IF DEMOGRAPHY is destiny, Britain passed a significant historic milestone last week. The nation’s population passed the 60-million mark for the first time. Most of the increase over the past century has been the consequence of two wholly welcome trends, the greater longevity and improved infant mortality that medical progress has brought. But the most recent spurt in population growth has been driven by two factors that have caused greater controversy: the increases in net immigration and pregnancy among girls under 16. Discussion of either development is fraught with risk for those on the Right.

As the last election campaign demonstrated, it is not easy to conduct a calm debate on the appropriate level of immigration for a country such as Britain. And if migration is a minefield for politicians, then the sexual conduct of the nation’s youth is a pitiless no man’s land, strewn with the corpses of those who have gone over the top before in their approach to the question of teenage pregnancy.

Durng the early Nineties, Conservative Cabinet ministers sought to open a debate on the consequences for our society of increasing rates of pregnancy among young girls who were either unmarried, or even too young to marry. John Redwood, after a visit to the St Mellons estate in Cardiff, and Peter Lilley as he grappled with the increase in the social security budget, both sought to engage with the growth in births to teenage mothers. But their efforts to encourage the country to grapple with the issue were derailed by the sexual tangles that colleagues found themselves in during the Back-to- Basics fiasco and the impression created that single mothers were somehow being targeted for society’s ills. The impression that a reactionary moral crusade had been launched only to be derailed by sexual hypocrisy and compromised by ungenerous instincts was further reinforced by John Major’s own description of his colleagues, albeit in another context, as “bastards”.

But the concerns articulated by Messrs Redwood and Lilley have not gone away; indeed, they have become more widespread. The case of the Williams sisters, three Derby teenagers who gave birth to their children when 16, 14 and 12, alongside the publication of figures last week showing another increase in the number of under-16s becoming pregnant, have sparked a new debate. This time it is a Labour minister, Beverley Hughes, who has to navigate the moral maze and her suggestion, that parents exercise greater responsibility over their teenage children demonstrates how difficult it is for those who shape policy to respond both sensitively and constructively.

Many of those who do become pregnant before the age of 16 come from backgrounds of family upheaval and dislocation. The Williams sisters’ own mother is a single parent, and Hughes’s comments therefore risk repeating what was held to be the Redwood-Lilley error of stigmatising or targetting mothers attempting to bring up families on their own.

It is certainly the case that, all other factors being equal, children born to young mothers outside wedlock start life at a disadvantage, are less likely to succeed educationally and more likely to find themselves in economic and social difficulties. And ministers have a duty to try to find solutions to the problems that such children will face.

But the queasiness many of us feel when we hear single mothers becoming the focus of attention and proposals for reform reflects our understanding of an underlying moral truth about where responsibility really lies in this debate. Not with single mothers — but with absent fathers.

Whatever their circumstances, almost all mothers strive to raise their children in an atmosphere of love and they devote whatever resources they have to their family. But the vital missing element in far too many poorer households is a man prepared to abide by his responsibilities.

The failure of fathers to stay with the mothers of their children not only contributes to material poverty, it also inhibits effective socialisation. Fathers can provide a model of male responsibility, and contribute to the creation of a household where civility and consideration govern relationships, in a way that no one else can.

But, as a society, our focus on young mothers such as the Williams sisters leaves the fathers out of the picture. We do not have a crisis of teenage mothers so much as a flight from responsibility on the part of young males.

Politicians have a role to play in ensuring that men fulfil their minimum necessary obligations by ensuring that the Child Support Agency operates in a swift, efficient and tenacious manner. But we need to go further in developing social policies that encourage young fathers to see their responsibilities extending beyond the material by making a sustained emotional commitment to their children.

Our understanding of the role the father plays in British households has, of course, been effected by the economic changes of the past 25 years. With the decline of traditional industries, it has become more difficult for young men without a university education to enjoy guaranteed social status and earning power as breadwinner. But that makes paternal responsibility all the more important in securing social respect and anchoring oneself in the comunity.

The need for men to play a more prominent role in the upbringing of their children has, of course, been the principal demand of the campaign group Fathers 4 Justice. But their tactics suggest that they still fail to grasp where men are failing. By opting for juvenile stunts and self-advertisement to make their case they fail to display the stoicism, restraint and maturity that are the virtues a properly involved father can bring.

It may be a cause for concern that we live in a country where girls are giving birth to children at an ever younger age, but we should not forget where the deeper problem lies — with all those men who want to behave like children all their adult lives.

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