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?”
Showing posts with label tax breaks. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tax breaks. Show all posts
18 Jun 2007
Unmarried parents - "Why can’t they be left alone?"
Labour’s chaotic approach to relationships for unmarried couples by John Elliott and Claire Newell in The Sunday Times 17th June 2007
"Last week Frank Field, the Labour MP and expert on welfare reform, produced a new analysis of how the [Labour] government’s complicated tax credits and benefits system affects different types of family.
Field found that the system “brutally discriminates against two-parent families”. Startlingly, Field showed that while a lone parent with two children has to work 16 hours a week on the minimum wage to earn £487, a couple with two children would have to slog away for 116 hours.
“I can’t believe the [Labour] government, when it set out, thought this would be the effect,” said Field, adding that there is now a “huge disincentive” for single parents to find another partner, because to do so would incur a large drop in income for both of them.
“There is also a disincentive for two-parent households to tell the truth,” said Field, noting that last year it had emerged that the [Labour] government was paying tax credits or welfare benefits to 2.1m lone parents – 200,000 more than its own official figures said exist. "
But what is really new about this? Lord Stoddart of Swindon, Independent Labour Peer, said about the Conservative Government in a debate on the Family Law Bill [11th January 1996]:
"The [Conservative] Government have been saying over a long period of time that they support the family and marriage, yet all their actions belie that claim. For example, the taxation system - on the pretext of achieving equalisation between the sexes - has progressively worked against marriage. Everyone in the House knows that that is true.
The freezing until the last Budget of the married man's allowance and reducing its value from 25 per cent. to 15 per cent., the refusal to allow the transfer of the personal tax allowances between spouses and from one working spouse to a non-working spouse - thus failing to assist those wives who wish to do so to remain at home and look after their children - has actually been destructive of the family.
My noble friend said that that argument is nonsense. Of course, it is not nonsense. A burden has been put on the family that almost forces both spouses to go out to work. It is a system designed to encourage women to go to work rather than remain at home and look after their own children.
Indeed, as we all know, the social security system itself favours the single parent in many ways, even to the extent that it is financially more favourable for fathers and mothers to live apart. No one can deny that that is happening under the present system.
The impression has been given to women that they do not need a stable relationship with the father of their children as the state will provide. That has all been done under this particular [Conservative] Government who say that they want to retain marriage as a strong institution.
Of course the impression has been given to fathers that they need not worry too much because the state will pick up the tabs.
The social consequences of the single parent family - poverty, crime, deprivation, lack of education and unemployment - are all evils which affect the children of single parent families along with the fiscal and social policies of the [Conservative] Government which have all exacerbated the problems."
Politicians across the political spectrum have been undermining the institution of marriage for a generation. What will make them stop doing this?
"Last week Frank Field, the Labour MP and expert on welfare reform, produced a new analysis of how the [Labour] government’s complicated tax credits and benefits system affects different types of family.
Field found that the system “brutally discriminates against two-parent families”. Startlingly, Field showed that while a lone parent with two children has to work 16 hours a week on the minimum wage to earn £487, a couple with two children would have to slog away for 116 hours.
“I can’t believe the [Labour] government, when it set out, thought this would be the effect,” said Field, adding that there is now a “huge disincentive” for single parents to find another partner, because to do so would incur a large drop in income for both of them.
“There is also a disincentive for two-parent households to tell the truth,” said Field, noting that last year it had emerged that the [Labour] government was paying tax credits or welfare benefits to 2.1m lone parents – 200,000 more than its own official figures said exist. "
But what is really new about this? Lord Stoddart of Swindon, Independent Labour Peer, said about the Conservative Government in a debate on the Family Law Bill [11th January 1996]:
"The [Conservative] Government have been saying over a long period of time that they support the family and marriage, yet all their actions belie that claim. For example, the taxation system - on the pretext of achieving equalisation between the sexes - has progressively worked against marriage. Everyone in the House knows that that is true.
The freezing until the last Budget of the married man's allowance and reducing its value from 25 per cent. to 15 per cent., the refusal to allow the transfer of the personal tax allowances between spouses and from one working spouse to a non-working spouse - thus failing to assist those wives who wish to do so to remain at home and look after their children - has actually been destructive of the family.
My noble friend said that that argument is nonsense. Of course, it is not nonsense. A burden has been put on the family that almost forces both spouses to go out to work. It is a system designed to encourage women to go to work rather than remain at home and look after their own children.
Indeed, as we all know, the social security system itself favours the single parent in many ways, even to the extent that it is financially more favourable for fathers and mothers to live apart. No one can deny that that is happening under the present system.
The impression has been given to women that they do not need a stable relationship with the father of their children as the state will provide. That has all been done under this particular [Conservative] Government who say that they want to retain marriage as a strong institution.
Of course the impression has been given to fathers that they need not worry too much because the state will pick up the tabs.
The social consequences of the single parent family - poverty, crime, deprivation, lack of education and unemployment - are all evils which affect the children of single parent families along with the fiscal and social policies of the [Conservative] Government which have all exacerbated the problems."
Politicians across the political spectrum have been undermining the institution of marriage for a generation. What will make them stop doing this?
28 Mar 2007
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.
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.
19 Dec 2006
Local policies for domestic and social cohesion
David Cameron "has re-committed himself to supporting marriage through the tax system", though 'Breakdown Britain' was not supposed to be about remedies, which are to come later.
It's a bit rich for him to say so, but Michael Portillo argues:
"[David Cameron] has already jumped to the conclusion that family breakdown is at the heart of our horrendous social problems, and has re-committed himself to supporting marriage through the tax system. Duncan Smith looked embarrassed as Cameron converted 300,000 words of serious study into a soundbite that endorsed his preconceptions.....
..............Cameron’s idea of tax breaks is a worthy successor to Marie Antoinette’s exhortation that the poor eat cake when short of bread........... By commissioning Duncan Smith’s reports Cameron has made inequality a political issue. But it is still hard to believe that either the Tories or Labour are serious about tackling it." 'Duncan Smith pins down Britain, the unequal nation'
It really would be fairer to increase the personal tax allowance and make it transferable between spouses, as the Conservatives seem to be suggesting. Not only would it be helpful to poorer married couples with children and only one earner, but it would also help poorer retired couples - with one personal or occupational pension - to avoid the need to claim a currently means tested pension credit. This is social justice, but for the distant future, maybe 2010 or later. As has been amply demonstrated by research from CARE and CIVITAS , the current tax/benefit system favours cohabitation and single parents at the expense of married couples. The balance must be redressed.
At the next general election the Conservatives will need to convince the electorate that they mean what they say well before it. A tax break for married couples was belatedly introduced in the manifesto before last, a proposal to make the personal tax allowance transferable for couples with children up to the age of eleven.
This was when Michael Portillo was Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer. There was no such commitment in the last manifesto. It doesn't really look as if it is something the Conservatives believe in for the purposes of furthering social justice, more of a ploy to attract votes when it suits them, especially in the light of Michael Portillo's underhand reference to "Marie Antoinette’s exhortation that the poor eat cake", since he had proposed it in an earlier election.
Conservative local authorities could to be operating pro-marriage and family policies well before the next election. At present electors are entitled to ask, "What are the Conservatives actually doing now - in places where they have control - to support marriage and family life?"
The truth is, "precious little"!
Michael Portillo says, "...... it is still hard to believe that either the Tories or Labour are serious about tackling [inequality]". The Conservatives don't have their hands on many of the levers of power, but they do control the Local Government Association. David Cameron seems to be willing to announce tax breaks for married couples, so let's hear from him soon about the practicable measures the Conservatives could implement locally now. He could very easily prove that Michael Portillo is wrong.
Promoting local policies for social and domestic cohesion based on neighbourhood statistics would be a good start. Marriage and family policy is much more susceptible to efforts made in homes and neighbourhoods - with the backing of faith and community leaders - than to the rhetoric emanating from Westminster, especially when it comprises tax breaks that cannot be implemented for several years hence, and to which no immediate political or financial cost is attached.
Advertising marriage and family learning programmes - run by voluntary groups - through register offices and other venues operated by local authorities, following guidelines recommended by the Local Government Association, would demonstrate that the Conservatives "are serious about tackling [inequality]".
Will the Conservatives go for the bird in hand, or carry on talking about [those tax breaks in] the bushes? As Janet Daley says, “Don’t talk, fix it!”
It's a bit rich for him to say so, but Michael Portillo argues:
"[David Cameron] has already jumped to the conclusion that family breakdown is at the heart of our horrendous social problems, and has re-committed himself to supporting marriage through the tax system. Duncan Smith looked embarrassed as Cameron converted 300,000 words of serious study into a soundbite that endorsed his preconceptions.....
..............Cameron’s idea of tax breaks is a worthy successor to Marie Antoinette’s exhortation that the poor eat cake when short of bread........... By commissioning Duncan Smith’s reports Cameron has made inequality a political issue. But it is still hard to believe that either the Tories or Labour are serious about tackling it." 'Duncan Smith pins down Britain, the unequal nation'
It really would be fairer to increase the personal tax allowance and make it transferable between spouses, as the Conservatives seem to be suggesting. Not only would it be helpful to poorer married couples with children and only one earner, but it would also help poorer retired couples - with one personal or occupational pension - to avoid the need to claim a currently means tested pension credit. This is social justice, but for the distant future, maybe 2010 or later. As has been amply demonstrated by research from CARE and CIVITAS , the current tax/benefit system favours cohabitation and single parents at the expense of married couples. The balance must be redressed.
At the next general election the Conservatives will need to convince the electorate that they mean what they say well before it. A tax break for married couples was belatedly introduced in the manifesto before last, a proposal to make the personal tax allowance transferable for couples with children up to the age of eleven.
This was when Michael Portillo was Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer. There was no such commitment in the last manifesto. It doesn't really look as if it is something the Conservatives believe in for the purposes of furthering social justice, more of a ploy to attract votes when it suits them, especially in the light of Michael Portillo's underhand reference to "Marie Antoinette’s exhortation that the poor eat cake", since he had proposed it in an earlier election.
Conservative local authorities could to be operating pro-marriage and family policies well before the next election. At present electors are entitled to ask, "What are the Conservatives actually doing now - in places where they have control - to support marriage and family life?"
The truth is, "precious little"!
Michael Portillo says, "...... it is still hard to believe that either the Tories or Labour are serious about tackling [inequality]". The Conservatives don't have their hands on many of the levers of power, but they do control the Local Government Association. David Cameron seems to be willing to announce tax breaks for married couples, so let's hear from him soon about the practicable measures the Conservatives could implement locally now. He could very easily prove that Michael Portillo is wrong.
Promoting local policies for social and domestic cohesion based on neighbourhood statistics would be a good start. Marriage and family policy is much more susceptible to efforts made in homes and neighbourhoods - with the backing of faith and community leaders - than to the rhetoric emanating from Westminster, especially when it comprises tax breaks that cannot be implemented for several years hence, and to which no immediate political or financial cost is attached.
Advertising marriage and family learning programmes - run by voluntary groups - through register offices and other venues operated by local authorities, following guidelines recommended by the Local Government Association, would demonstrate that the Conservatives "are serious about tackling [inequality]".
Will the Conservatives go for the bird in hand, or carry on talking about [those tax breaks in] the bushes? As Janet Daley says, “Don’t talk, fix it!”
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