A county councillor has asked for a report into a scheme that provides underage teens with contraception to be presented to today’s (Thursday’s) meeting of the council’s Safeguarding Overview and Scrutiny Committee.

Hubberston Councillor Viv Stoddart believes the Pembrokeshire C-Card scheme is potentially promoting underage intercourse. She first raised concerns over the sexual health scheme for young people, which has been in operation since 2008, two years ago.

The Youth Information and Rights Team-run initiative is a confidential service giving teenagers access to free condoms and sexual health information, either in school via school nurses, or in youth work settings.

The scheme, which is not available to youngsters aged under 14, aims to enable young people to make informed decisions regarding their own sexual health, reduce unwanted pregnancies and cut the number of sexually transmitted infections.

Since the service began, it has distributed more than 30,000 condoms.

Pembrokeshire County Council’s (PCC) Safeguarding Overview and Scrutiny Committee will receive an update about the scheme at today’s meeting.

“I continue to have concerns about the C-Card scheme, which is why I asked for the report to be prepared for scrutiny by the Safeguarding Committee,” said Cllr Stoddart.

“The scheme, which provides children as young as 14 with sexual health advice and free condoms without the knowledge or consent of their parents or carers, undermines the authority of caring parents and turns a blind eye to underage sex.

“The scheme lowers the age of consent by stealth to 14,” she added.

Cllr Stoddart is pressing for more transparency when it comes to informing parents of secondary school pupils about the details of the service.

“Parents can take their children out of sex-education lessons, but under this C-Card scheme, parents have no rights to opt out their children,” she said.

“Although the scheme requires each young person to undertake an initial consultation, no one can be certain that the young person is not in an abusive relationship,” she added.

For the financial year 2013/2014, 1864 teenagers were registered with the service.

Of that number, 59 – or 3% – were under the age of 16.