Passport adverts attacked as 'pornography' and 'encouraging casual sex'

The four advertisements are aimed at 16-to-24-year-olds to highlight the fact that firsttime passport applications will now take longer following the Government's controversial decision to introduce compulsory interviews.

But the sleazy images appear to encourage sex acts with strangers - at a time when another ministry, the Department of Health, is spending millions of pounds trying to reduce Britain's high rate of unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections.

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One picture shows a man in sunglasses frolicking in the sea with two girls and saying: 'Shame u didn't get UR passport m8 ... Been learnin breaststroke wiv the ladeeeeez!!! Oiii Oiiii!!!!'

Another, featuring two women sunbathing topless on a beach, reads 'Gutted U didn't get UR passport geezza!!!! Anyway check out the view frm the bar.'

The other two contain graphic images and suggestions far too graphic for a family newspaper.

All the photos, which carry the slogan Don't Get Left Behind, are made to look as if they have been taken with a mobile phone.

The adverts are appearing in magazines such as Nuts, Zoo, Glamour, Heat and Sugar and in clubs, bars and discotheques and are aimed at young people who are intending to visit resorts such as Ibiza, Faliraki, Magaluf and Lanzarote.

But Tory MP Julian Brazier said: "They are nasty and a waste of money. It is amazing that the Home Office can find money for pornography while cutting back on budgets for worthwhile schemes such as prisoner rehabilitation and education."

And Michaela Aston, of the charity Life, said: "Given the latest surge in abortion rates and the epidemic of sexually transmitted diseases in the UK, it is irresponsible of the Home Office to produce adverts aimed at young people which blatantly give the message that holidays are only about sex.

"These adverts will encourage even more risky sexual behaviour. They also seem at odds with the Government's strategy to reduce teenage pregnancies."

Under the new rules, about 600,000 people a year will be required to travel up to 20 miles for an official interview before they can get their first set of travel documents, which could take up to six weeks to arrive.

The new applicants - half of whom will be teenagers - will be asked to prove their identity by responding to a stock of 200 possible questions about their family and financial history.

The scheme has already started in some areas and will be rolled out across the country by the end of the year.

The provocative adverts were devised by advertising agency Rainey Kelly as part of a £ 1.5million campaign for the Home Office's Identity & Passport Service, after research showed many youngsters planning a first trip abroad are unaware of the new rules.

According to the research, the idea of being left behind while friends fly off for a week of shopping, clubbing and sunbathing is many teenagers' worst holiday nightmare.

The Advertising Standards Authority has received four complaints, including one which accuses the Home Office of encouraging holidaymakers to take mobile phone photographs of sunbathers without their consent and show the pictures to friends.

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Sexually transmitted diseases have been steadily increasing in Britain for decades, with about 700,000 new diagnoses a year. Cases of chlamydia, the most common sexual infection, have risen by more than 200 per cent since 1995, with the highest rates among girls aged 16 to 19.

A Home Office spokesman said: "The campaign may be a bit racier than normal Government advertising but we've taken expert advice on how to get the message across to the 16 to 24 age group."