The very high numbers of teenage pregnancies and lone parent families in Britain have everything to do with the framework created by this government and its predecessors. Britain has not always been a world capital of teenage pregnancy and lone parenting. The rate of lone parenting in Britain was tiny after the second world war and it was only after welfare benefits were increased persistently - particularly for lone parents - that the rate increased. This, in turn, made it more acceptable for teenage girls to let themselves get pregnant without worrying too much if they were married first.

The contrasts between Europe countries are dramatic and revealing. Four countries offer little or no welfare benefits to lone mothers. Those same four countries - Italy, France, Greece and Portugal - are the same ones which have only a tiny percentage of lone mothers. It is true that three of these countries are Catholic. But that is not the deciding factor. Ireland is Catholic yet still has one of the highest rates of lone parenting in Europe. The difference is that Ireland offers relatively substantial welfare benefits to lone parents. Britain and Ireland were found to be the two with the highest benefits for lone parents in a survey of 14 European countries. They were also the countries with the highest proportions of lone mothers.

On this evidence, it seems that welfare benefits have a major impact on the rate of lone parenting. So governments cannot just wash their hands of it. They can and should act.

It is simply not true that there is nothing they can do about it. In 1996, Bill Clinton, in combination with the Republican majority in Congress, made major welfare benefit reforms designed to make benefits-assisted parenting a 'waystation' instead of a 'way of life'. The American government decided not to pay benefits to people for more than five years of their lives. All those on benefits, including women with young children, were required - yes, 'required', not 'encouraged' as in Britain - to seek work.

As a result, fewer young women with children in America are now defined as being 'in poverty'. More of them are working and the upward trend in lone parenting has, for the first time in decades, been arrested and is now beginning to turn down. Teenage parenting has been reduced. Meanwhile in Britain where the rate of births outside marriage was higher in the first place, it is still rising. In reality, the British government knows about this. It knows that governments can make a difference. But what it lack is the guts and the moral determination to do something similar to the USA.

The American government has since gone further and supported the teaching of sexual abstinence in schools. This has helped cause a drop in the pregnancy rate among 10 to 14 year-olds to the lowest rate for 60 years. Here in Britain, in contrast, 'sex education' tends to mean teaching children how to have sex and, implicitly, that it is a perfectly sensible thing for unmarried children to do.

Does all this matter? It is true that it is possible for lone parents and even a teenage lone parents to bring up children well. But it is far more difficult. All the evidence is that lone parenting results, on average, in children who are disadvantaged emotionally and educationally. They are more likely to be poor, more likely to be unemployed and more likely to become delinquents. If Mr Blair really wants a culture of respect, he will have to do something to discourage lone parenting - and thus the rate of teenage pregnancy. He will have to do something very different from the usual. Talking tough and blaming other people won't cut it.

(This research, by Assistant Professor Libertad Gonzalez in Barcelona, is the basis for the assertions made here about benefit levels for lone parent families and the incidence of such families. Please note that when she refers to single parent families she is referring to what, in Britain, we would call 'lone' parent families. The distinction, which I hope I am right in drawing, is that a single parent in British usage is someone who has never been married. A lone parent, which is what Ms Gonzalez is referring to, is a parent who may or may not have been married before but who is now living without a man present. There are all sorts of statistics flying about on the subject of teenage pregnancy, lone parenting, single parenting and so on. The definitions used can make a big difference. I also understand, having spoken to Ms Gonzalez, that her figures for benefits received do not include the value of subsidised housing such as council housing. In Britain, of course, that is one of the biggest parts of the benefits received by many lone parents.)