term cut will mean far higher spending on more young mothers later. Poorest teenagers are most at risk of too early motherhood, passing on their own deprivation to their children, and raising child poverty numbers. Surely we can stop that happening again?