(11 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)
I am very grateful for the opportunity to speak in this Adjournment debate. I want to talk about a particularly important subject—young fathers, a group that is often overlooked, frequently marginalised, and rarely supported in our society.
Over the past few years, there has rightly been a lot of concentration on young mothers, with particular public policy concentration on teenage pregnancy. However, there is so little provision for young fathers that we do not even know how many there are in Britain, because there are no accurate figures. However, those of us representing constituencies like Tottenham know that they exist and that they are frequently crying out for help and support.
Modern society is changing more quickly than ever before. The traditional society of the 1950s was opened up with the social liberal revolution of the 1960s and the economic liberal revolution of the 1980s. Both have brought more women into the workplace, raising their skill levels and aspirations, with society increasingly seeing them not just as mothers but as workers in the workplace. That is incontestably a good thing. At the same time, the British family has changed. Between 1975 and 1997, the time British fathers spent with their children on an average working day increased from just 15 minutes to two hours. Again, that is incontestably a good thing.
However, policy has often not caught up with the way that families want to live their lives. Too often, it rests on outdated assumptions of one carer, usually the mum, and one breadwinner, usually the dad. That does not reflect the reality of very many families out there in our country. Therefore, in 2010, I set up the all-party group on fatherhood to place the importance of fathers on to policy makers’ desks and into their in-boxes, and to bring our 19th-century social policy up to date with our 21st-century economy and family life.
Many others have been instrumental in raising these issues over many years, often against a backdrop of official indifference or, sometimes, hostility. Adrienne Burgess and her colleagues at the Fatherhood Institute have shifted the terms of the debate, as has Professor Tina Miller at Oxford Brookes university, both of whom well understand that active, engaged fathers are good for families, good for children, and, importantly in these straitened times, good for the economy. I salute their work.
I also salute the work of many organisations—too numerous to mention—that work with not only fathers, but young fathers in places such as my constituency. They often do so out of the limelight and often try to convince local public services of the value that dads can offer families. I am thinking in particular of Shane Ryan and his group Working with Men, which works extensively in south London. Such vital work is too often under-appreciated.
Encouraging active fatherhood has been a subject close to my heart since my own father left my mother and our family when I was 12 and I grew up without a father in my life. I have in the past discussed general policies in relation to fathers, such as paternity leave, but today I want to address issues specific to young fathers.
Although teenage pregnancy remains an issue in our society, at least it is accepted that young mums have problems that are specific to them and that they need help and support. That rarely happens with the young dads who have fathered those children. Too often we treat young fathers as problems to be solved and not people to be supported or helped.
Jonathan Lord (Woking) (Con)
I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on securing this debate. Is not the problem he is outlining exacerbated by the benefit system? Sometimes young fathers are discouraged by the woman and her family themselves, because she might be less well-off with a man. Would it not be better—emotionally and for our society and the future of the children—for those fathers to be given a chance?
Mr Lammy
The hon. Gentleman raises an important point to which I will return. We as policy makers need to think about and understand families. There may not be a relationship between mum and dad, but more often than not the father needs to remain engaged. In the case of young fathers, they need a lot of support to remain engaged, or they might walk away and never return.
Our media talk so often about “feckless fathers” and “deadbeat dads” and assume that all young fathers fit the same, sometimes inaccurate stereotype. That has to stop. It is time for young dads not just to be listened to, but to be heard, because they are all too often unwilling to disappear from their children’s lives. They are often disfranchised by neglect and by lack of support from the system, not by design. Mums, dads, children—the whole family—lose out if young fathers find themselves in that position.
Let us be clear: as President Obama has said, what makes a man is not conceiving a child, but having the courage to raise one. Fathers of whatever age have to live up to their responsibilities and to the high expectations that we should all as a society have of them. That does not mean that society should not help them live up to those expectations, particularly when they are young people.
Young fathers present specific issues. It is often the case that they were looked-after children, excluded from schools or raised in poverty. Teenage fathers are three times more likely to have failed to have completed secondary education and much more likely than their peers to not be in education, employment or training. Unfortunately, many are young offenders: 12 % of 15 to 17-year-old offenders have children of their own, and nearly half of those aged 22 and under are or are about to become fathers. Many of them have never seen what good parenting looks like so, without support, how do we expect them to raise their own children properly?
Too often, we condemn young fathers for their background. They are failed in their schools and failed in their families, and we fail them again when they become fathers. That feeds feelings of deep inadequacy and shame. They know that they are unprepared for fatherhood, but do not know where to turn to for support. They have much higher rates of anxiety and depression than their peers without children. Most of all, they are often very angry, and often with good reason.
However much teenage dads want to play a role in their child’s upbringing, life seems to conspire against them. A job will be hard to come by for this cohort of fathers, given the state of our economy. Their partners may get a home, as has been indicated by the hon. Member for Woking (Jonathan Lord), but if they are not together, it is highly unlikely that the father will get one. The public services to help them with their role as a dad will be patchy or non-existent. Jobcentre Plus will be more interested in processing their benefits than in working with them to obtain the skills for work while bringing up their children.
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
This is a brilliant speech. A debate on this matter in Parliament is long overdue. On housing, the single room rate for people up to the age of 35 means that increasingly, young men live in bedsits in houses with lots of other young men. That is not a suitable place to take a child if the father has occasional custody.
Mr Lammy
My hon. Friend raises an important issue. If we believe, as I suspect Members across the House do, that we must keep fathers engaged with their children, assuming that there is no issue such as violence, the contact that they have with their children is fundamental. Policies such as the room rate cut across that. The costs that society has to pick up when a father becomes disengaged from his son, and the costs of the repetition when that son becomes a young man, are considerable. I am pleased that she has raised that issue.
The Work programme is limping along and the Youth Contract is not doing its job for this cohort of young men. We need tailored programmes for young men, and for young dads in particular, because we understand the cost to society if they do not get it right at this stage. Things do not look good, which can make these young men very angry. When I hosted a recent meeting of the all-party parliamentary group on fatherhood in which we spoke to young fathers, I saw just how angry these young men can be because of their frustration at wanting to be good fathers, but not being supported by the system.
Not only are young fathers not supported or helped; they are demonised by journalists and politicians. Myths solidify into facts. The isolated but deeply regrettable incidents of men who father children with different mothers become the rule, not the exception. Figures from the Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission show that fewer than 5,000 men are paying maintenance for children they have had with three partners and that fewer than 500 men are paying maintenance for children they have had with four partners. Although those men may not have lived up to the high expectations that we should have of them, they do not represent the vast majority of young fathers.
We must bust some other myths too. The majority of young fathers are in relationships with the mothers of their children. The millennium cohort study found that half the partners of teenage mothers were living with them during the pregnancy. The vast majority of young fathers intend to play a full role in their children’s lives, and that intention does not disappear with the first sleepless night or the first nappy—in fact, it often grows. The same study found that one in five non-resident fathers who had low contact with their 10-month-old infants were in more frequent and often daily contact when the child was three. Young dads want to be there for their children just as much as all dads; they just need support to do it, as one would expect of young people.
Many young dads live chaotic lives. Many hon. Members will be familiar with young people who live chaotic lives, perhaps even in their own homes. For many young men, becoming a dad is the wake-up call that pushes them to take control of their lives and to take better care of themselves, as well as their families. That is exactly what I saw when I visited St Michael’s Fellowship in Brixton—a wonderful organisation that works with young dads in some of the most testing circumstances in Britain. I wish to place on record my thanks to Seany O’Kane, who runs the scheme, and to Kim Normanton, a BBC producer who allowed me to spend time at St Michael’s recording “Dads Who Do”, a documentary for Radio 4.
Even among fathers facing multiple pressures, the vast majority try to stay involved in their children’s lives and to be good role models. They each told me that they feel they are on their own and expected to get by without help, support or even recognition of their needs. Too often, they come up against maternity services at children’s centres or schools that place no expectation on them as young fathers, and all the expectation on the young mother.
I have said that young dads often have greater needs than other fathers, and in other parts of our public services that would mean more provision for them, not less. In too many parts of our public services, however, young fathers are practically invisible—at best ignored, and seen by some workers as a risk or a danger to be avoided. Too many are denied access to their children and have to fight their way through the courts. Without legal aid many men are now presenting to MPs in a breakdown situation with their partners, and they have to supervise themselves through the court system. Expecting an 18, 19 or 20-year-old to supervise themselves through a legal process is expecting too much and nothing short of a national disgrace. The Government should think carefully about their provisions for legal aid in such family cases.
There is no statutory requirement to provide services to young fathers. Support is piecemeal, patchy and at heart a postcode lottery. Too often, young fathers say they are ignored by public service professionals, who assume that the father is not really interested in their child. Where support is provided to fathers, it is often generic and tailored to older fathers who may need less help. A recent survey found that in half of cases involving a young family, the health visitor did not even know the father’s name. Young fathers often have little contact with midwives, health visitors and social workers. Children’s centres often have targets for engaging with dads, but there are no data on how many children actually come into contact with their dad. Good children’s centres, like Earlsmead and Noel Park in my constituency in Haringey, do encourage such contact, but many will not.
This is a problem, and not just for the dads themselves. Research suggests that the mother’s perspective on her care will be determined to a large extent by her partner’s views. A young father who is engaged with public services is more likely to remain supportive of their children’s care as they grow up. That is good for children and the partner. Young mothers who believe that their partner is supportive have higher self-esteem, lower depression, and are more likely to be positively attached to their child.
However, what should be a win-win situation is too often a lose-lose one—public services push away a young dad, which leads to a young mum bringing up her child on her own. Such reluctance to engage with young fathers might also spring from a reluctance to engage young people at all when it comes to sex education. Young dads know less about sex and relationships than young mums, although most are happy to learn.
A reluctance to engage young dads before the birth feeds into a lack of provision for couples to raise their child together after the birth. Most residential homes are for mothers and babies only—again, treating fathers as though they are a danger, irrelevant, or both. Too many young couples are forced apart because of local authority housing decisions that do not take a whole-family approach that would enable young parents to establish their own households. Pressure on young fathers and families builds up, making it even more difficult for them to look after their children.
We need an entire shift in attitude on behalf of public services from focusing exclusively on the mother and child to thinking about the family, including the father, however young he might be. That must begin from the high expectations that we should have of all fathers. Significant numbers of the birth certificates of children born to teenage mothers do not identify the father at all. How can we show fathers our expectations of them if we do not even require their names to be on their children’s birth certificates? Will the Minister explain—I have raised this issue in many forums—why his Government have not enacted the provisions in the Welfare Reform Act 2009 that would provide for joint birth registration?
Young dads often experience significant financial hardship. We know that the best way for them to provide for themselves and their families is through skilled, decent, well-paid work. The problems that young fathers face because of the Work Programme’s one-size-fits-all approach are too numerous to mention. Will the Minister raise that issue with his colleagues in the Department for Work and Pensions? It is not acceptable that public services should fail to engage with young fathers at all. Young dads should be engaged from antenatal services onwards, improving outcomes for their children and breaking down poverty and social exclusion. To achieve that, maternity services, health visitors, social workers and children’s centres should, at the very least, always record the father’s details, regardless of his age, and work with the voluntary sector and children’s centres to provide the best possible targeted support for the family as a whole, including young dads.
Will the Minister work with his colleagues to ensure that public services support young fathers to live up to the high expectations we should have of them? Will he think again with the Secretary of State for Education about what more the Government can do to raise the profile of the expectations that we should have of young fathers and the services that local authorities and local institutions need to deliver if we are to see fewer break-ups and less poverty as a result? Will the Minister also work to introduce parenting education for all secondary school pupils? Most of all, if we are to support young dads properly, we need the data to understand how many are out there. How many are being helped by our public services, as well as by local authorities and the voluntary sector? Will the Minister ensure that those data are collected in a standardised form, where safe to do so, and made open to public services and other organisations that want to do more for fathers?
Finally, will the Minister and his colleagues commit to improving the services offered by young offender institutions for young fathers? Given that so many young fathers come through young offender institutions, we need a better focus from the Department on young fathers while they are in them and can be supported—when they come out—to be better fathers than they might otherwise have been. Will the Minister commit to reinstating the teenage pregnancy strategy, which provided so much support for young parents? There has been a substantial cut. Local authorities are moving away from their budgets. In 2009, teenage pregnancy figures were going in the right direction—we saw a 6% drop—but sadly they are now going back up.
Craig Whittaker (Calder Valley) (Con)
Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Mr Edward Timpson)
In the time I have left, I will do my utmost to address the issues that the right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) has raised, but if I am unable to do so, I will endeavour in the usual way to write to him and explain in as much detail as I can what the Government are doing to address the important issues he has raised.
I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on securing this important debate. The House knows well the great importance that he places on supporting fathers, which is built not just on his huge insight, but on his personal experiences, which he has eloquently communicated in books, articles and papers that he has written on the subject. Only a few weeks ago, as I was driving to a primary school in Staffordshire Moorlands, I was listening to him on the radio giving a powerful demonstration of why it is important to keep our eye on the ball, not just for fathers generally but for young fathers specifically.
Like the right hon. Gentleman, the Government recognise that a father’s role in his child’s life is important. Children benefit greatly from a continuing relationship with both fathers and mothers. The evidence is clear that the positive involvement of fathers can lead to enhanced educational attainment, improved behaviour, better well-being and better relationships with their children. As he said, the foundations of so many social problems—and success stories—are laid in the early years. The evidence shows that what parents do in their child’s early years is a critical factor in that child’s future attainment and behaviour.
Children’s centres have the capacity to be life changing, ensuring that the families who need the services the most get the support they need. By identifying, reaching and helping the families in greatest need, they help to improve parenting capacity and health and well-being, and support the development of children so that they are well prepared to start school. Children’s centres offer different approaches to provide an environment in which fathers feel comfortable. For example, many offer stay and play sessions for fathers and children or networks to enable fathers to meet up and feel confident to use their local centres. I remember a few years ago, as part of an inquiry by the Children, Schools and Families Committee, visiting a children’s centre in Westminster North where it was doing exactly that: trying to work out how better to engage with young dads.
Some centres work closely with teenage fathers, supporting them in their parenting role and encouraging them to develop their skills for work. The right hon. Gentleman mentioned Earlsmead children’s centre in his constituency, which supported a young father who was the main carer for a child under the age of two. Through the stay and play sessions, and through interacting with the staff to enable him to be better around his child and to access other services, he went from being unemployed to being referred to the centre through a back-to-work programme, resulting in him successfully getting a job. That is a fantastic example of how children’s centres can make a huge difference.
The right hon. Gentleman highlighted his concern that the needs of young fathers were not being addressed through the Work programme. I can assure him that one-size-fits-all employment programmes no longer exist. The current programmes recognise that young people need more tailored support to find work. Children’s centres such as Earlsmead play their part by working closely with local employment services to help ensure that that is delivered. I will, however, speak to my colleagues in the Department for Work and Pensions to see if there is anything more we can do to learn from recent experiences since the changes were brought in.
Some local authorities make children’s centres one of the places where parents can register births; for example, in Manchester, Bury and York. They have found that the opportunity to register births in children’s centres is potentially a very effective means of exposing parents to the support available through centres. They have reported improved engagement with hard-to-reach families. For example, the Benchill children’s centre in Manchester reported that 100% of young parents who registered their baby at Benchill have re-engaged with the services offered by the centre.
I share the right hon. Gentleman’s preference for joint birth registration, because it promotes the involvement of both parents in the upbringing of their children. He will know that the Government’s position, rather than having catch-all legislation, is to pursue ways to strengthen the existing guidance to registrars to make clearer to mothers the expectation that the father’s name should always be recorded on the register unless there are very good reasons why that should not happen. I am happy to take up his case with other Departments to see if that approach has the effect we all want to see.
The voluntary sector has a strong track record of supporting families. Charities such as 4Children, Barnardo’s and Action for Children, as well as the many mentioned by the right hon. Gentleman, run many children’s centres on behalf of local authorities. In my constituency and elsewhere, many parents who have children under the age of five benefit from the valued support of Home-Start UK. We are also funding the Fatherhood Institute to work in four local authorities to improve educational outcomes for children from deprived communities. The focus is on helping early years services to engage fathers, including non-resident fathers, in their children’s learning.
It is vital that very young people who are about to become parents get the support they need too. Pregnancy and birth present the first opportunity to engage fathers in the care and upbringing of their children. It is important that both the mother and father feel involved in the pregnancy from an early stage. In 2011, the Royal College of Midwives published “Top Tips for Involving Fathers in Maternity Care”. It cites the teenage pregnancy support unit in Hull, which assesses the needs of young fathers as well as young mothers, and provides support to develop parenting skills. On a recent visit to Eagle Bridge health centre in Crewe, I met a teenage couple who were first-time parents. They spoke about how they were benefiting from the personalised support they were receiving from the family nurse partnership programme. The right hon. Gentleman spoke about a wake-up call, and that was very much that couple’s experience of the programme, which supports children in some of the most disadvantaged circumstances. By 2015, some 16,000 families in need will be benefiting from the service.
I have only a short time left but I echo the right hon. Gentleman’s comments about young offenders who are also fathers. He also mentioned that many of them have spent time in the care system. Some 50% of those in young offender institutions have spent some time in care. There was a strong correlation between the two. Having accepted that those who have done wrong need to be punished, I want to do more, through my Department and working with the Ministry of Justice, to understand how to use that time to give them the resilience, support and education they need to better their lives when they are, we hope, rehabilitated back into the community.
The Government are undertaking a number of other initiatives, including relationship support, the CANparent trials and the online and telephone helpline services for families, to name but a few, as well as the proposed changes to paternity leave and the measures in the Children and Families Bill.
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for securing this debate. Like him, I firmly believe that children need their fathers as much as they need their mothers, and we must do all we can to ensure, wherever possible, that both parents are fully involved in their child’s upbringing.
The measures that the Government are taking will help to ensure that we support parents, and parents-to-be, who need it most. Be that as it may, I am always more than happy to discuss with the right hon. Gentleman what more we can do to ensure that young fathers play as full and active a role as possible in their children’s lives and, in doing that, we have the opportunity—