The steady rise in the number of teenage pregnancies in recent decades has been deeply depressing. Girls who become mothers so early in their lives often find it very difficult to overcome that early setback to their hopes and dreams, even with the support that many of them get from their own families. Potential goes unfulfilled.

Although many teenage mothers succeed in bringing up their children without having them go off the rails, others find the responsibility of raising them alone too much for them to cope with. Society as a whole pays a high price for the resulting social problems.

A great deal of effort has been put into getting young people to realise that becoming pregnant while still a teenager is not only undesirable but is also avoidable. Yet for long enough the sex education programmes seemed to be having little impact.

At last, though, there is good news to report in Bradford, where teenage motherhood has been a particular problem. Since 1990 the number of girls under 18 becoming pregnant has fallen by 16.4 per cent. It has not yet declined to the national average but it is well on its way to that figure.

Much of the credit for that decrease apparently must go to the Teenage Pregnancy and Sexual Health Strategy which was launched in 2001. By pulling together all the agencies involved it seems somehow to have succeeded at last in getting the message across to a growing number of girls.

It has made great strides in two years. Let's hope that it can continue to build on that success.