Cohabitation Rights Bill [HL]

Lord Farmer Excerpts

Friday 12th December 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Farmer (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Marks, for giving me the opportunity to speak on this important issue—but not, I should make clear, because I welcome the introduction of this Private Member’s Bill. On the contrary, I find the whole concept of validating cohabitation deeply problematic. I want to lay out my concerns in terms of the economic implications of high cohabitation rates and the concomitant instability of the relationships that these engender; the benefits of marriage; and, finally, the need to look beyond accommodating the lifestyle choices of adults and see the repercussions for the weak and vulnerable, most notably the effects on children.

I am sincerely troubled by the reintroduction of the Bill, which, as we have heard this afternoon, echoes that of the noble Lord, Lord Lester, in the 2008-09 Session. The doubling of the number of cohabiting couples between 1996 and 2013 should be seen not as a reason to give them more rights but, rather, as a reason to sound an alarm about the negative effects of these very high rates and the correlation with markedly lower marriage rates.

Many of my days have been spent in the metal markets, so I will start with a simple economic argument against the implication of this Bill, which is the encouragement of cohabitation. This costs the country a great deal of money because of the far greater instability of this living arrangement in comparison with marriage. The annual price tag for the UK’s particularly high levels of family breakdown is a staggering £46 billion per annum. Single parent family formation is increasing at the same time as the UK’s crude divorce rates are falling, because it is far more likely to occur when children are born outside marriage. Parents raising children on their own—92% of whom are women—will struggle to provide adequately for their children, both financially and in terms of the time and attention they need to thrive. Indeed, £9 billion of the costs of family breakdown is accounted for by the additional tax credits that we provide to make up for the lack of a second breadwinner, usually a father.

Marriage, on the other hand, not only saves but also makes the country money. The interdependence within families that it engenders is an asset to the nation because those who marry, and their children, are far less likely to become dependent on the state. Also, research across many countries points to a marriage premium in wages. Employers value the behaviours and attitudes that tend to be associated with marriage. Employees who are married tend to progress further and therefore be paid more than those who are not—and, accordingly, pay more taxes.

The United States Centers for Disease Control describes how the well-being of children rests on their experiencing safe, stable and nurturing relationships. Yet they are far more likely to see their parents break up if they were not married when they were born and to be caught up in the unpleasantness this usually entails, as a result of which 1 million children have no meaningful contact with their father.

The Millennium Cohort Study found that only 9% of married couples have split up by the time their child is five, compared with 26% of cohabiting couples. Many social scientists explain this relative instability in terms of selection effects; those who are more disposed towards entering the married state are also those more likely to be able to sustain a relationship. However, I want to take a moment to explain the inadequacy of this analysis.

First, the same study found that cohabitating parents are at least twice as unstable as their married counterparts, regardless of the income group they come from or their level of education. Secondly, researchers from the respected Institute of Fiscal Studies were able to eliminate the difference in stability between married and cohabiting parents in their regression model only by controlling for relationship quality and the effect of either an unexpected or early birth. They admitted that these variables might in fact be what statisticians refer to as endogenous regressors. In other words, by trying to isolate the effect of marriage per se on stability, they controlled for factors which might themselves be affected by the thing they were trying to measure. Although they decided to take the risk that these factors were not affected by marriage, this is, in fact, the bigger leap of faith.

I shall consider each of these factors in turn. When two people stand together in public and say, “You are the one for me, above all others, whether rich or poor, in sickness and in health, till death us do part”, it is implausible that this has no effect on the quality of the relationship. We of all people believe in the importance of taking vows. Surely I was not the first of your Lordships to feel great emotion when I pledged allegiance to our Sovereign in this very House.

I made my own marriage vows a number of decades ago. Yet when I attend weddings now, it is precisely because of all the water that has gone under our own particular bridge that I gasp at the public commitment being made by two frail human beings. These awesome public promises of lifelong love and faithfulness act like essential glue, now perhaps more than ever, precisely because people in this country are no longer quite so obliged to make them. So we simply cannot encourage these default arrangements by imposing rights on couples who have not made these deliberate and intentional pledges, which are pregnant with such meaning.

Similarly, turning to the effect of either an unexpected or early birth, it is very hard to believe that the parents’ relationship status has no bearing on the likelihood that they will withstand the profound shock to their relationship that either of these events can entail. Again, if a couple have set their course from the outset, deciding to build a family together rather than sliding into parenthood, that cannot but help to strengthen their resolve.

To those who argue that adults’ lifestyle choices have to be respected and protected in law, the obvious rejoinder is that this ignores the repercussions for those who are weak and vulnerable in society, particularly the young and the old and those living in our poorest communities.

Thanks to journalists such as Fraser Nelson and others, our country is beginning to wake up to the uncomfortable realities of the marriage gap—namely, those who are more affluent are also more likely to be married and their children able to benefit from the greater reserves of time, social capital and earning power associated with having two biological parents at home.

Income-poor children, in contrast, are also much more likely to be relationally poor. Obviously, there are exceptions, and strong, close-knit extended families and communities can exist in any income bracket, but the greater informality of relationships that is such a salient feature on our poorest estates is adding to all their other disadvantages. It is a tragedy that many do not even know who their father is. Marriage ties men in, in a far more effective way than does cohabitation.

To reiterate, we should not downplay the inherent and intense struggle that is single parenthood. When I spoke recently in a debate in this House about the challenges of the digital age for families, I pointed out that keeping one step ahead of children’s internet access becomes almost impossible when there is only one person to do the surveillance.

To summarise, it would be far more beneficial to society, both economically and in order to rebuild the social fabric, to encourage marriage rather than cohabitation. We must reinforce the importance of explicit commitment rather than blur its lines by imposing on people rights and obligations they have not freely signed up to.

In conclusion, your Lordships might be surprised to know that Janet Street-Porter agrees with me on marriage. In her recent article, she questions the cult of “me” that began to take off in the 1960s and 1970s and says that politicians not willing to defend marriage are self-centred, on the grounds that, again in her words:

“Surely it’s good for most kids to grow up in stable surroundings”.

Other iconoclasts, such as Rod Liddle, are also beginning to write movingly about the effects of family breakdown, such as the greater likelihood that children affected by it will fail at school, or end up unemployed or in low-paid work or even with severe mental health problems. I would therefore recommend that this Government take note and show their concern for children’s welfare. First, they should increase the available cash benefit of transferable tax allowances for married couples, particularly those with young children.

Secondly, I am encouraged that this Government have set up a task force to improve child and adolescent mental health services. However, given the strong correlation between the prevalence of poor mental health among young people and their exposure to family fracture, surely tackling these root causes is just as important. So I propose today that all party manifestos include a commitment to launch a family stability task force. The commencement of its work should immediately follow the general election. For all the reasons I have outlined, strengthening marriage should be its overriding objective.