Marriage

Lord Patel of Bradford Excerpts

Thursday 10th February 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Patel of Bradford]

My Lords, I add my thanks to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chester for calling this important debate. I share an interest with him in the rights and dignity of prisoners, an area in which I know he has been very involved. I need not remind noble Lords of how many of those in our prisons come from backgrounds marked by family breakdown, disadvantage, poverty and the lack of stable and loving relationships. I therefore welcome the opportunity to discuss the role of the state in supporting people to enter into and sustain stable and committed relationships, and in particular how that can strengthen our communities and society as a whole.

Many excellent points have already been made and the quality and interest of the contributions show just how important this debate is. Before I make my own small contribution, I take a brief moment to add my warm welcome to the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler of Enfield, and thank her for such an insightful, extremely relevant and clearly purposeful maiden speech. I truly look forward to her future contributions in debates in this House.

We heard last week in our debate on children and parenting how important it is to have stable relationships in our earliest years. It is clear from some of the points raised so far that there is much in common between that debate and the one that we are having today. As the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Oxford said in his thoughtful and welcome maiden speech, children flourish best in the context of the relationships of stable, loving couples. This is what must be at the forefront of our minds today in discussing marriage and marriage support; it is simply not enough to talk only of marriage.

I am mindful that, notwithstanding the many benefits that have been recognised around marriage, we cannot ignore the fact that in recent decades the proportion of children living in lone-parent families in the UK has steadily increased from 12 per cent in 1981 to 23 per cent in 2008. In addition, divorce and remarriage create stepfamilies, with their own challenges. In 2005, more than 10 per cent of families with dependent children in Great Britain were stepfamilies.

Let us also not forget the growing number of same-sex couples entering into civil partnerships. Indeed, I welcome the Government’s commitment to sustaining support for civil partnerships and, in particular, their intention to allow same-sex couples to register their contracts in religious settings for the first time. It is often overlooked that there are many same-sex couples, especially among lesbian couples, who have children.

A number of noble Lords have raised other issues—of diversity, faith, extended families and age—which must not be ignored. All these issues are summed up by the statement that my friend, the right honourable Harriet Harman, made when discussing these matters. She said:

“Families come in all shapes and sizes. We don't favour one way of family life over another. We want to support and back up all families... Government dictating family structures doesn't work”.

We have to be careful in suggesting that support for one form of loving, stable union between couples should be favoured over another. We must also bear in mind the great many numbers of cohabiting couples who have clearly made a choice not to formalise their union but who nevertheless need support in difficult times.

The danger in focusing support on married couples only, such as with tax breaks, is that we risk not only alienating the many unmarried couples but supporting married couples without children at the expense of families with children, which is clearly unfair. We should focus on the provision of support for people to enable them to enter and maintain stable and long-term relationships. That support must not be solely a matter of fiscal policy—I think that another noble Lord mentioned that—but part of a much wider, co-ordinated approach to tackling the deep-rooted structural inequalities that exist in our society.

That point was recognised by the previous Labour Government, who made families a priority in a way that had never been done before. Issues such as childcare and support for parents were brought into the policy mainstream for the first time. The commitment of the previous Government to support parents and families was also clearly underlined by the establishment and the work of the Department for Children, Schools and Families, which took the lead responsibility for these issues.

I am anxious that this Government have shown something of an ambiguous commitment to families, despite making the family an important tenet of the election campaign. For example, the Department for Children, Schools and Families was quickly dispensed with and is once again simply the Department for Education. That ambiguity concerns me because, in the past decade, we have seen fiscal support for families increased significantly. I am sure that none of us would wish to see that lost.

In the 2002 spending review, £25 million was allocated to the Parenting Fund to invest in parenting support. That first round of funding was followed by two more rounds of £14 million and £12 million respectively. In 2008, the then Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families announced a further £5.1 million of funding for organisations delivering relationship support services and £5.5 million of funding for better co-ordinated local support for separating couples. I think that the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, mentioned some of that funding.

The Children’s Plan was published by the Department for Children, Schools and Families in 2007. It particularly recognised the significance of the adult couple relationship and one of its components was to ensure that outreach workers from Sure Start children’s centres received training to give them the confidence to support relationships after the birth of a child. However, I am greatly concerned that the tightening economic climate and the increasing limitations on resources mean that these vital services are facing dramatic reductions in funding.

A recent survey by the Daycare Trust and 4Children found that: 250 of the centres are expected to close over the next 12 months; 2,000 such centres will provide a reduced service; 3,100 centres will have a decreased budget; and, at 1,000 centres, staff have already been issued with “at risk of redundancy” notices. The Government’s response has been to establish an early intervention grant, which they believe will give local authorities the freedom to make the best decisions for families in their areas. The Government claim that this grant will support the existing network of children’s centres, but its level is 11 per cent lower than the equivalent funding for the previous year and the protection around children’s centres has been removed in the shake-up of budgets.

It is important for us to understand just how vital these services are to families across the country, particularly the most vulnerable, and what a devastating impact this will have. This was recently made clear to me when I was contacted by the husband in a married couple in my home town of Bradford. Mr Paul Farmer has given me permission to share his letter. In fact, he has asked me that the questions he raises are answered by the Minister. Let me read it out:

“Dear Lord Patel of Bradford,

Let me first introduce myself, my name is Paul, I live in the Buttershaw area of Bradford and I am married with one child and one child due in a few weeks. Both myself and my partner work as civil servants with jobcentre plus and to do this we place our son in nursery 5 days a week.

When Christopher was born 3 years ago my wife experienced quite serious post natal depression. This was alleviated by the health visitors in the area, friends and family and by the local sure start children's centre. Here she met other parents, learnt baby massage (which helped both of them a great deal), received tips, help and sometimes just a shoulder to cry on.

As I stated earlier we are now expecting our second child after losing a previous pregnancy in terrible circumstances. We were looking forward to using the children’s centre, receiving the same help and support, and purchased a buggy so that my wife (who is disabled) could walk to the centre when needed.

Last Saturday we were informed that the centre is to close, the nursery attached (the nursery my son goes to) is to close and all help will be lost.

Reevy Hill children’s centre has been a god send. This has come at the WORST possible time for all of us, Christopher will be unsettled, my wife has support taken away from her and our new baby’s health and well being may suffer as a result.

We were assured that none of this would happen and for it to happen with such little warning is disgusting. Please can you tell us why this has happened and what can be done about it, we are desperate for help and this valuable resource needs to be preserved and built upon, not closed.

Yours sincerely, Paul Farmer”.

I am sure that your Lordships will feel, as I did when I received this letter, that the situation Mr Farmer and his wife find themselves in is both tragic and unnecessary. His letter more than adequately describes a situation being faced by a great many couples, as the full impact of the closure of vital support services is being felt. The impact this is having on ordinary parents and families who are already struggling to cope with job cuts and higher costs of living cannot be underestimated. When we talk about support for relationships, we must realise that this involves all those services that affect families and children, as these things cannot be separated.

The Minister assured us last week that Sure Start children’s centres remain at the heart of the Government’s vision for early intervention. In fact, Sure Start has been widely recognised as a highly valuable service and the Prime Minister himself had promised to protect it and build upon it. Those assurances are greatly welcomed but I remain concerned about the commitment to their practical delivery.

In particular, I ask the Minister three key questions. First, why has the protection around children’s centre funding been removed? Secondly, as the level of the early intervention grant is 11 per cent lower than the equivalent funding for the previous year, how can this Government expect local authorities to have the resources to continue to provide support services to the most vulnerable parents and families? Finally, will the Minister make a commitment to build on the achievements we have seen during the past decade in family policy and provide the support needed to build strong and stable families?

I want to make it clear that the aim of my arguments here, while noting the progress we have undoubtedly made, is to emphasize that there is clearly a lot more to do. A truly integrated and mainstream family approach across the whole range of government departments and local services is still a long way from being realised. We need an integrated approach to support for relationships that embraces all aspects of government policy across areas as diverse as housing, criminal justice, disability, asylum and refugee status and neighbourhood renewal. I also echo particularly the issues that were raised about volunteers and their funding.

In conclusion, I once more thank the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chester for introducing this debate and I hope that noble Lords and the Minister will agree with my concerns: that we must approach this on a broader basis, encompassing all support for families and parents—not just those who are married—especially during these difficult and challenging times.