'10% of under-16s regularly smoke'
Updated on 29 March 2007
Nearly 10% of secondary school pupils regularly smoked last year, research has found.
The number of children aged 11 to 15 who smoked at least one cigarette a week has remained unchanged since 2003.
And girls are more likely than boys to be smokers, the research claimed.
Government targets aim to reduce smoking among this age group to 9% or less by 2010.
The report revealed that 21% drank alcohol in the previous week, which maintains the decline in teenage drinking recorded in recent years.
However, unlike smoking, more boys than girls admitted to drinking regularly. Boys drank 12.3 units in the past week, compared with 10.5 units for girls.
There was a decline in the number who said they had taken drugs in the last year, down 2% to 17% from 19% in 2005. Another 9% admitted they had taken drugs in the last month - also lower than the proportion that had done so in 2005 (11%).
Just 4% said they took drugs once a month or more last year, a decrease from 6% the previous year.
The figures were contained in a report of an annual survey of around 8,200 secondary school pupils in 290 schools, aged 11 to 15, which was published by the Information Centre for Health and Social Care.
Public Health Minister Caroline Flint described the figures as encouraging, but acknowledged more needed to be done to help children stay away from smoking, drink and drugs.
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