After the Conservative Party’s very public error regarding teenage pregnancy – claiming rates as high as 54% in deprived areas – Daniel Zeichner, has welcomed the publication of ONS statistics relating to Cambridgeshire. According to the statistics, our county has experienced a drop from 31.4 teenage girls becoming pregnant per 1,000 in 1998, to 24.9 a decade later. Britain has seen a 13% decline during the same period.

‘Aside from the national fall,’ says Mr Zeichner, ‘we can be particularly proud of the record in Cambridgeshire. Though the Tories may like to project a broken society which plays on people’s worst fears, the reality is much different. In Cambridgeshire we have seen a 20% reduction in teenage pregnancy during the last decade – a testament to government investment in sex education, and its campaigns promoting contraception.

‘George Osborne claimed last week that his statisticians had simply put a decimal point in the wrong place. That may be so. But why no one at any stage thought 54% was a ridiculously high figure is another matter. Perhaps all Tories really do believe we live in a broken Britain. If so, they would do well to live in the real world a little more. There is still much work for Labour to do  – but teenage pregnancy rates are just one example where it has improved matters since taking office, and will continue to do so.’