There will be handwringing over the statistics that pregnancy rates have risen in the UK. There will be those who use this small rise of 2.6% to resuscitate tired arguments that sex education leads to gymslip mums. But, in fact, these new figures are a remarkable vindication of the government's strategy. It works.

Look beyond the national increase and the breakdown for local authorities shows an astonishing range from 50% increases in one local authority, to a 30% decline in others. And no, these figures do not map closely on to deprivation.

Where there has been a concerted local push to invest in services for teenagers that are accessible and appropriate, and where sexual education has been well-delivered in schools, the most unexpected areas have shown dramatic improvements. Hackney, one of London's most deprived boroughs, has seen a drop of 25% in its teen pregnancy rate; Blackburn, also with high levels of deprivation, has seen a comparable improvement. Here is compelling evidence that it is possible to bring down teen pregnancy, that well-designed services can break the link between poverty and teen pregnancy.

But the achievements of areas such as Hackney, Blackburn, Calderdale, Camden – and a 14% drop in Redcar and Cleveland – are now being cancelled out by the failure of other local authorities.

So, we now know what makes a huge difference. These figures should kill off the debate once and for all that sex education and available contraceptive services fuel promiscuity among teenagers. These services are the essentials to equip children to negotiate one of the most pervasive characteristics of our society: its sexualisation.

These figures should be used not to bash the teenage pregnancy strategy, but to chivvy all local authorities to match the Hackney or Blackburn success story.

The figures dispel another myth: namely, that young women in deprived areas opt for motherhood because the choice of education, training and employment are so inadequate. But if areas of high deprivation can bring the teen pregnancy rates down, this supposition proves to have been wrong. Give teenage women the choice, and many of them don't choose pregnancy.

Further success may well be in the pipeline. Children now in their first year in secondary school will be the first cohort to stay on in education and training to 18. That is likely to significantly help in reducing teen pregnancy because it will be easier to provide services. There has been a close correlation between the Neets, children not in education or employment training, and the teen pregnancy rate simply because these kids are so hard to reach with effective services.

There is another reason why these figures dismantle the rightwing objections to sex education. Look closely and the proportion of teenage girls choosing to abort rather than take the pregnancy to term has risen significantly. The fall of just over 24% in teen mothers is dramatic. In other words, teenage girls increasingly understand the enormous responsibility of motherhood and know they are not ready.

It makes it all the more urgent that they shouldn't have to face that awful choice and the trauma of abortion in the first place. It is simply indefensible to object to contraceptive services for teenagers at the same time as objecting to high abortion rates. It is the former that prevents the latter.

But the struggle is uphill. The importance of sex education is because, in a culture awash with the use and manipulation of sexual desire, there is very little affirmation and promotion of the responsibility that should always accompany it. Plenty of parents do a magnificent job battling against this cultural tsunami, which places such a high premium on a young girl demonstrating her desirability, but equally, many others find it a difficult task as their offspring look to a peer culture increasingly entangled with risk-taking behaviour such as binge drinking.

Risk has become cool, responsibility is equated with being square. It takes considerable resources of self-confidence in any teenager to negotiate this minefield of social pressures around status. Parents and teenagers need allies in schools and in health services to resist doggedly and ensure that a basic and essential part of education for every child is a respect and care for their own body.