As is customary, I congratulate my hon. Friend Mr. Allen on securing the debate. I also thank him for his kind words and know that he speaks with considerable expertise—as he has mentioned, he chairs the board of the teenage pregnancy taskforce in his Constituency. Moreover, I know that he shares my strong personal interest in getting the policy right. He has made a clear contribution locally in Nottingham, and as he has mentioned, he recently met senior officials from CMEC, as well as officials from the Department for Work and Pensions. We very much welcome that engagement, so I thank him for it.

As I am sure that my hon. Friend is aware, he raised several issues that cross a number of Departments and challenged us to be joined up in our response. He has mentioned policy areas that are the direct responsibility of the Department for Children, Schools and Families, the Department for Communities and Local Government, the Ministry of Justice, and my humble Department, the Department for Work and Pensions. I will attempt to give him a cross-departmental response, because he is absolutely right that we need to solve the issues by working together.

I want to start with my hon. Friend's key insight: of course, all children have two parents, and over time, the widespread use of the phrase "single parent" or "lone parent" in the media has drawn attention away from the fact that there are almost always two parents around, as well as the child or children involved. My hon. Friend rightly reminds us that our policies need to encompass everyone in separated families. Often, parents, whatever their age, who do not live with their children have a genuine desire to be more involved. Our role in government is to remove any barriers to that across the gamut of Government policy.

I welcome my hon. Friend's distinction between the separate issues of how we best support young people after they become parents, and how we best intervene so that they can come to a mature decision about when is the best time to have children—that is, before they become parents. There is also a fundamental challenge across both issues: how do we help teenage girls and boys to break out of the pattern of behaviours that they see all around them—the very behaviours that have often led to child poverty being handed down from generation to generation? How do we break that cycle? How do we change the presumptions that society sometimes unfortunately makes?

I will address all the points that my hon. Friend made, starting with the issues that he raised about supporting fathers, particularly young fathers, into work, so that they can perhaps contribute from a more confident standpoint, and are, of course, more financially able to contribute. The cornerstone of our whole approach to welfare policy is a benefit and tax system that provides support for those who cannot work at the present time, but that provides every incentive for them to enter the world of work at the earliest possible opportunity. That might be full-time work, part-time work or preparing for work through training or education. In this debate, we have focused on young parents, but of course we want everybody in society to realise their potential.

The particular point about young parents is that if people's ambitions become thwarted or dented, or are never realised, due to lack of confidence at a young age, it is much harder to recover a sense of drive. There is always a second or indeed a third chance, particularly under this Government, but it is important to try to get it right first time round. That has been a consistent theme of the Government, and the Welfare Reform Bill, which is being debated in the other place, builds on the foundations that we have put in place over the past decade.

The issue is particularly important in the current economic climate. I know from my experience as a constituency MP how heartbreaking it is when a young person enters the job market for the first time and cannot find what they want because of the macro-economic situation, which is beyond their control, and then does not have the confidence to come back to it later. They may perhaps take a different path in life, often involving setting up home and having children. If the Government, through their welfare-to-work policy, are not able to give that person the chance that they need when they want it, all too often the opportunity does not arise again.

All Jobcentre Plus advisers are trained to help people find out what they are entitled to—to find their way through the benefits maze—and can guide people through filling in a claim form. If the young person is 16 or 17, someone will call them back within four hours to discuss the situation. If they are 18 or over, an adviser will contact them within 24 hours, once they have made their initial claim. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions has made it quite clear that by the turn of the year young people between 18 and 24 who are verging on becoming long-term unemployed as a result of the recession will be guaranteed jobs or training precisely to try to avoid a whole generation of young people being abandoned on the scrapheap, as happened in previous recessions under previous Governments.

My hon. Friend raised the issue of the "couple penalty", as it is called in the jargon. Perhaps there is a perception that by separating, families can get more from the system. We are ever vigilant to make sure that that is not a real economic effect, and I have no evidence to assume that it is more or less relevant to younger parents. However, if my hon. Friend does have such evidence, we would like to keep it under close review. We want to allocate resources according to need, and not to create perverse incentives.

My hon. Friend rightly raised the issue of complexity. The situation does remain complex, and the December 2008 white paper on welfare reform argued that a system of benefits fit for the 21st century should be simple to understand, well targeted and empowering, and that is our motivation through the successive stages of welfare reform, which must provide clarity and certainty for people making the transition between benefits and work. The White Paper committed the Government to exploring whether, over the long term, a single benefit is the right approach to make things simpler. The desire to reduce complexity lies behind, for example, the review of housing benefit that I am leading and on which I hope to report soon. Regardless of people's age, complexity is something that we must do our best to reduce.

My hon. Friend proposed a one-stop shop for young fathers. It is an interesting idea, but personally, I am not convinced at the moment. I think that it would be better if, in mainstream services, the entire government system can deal with young people's demands. I would be interested to hear of examples in which that is not the case, so that we can make sure that we correct them. However, I will bear his suggestion in mind.

The Government recognise that families are more diverse than ever before, and the issue of teen families proves that very point. The role of mothers and fathers in modern families is changing, and public services and the workplace must reflect those changes not only in benefits policy but across all public services. My hon. Friend is quite right that the outcomes for children are better when their fathers are involved. Moving on to the territory of my hon. Friends in the Department for Children, Schools and Families, it is worth saying that guidance on supporting teenage pregnancies was published by the DCSF and the Department of Health in July 2007, setting out what local areas should have in place to improve outcomes for teenage parents, both mothers and fathers, and their children.

Fathers' ability to become involved is, I agree with my hon. Friend, sometimes hindered by service providers who do not appreciate the role that they could, or do, play, particularly if they are not visible to the service provider, who consequently does not take their needs into account. If someone does not ask the question, "Are you a father?" when a young person comes into their sphere of influence, they might not realise the full extent of support that is required. We recommend that local services should take a much more proactive approach to identifying young fathers through the common assessment framework and targeted youth support arrangements. For example, young men who are not in education, employment or training should routinely be asked, as I have suggested, if they are a parent, so that we can build up a better picture of them and provide the support that they need as fathers. That includes the desire that we hope they will have to support their children and earn a wage sufficient to do so, regardless of whether they live with them.

The "Think Fathers" campaign was launched at the end of 2008 to effect a change in attitudes and behaviour and to help deliver more father-friendly practice across the board, following the publication of research that showed that engagement and support for fathers from the DCSF and children's services was patchy. We agree that a more focused approach to the issue is needed, and we are in the process of trying to achieve that.

My hon. Friend will be aware that the Welfare Reform Bill contains significant change on joint birth registration. The answer to his question whether an unmarried father's name can appear on the birth certificate without his knowledge is no. That is crucial to the way the system works. A mother would, by law, have to name the father if she knew who it was, or she would be committing perjury. The father would then be contacted and asked to confirm that. The father's name would then appear on the birth certificate. Yes, the birth certificate is only a piece of paper, but it is a legal piece of paper and it has huge ceremonial and cultural significance. We are clear that at the crucial moment when a father comes to terms with fatherhood and perhaps deep down wants to get involved, it is a little nudge in the right direction, rather than a barrier preventing him from doing so.

One aim of the joint birth registration provision is that an unmarried father who registers his child's birth will acquire parental responsibility, whereas under the current system, if parents are not married to each other, a mother can prevent the father from registering, and he would need to apply for a court order. Also under the current system, an unmarried father may refuse to register, even if the mother wants him to do so. It would be illegal for him to refuse under the new system. I hope that that will be welcome.