Please, tell me it’s not true that Oxford has had an annual budget of £160,000 to “tackle teenage pregnancy” and... “help break the cycle of deprivation” (Wednesday’s Oxford Mail).

Surely, if these poor unfortunates want to stop their slippery slide into the “cycle of depravation” it doesn’t cost £160,000 – or even the new, revamped cut-back figure of £135,000 does it? All it takes is for mummies and daddies to tell them a few home truths of what will befall them in their pending folly; teachers to tell them about the pure mathematics of their pending folly; and the girls themselves to sit up, take note and say NO. Because, councillor John Goddard, this isn’t a problem that money can solve – not even £160,000.

There was a further bit of advice I was going to give, but being a family newspaper and all that, suffice to say, that: if you pay young teenage girls to have children, guess what they’ll have?

Peter Laidler, Anson Close, Abingdon