SIR - Who does Jenny Tonge, the Lib Dem MP, think she is fooling? (Letters, March 19). The real reason for the rise in pregnancies in the under-18s, from 38,439 in 2001 to 39,286 in 2002, is because the government's Teenage Pregnancy Unit (TPU) is pursuing the same failed recipe of the past 30 years: ever-more explicit sex education, free condoms and the provision of the morning-after pill, all vigorously promoted by Dr Tonge in and out of parliament.

The local strategy (required by the government) to reduce teenage pregnancies is entitled Tackling Teenage Pregnancy Strategy in Kingston and Richmond.

The numerous contributors who helped to formulate this strategy took their cue from the TPU - hence the rise in pregnancies in the under-18s in Richmond borough from 48 in 2001 to 61 in 2002.

Another reason for the rise is the total lack of abstinence education, ideologically opposed by the TPU, despite the fact that there is a wealth of evidence, especially from the USA, but also from other countries, particularly Uganda, that it can be very effective.

Even Dr Tonge praised Uganda last year, saying it had done a good job. Why, then, do the TPU and Dr Tonge reject its use here?

Conspicuous by their absence among the various stakeholders' invited to the Teenage Pregnancy Strategic Planning Day described on page 9 of the local strategy document, were the parents of teenagers themselves, who, one would have thought, would have the greatest stake' of all in their children's sexual health.

But their absence merely reflects the ideology of the key players in the Independent Advisory Group on Teenage Pregnancy, whose role is to advise the government and to monitor the success of the TPU's strategy.

These key people are closely linked to the Family Planning Association, its offshoot Brook and the Sex Education Forum, all of which are funded by the government and are vehemently opposed to the parental right to withdraw their children from offensive sex education classes and to parents having any control of the sex education curriculum.

Both the FPA and Brook were advisers to the Department of Health on the 1974 memorandum which removed parental responsibility for their underage children, resulting in the provision of contraceptives and referral for abortion in the under-16s without the knowledge or consent of their parents.

Part of the local strategy has been the setting up of a sexual health clinic at the council-run Heatham House Youth Centre, run by NHS staff from the Richmond and Twickenham Primary Care Trust.

In recent correspondence with the PCT's director of public health, I asked if Life's leaflet on abstinence could be available to the centre's 2,000 members, in addition to those of the FPA.

The reply I received ignored the question, and a letter dated February 2 to Cllr Hilary Smith, the cabinet member responsible, has evoked neither an acknowledgement nor a reply.

Yet, the local strategy document states on page 6: "It is a young person's right to expect that confidential help, support and up-to-date information is readily available in a way that respects religious beliefs, ethnic background, culture...".

Surely there are young people attending the centre who, by reason of their "religious beliefs", should expect to see a leaflet on abstinence in the clinic, and no doubt there are others who might be attracted to a lifestyle which guarantees freedom from unplanned pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections, some of which are incurable and can cause cervical cancer and infertility.

Why do the strategists not practise what they preach?

Kathleen Cassidy, Richmond Road, East Twickenham