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—