§ Mr. CorbettTo ask the Prime Minister what topics the Social Exclusion Unit will focus on in its next phase. [55137]
§ The Prime MinisterIn its next phase, the Unit will follow up its reports on Truancy and School Exclusion, and Rough Sleeping, and conduct further work arising from its "worst estates" project: the framework for this will be set out in the Unit's first report on the subject, which will be published in September.
In addition, I have asked the Unit to take on two new topics:
teenage parents. The Unit should work with other departments, building particularly on the work already undertaken by the Department of Health to develop an integrated strategy to cut rates of teenage parenthood, particularly under-age parenthood, towards the European average, and propose better solutions to combat the risk of social exclusion for vulnerable teenage parents and their children. This work should report to Ministers by December.16 to 18 year olds. The Unit should work with other departments to assess how many 16 to 18 year olds are not in education, work or training, analyse the reasons why, and produce proposals to reduce the numbers significantly. This work should report to Ministers by Easter.