Labour accuses Tories of misrepresenting teenage pregnancy figure

February 16, 2010 by Shawn Douglas
Filed under: News

The UK’s Labour party has accused the Tories of misrepresenting key teen pregnancy data in a 20-page campaign document yesterday.

A 20-page campaign document titled “Labour’s Two Nations” released by the Conservative (Tory) party yesterday is being criticized by Labour for a key teen pregnancy statistic that was wrong by a factor of 10.

The document, intended to be used as part of a Conservative political campaign, claimed that the conception rate among girls under the age of 18 in Britain’s 10 most disadvantaged areas was 54 percent.

The correct number is 5.4 percent, which as the Labour party has pointed out is still less than the 1998 figure of 6.0 percent.

Conservative leader David Cameron has come under fire for the “dodgy” figures with Labour leader David Balls calling for the retraction of the document.

“David Cameron’s latest deception and airbrushed statistics cannot conceal the fact that the Tories haven’t changed,” said Balls. “They are totally out of touch and have nothing to say on the important issue of reducing teenage pregnancies except smears and distortions.”

Last night, a spokesperson for the Conservatives replied, saying: “A decimal point was left out in a calculation. It makes no difference at all to the conclusions of a wide-ranging report which shows that Labour have consistently let down the poorest in Britain.”

With further review of the data, it was found that under-18 pregnancy rates had fallen significantly in all but two of the 10 areas listed by the Tories. Between 1998 and 2007, teen pregnancy rates declined in Birmingham, Easington, Hackney, Islington, Knowsley, Liverpool, Newham and Tower Hamlets. Rates increased in Manchester and Middlesbrough.

Labour further criticized the report which attempted to link the number of children receiving free school meals with state school achievement. Vernon Coaker, Minister of Schools, accused the Tories of using figures that were “misleading” in an attempt to “distort and do down the achievements” of pupils in state schools.

The Conservative Party insisted that the figures were still accurate. “He is wrong to suggest that the free school meals figure does not include pupils who took their A-levels at Further Education colleges,” a party spokesman told the Telegraph.

“Coaker is trying to hide the truth, but there is no disguising government failure on education,” he added.