Store sells pregnancy test for pocket money

A discount shop is selling pregnancy test kits for 99p in Crawley, the town with the highest teenage pregnancy rate in West Sussex.

Local parents expressed concern at the news.

One mother, Michelle Mitchell, said: “I do not appreciate it at all that pregnancy kits can be bought for pocket-money prices.

“I would not appreciate my daughter going in the pound shop without me knowing to find out if she is pregnant.”

The manager of the shop, Sajjad Hosen, has said the kits are “very popular”.

Mr Hosen added: “I don’t think selling these encourages young girls to have sex.

“Young people will have sex anyway. You can’t stop them doing it. If the kits are cheaper and they work, then it’s better.”

Pregnancy tests can cost between £4 and £12, and Mr Hosen commented: “So 99p in comparison is nothing really.”

Britain has the highest teenage pregnancy rate in Western Europe. Every day 21 girls under 16 become pregnant.

The Government’s approach to reducing teenage pregnancies with increased access to sex education and contraception has been widely dubbed a failure.

In July it emerged that a Government-backed project designed to curb the number of teenage pregnancies actually saw numbers more than double.

The Government’s £250 million Teenage Pregnancy Strategy came under criticism in 2008 when official figures revealed that 41.9 girls per 1,000 aged 15 to 17 became pregnant in 2007, compared with 40.9 in 2006.