A potted parliamentary history of the signposting of couples

A potted parliamentary history of the signposting of couples from
register offices - or 'gesture politics' at its worst:

1. Paul Boateng, then Labour Shadow Minister in the Commons for the
Lord Chancellor's Department, begins the argument for the signposting of
couples by Registrars towards marriage preparation on 24th April 1996
during a debate on the Family Law Bill: "At the moment, there is no
preparation at all for civil marriage, and there is absolutely nothing
on the face of the Bill to give any hope whatsoever that that will occur
or is envisaged... The Government also have to come forward with
proposals in relation to preparation for marriage and with proposals
that recognise the need for concerted and focused action to support the
institution of marriage and the family." [Hansard]. The Conservatives
funk it.

2. The Labour Government makes proposals in its "Supporting Families"
consultation for changes in practice at Register Offices to provide more
information and support to couples preparing for marriage.

3. "The Hart Report" recommends more government support for
preventative couple education programmes; reiterates proposals in
"Supporting Families" [The Lord Chancellor agrees with Sir Graham Hart's
conclusion that public funding of marriage support agencies is highly
appropriate and worth-while. The Lord Chancellor has considered Sir
Graham's recommendations in detail, and accepts them. Hansard]

4. "Moving Forward Together", a Proposed Strategy for Marriage and
Relationship Support from the Lord Chancellor's Department reiterates
proposals in "The Hart Report".

5. "Civil Registration - Vital Change" reiterates "The registration
service is ideally placed to act as a focal point for information on
services .... for example on ...... marriage preparation".

6. "Civil Registration: Delivering Vital Change" consultation
reiterates earlier proposals and includes "Give responsibility for the
delivery of face-to-face services to local authorities".

7. In the House of Commons debate the Labour Treasury Minister, Ruth
Kelly, says: "In our White Paper, [Delivering Vital Change] the
Government explained that the registration service is ideally placed to
act as a focal point for information about services associated with
births, deaths and marriages, such as ........ marriage preparation
...... I believe that there is a genuine opportunity for local
authorities to develop those services innovatively to meet the needs of
their communities, now and in future. A wider role for the registration
service will improve on the current piecemeal approach by local
authorities and will be underpinned by the proposed national standards."
[Hansard]. But Labour funk it too.

8. At the Conservative Party Conference [30th September 2008] Maria
Miller, Shadow Minister for the Family, announces "Most young couples
now get married in a civil ceremony. Unlike a church wedding, there is
no tradition of pre-marriage preparation for couples marrying at a
registry office. We want that to change. We want local registrars to
start signposting couples to pre-marital education as a matter of
routine. The Local Government Association who co-ordinate the role of
wedding registrars agree and I am pleased to say that they [are] putting
forward this policy so that every young couple getting married will be
made aware of the benefits they would get from relationship support at
this critical point in their life."

9. The Local Government Association publishes posters for register
offices signposting couples to a website the front page of which does
not even mention marriage, let alone preparation for it.

10. The Centre For Social Justice publishes "Every Family Matters"
[July 2009] - ignoring the policy announcement of Maria Miller in
September 2008 - and proposes, "Before being married in England and
Wales a couple should be strongly encouraged by Government to attend a
pre-marriage information course. A note should be made by the registrar
of marriages of those who attend in order to measure effectiveness and
usage." However, the Centre promotes legally enforceable pre-nuptial
agreements which are preparations for divorce. The £4bn a year 'Family
Law' lobby has clearly twisted the arm of the Centre For Social Justice.

11. At the Conservative Party Conference in October 2009 Maria Miller
reiterates her announcement made at the conference in September 2008 but
without elaboration.

12. Speaking to The Sunday Times [27th December 2009] ahead of the
launch of a Labour green paper, Ed Balls announces that his department
is changing the direction and face of [family] policy. "In the past I
think our family policy was all about children. I think our family
policy now is actually about the strength of the adult relationships and
that is important for the progress of the children," he said. .....
While Labour will stop short of saying marriage is 'superior' to other
committed relationships, the new policy will highlight how much better
children fare if their parents stay together.

13. It's just more 'gesture politics', devoid of action.

Clever Nick Clegg speaking at the 3rd Relate Annual Conference 8th July 2009

Clever Nick Clegg speaking at the 3rd Relate Annual Conference 8th July 2009 , said:

“The fact that some relationships will fail doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do all we can to make other relationships succeed.”

He trumpeted, “David Cameron’s social policy is focused almost obsessively on marriage, cajoling people to conform to a single view of what a happy couple should look like...... it’s relationships that matter, not signatures on a piece of paper.” He went on:

“But the Labour party is wrong, too, when it ignores interpersonal relationships. When it pretends that family circumstances don’t make a difference to children’s lives. All the evidence shows that it’s better for children to have two parents who get on well together looking after them.”

So he reads some research, when it suits him.

Like other Liberal Democrats he, “attaches real value to relationships, to commitment and to love, but does not seek to limit or prescribe what makes for a strong relationship.”

Hang on a minute! I thought he just said it is wrong to pretend “that family circumstances don’t make a difference to children’s lives.”

Family circumstances – including marital status – do make a difference to children's lives. Harry Benson of Bristol Community Family Trust has updated his earlier research with, “Back off or Fire back? Negative relationship behaviours amongst postnatal married and cohabiting couples”:

“Analysis of marital outcomes amongst 15,000 mothers from the Millennium Cohort Study (Benson, 2006) showed that 6% of married parents had split up by their child’s third birthday compared with 20% of cohabiting parents and 32% of all unmarried couple parents (combining parents who describe themselves as either “cohabiting” or “closely involved”).

Benson’s analysis also found that marital status was the single most important factor in predicting break-up. Demographic factors such as age, income, education, ethnic group and receipt of welfare payments each independently influence the risk of family breakdown amongst new parents. Yet after controlling for these factors, unmarried parents were still more than twice as likely to split up compared to similar married couples.

Analysis of the most recent wave of Millennium Cohort Study data for this paper showed that the risk of breakdown by a child’s fifth birthday had risen to 9% for married parents, 26% for cohabiting parents and 35% for all unmarried couples. The risk of family breakdown amongst unmarried couples with children under five years old is thus four times higher than for equivalent married couples.”

So if clever Nick Clegg is right to complain the Labour party's “wish not to stigmatise single parents has led them to minimise the importance of couples in family life” he is wrong by the same token to ignore the evidence of the significance of marriage in providing more stability in the family life of couples – four times as much for couples with children under five.

A lesson from Australia – are the Conservatives about to be hoodwinked by the Local Government Association over marriage preparation?

The Honourable Kevin Andrews was elected to the Australian Parliament in 1991. He chaired the House of Representatives Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee (1996–2001), which published 'To Have and to Hold' in 1998. He also served as the Australian Minister for Ageing (2001–2003); Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations (2003–2007); and Minister for Immigration (2007). He is currently Deputy Chairman of the House Economics Committee and Chairman of the Coalition Policy Review. He is married to Margaret, and they have five children. He delivered an address at the International Conference on a Conservative Vision for a Free and Just Society, sponsored by The Heritage Foundation and held in Washington, D.C., on November 19–20, 2008. It was published on the web on 23rd April 2009.

• Kevin Andrews concluded “.... there is one lesson that clearly emerges from the events of over a decade. It is that marriage breakdown and child support are the tail that wags the body of family policy. As a consequence, government support for marriage education has been caught in the crossfire of debate about the causes, meaning, and consequences of family breakdown over the past four decades. Numerous inquiries have been conducted, and hundreds of millions of dollars are now expended on the consequences of marriage breakdown. Despite the fact that marriage breakdown costs the nation billions of dollars each year and leaves both men and women substantially worse off, little is spent by way of comparison on prevention. Yet the research indicates that programs of prevention, education, and skills development can enhance the prospects of successful marriage.”

Politicians around the world – with notable exceptions, like Kevin Andrews – are inclined to discount the evidence that supports the efficacy of preventative education. They prefer to spend billions on the consequences of relationship breakdown rather than small sums on prevention.

In the UK, the Local Government Association represents local councils with large workforces. These include many people who work in social services, schools and colleges and are dealing with the consequences of relationship breakdown. In addition to these, police and health workers respond to the consequences of domestic violence and truancy and the other results of disaffection including drug and alcohol addiction. There are vast armies of people whose jobs now depend on - or whose significance is substantially enhanced by - the consequences of relationship breakdown.

Search the web sites of the Local Government Association and its subsidiary LACORS and you will be very pushed to find a reference to any work being done or contemplated to prevent relationship breakdown.

It was surprising, therefore, when a new policy was announced by Maria Miller MP, Shadow Minister for the Family, at the Conservative Conference on 30th September 2008:

• "Most young couples now get married in a civil ceremony. Unlike a church wedding, there is no tradition of pre-marriage preparation for couples marrying at a registry office. We want that to change. We want local registrars to start signposting couples to pre-marital education as a matter of routine. The Local Government Association who co-ordinate the role of wedding registrars, agree and I am pleased to say that they (are) putting forward this policy so that every young couple getting married will be made aware of the benefits they would get from relationship support at this critical point in their life. In the US, couples who have this type of pre-marriage education are a third less likely to divorce. We want this type of support for couples to be routine in Britain too."

More predictably, a spokesman for the LGA said recently:

• “I believe Maria Miller MP misunderstood the LGA’s position on this. We are broadly supportive of the notion that as a society, we should do more to support committed relationships, including marital ones but not only those, and that this would in particular benefit children where couples are parents. LACORS …. is the part of the LGA that deals with regulatory services and provides information for registrars. Colleagues in LACORS are putting together some guidance for registrars to help them provide information to couples on pre-marriage advice services available in their area. This information is, I understood, due to go out in May this year [2009].”

To return to the experience of Kevin Andrews; he continues in his address:

• “In 1980, my wife Margaret and I, along with a small group of like-minded couples, established the Marriage Education Programme in Melbourne. In almost 30 years, we have provided marriage education courses to some 20,000 people. The work is undertaken on a voluntary basis, apart from the employment of an administrative assistant. We receive a small grant from the federal government. Otherwise the work is self-funding. It is an example of a group of people recognizing a need and responding to it. It is an example of how government can support the voluntary sector.
• Following the election of the Howard government in 1996, I established an inquiry into strategies to strengthen marriage and relationships in Australia. The resulting report, 'To Have and to Hold', noted the significant costs of marriage breakdown for individuals and society and recommended increased funding for programs of education, skills training, and prevention. The publication of the report was seminal in the discussion of marriage education policy. It was the first time that a legislature had undertaken a thorough review of the field, and it became a stimulus for other policy discussions.
• The report led to increased government funding for marriage education and related services, but suggestions for a more equitable basis for the funding were ignored. A pilot scheme of education vouchers was introduced and, although successful, was never implemented universally. More recently, the Howard government established 65 Family Relationship Centres around the country to act as a gateway to family support services. Their introduction had its origins in the ongoing dispute about child support.
• Soon after the introduction of a child support scheme in the late 1980s, there was an ongoing campaign against what was seen as an inequitable system, especially towards non-custodial parents, invariably fathers. Soon after my election to Parliament, I was appointed to an inquiry into the scheme. The crossparty committee agreed that there were inequities that should be remedied. Yet within an hour of the release of the report, the then Minister categorically ruled out any substantial change. Apart from the substantive issues involved, the curt response was unproductive.
• It was part of the reason, I believe, why child support remained a political issue for so long.The issues had not been resolved when the Howard government was elected in 1996. On regular occasions, government MPs would raise the issue in the Party Room. Many of the MPs complaining about the inequity were women. As a consequence, further inquiries were established, leading ultimately to further reforms and the creation of the Family Relationship Centres.
• Whether these centres will fulfil the expectations for them remains to be seen. The government set out a series of key performance indicators at the time of their introduction against which future judgments can be made.”

The Family Relationship Centres can be accessed through Family Relationships Online which:

• “provides all families (whether together or separated) with access to information about family relationship issues, ranging from building better relationships to dispute resolution. It also allows families to find out about a range of services that can assist them to manage relationship issues, including agreeing on appropriate arrangements for children after parents separate.”

‘Building better relationships’ presumably includes marriage preparation, but it is clearly a minor service in the mix of ‘dispute resolution’ and ‘arrangements for children after parents separate’.

As Kevin Andrews says

• “.... there is one lesson that clearly emerges from the events of over a decade. It is that marriage breakdown and child support are the tail that wags the body of family policy.”

In the UK the Local Government Association spokesman said:

• “Colleagues in LACORS are putting together some guidance for registrars to help them provide information to couples on pre-marriage advice services available in their area.”
  

LACORS have commissioned One Plus One to provide this information. It will be interesting to see whose views it reflects.

Kevin Andrews again:

• “I remarked earlier that there is a danger that government can seduce community groups into becoming its mouthpiece. There is also a danger that government will see the voluntary sector as just an extension of itself.”

Organisations working in the field of family relationships can all too easily be ‘seduced’ into following the government line. Some charities in the UK are little more than government sponsored quangos.

Let us hope the Conservative Party learns the lesson of what occurred in Australia and makes sure that its policy is not just “broadly supportive of the notion that as a society, we should do more to support committed relationships” but actually promotes marriage and preparation before it.

On the one hand, David Cameron said at their recent Spring Forum in Cheltenham:

• “For example, when it comes to poverty, Labour’s approach is just to treat the symptoms by spending more money.
• Our approach is to understand why people are stuck in poverty in the first place, and help them break free by tackling welfare dependency, addiction, debt, poor schooling and above all, family breakdown.
• There is no way this country will prosper in the twenty-first century, let alone deal with the debt crisis if we keep asking taxpayers to foot the £100 billion a year bill for the broken society.”

But on the other hand, in 'Rising to the challenge' - The Conservative local government response to the recession – [launched at the same Forum by the Conservative Councillors Association] the report suggests [page 26]:

• “Looking at social care for families, for example, there is clear and unequivocal evidence that early, targeted intervention into the lives of families at risk yields better results and has the potential for major savings to the public purse. Under the current system, however, families on the border of social exclusion can be the subjects of multiple interventions from several professionals over the course of years. The results of this failure to solve problems are depressing and the cost to the taxpayer is immense.”

It begs the question “So what do you do when 50% of babies are born to unmarried parents, 200,000 abortions occur each year, and the UK tops the European league tables for most of the statistics that reflect fragile or broken relationships and promiscuity?”

It is a bit late in the day - when there is already a pandemic - to be reacting by relying upon ‘targeted intervention into the lives of families at risk’.

It is surely high time the Conservatives started to explain and - indeed, to implement policies in local councils they control - showing how they propose through prevention to bring about a wholesale cultural revolution to overturn the “every choice of lifestyle agenda” of the Labour government, instead of just bewailing the social and fiscal consequences of the pandemic which have been manifestly obvious for a long time, anyway.

The unequivocal promotion of preparation for marriage would signal a good start towards cultural change, provided that the LGA does not try to subvert the policy and revert to the “every choice of lifestyle agenda” of the Labour government - and its recent predecessors - which has proved such a catastrophic failure.

Families in Britain: an evidence paper

The DCSF web site reports, "The family dominates public and policy debate and there is much discussion about the state of family in Britain. This paper assembles the key trends and sets out a framework to think about the family. The paper aims to provide a framework to take stock of family life in Britain and map recent trends and changes as well as explore future pressures on families. It also aims to understand what lies behind headline trends and to understand the implications of these. This paper and the family policy principles it sets out will hopefully stimulate further discussion which will continue to inform the Government's work and underpin the ambition for a truly family-friendly Britain."

My comments on 'Families in Britain: an evidence paper' [December 2008] are set out below. It was published recently by the Cabinet Office Strategy Unit and the DCSF and includes the following:

Page 85 - Marriage is associated with successful outcomes
Page 86 - Lone parenthood is associated with less successful outcomes
Page 87 - Stepfamilies are associated with less successful outcomes than biological two-parent families
Page 88 - Parental separation is associated with a range of adverse childhood, adolescent and adult outcomes for children e.g. in terms of cognitive development, education and labour market disadvantages

Page 85 [married couples] are happier, less prone to depression and suicide and live longer.

Government Ministers have become so accustomed to parroting the mantra "we shall not promote one type of family structure over another", that no matter how strong the evidence to the contrary, they are blind to it, even when it is in their own documents.

Ironically, of course, the government doesn't adhere to this mantra, as it tries desperately to halt the increase in teenage motherhood and the spread of sexually transmitted infections with ever increasing quantities of contraceptives.

If the evidence does not endorse teenage motherhood as a good basis for healthy outcomes for children, why not promote the structure which does, rather than the alternatives that have outcomes closer to those from teenage motherhood?

(The National Statistics [published on the web 28th February 2008] 'Trends in suicide by marital status in England and Wales,1982-2005' Abstract states, "A protective effect of marriage has been observed in a number of previous studies .......... despite changes in marriage patterns over the last 25 years, those who are married still have the lowest risk of suicide, and there has generally been no obvious decline in the difference in suicide rates between those who are married and those who are not.")

You might think with the evidence from a number of studies about the "protective effect of marriage" that the Ministers promoting a report entitled 'Families in Britain: an evidence paper' would want to draw attention to the "protective effect of marriage", but, not a bit of it, the Ministers use the opportunity in their Foreword to calmly spin the evidence away from married couple relationships - which the evidence supports - towards 'diversity', which it does not.

A further example of spin is on Page 99, with "Life Event Marriage/cohabitation"; this is a conflation of two entirely different events, only one of which is to a publicly committed and enduring relationship.

This conflation of marriage and cohabitation lies at the heart of what some bishops are complaining about when they speak of policies that are 'morally corrupt'.

The Rt Revd Graham Dow, Bishop of Carlisle, is reported as saying, "the breakdown of the family is a crucial element in the difficulties of our present society .... The Government hasn’t given sufficient support to that because it is scared of losing votes.... Labour’s failure to back marriage and its “insistence on supporting every choice of lifestyle” ha[s] had a negative effect on society."

An example of this 'negative effect' has been revealed recently: the banks bought into the Government's "every choice of lifestyle" agenda - and created the toxic debt - which now they are too ashamed to acknowledge by publishing mortgage arrears figures by marital status. The previous generation of bankers would never have lent money to cohabiting couples with inherently unstable relationships in the amounts which have been advanced in the last decade. Toxic relationships are behind the toxic debt and the financial meltdown.

On a practical level, the MPs, Graeme Allen and Iain Duncan Smith, are jointly promoting 'Early Intervention: Good Parents, Great Kids, Better Citizens'. Please ask your MP to support this initiative.

There is common ground developing across the political spectrum in welfare reform with direct payments and 'Self-Directed Support for every child and young person' as described in "A whole-life approach to personalisation". These principles could be applied to supporting marriage and family life.

Poverty – is it the cause or consequence of family breakdown?

Martin Narey is chair of the End Child Poverty coalition and chief executive of Barnardo's. He was formerly head of the prison service at the Home Office. He has been appointed by Nick Clegg to chair the Liberal Democrats' commission on social mobility because he is seen as an independent, expert voice, Andrew Sparrow reported in the Guardian on Monday 3rd March 2008.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/mar/03/welfare.socialexclusion

Guardian: “When Iain Duncan Smith looked at this for the Conservatives, he identified family breakdown as a cause of inequality. Do you think he's got a point or do you think he's barking up the wrong tree?”

Narey: “I wouldn't say he's barking up the wrong tree. I met IDS for the fist time [recently] and I found him enormously impressive. But I would offer an alternative theory, which is that dire poverty leads to family breakdown. Anyone who has brought up children or a family, if you think seriously about what it must be like under such immense financial pressure, I think it's very easy to understand why we have so many marriages that fail.”

In an article in the Daily Mail, James Chapman comments on a study by former Inland Revenue consultants Don Draper and Leonard Beighton, working for CARE. He concludes: "Among highly developed economies, the UK is almost alone in operating a tax system that ignores spousal obligations."

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=509438&in_page_id=1770

Professor Rowthorn is quoted as saying: "The system is resented because it is so biased against one-earner couples who wish to look after their own children. There is growing recognition that it penalises stable couples and encourages family breakdown and un-partnered childbearing."

Therefore, in so far as Martin Narey’s theory is correct in pointing to poverty being the cause of family breakdown, it is the bias against marriage in the tax and benefit systems that is bringing about much of the poverty, in addition to inherently unstable “unpartnered childbearing” and childrearing.

In a later article [2nd March 2008], also in the Daily Mail, Steve Doughty reported that Don Draper “examined the income of 98 theoretical couples with different incomes ranging from basic benefits to more than £46,000 a year.”

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=524381&in_page_id=1770

“His report took into account benefits, rent or mortgage payments, and whether a missing father is paying maintenance. Checks of family entitlements against tax and benefit tables used by the Department for Work and Pensions showed that 75 of the 98 families would be better off apart than together. The analysis - which also took into account the additional costs of running two homes - showed that on average the premium for living apart would be £69. A similar study last year found 71 couples out of 98 would be worse off and the extra cost of living together averaged £63. The worst affected families were those where only one partner worked and the other stayed at home to bring up one child. For them, the extra benefits if the family broke up would be worth £95.62 a week.”

Mr Draper said: "These are very considerable sums for people whose incomes may be less than £300 a week. Breaking the cycle of poverty by encouraging the formation and maintenance of stable families would make a major contribution to reducing long-term poverty. Many social problems seem to have their roots in unstable family structures."

The Labour MP Frank Field has calculated that a single mother with two children under 11 on the minimum wage received tax credits that took her weekly income to £487 if she worked only 16 hours a week. A two-parent family with one earner would have had to put in 116 hours of work on the same pay to get the same money.

CARE's report said the extra cost to the Treasury of a couple choosing to stay apart to claim more benefits this year - of whom there are 1.2million - will average £7,732.

Let’s hope Martin Narey – “an independent, expert voice” - looks first at the numbers with a dispassionate eye.

At much the same time [4th March 2008], the Bishop of Lichfield, the Rt Rev Jonathan Gledhill accused politicians of failing the nation's children by conducting an experiment to "downgrade" marriage.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/03/04/nbishop104.xml

He says the "great British experiment to downgrade marriage and the family" was showing no sign of running out of steam.

"Our legislators have got a bit careless and they've not noticed that some of the things they've done have not helped home life in our country.

"The tax system works so that if you get married you are penalised.

“We have been dismantling the institution of marriage and saying to our young people it doesn't really matter if you get married."

It is good to see a public figure like the bishop engaging in this important debate. Thus far it has been like a “phoney war” with very few prominent figures willing to enter it. The result has been that the "great British experiment to downgrade marriage and the family" has continued almost unchecked and without serious debate.

There was a debate in House of Lords on Thursday, 28 February 2008 on “Families, Community Cohesion and Social Action”, but not a single male Conservative peer participated.

In an article in the Guardian, “Marital splits are still costly for mothers” by John Carvel, social affairs editor, Wednesday March 5, 2008:

http://lifeandhealth.guardian.co.uk/family/story/0,,2262214,00.html

Dr Paul Dornan, the head of policy and research for the Child Poverty Action Group, said: "Some have argued the tax credit system somehow incentivises parents to live apart, but that argument is hollow - mothers are worse off after relationship breakdown."

No doubt mothers are worse off after relationship breakdown, but it doesn’t alter the fact that many separated parents receive in total more money through the tax and benefit systems than married couples living together. The question is, “is it fair and sensible for the state to give more money to people raising children apart than those who opt to stay together despite their difficulties?”

"........ demand that the Conservatives introduce strong pro-family policies"

by Peter Oborne in the Daily Mail

"The problem for Cameron is this: there are much more important decisions coming up over the course of the next 12 months, and this week’s grammar school row simply opens the question whether he has the strength to push them through.

In December, Iain Duncan Smith’s Social Justice Commission is due to bring to a culmination two years’ dedicated work into the causes of crime in Britain.

It is likely that Duncan Smith (whose former lieutenant Tim Montgomerie has been a leading protagonist of the grammar school revolt) will identify family breakdown as the main cause of social collapse, and demand that the Conservatives introduce strong pro-family policies.

If so, David Cameron will be forced to choose between offending Conservative activists, and offending conventional opinion. If he fails to rally behind the traditional values of support for the family, he will face an internal row many times bigger than the one over grammar schools."

David Cameron has said the Conservatives must support marriage and the family, but - so far - there has been no sign through Conservative controlled local authorities that they are actually doing anything now specifically towards this.

The LGA [Local Government Association] has not been demanding that the ONS or its successor publish a Social Capital Index like the Retail Price Index, so that changes in social and domestic cohesion by neighbourhood can be measured by local community leaders and in order that local authorities can be ranked in terms of the improvements that are being made.

Shadow Conservative Ministers are not proposing amendments to the Forced Marriage (Civil Protection) Bill to promote healthy marriages and to prevent bogus marriages from taking place.

Thus far, action - or, rather, inaction - belies the words.

It is true that the Conservatives are hinting at tax breaks for married couples with families. But they have made such proposals before in the election manifesto only to drop them again before subsequent elections, so why should anyone believe them? When pro-family policies are being implemented by Conservative local authorities, the necessary credentials will start to emerge.

David Cameron is right to be talking about social responsibility, but he will only be believed when the Conservatives demonstrate that they want social and domestic cohesion to be measured, otherwise it is an empty phrase. People want to see where social capital is being built up and what programmes are helping to achieve it.

If the Conservatives don't want to measure social capital and aren't prepared to promote any programmes when the opportunities arise - such as by proposing amendments to the Forced Marriage (Civil Protection) Bill and the Statistics and Registration Service Bill - for improving marriage and family life, electors are going to remain sceptical about whether Conservative hearts are really in the issue and their stomachs ready for the fight.

Peter Oborne is correct in saying:

"If he [David Cameron] fails to rally behind the traditional values of support for the family, he will face an internal row many times bigger than the one over grammar schools."

Social Capital Index - Statistics and Registration Service Bill

In the debate on the Statistics and Registration Service Bill in the House of Lords yesterday the issue of social and domestic cohesion was raised:

Baroness Noakes: There is also the question of developing new statistics. For example, the social capital project has been drawn to our attention. Statistics which monitor social and domestic cohesion are much sought after by those active in this field — by which I mean active in helping to cure society’s ills with practical projects on the ground rather than developing policies. A lot of statistics and data are available, but they omit some important information on marriage breakdown and family status at a local level. Many groups think that this is particularly important, and the information has not yet been pulled together in the form of a social capital index, as has been suggested to us. I do not know why that has not been done, and I hope that the Minister can tell us why we have no social capital index or equivalent measure available at local level.

The board should have the needs of users at the heart of its work, and there should be full engagement with them.

This is splendid news!

Needless to say, however, the Minister declined to oblige Baroness Noakes with an answer to her question, "I hope that the Minister can tell us why we have no social capital index or equivalent measure available at local level."

So she tried again!

Baroness Noakes: Perhaps the Minister could answer my specific questions about a social capital index. I asked what was happening with the project on that and why we do not have a social capital index.

Lord Evans of Temple Guiting: I hope that I can. That was one of the things that I said that we would take away and think about. The information that I have is that the ONS carries out work on social capital, and has done since 2001. The board’s powers, including, at Clause 18, that to produce statistics, would enable it to produce additional work on social capital if necessary. I am told by officials that we will write to the noble Baroness to explain more and to answer any specific points that she has.

Baroness Noakes: I am grateful that the Minister will write because people who we have been in touch with me are particularly concerned about that. I see that those in the Box are smiling. They will do the letter for the Minister; it is not a problem.

The Minister’s response was entirely predictable. Anything that these Benches suggest to improve the Bill and to keep the needs of persons such as users properly in view are regarded not as an improvement but as an unnecessary elaboration, or possibly even unhelpful. I will consider carefully what the Minister said. I look forward to the letter that his officials will draft for him on social capital and I will decide at that stage whether or not I shall return to this issue on Report.

Feisty lady!

Social capital - 'social responsibility'

Today the House of Lords considers amendments in Committee to the Statistics and Registration Service Bill [see earlier posts]. It provides an opportunity to insert an amendment for a Social Capital Index, as there is a clause [19] already in the Bill for the RPI [Retail Price Index].

Writing in the Guardian [23rd April 2007] David Cameron says:

“Government can encourage social responsibility by building and strengthening the institutions of a responsible society. Supporting families - because a stable home life is the best way to ensure children grow up as responsible citizens. Transferring power to local and neighbourhood institutions (and finding ways to promote people's engagement in them) - because that will make people behave more responsibly. And we have to trust people more: whether that's professionals in public services or people who want to volunteer in their community.”

He must be right about this. David Cameron is talking about how we build social capital. Unfortunately he is not yet addressing the issue of how we measure social capital and changes in it by neighbourhood. One day he will have to do this if he wants to establish his credentials as a politician who is really concerned about marriage and family life. Fine words butter no parsnips. They prompt the question, "Why are the Conservatives so coy about tabling an amendment for a Social Capital Index?" Ultimately, people measure what they value.

Fortunately there is a groundswell of recognition of the need for measuring changes in social capital. An excellent web site for information about social capital measurement is published by Paul Bullen, an Australian.

He provides a link to Indicators of Social and Family Functioning by R Zubrick, AA Williams, SR Silburn, (TVW Telethon Institute for Child Health Research, Perth,Western Australia) and G Vimpani (Child and Youth Health Network, University of Newcastle) May 2000.

The Executive Summary begins:

According to a ..... OECD Forum report (January, 1997):

‘pressures on social cohesion are likely to evolve over the next two decades as unemployment, earnings inequality, demographic shifts, technological progress, open trade, and greater competition in less constrained market places, continue to contribute to economic and social turbulence.’

"Australia is no less immune to these pressures, with a perceived decline in social cohesion which has placed stress on family and social functioning. Rapid economic and social change can manifest as serious problems in the developmental health and well-being of children, young people and their families. These problems include child abuse, early school failure, truancy, depression and suicide, alcohol and drug abuse, teenage pregnancy, juvenile offending, violence, relationship and family breakdown."

It supports my contention that we need a Social Capital Index as much as the RPI in the Statistics and Registration Service Bill and that a major element of this SCI should be the factors relating to social and domestic cohesion.

The components [problems] listed above are very similar to those which I have proposed for the index, which is reassuring.

PSHE and Social Capital - absence of a moral code in the home puts some children under additional pressures

The following are extracts from the Ofsted report 'Time for change? Personal, social and health education' [Published: April 2007 Reference no: 070049]:

"At times, it is the school rather than the home that provides the moral code and, in its absence in the home, some children are put under additional pressures."

"Parents greatest challenge is to set clear expectations, and to be aware of and to accept responsibility for their children's behaviour. Some parents do not rise to this challenge."

"the ability to make moral judgements about what to do in actual situations and the potential to put these judgements into practice"

"Most of the schools in this survey ensure that their aims and values are well known to pupils and their parents, and that they are adhered to consistently. They will often refer to personal morality, the effects of actions and choices, and the nature of relationships concepts very relevant to SRE. However, some of the schools visited need to broaden their coverage of SRE and clarify what they mean by achievement in this area, so that it includes developing pupils' values and attitudes....."

"focusing on a pupil's individual needs and avoiding a one size fits all approach......... trying to bring together the work of mentors, counsellors and external support agencies with individual pupils and, if appropriate, with their families"

Consistent adherence to the aims and values of the school, including a moral code, is a worthy outcome arising from good teaching of PSHE. But pupils must find the mixed messages they are hearing very confusing:

(1) On the one hand government ministers repeat the New Labour mantra "we shall not promote one type of family structure as opposed to another".

(2) On the other, schools are trying to promote "personal morality, the effects of actions and choices, and the nature of relationships concepts very relevant to SRE......." and are concerned with "developing pupils' values and attitudes....."

In fact 'family structure' is a garbled concept in 'government speak' as teenage motherhood is deprecated and the government even produces league tables showing which local authorities are best at reducing teenage pregnancy. To pretend its attitude to family structure is a neutral one is belied by its own policies.

What is baffling is why - if this sort of league table is a valid concept in improving this aspect in particular of social and domestic cohesion - there are not comprehensive neighbourhood statistics and a league table comprising an index of other aspects of social and domestic cohesion together with a social capital index?

One minister [Maria Neagle] who said "we shall not promote one type of family structure as opposed to another" went on to say, "We must deal with people and families as we find them, and we must try to ensure that whatever structure children are brought up in, they have the best possible chance in life. In 97 per cent. of cohabiting couples, the father registers the birth of the child with the mother. We should not be prescriptive about precisely what the best structure is."

This is disingenuous, as the break-up rate of couples who are unmarried at the time of the birth of their child is far greater and faster than that of couples who are married at the time of the birth.

"We should not be prescriptive about precisely what the best structure is" looks and sounds like an argument that the government is not concerned with the facts, is unwilling to study the research on family structure, and will suppress - whenever it can - the publication of statistics that are relevant.

Faced with such humbug, what chance have schools got in promoting a moral code when the government is effectively opposed to the very idea and is actively promoting 'diversity' at every opportunity ?

Child Poverty - "Aiming high", but mixed messages from HMG

Aiming high for children: supporting families [March 2007] is in many ways an admirable document, but it fails to address the issue of competing messages from popular culture, probably because HMG itself is guilty of promoting the most crucially damaging messages that now form part of the UK's popular culture.

2.61 Parents who want to teach their children right from wrong and standards of behaviour and how to exercise discipline and self control, can find themselves competing with popular culture which often seems to be sending out competing messages and which then reinforces all the peer pressure on their own children.

"Nothing wrong with that", is how most people will react.

And few will complain about:

2.54 Children’s outcomes are best when they grow up in a stable family structures with a positive relationship between parents. The quality of each parent’s relationship with the other is vital. Government wants to support stable relationships between parents. However, where relationships break down, the Government also wants to provide the necessary support to ensure children get the best start.

2.55 There is a high correlation between family breakdown and poor child outcomes. However, parental separation is not an isolated event, but a process that starts long before the actual separation and can continue to impact after the parents have parted. The evidence shows that parental conflict can also be very damaging to children’s outcomes, and that support offered to parents can be effective to help minimise such conflict.

But if HMG really wants to "provide the necessary support to ensure children get the best start" why is its new mantra 'prevention and early intervention' limited to children and not applied to the relationships of couples before they become parents, by promoting marriage preparation? It's Ok to teach children moral values, but perish the thought parents should be asked to consider them! This is typical of the mixed messages that HMG is sending out. No wonder children and young people are confused!

1.8 .......... • prevention: Preventing poor outcomes from arising in the first place benefits children, young people and families directly. In addition, failure to prevent problems impacts not only on the family but also society more widely, for example in lost economic contributions, poor health, and the effects of antisocial behaviour.

"Government wants to support stable relationships between parents". Really? So what has it done about it? It's just cut the MARS [Marriage and Relationship Support] grants - which in any case were miniscule - so the 'message' it is sending out is that it does not value marriage and stable couple relationships. The Weekly Update of UK Marriage News - No 7.11 18/3/07 from 2-in-2-1 puts it like this:

CYPF Grant analysis: We have now had a closer look at the list of funded organisations for this year’s CYPF grant and can confirm that none of the grants made this year is for work that can be categorised as “MARS”. This means that the funding is simply that announced last year – ie some £369K LESS than in 2005/6. The main loser is once again Relate which has seen its core funding cut from £2.1M two years ago to £1.2M this year with a further reduction of £200K already announced for next year. The total MARS funding is now down to £3.63M from the £5M three years ago – a 33% reduction in real terms, with a further 9% cut forecast for next year. We leave you to draw your own conclusions on where the whole area of Family Breakdown really sits on this current government’s agenda.

And HMG complains about "competing messages from popular culture"!

So much for its assertion that "the quality of each parent’s relationship with the other is vital."

Aiming high for children: supporting families claims it is 'building resilience':

1.13 The Government has sought to work with parents and communities to reduce key risks or negative influences on children’s lives, through the priority attached to eradicating child poverty.....

Who will be inclined to believe HMG is 'building resilience' - or seriously concerned with 'child poverty' - when it can't even mention 'marriage' in a document about supporting families, and is consistently reducing such small grants as it makes for marriage support?

Child poverty - socialists on the back foot

The Guardian has reacted quickly to the news that 'child poverty' is actually getting worse now under New Labour.

"You can't talk about children's well-being unless you dare talk about the inequality of their life experience" [whatever that means], wails Polly Toynbee.

"Here is even worse news: inequality grew again and is now back up to the level when figures were first collated (the Gini coefficient) back in 1961. This looks grim; here was one solid rock on which Labour could stake its moral claims. That astonishing promise to abolish all child poverty by 2020 was Labour's trump card when it faces the sullen looks of its shrunken remaining troops. Whatever Cameron may pretend is his "aspiration" to keep lifting children out of poverty, if his plans don't add up he has been let off the hook for now....."

"Sure Start children's centres are the best hope of reaching every family to give every child a chance - but the 3,500 new centres are being rolled out without anything like the funds needed for intensive professional help. Everywhere, brilliant pilots and small schemes show what can be done: an opportunity tax should supply the funds to make them universal. None of that will happen unless voters will it. The child poverty target can't be hit by stealth."

All the more reason for the ONS to publish a Social Capital Index by neighbourhood so we can see what effect Sure Start's "brilliant pilots and small schemes" - and the programmes provided by other organisations - are having on social and domestic cohesion, as well as the effect they are having on the other indicators of deprivation.

But there is not a squeak so far from the Guardian about the need for a Social Capital Index so that the evaluations can be undertaken.

"Until now, the very word "inequality" has been banned from the political lexicon. But now the wealth gap is widening, Labour has to confront it. In the last decade every £100 increase in GDP growth has seen £40 go to the richest 10% of the people: the other 90% have had to share out the rest - and this pattern is accelerating. This argument hasn't yet been put, these facts are not out there in the political battleground, but here is prime territory for Labour to lay down a challenge" Polly Toynbee declares roundly.

Actually, the taboo is not "inequality" but "marriage", as most socialists can't seem to utter the word without choking on it.

"Sure Start children's centres are the best hope of reaching every family to give every child a chance" claims Polly Toynbee, as if it is an assertion that should go unchallenged. But surely "the best hope of reaching every family to give every child a chance" would occur if the fathers marry the childrens' mothers, love them, and remain married to them? Is that not something to be promoted?

"Gordon Brown yesterday admitted the government faced a big challenge to reach its key child poverty target but refused to pledge more money to address the problem" says Ashley Seager also in the Guardian.

"Giving testimony to parliament's Treasury select committee, the chancellor also faced accusations that last week's budget had left many poorer people worse off. The government was stung this week when its own figures showed that child poverty had increased for the first time in six years while overall poverty had risen for the first time under this government........... Figures out yesterday also showed take up of the pension credit had fallen last year."

"This is further proof that Gordon Brown's obsession with mass means-tested benefits is failing to help the most vulnerable people in our society," said Lib Dem work and pensions spokesman David Laws.

Meanwhile, in "The Politicizing of Poverty" Janice Shaw Crouse [27/3/07] is writing in the US:

"A headline about changing family structure wouldn't be effective, however, for two reasons. One, it would make reporters' eyes glaze over, and two, it does not lay the blame for increased poverty at the door of the current administration and its so-called "tax cuts for the rich." A third reason is that the problem relates to irresponsible sexual behavior. Much of the poverty problem is related to the growth of single-parent families, a fact that is recognized further down in the Brookings report in the following statement:

'Three of the most effective ways to reduce poverty are to increase work levels, reverse the growth of single-parent families, and improve educational outcomes.'

Note that even liberal social analysts must come to terms with the negative outcomes of dysfunctional sexual behavior. They try to formulate policy proposals to deal with the consequences of non-marital sex in terms compatible with their world view that sees social structures as the sources of problems and government programs as their solutions. So, they seek funding for yet another iteration of government programs rather than acknowledge the root moral-values issues, [my italics] which, to be fair, are the purview of today's religious leaders, many of whom have forsaken the true message of their calling.

We know, too, that ever-larger funding for education is not going to change the reality that children who grow up without a father present often turn a classroom into barely controlled chaos where learning is a very difficult proposition. But these realities have not yet penetrated the culture. The downward trend in the marriage rate among unmarried women age 15-44 continues. The marriage rate today is a little less than half of what it was in the mid-1960s. Also the unmarried birthrate of women 20 and older continues to rise year after year.

The charge has long been wielded that the rise in unwed birth rates was the consequence of poverty. Yet, with the advent of the abstinence movement, the rise of the unwed birthrate among American teens miraculously stopped climbing in the early 1990s after rising almost every year since WWII. The unwed teen birthrate has since declined by 25 percent. Funny, after listening to the left incessantly sing the song that youths could not control their raging hormones, yet another myth has been swept into the trash can..................

Sadly, it's not politically correct to focus on moral values and responsible sexual behavior but as the public relations folks at Brookings recognize, there is always a good market for yet another press release full of hopeful promises about governmental programs [my italics]."

Child poverty - swings and roundabouts

"Budget 2007: Benefit and tax changes will lift 200,000 children out of poverty" says Tristan Donovan, 28 March 2007 at "Children Now".

In the nick of time, so it seems, as according to the BBC, Tuesday, 27 March 2007, 15:51 GMT 16:51 UK:

"More UK children live in poverty" - "Figures showing a 200,000 rise in UK children living in relative poverty last year have been described as a "moral disgrace" by Barnardo's."

It's difficult to know what and who to believe.

Let's try Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab) speaking in the House of Commons on 26th March 2007:

"I want to focus on the measures to reduce child poverty. I welcome the decisions that will lift 200,000 children out of poverty, and the recommitment to halving child poverty by 2010 and to abolishing it by 2020 ............. It is clear from the criticisms that we have heard that Her Majesty’s Opposition basically do not understand the phenomenon of child poverty, which is presumably why they allowed it to treble under the last Tory Government. It has also become clear to us that the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr. Duncan Smith) has completely misled his colleagues by suggesting that family breakdown is the prime cause of child poverty in this country. In January, there was a lot of talk about the UNICEF comparisons of child well-being among members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, but I have looked at the more up-to-date comparisons between European countries by Jonathan Bradshaw of York university. They were published in a journal called Social Indicators Research in January this year, and they show that family breakdown is not the prime cause of child poverty in any of the European countries. Indeed, if we strip out the experience of the United Kingdom, we see that there is a positive correlation between child well-being and the number of single-parent families, with Finland and Sweden at the top of the table............... The key factors influencing child poverty were found to be income inequality, child poverty itself, obviously, gross domestic product per capita - at is, the overall wealth of a country - social spending and spending on children and families. That is why the strategy announced in the Budget for tackling child poverty is the right course of action."

So there we have it! Or do we? Is Professor Jonathan Bradshaw the last word we need to hear on the subject?

If the Labour "strategy" is so virtuously and manifestly the correct one, how is it that Barnado's are complaining about the "moral disgrace" that 200,000 more children have just slipped into poverty?

Let's hear it from another professor:

The Extraordinary Effects of Marriage [January 2002 in Accountancy] By Andrew Oswald, Professor of Economics, Warwick University. Visit his website at www.oswald.co.uk

"A new branch of research is finding that marriage has powerful and beneficial effects on human beings. Currently this work is done by applied statisticians, and appears only in arcane journals. But its findings deserve to be read by everyone in western society. The work proceeds in a way common in modern social science. Large random samples of families are followed through time. They are interviewed every year about their lives, and their incomes and psychological wellbeing levels are measured.

The first finding is that marriage makes you richer. In virtually every country ever studied, workers who are married earn between 10% and 20% more than those who are single. This figure holds after many other influences are factored out (in other words, it bears in mind there are lots of other forces that affect pay, including someone’s age and education and gender and so on). Economists argue about what this finding means. Some say that it is because ‘better’ people -- healthier, more tenacious, more conscientious, better looking, more productive, stronger -- are the ones who get married. Marriage itself, on this line of argument, is not doing anything to a man or woman's earning power. Those with large pay packets simply choose to get hitched more than do those on low earnings. That sounds plausible, but actually it does not fit the facts. For one thing, if you study people in their early 20s, then those who are married barely earn more than singles. It appears that the ‘marriage wage premium’, as it is sometimes called by researchers, actually gets stronger through time as the years pass and the marriage gets longer. This suggests that marriage is more a cause than an effect of higher pay....

The second main finding from modern statistical research is even stranger. Marriage makes you live longer. Although most members of the general public are probably not aware of it, there is now some consensus among epidemiologists that you can prolong your life by marrying. Marriage keeps you alive about 3 extra years, on average. Numerous studies have shown this. One of the most intriguing followed male graduates of Amherst College in the United States in the late nineteenth century. At age 18, all these men had their health, height and weight measured. Their later occupation was also recorded, and much else about them. Then they were followed through their lives. All are now dead, of course. Strikingly, those who married lived much longer, even bearing in mind other influences.

There is plenty of British evidence too. In the late 1960s, 20,000 middle – aged male civil servants had a medical examination and were then tracked for the next two decades. At the end of that time, 14 out of every 1000 married men had died, compared to 21 for widowers, 17 for those single, and 21 for those separated. This study is interesting because it appears to pin some of the blame, if that is the right word, on cardiovascular disease. Unmarried men had much higher blood pressure. The current conventional view in the epidemiological journals is that marriage works through some kind of protective effect on mental wellbeing. It lowers stress and worry – presumably because sharing worries halves them, just as tradition says. Partly, too, married people smoke less and eat in a healthier way."

So you can take your choice, if you want to reduce deprivation and end child poverty:

(1) Trust Helen Goodman and Gordon Brown to continue to tinker creatively with taxes and benefits, or

(2) Ask Iain Duncan Smith whether he is going to try to persuade his Conservative colleagues to support the amendments I am proposing to the Statistics and Registration Service Bill and the Forced Marriage (Civil Protection) Bill.

"The best chance to grow" by Terry Prendergast in The Tablet

Would that more journals concerned with religious and moral issues could attract writers like Terry Prendergast [The Tablet 3rd March 2007] to dig a bit deeper than most of our politicians on the subject of marriage:

"But take a closer look at the politicians' chief concerns about marriage or the lack of it. When National Marriage Week was launched last month at the House of Commons, the former Conservative Party leader Iain Duncan Smith spoke about his recent report, Breakdown Britain, which highlighted that the cost of family breakdown appears to have risen by about £7 billion in a 10-year period. However, what was most striking about his comments was that he stressed the importance of marriage for the stability of society, never once mentioning the importance for the couple themselves, their health or their well-being.

This is a typical approach for a politician, as government, and would-be governing parties, tend to be concerned more with social stability than with personal and emotional health. And that reflects a clear failure to understand that the former depend on the latter. "

What to do then?

Well, I have suggested in an earlier post that people can write to their MPs [it's easily done, see this page on the right] and to the Odysseus Trust to ask them to support an amendment to Lord Lester's Forced Marriage (Civil Protection) Bill. This would include in the 'guidance' for all couples getting married information about the benefits of undertaking a research-based programme of marriage preparation, including a pre-marital inventory.

There is also an opportunity with the Statistics and Registration Service Bill to insert a clause for publishing a Social Capital Index. There is already a clause [19] to provide for the Retail Price Index. My proposal is:

[20] Social capital index
(1) The Board must under section 18
(a) compile and maintain a social capital index by neighbourhood, and
(b) publish it every year, together with
(c) statistics relating to social and domestic cohesion.

Again, it is a simple matter to write to your MP about it.

There is a further reason for taking action now:

The Statistics and Registration Service Bill "will also establish proper employment status and rights for registration officers (as local authority employees) in England and Wales." Whereas in the past registration officers - not being employees of local authorities - could not be required by local authorities to promote marriage education programmes, it will soon be much easier for a local authority to do this, if it has thought through and published a coherent policy for social and domestic cohesion for its area.

In an earlier debate [4th November 2002] Ruth Kelly said:

In our White Paper, [Delivering Vital Change] the Government explained that the registration service is ideally placed to act as a focal point for information about services associated with births, deaths and marriages, such as ........ marriage preparation...... I believe that there is a genuine opportunity for local authorities to develop those services innovatively to meet the needs of their communities, now and in future. A wider role for the registration service will improve on the current piecemeal approach by local authorities and will be underpinned by the proposed national standards.

Sadly, the proposals - which were contained in a Regulatory Reform Order, not a Bill - eventually failed to come into effect. The conclusion was:

"The Committee reports that the proposal for the Regulatory Reform (Registration of Births and Deaths)(England and Wales) Order 2004 is not an appropriate subject for a regulatory reform order. The proposed order should not be proceeded with."

Fortunately, the Statistics and Registration Service Bill and the Forced Marriage (Civil Protection) Bill together - if passed with the amendments I am proposing - could start to transform the culture in favour of marriage.

But I suspect our parliamentarians will need much 'encouragement'!

Tony Blair disputes "general social breakdown"

"Marriage policies 'not the cure' " screams the BBC, affronted that anyone could possibly dare to challenge its attempts to bury any discussion of 'marriage'.

Poodle-like it presents the debate which has at long last started - thanks to David Cameron - from the perspective of the Prime Minister. But let's give credit to Andrew Selous MP who first demanded there should be a debate in November 2003.

At his monthly press conference Tony Blair said, when it came to the most dysfunctional families who were "shut out" of mainstream society, specific intervention was needed at an early stage.

"In my view, the debate is not about marriage versus lone parents. The debate is about how you target measures specifically on those families some of whom will be lone parents - but some of whom will be couples."

As usual Tony Blair talks about how to 'target measures specifically on .... [dysfunctional] families some of whom will be lone parents - but some of whom will be couples', rather than promoting universal marriage and relationship education. The former is not only patently what is not required, and the latter is also what the wiser members of Parliament - across the political parties - have been saying for twelve years or so. Which policy is more likely to stigmatise lone parents?

If Tony Blair is right - and there is no 'general social breakdown' - how is it that West Yorkshire police are having to deal with 35,000 reported incidents of domestic violence each year? Why is it that one in five pregnancies are aborted? Who says that the 42% of children born to parents who are unmarried would not prefer their relationship to be an enduring one? Why is the UK in bottom place in just about every league table that might be used to measure 'social capital' in western democracies? And - possibly most telling of all - why have the Downing Street website gurus erased all references to its social capital project?

The Conservatives control the Local Government Association. So why aren't Conservative LA's promoting marriage education programmes through Register Offices in which they have paid staff? And why isn't David Cameron and the LGA demanding that a full range of indices and neighbourhood statistics are published so that local changes in social capital can be properly measured?

I'm sorry there is still such a long way to go. But at least and at last the debate has begun.

13% rise in post-Christmas abortions charity records

Charity records 13% rise in post-Christmas abortions says the Guardian: which is interesting in the context of the previous item on this blog.

Phil Woolas [Minister of State, Department for Communities and Local Government] said [please see previous item], "the Government do not collect statistics on numbers of family breakdowns outside of divorce, given that relationship breakdowns outside of divorce are difficult to define and record. Community cohesion measurements primarily focus on how well people from different backgrounds get on together in the local area......."

Difficult to define or record abortions? Surely not! Abortions - along with sexually transmitted infections [STIs or STDs - depending on the language you speak] and along with a great many other statistics - such as missing persons and domestic violence - are routinely recorded. They are all manifestations of relationship or family breakdown that could be used to compile an index of social and domestic cohesion.

So why doesn't HMG want to publish such an index in order that changes in neighbourhood social and domestic cohesion or social capital can be measured?

The only possible explanation is that New Labour doesn't like the electoral implications.

"Parliament cannot tiptoe around this matter for much longer" - Alistair Burt MP [Shadow Minister for Communities & Local Government]

Dan Boucher, CARE’s Director of Parliamentary Affairs said, “Given its undisputed positive impact, with all kinds of public policy benefits, we believe that government should work to support and strengthen the institution of marriage in Britain today both through fiscal policy and through greater investment ‘proactively’ in marriage preparation as well as ‘reactively’ through marriage guidance counselling. At the beginning of National Marriage week [5th February 2007] we would urge the government to back its rhetorical commitment to the value of marriage with robust marriage friendly policies.”

On the same day as the launch of National Marriage Week, James Brokenshire (Hornchurch, Conservative) [Shadow Minister - Homeland Security] asked the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, "how she measures the extent of family breakdown in the context of her policies on community cohesion; whether figures on family breakdown are collected by (a) region and (b) local authority area; and if she will make a statement?"

Phil Woolas [Minister of State, Department for Communities and Local Government] responded lamely, "The Government do not collect statistics on numbers of family breakdowns outside of divorce, given that relationship breakdowns outside of divorce are difficult to define and record. Community cohesion measurements primarily focus on how well people from different backgrounds get on together in the local area......."

So never mind the fact that there were 35,000 reported incidents of domestic violence in West Yorkshire last year and the year before, let's talk about 'how well people from different backgrounds get on together in the local area'; so much easier to 'define and record'!

The ONS don't even publish divorce figures by neighbourhood or local authority, so the fact of the matter is that HMG is seriously not interested in trying to "measure the extent of family breakdown in the context of .... policies on community cohesion", indeed, nor in any other context.

And this is despite what Phil Woolas said on Thursday 20 October 2005 in a debate about the Social Exclusion Unit, "The hon. Member for North-East Bedfordshire [Alistair Burt] concluded his thoughtful speech by making some suggestions for the future. I shall certainly respond to his requests. I am particularly interested in his third point, because he said something important. It is clear to us all, and from the evidence and analysis provided by the social exclusion unit, that stability in a child's life is a key driver.......... Government policy is, of course, not intended to discriminate against marriage or family. Sometimes, I have to acknowledge that, unintentionally, it may seem to do so and, on occasion, probably does. The policy is for a stable and normal environment for children and young people with difficult lives."

"Government policy is, of course, not intended to discriminate against marriage or family." He must be joking!

[The Archbishop of Canterbury, the Rt Revd Dr Rowan Williams, was bitterly ironic at the launch of Mational Marriage Week: "the fluidity and changeability of relationships and the transience of marriage may look perfectly fine if you belong to the commentating classes of north London, but you don’t have to go very many miles to see what the cost is for people who can’t take that sort of thing for granted."]

Alistair Burt had said, "....... let me deal with the toughest nut of all. The Minister talked about digging deeper and thinking more radically, so let me ask him this question. What role does the unit believe family and relationship breakdown in the UK play in long-term deprivation and social exclusion? The Minister and the unit must now realise, after so many of its projects and researches, that such breakdown has had a catastrophic effect, that it is getting worse, and that there are no substantial policy initiatives to address it. There are initiatives to ameliorate the symptoms and to compensate for the losses incurred, but that is not enough. Years of study have now made it clear just how damaging relationship and family breakdown is. The Government, the Opposition and Parliament cannot tiptoe around this matter for much longer."

But they are all still on tiptoe. There are no policies from any political quarter.

"Dismemberment of the traditional family" by the bishop of Motherwell

"Families matter because almost every social problem that we face - soaring teenage pregnancies, abortions and single mums, juvenile delinquency, drug abuse, binge drinking, vandalism, violence and crime, the burgeoning of mental illness and sexually transmitted diseases among the young, educational failure, the breakdown in civility, and increasing harassment and contempt for the elderly, the vulnerable and the weakest members of our communities - all come down, in part at least, to the dismemberment of the traditional family.

Consecutive governments' policies, certainly for the best part of two decades, have put our country on the fast track to social dislocation. Inequality has not been reduced. Family breakdown, addiction and dependency have increased. Social divisions have not been healed. Nor can the Conservative opposition take the moral high ground given their earlier opposition to measures aimed at tackling poverty such as the minimum wage, maternity leave and flexible working.

Our governments in Westminster and Holyrood have dared not whisper the terms marriage and the traditional family for fear of being branded politically incorrect by the liberal secular lobby. They have signed up to the dangerous fiction that all lifestyles are equal and that all types of family are equally good at bringing up children. It is time to challenge them to change the direction of their social policies and recognise the damage caused by their compliance with liberal secular policy advisers.

With elections looming, voters must impress on all parties the need to promote family stability through strategies which incentivise and support marriage as well as a socially just, wide-ranging package of policies dealing with poverty reduction, deprivation and exclusion. My vote will go to the party that commits itself to detailed, credible and concrete policies that place marriage, committed parenthood and the family at the heart of its social manifesto. And my public criticism will remain focused on those who do not.

The right reverend Joseph Devine is bishop of Motherwell." He is writing in The Sunday Herald [4th February 2007].

I agree almost completely with the bishop of Motherwell, but the Labour government is also trying to have it both ways: it is deterring teenage motherhood on the grounds that the outcomes for children are poor, whilst at the same time maintaining the mantra "we shall not promote one type of family structure as opposed to another". The outcomes for children of unmarried parents generally are worse than for those with parents who are married, so why not promote marriage and deter cohabitation?

In England the Conservatives control the Local Government Association, so they could be doing much more to promote similar policies to those outlined by the bishop of Motherwell - if they wanted to.

"Race after failure" - "Government have not been tough on the causes of crime"

Hard on the heals of the resignation of Professor Rod Morgan, chairman of the Youth Justice Board, comes a debate in the House of Lords [1st February 2007] on 'Reoffending'. A common theme is 'family breakdown', expressed particularly by Conservative Peers.

But when will they get the message that no one is going to believe in 'compassionate Conservatism' until the Party commits to having 'social and domestic cohesion' measured in an index by neighbourhood like the other 7 indicators of social exclusion? People take the trouble to measure and maintain what they really value.

Baroness Linklater of Butterstone [Liberal Democrat] who initiated the debate asked: What is the cost? The Social Exclusion Unit has estimated that the cost to the country of current reoffending is at least £11 billion. The Government have promised 8,000 more prison places to meet this crisis, which will take several years to bring on stream, by which time that, too, will be inadequate. Building the promised new prisons will cost the country £1.5 billion, and each place around £100,000. This is a huge price to pay when building more and more prisons does not and cannot solve the problem. It is merely a race after failure......... Broken families and relationships, and lost jobs and housing are so often the outcome of imprisonment, yet they are the very things on which going straight depends. We further disable people with this form of punishment which in turn creates the very conditions for the ever-increasing reoffending rates.

Lord Ramsbotham said: For years, the received wisdom has been that being near home, a job and a stable relationship are the three factors most likely to prevent reoffending, all of which are put at risk by imprisonment.

Viscount Bridgeman summed up for the Conservatives: This could not be a more timely debate. The prisons are full; potential prisoners are walking free following the Home Secretary’s instructions to the judiciary; Professor Rod Morgan, chairman of the Youth Justice Board has resigned, stating that children’s prisons are being swamped; Anne Owers, the chief inspector of prisons, has stated that the Home Office has failed to carry out proper planning; and the police have recorded violent crime increasing year on year......... the Government often fail to take account of the research evidence that they have themselves sponsored...... Perhaps that explains why, at present, 60 per cent of adult offenders are reconvicted within two years of being released from prison or commencing a community sentence. As we have heard today, for those released from prison, the reoffending rate is higher at 66 per cent and, embarrassingly for the Government, the reoffending rate for those on drug treatment and testing orders stands at an astonishing 89 per cent....... I am sure that we all agree that custodial sentencing is not necessarily ideal. Prison can break up families, impede resettlement and place children at risk of an intergenerational cycle of crime...... The noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, has previously said—I hope that I cite him correctly—that the three things that are most likely to prevent reoffending are a home, a job and a stable relationship. Programmes that help prisoners to develop skills and maintain contact—that enable all three while providing justice and a deterrent—seem to be the ideal to be aimed at. This House also often comments on young offenders, more than 70 per cent of whom come from broken homes. This is one area in which the Government have not been tough on the causes of crime. The report of the Social Justice Policy Group, under the chairmanship of my right honourable friend Iain Duncan Smith, entitled Breakdown Britain, concludes that government thinking here, as on prisons, has been short-term. It says:

“The narrow focus on a wholly inadequate poverty target, followed by complacent trumpeting of supposedly major reductions in poverty, has obscured the scale of the problems that have yet to be tackled”.

Poverty, family breakdown, mental health and drug or substance abuse are all undeniable factors in the lives of those who offend and reoffend.

Lord Bassam of Brighton closing the debate for the Government said: We have done much to ensure that family ties are kept up when people are imprisoned. We are developing a cross-government approach to improve support for children and families of offenders to reduce the risk of reoffending, because we understand the important part that family life plays for many of those who have to be incarcerated. That work is being overseen by a joint DfES/Home Office steering group, which will report, as I said earlier, to the inter-ministerial group chaired by my noble friend Lady Scotland and Phil Hope. We have committed a considerable sum of money to ensure that that important work with children and families is undertaken.

So why do members of the Government keep repeating the mantra "We shall not promote one type of family structure as opposed to another" when the evidence shows - as they know it does with teenage motherhood - that the outcomes for children are generally better when the parents are married?

Social exclusion debate - more "lies", statistics and "earache" for MPs

The Guardian 'Yesterday in Parliament' report included a reference to the debate in the House of Commons on social exclusion on 11th January:

"Inequality - The government and the opposition clashed over levels of inequality with Tories claiming Labour's policy was having "little impact" on the problem. Both parties cited figures from the Institute for Fiscal Studies with Tory spokesman Oliver Heald arguing that Labour had not halted the rise in inequality of income. Social exclusion minister Hilary Armstrong said the IFS called Labour's record a "remarkable achievement" although she later conceded it also said inequality had been "largely unchanged" under Labour."

Maybe the IFS thinks it is a "remarkable achievement" that under Labour income inequality has not got worse.

The debate lasted from 12.30 to 6pm. 17 Labour members, 8 Conservatives, 1 Liberal Democrat and 1 Plaid Cymru member spoke or intervened. Graham Allen (Nottingham, North) (Lab) spoke movingly when he described his constituency:

"Fifty-eight per cent. of youngsters are born out of wedlock. I make no moral judgment about that, but it is a structural phenomenon that needs to be addressed. One in seven young people who go to secondary school cannot read the first lesson that is put in front of them. My constituency sends the lowest number of youngsters to university. These and many other statistics underline why it is vital that social exclusion—as someone said, why don’t we call it social inclusion?—is paramount on the Government’s agenda.

For me, the key thing is that we start to tackle causes rather than merely chase the consequences. That is where the debate has moved on to. We have seen today from the Front Benches—all parties have been responsible—that we chase after the difficulties and try to mitigate them, because that is what gets into the newspapers and what we get earache about. But we should take our political responsibilities even more seriously and work back to find out how we can prevent things from happening in the first place. It is evident now that the Government are addressing the problems in that way."

Natascha Engel (North-East Derbyshire) (Lab) was in no mood to humour the House when she said:

"I am going to break the sort of consensus we have seen in the House today—I would like to vent my spleen about the report on social justice produced by the Tory party........"

The Member responsible, Iain Duncan Smith, was not present. Maybe he had been warned of Mrs Engel's spleen. Not for her was it a matter of concern that 58% of Mr Allen's youngsters in Nottingham are born out of wedlock.

"..... to suggest that the breakdown of marriages is the reason why we have social exclusion in our society is not only wrong but deeply offensive ........ " she railed, even though Graham Allen was saying:

"........ it is a structural phenomenon that needs to be addressed........ For me, the key thing is that we start to tackle causes rather than merely chase the consequences."

Oliver Heald (Conservative Member of Parliament for Hertfordshire North East, Shadow Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs and Shadow Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster) provided some clues as to how MPs might "start to tackle causes rather than merely chase the consequences", ending his speech with:

"We also need to trust local government, and to accept that civil servants and Ministers in Whitehall might not have all the answers. We need to move away from thinking that everything is the responsibility of the state, and towards a new spirit of social responsibility in which we work together to empower local people and local communities. We should not be so arrogant as to believe that politicians have all the answers. Our approach should not be solely about what the Government can do. It should be about what people can do, and what society can do, because we are all in this together."

Did he mention how "to empower local people and local communities", possibly by persuading the ONS to publish local figures and an index about social and domestic cohesion? I am afraid not. It seems the Conservative leadership can't or won't make this connection.

In response to such a suggestion from Andrew Selous MP in the debate on the Statistics and Registration Bill [8th January], John Healey said:

"I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will wish to elaborate on that point in the debate on social exclusion that will take place on Thursday........ I am sure that the point that the hon. Gentleman has made—and which he might develop in Thursday's debate—will be taken into account by the statistics board when it comes to discharge its functions."

Sadly, no Conservative MP - let alone a member of the shadow cabinet - was willing to do this. But as T.S. Eliot wrote in both the Four Quartets and in Murder in the Cathedral, "Humankind cannot bear very much reality".