Pretty well all 'developed' countries have seen a major increase in women on their own having children.

In everywhere (pretty well) apart from Britain and the United States the mothers doing this are in their 20s and 30s and reasonably well off, well housed and so on.

In Britain and the USA they are commonly teenagers without education, training, work, income or housing.

The last government had a programme to reduce this, had set targets and so on. As was their style. In brief, it was an abject failure, though of course its unknowable whether the figures would have been even worse without it.

Is it unfair to say that the reaction of the Conservatives has mainly been one of moral condemnation? As if the disapproval of politicians whose existence they don't know of is going the change the conduct of the girls in, for example, Greatfield School in Hull.

The emphasis is nearly all on the girls. Their future, and the future of their children, is often one of continuing disadvantage. Though it must be said that not all of them are 'sad cases'. There are serious, committed mothers among them. But in general, young women with better prospects in other respects - principally work and housing - postpone having children until a more conventional age.

But the family backgrounds of teenage mothers is increasingly being researched. They come in a large disproportion from families where there was no father present. Such girls even have their first period earlier, although it is not clear what the mechanism is, nor is their any research (that I know of) about whether girls who have their first period early are also sexually active earlier or get pregnant earlier.

There is now a paper reported in the serious press on 10 November by B Nettle in the Proceedings of the Royal Society. It attempts to put figures on some of the previously reported trends. Not having an involved father caused an average 9 month reduction in the timing of the first pregnancy. Not a dramatic difference - but a significant one when children are involved. But it was the biggest single factor identified.

There also needs to be more attention paid to the boys involved, and what could be done to make them 'more responsible'. Its a fair bet that they also come disprortionately from homes from which their father had been excluded, though it there is any research I do not know of it. But there was one study some years ago into teenage fathers in a rough area of Newcastle. The message of it was that many of them wanted to take fatherhood seriously,but that all the authorities dissed their potential contribution.