FREE childcare should be available to all teenage mothers and fathers returning to education, training or work, Government advisers said last week.

Parents aged 16 to 18 should be encouraged to return to education by a childcare subsidy like that provided through the Working Families Tax Credit, they propose.

The independent advisory group on teenage pregnancy, set up last year to monitor the Government’s teenage pregnancy strategy, also said ministers should report on how many places were available for teenage parents in pupil-referral units. They should also check whether school-age mothers were returning to finish full-time education and take action if they weren’t.

But most of the group’s recommendations are to to do with preventing pregnancy in the first place. The strategy’s aim is to halve Britain’s pregnancy rates among the under-18s - the highest in western Europe - by 2010.

The report urges the inclusion of sex and relationships education in the statutory curriculum and wants teacher-training to focus on sex education strategies that work with boys and young men.

It says confidential health services, including free contraception and the morning-after pill, should be available to pupils in secondary schools. And it wants the Government to ensure that all pregnant young women have early access to an NHS-funded abortion if that is what they want - and to find out how many GPs are refusing abortion or contraceptive treatment to girls under 16 who are eligible for it.

Copies of the report available on www.teenagepregnancyunit.gov.uk