Younger teenagers in England are taking fewer drugs, drinking less alcohol, and smoking less, new figures show.

The decline in such habits was clear from the latest in a long running series of surveys of smoking, drinking, and drug use among secondary school pupils aged 11 to 15 in England.

The report, published on 26 July by the NHS Information Centre for Health and Social Care, contained results from a survey of 6519 pupils from 219 schools carried out between September and December 2011.1

The proportion of secondary school pupils in this age group who had ever taken drugs fell by 12 percentage points in the past 10 years, from 29% in 2001 to 17% …