International Men’s Day

Debate between Lord Austin of Dudley and Fiona Bruce

Tuesday 14th November 2017 Westminster Hall

[Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy) on securing the debate and on his excellent speech. Like my hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay (Steve Double) in his similarly excellent speech, I want to talk about the importance of promoting active fatherhood to help to improve children’s life chances, particularly among the least advantaged.

Supporting young men to be active, engaged fathers is, I believe, a matter of social justice, in which the Government should be engaged. Evidence clearly shows that it helps to reduce inequality. Children from low-income households with an active father are 25% more likely to escape the poverty that they grow up in. Time prohibits me from explaining further to colleagues, as I would like to have done, the evidence on this issue, but it can be seen in the research from the Fatherhood Institute entitled, “Fathers’ impact on their children’s learning and achievement”, which is on its website—fatherhoodinstitute.org. It can also be seen in the work of Dr Gary Clapton, who says, interestingly, that active fatherhood is linked to girls’ better educational engagement as well as boys’.

All the indicators are that children who grow up with active fathers in their lives have better life chances, so what can the Government do to address this issue? At the most extreme end of the spectrum, as we have heard, 76% of all male prisoners come from households without a father figure, and boys who have little or no involvement with their fathers are twice as likely to become offenders. There are many practical ways to address the issue, and I am delighted that the Ministry of Justice is committed to doing so

Following the recent release of the Farmer report, the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for East Surrey (Mr Gyimah), has committed the Department to helping men in prison to maintain an active relationship with their children. Governors are now encouraged, where they can, to house prisoners closer to their families and to have available family rooms, where children can be helped with homework. In some prisons, prisoners can record bedtime stories that their children can listen to at home. In general, arrangements are being made to facilitate a strengthening of father-children relationships, so that, when prisoners exit prison, there is a family life that they can, hopefully, return to and that has even been strengthened.

That is just one way of addressing the issue; the Centre for Social Justice has many other suggestions. Again, time prohibits me from going through them all, but to promote more active fatherhood, the CSJ suggests that best practice on this in local authorities across the country should be co-ordinated; there should perhaps be a champion to do that. It suggests that we have a national campaign to mirror the Scottish Year of the Dad, which was last year. I understand that the previous Minister, who is now the Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport (Caroline Dinenage), agreed to look into that during a Westminster Hall debate this year. It linked attitudinal changes in relation to fatherhood with practical interventions at local level.

The CSJ says that we need to change outreach among public services such as children’s centres, maternity wards, health visitors and early years providers to ensure that they really do promote engagement with fathers and measure that. As has been mentioned, we could look again at shared parental leave to see how fathers could be encouraged to take that up more. New fathers say that they want better social and emotional support; only 25% feel that there is enough. I also encourage the Minister, as well as looking at the CSJ’s recommendations, to read the “Manifesto to strengthen families,” which I know he has a copy of. It is now supported by around 60 Back-Bench Conservative MPs and sets out a number of policy suggestions to Government, to directly improve the situation of fathers. For example, maternity services should maximise the chances of including fathers at an early stage, and fathers should be invited to antenatal appointments and fatherhood preparation classes to help them to support their partners. There is one south London hospital where a small fatherhood charity holds weekly preparation classes for fathers to be. That is very important because we know that those early years in a child’s life, from the age of one to three, is a period of great strain on family relationships and, unfortunately, of great break-up.

Hospitals should collect information about fathers’ experiences and about the importance of the NHS friends and families test, focusing their services on supporting the whole family. Similarly we should ensure that the Government finally bring into force schedule 6 to the Welfare Reform Act 2009, which requires all fathers’ names to be included on birth certificates, with appropriate exemptions. As well as improving the payment of child maintenance, that would enable local authorities to identify almost all fathers in their local area and ensure support could be offered to them at an early stage. Sceptics might say, “Well, we already register most fathers,” but it is often those who are most in need of help who disappear.

As the CSJ says, parenting classes should not just be a “middle-class preserve,” which sadly they are at present. In closing, the CSJ also says,

“The consequences of a father falling out of a child’s life are hugely significant, and any Government that is serious about tackling social mobility and improving the life chances of our children needs to take fatherhood seriously.”

[Ian Austin (in the Chair)]

Before I call Mr Clark, let me say that I will call the Opposition spokespeople at about 10.35 am. If Mr Day and Ms Sherriff speak for about seven minutes, we should be able to get to the Minister at about 10.50 am, so, Mr Clark, we will be moving on at about 10.35 am.