Comment

FAMILY life can be a great source of joy, support, anxiety, worry and all the emotions in between.

Anyone taking on the responsibility for a family in their teenage years is facing a particularly tough challenge.

Teenage parents and their children are three times more likely to suffer post-natal depression and, particularly worryingly, infant mortality is 60 per cent higher for children born of teenage parents.

Eight years ago, the Government stated it would halve the rate of teenage pregnancy by 2010.

After spending £250million, conception rates have fallen by just 11 per cent and most local authorities nationwide continue to have hot spots of teen pregnancies in their areas.

Most worrying of all, a third of 16 to 19-year-olds who are sexually active still do not use any form of contraception and, as a result, we have seen an alarming increase in sexually transmitted infections among young people, which can have health consequences later in life.

While the small reduction in conceptions among teenagers is welcome, more young people are turning to abortion and, most worrying of all, the rate of second abortions among under-18s has increased by 40 per cent.

It is clear from these statistics that the Government's approach is not working for many teenagers. Far more focus needs to be put on to the importance of young people considering their relationships and emotional development. Young people need to have the confidence to see that early sexual relationships, and potentially early parenthood, is not the only way to adulthood.

FOR many parents, nurseries provide an essential part of their childcare, and the "free entitlement" to 12-and-a-half hours nursery care a week for all three and four-year-olds is a welcome help towards covering the cost.

It is therefore concerning that one in four families are having to pay for part of this "free entitlement" as the funding from Government is not always sufficient to cover the costs incurred by the nursery. This is a particular problem for private nurseries.

I want to establish the scale of the problem in our area, so if your nursery is finding it difficult to deliver 12-and-a-half hours nursery care for free, please drop me a line.

TO CONTACT Maria, call her at the House of Commons on 0207 219 5749, e-mail millerm@parliament.uk or write to her at The House of Commons, London, SW1A 0AA.

4:22pm Thursday 14th February 2008

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