Family Policy

Debate between Alan Meale and Fiona Bruce

Wednesday 4th May 2011 Westminster Hall

[Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Meale. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Erewash (Jessica Lee) on securing this important debate. I thank her and my other hon. Friends in Westminster Hall today for all the excellent contributions that they have made.

This debate on family policy comes at a particularly auspicious time following the royal wedding, which I mention because I believe the most important relationship is marriage. I believe that Government should support marriage, particularly for the sake of children—many of which I wish upon the happy royal couple, in the fullness of time.

Like many of my hon. Friends in Westminster Hall today, I have practised in the field of law. I did so for well over 20 years—actually, nearly 30 years, but I was reluctant to say that—as the head of a high street law firm. As a result, I do not have a completely doe-eyed view of marriage. In my time practising law, I witnessed the incalculable cost of relationship breakdown, not least the financial price and the personal price paid by children. However, even after taking that cost into account, I still believe that it can be argued persuasively that marriage is good for the stability of family life and that stable families are good for society.

That being the case, if a key question in policy making is about fairness, why do many parents who choose to marry feel penalised for doing so by our tax system? Fiscal policy that was intended to help single mothers, which is a wholly worthy cause, has created the odd situation whereby some couples who want to live together actually live in separate homes because the tax system rewards them for doing so. On a national scale, that is terribly wasteful, not only because shared housing is more efficient but because, as we have already heard today, cohesive family life brings immeasurable benefits to both individuals and society as a whole.

In a research paper produced by the Christian charity CARE in January 2011, “The taxation of families 2009/10”, Phillip Blond, the director of ResPublica, wrote:

“The family is the most fundamental, basic and rooted unit of society…The centre of the family, the thing that holds it together…is the relationship between parents… There is an increased unwillingness for parents to commit to each other which has given rise to a significant increase in cohabitation which in turn has major implications, not only for adults but also for children… A child born to cohabiting parents has a nearly one in two chance of living in a single parent family by the time they reach their fifth birthday, whilst a child born to a married parent has only a one in twelve chance of finding themselves in this situation. The consequences are far reaching. Children from lone parent families—who today constitute nearly one quarter of all children—are 75 per cent more likely to fail at school, 70 per cent more likely to become drug addicts and 50 per cent more likely to become alcohol dependant. Girls from fatherless homes are an over-represented demographic in teen pregnancy statistics, while boys from fatherless families are typically over-represented in criminal gangs.”

Even if one’s ideals do not include marriage as a public act of commitment, there is evidence that marriage as an institution is mutually beneficial, both to the partners in the relationship and to society as a whole. It is also the most important factor in predicting a child’s well-being. Some see supporting marriage through the tax system as regressive, but I see it as progressive.

In the UK, we support single parents financially—directly or indirectly—because it is right to recognise that bringing up children is a hard job at the best of times, particularly if one is more or less alone in doing so. Many single parents are courageous, self-sacrificial and deserve commendation. Sadly, it is also true that many children who grow up in a single-parent household live in poverty. That is not right, but it is also true that almost half of children who live under the poverty line come from two-parent households. It seems wrong that we should incentivise single parents through the tax system to remain single, simply because of the financial benefits that that status affords.

Other research shows that it is harder for couples with children to lift their children out of poverty than it is for single parents. Again, I quote from the CARE paper:

“Although designed to deal with child poverty, tax credits are now locking children into poverty in working households, especially couple households. The latest poverty statistics are those for 2008/2009 which show that of the 2.8 million children living in households with incomes below the official poverty line (60 per cent of median equivalised income), 1.5 million were in households with one or both parents in paid work, 1.3 million (a number that is increasing) were in couple households… The problem arises because tax credits do not take account of the way income is measured for calculating the number of children in poverty. The DWP say that a lone parent with two children would have required net income of £293 per week to be on the poverty line, whereas a couple with two children would have needed £374 per week. However, a couple family’s entitlement to tax credits is the same as that for a comparable lone parent family. Couple families therefore have to earn more, but because of the way the means testing formula works they receive fewer credits… However, there is a further problem. As pre-tax income increases, tax credits reduce… In 2008/09, a lone parent would have needed to earn only £95 per week to be out of poverty. By contrast, the couple family would have needed to earn £283 per week.”

For a number of years, CARE has been pointing out that many couples would be better off financially living apart than living together. Seventy-eight per cent. of the families in CARE’s sample were shown to be better off living apart, even after the additional housing costs were taken into account. Families find themselves better off living apart principally because of the way in which tax credits are structured and means-tested.

[Mr Alan Meale (in the Chair)]

Order. May I ask the hon. Lady to proceed very quickly? I need to call the Front Bench speakers.

[Fiona Bruce]

Certainly, Mr. Meale. I will conclude my remarks.

Marriage is good for society. It is a public institution as well as a private relationship, and as such society as a whole has a stake in supporting the family unit. If society benefits from the family, as it undoubtedly does, families should benefit from society and its fiscal policies, especially for the sake of our children and their children.

[Mr Alan Meale (in the Chair)]

I thank the hon. Lady for speeding up. It is unfortunate that she was called at the very end, but we have to give the Front Benchers time to speak.