I shall touch briefly on contact later, but my hon. Friend's remarks underline the need to bring the Ministry of Justice and other Departments to the party and ensure that we are not working in silos. All the parts have to work together, and as I know how difficult that can be at the local level, I can only imagine how difficult that might be in Whitehall, if the Minister were to set herself that task. There would be some tremendous dividends if we were to go along the lines that he suggests.

I wish to finish my remarks about the one-stop shop by saying that that could be a way in which young fathers could develop the self-esteem to build relationships and to have a meaningful dialogue with their child's hostile grandparents.

There is another wrinkle in the benefits system for many fathers. They claim that maintenance payments are too high, and that failure to keep up with them leads to the breakdown of relationships with their children. Obviously, that problem is more acute for young fathers with a very low earning capacity. Full-time work may not be an option, especially if they are still in education. Through peer mentoring by other, successful young fathers, and through having vocational training, young fathers could be prepared for the world of work and for their parental responsibilities in a much better way.

The Care to Learn scheme, which pays up to £160 per child per week for teens' child care and travel, is welcome. That and similar programmes could also give young fathers on benefits the chance to learn a skill and the chance to move forward and get a steady income coming into their house. Let us suppose that by taking part in such programmes young fathers secured a weekly addition of £5 or £10 to the mother's benefit, without affecting her other entitlements. What a change that might be able to bring about: it would give young fathers not only skill and experience, but self-worth and the chance to demonstrate their sense of responsibility to their child.

Alternatively, a community programme pilot could provide waged positions with training and support and an automatic contribution to the mother as a maintenance payment. I hope very much that the CMEC will be allowed to let its imagination run into policy areas and to provide some of these new ideas that will begin to unite some of the families that we are talking about, and that that will allow those young children to have a mother and father in the same household. What more does the Minister feel can be done to incentivise young fathers to combine education with part-time work and maintaining the fullest possible involvement with their children?

My hon. Friend Mr. Drew touched on the difficult and sensitive topic of maintenance and contact between parents and children. The former is administered by CMEC, the latter by the courts. In the light of his remarks, will the Minister consider working across departmental boundaries and try—again, in a couple of areas—to bring maintenance, contact and all other child-related issues together under the same roof, as happens in Australia's family centres? That might be one way of making progress in this country. Let us try it in a couple of areas that want to initiate it and see whether it works with organisations that are attempting to find some answers to these problems.

I now wish to deal with the myths. I hope that the Minister will take on the role—here is another burden for her—of myth-buster general in this area. She knows very well that although we can change things centrally, word of mouth locally can take a long while to catch up, and myths still persist. For example, let us consider the prevalent myth that benefits and offers of housing give incentives for young women to become lone parents. A study by the Minister's Department this year concluded that there was no consistent evidence for that, but when I talk to single mums on the estates in my Constituency—I am sure that other Members do the same in their constituencies—I find that the perception is very different. If we could have provision in supported housing with fewer limitations than at present—there is no space for couples with children—it would send a clear message to fathers in those areas with a concentration of teen pregnancies that they would be welcome. It could break down the matriarchal culture on some of our estates, where there is no adult male in the household, just grandmother, mother and young child. Housing is the responsibility of the Department for Communities and Local Government, which needs to be brought in on this matter because Whitehall needs to mesh on these issues.

I have also suggested to the Minister the need for a simple myth-busting series of posters to be spread throughout our poorer communities to underline the recent positive changes in the benefit regime and to kill off some of the more pernicious myths that stop people making progress.

Tackling teenage pregnancies and absentee fathers requires not only helping young parents to provide effective parenting, but also nurturing and supporting young people before pregnancy occurs, and encouraging them to make good life choices. Nottingham's early Intervention package therefore begins with the babies who will be tomorrow's parents. We use the family-nurse partnership not only to give intensive help to new teen mothers through health visitors, but to instil the essential capabilities in infants that will enable them to become better parents later in life.

Nottingham's Sure Start and children's centres then pick up the baton and they aim to make children strong and resilient, through activities that encourage them to make their own decisions. That prepares them for making the really tough decisions later on—including those about sex and parenthood.

We then teach all primary school boys, as well as girls, the SEAL—or social and emotional aspects of learning—programme. This gives every child the intellectual equipment to develop effectively, which sadly all too many do not get at home because of the lack of parenting skills in their domestic situation. To complete the circle, in September we are taking this process to the next stage by starting to teach 11 to 16-year-olds life skills in every secondary school in Nottingham that volunteers for the programme—anticipating the Government's initiative to make personal, health and social education, or PHSE, compulsory in two years' time. This will enable boys as well as girls to understand how to parent, to sustain relationships and to build and maintain families. We are happy to teach young people mathematics, English and a foreign language, but somehow we resile from teaching them how to be decent people and good parents to the next generation of young people to the highest possible standards.