Children: Welfare, Life Chances and Social Mobility

Baroness Bakewell Excerpts

Thursday 1st November 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bakewell (Lab)]

My Lords, I too thank the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, for bringing this debate to the House; it has already attracted a swathe of impressive expertise. In deference to her status as a published novelist, I will take a different point of view. Tolstoy’s opening sentence of Anna Karenina is this:

“All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way”.


Happy families, as we know, are characterised by enduring relationships, security of emotional feelings, stability, affection and concern; we can all enumerate these. But what makes unhappy families? Each unhappy family is a mystery. It has in its inner life a unique story behind its failure, one often charted by novelists: damaged relationships, with their consequences in society.

Unhappiness is not new, and neither is intervention. In fiction, it is quite prevalent. Pip enjoyed “great expectations” which changed his life; Oliver Twist had his life ruined by Fagin. Interventions—relationships with the real world—damage people and always have. However, in the 20th century we saw major changes, which are exemplified in different ways today. We have seen the growth of state intervention in the lives of the wretched. We have seen an increase in expertise in child psychology and child development, which intensifies and proliferates; again, we have had evidence of this today. We have also seen the development of parenting as a studied skill which people learn about and acquire from each other. I grew up with Spock, which is rather out of date these days—each generation has its shelf of advice on parenting.

However, suffering persists. All the different components have not resolved the problems of our society. We still have neglect, deprivation, educational stress in young people, ill health and malnutrition. What is going on? I suggest that today we are going backwards.