Love Matters (Archbishops’ Commission on Families and Households Report)

Baroness Bottomley of Nettlestone Excerpts

Friday 8th December 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bottomley of Nettlestone (Con)]

My Lords, the standard set in 1 Corinthians is a high standard for some of us to meet. I have been married for only 56 years to the same person—not as good as the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss. I think our marriage survives only because we are in separate Houses; he is the Father of the House of Commons, and I am here.

Quite often, I have referred to a comment to me by the late Dukey Hussey, who was in this House. He said, “Murder, frequently; divorce, never!” Within that context, I endorse the comments from my noble friend Lady Stowell that marriage gives an additional piece of glue holding people together: a coalition. I might have gone off him quite often, but we are married and therefore it is obligatory. I urge noble Lords to say that there is a role for marriage, but it has to be handled sensitively and appropriately.

I speak also as somebody who worked in a child guidance clinic as a psychiatric social worker. I was on the board of the Children’s Society and, of course, I was the Minister responsible for implementing the seminal Children Act 1989, which has stood the test of time. I remember so well the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, and her inquiry. Having previously been a juvenile court chairman, I was so aware of the issues involved. The difficulty with children is that something can be true, but it can be fantasy. Taking children away wrongly is a terrible thing to do; leaving children in their homes and disaster ensuing is a terrible thing to happen. Very few understand the complexity of these decisions.

I am a committed Anglican. I was a lay canon at Guildford Cathedral. However, like the Church of England, the Conservative Party I joined was one where no one was ever so vulgar as to ask what you really believed. I own my own beliefs and faith; they are not imposed. I am not sure how well I would do at an examination if asked exactly what I believed—either by the Tory party or by the Church of England. However, I am totally committed to the Church of England as it is.

I also speak as a grandmother of eight. I simply say that I come from an extended, close, united tribe. There is mutual support, sharing, caring and holidays. Even then, bringing up children is a nightmare. They are demanding; they are difficult when coping with jobs and holidays. Now, children are supposed to be occupied every minute of the day—it is a very bad thing—with coaching on tennis or football or piano. There is no peace for a child now, which may be one of the reasons for some of the mental stress of teenagers. They are so exhausted with this battery of improvement they have from their parents. When people used to have more children, there was less intense pressure for them to be perfect and live up, let us be frank, to their parents’ ideal.

Having been chancellor at the University of Hull for 17 years, and through my work for Frank Field at the CPAG and as chair of the juvenile court, I know only too well the chaos, despair, deprivation and complete lack of support that so many families face. The dilemma of real poverty is not only a lack of resource but the complete unpredictability—you are not quite sure which house you are going to be in; you are not sure whether your partner will be there. It is as much having no agency, no control and no ability to plan your life as it is the financial difficulties. I used to say that if you had a PhD in nutrition, maybe you could get by on the poverty wage, but then you had everything else organised in your life; these are families—as the Church knows so well—who do not have that opportunity, control and support. I therefore see these issues in that context.

I warmly endorse and support Love Matters, and I commend the most reverend Primates and the right reverend Prelate on all their wonderful work. To me, it is realistic and pragmatic: it accepts the world as it is. It does not hanker after a sentimental, suburban picture of family life—which I really doubt ever existed anyway. I have always thought that overidealistic goals make everybody feel a failure. It is like dieting—if you have a picture of the perfect shape that you ought to be, you will always be a miserable person. It is similar in family life; as Winnicott used to say, you only have to be a “good enough” mother, you do not have to be a perfect mother. I think that is a great comfort. Many noble Lords will have seen the Royal Shakespeare Company’s wonderful production of “Hamnet”. It reveals family life in Shakespeare’s time, which did not look all that tidy either.

I share the tributes to Professor Janet Walker. I congratulate the most reverend Primates for choosing such an excellent person as chair. She was a probation officer for 10 years, working with extremely troubled offenders; she has done over 50 research studies into all aspects of family life; and she was director of the impressive Newcastle Centre for Family Studies. Recently, as I know my noble friend Lord Robathan will particularly like, she has done a report for the MoD on the pressures for military families. Again, it is useful, powerful and unsentimental, and it really hits home.

The most reverend Primates suggest that

“Our flourishing as a society depends on the flourishing of our families and households”


and families and households must be

“at the heart of our collective thinking and actions”.

I absolutely agree with that. I really endorse, approve and admire the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury’s book, Reimagining Britain, which at the time I thought was particularly powerful and relevant to the real world in which we find ourselves.

We can analyse the problems—and there are a lot of problems—but I feel passionately that we should celebrate the many impressive initiatives across the country, which are so often facilitated by churches responding to local needs and problems. The Church has always reached out—we just have to look at the introduction of education; the work of the Children’s Society; Bob Holman, who started the first children’s and family centre in Bristol, which I remember visiting; and the work of the National Council for Carers and their Elderly Dependants, now Carers UK. The latter came about because a Methodist minister noticed that the single women with elderly dependants were not coming to church. It is a very big problem if you do not go to church, because someone will start a charity to support your cause. The Church has been as a practical catalyst and facilitator, to reach out and ensure that we do all we can for the most vulnerable and most frail.

I pay particular tribute to the charity ATD Fourth World. Even the most apparently hopeless parents—parents whose children have gone into care or parents who feel they have failed against some standard of what they should be able to achieve—want to be good parents. They want to be the parents that they never had. They want to do the best for their children, and the failure compounds their own sense of failure. Lord Joseph, formerly of this House, talked about the “cycle of deprivation”. We know those parents for whom it is almost impossible to be the stable role model, providing unconditional love for those for whom they are responsible. I well remember many early child abuse cases. It is really hard to understand. What triggered the abusing behaviour in a particular stepfather—Heidi Koseda’s case, I think—was that the child would not say that he was her father. The child would not say that she loved him; she would resist and resist, even with the consequence of harmful abuse. It was the man’s desire that he should be treated as her father and be a good person.

The Church can provide wonderful role models of consistency—but there must be consistency. I used to talk at the Trinity College Centre in Camberwell. I would say to those privileged and clever students who came from Trinity College, Cambridge—I know a few people who have been there—that they should not promise anything to those children that they could not deliver. The children’s whole lives had been filled with people who had promised a present, a holiday, a bicycle—anything—and who had failed and disappointed them. If you say that you are going to send a Christmas card, send a Christmas card. You do not want to compound these children’s sense that all of life is adults who say one thing, do another and do not really care.

We accept that unconditional love provides the blueprint for strong relationships and human flourishing. Of course, people need to have their basic needs met, but it is relationships that really matter. As the report acknowledges, it is the conflict between parents that is so damaging—more so than separation itself. Separation is wretched, but people can live in single households, as has been so well expressed in the report and in the House today. It is the dispute, aggression and vilification of each other that causes the real damage to the children. I therefore welcome the Government’s recognition of that priority through the reducing parental conflict programme, making funding and support available centrally and locally, helping to address conflict and thereby improving children’s lives.

I particularly commend an organisation that I had not previously known about: the Positive Parenting Alliance. It talks about the #ParentsPromise, helping people going through separation and divorce. What I like about this is that it is not only the usual suspects who are supporting it—the charities and foundations—but there are also HR directors engaged in this initiative, which I believe is really relevant and to the point.

I have a concern that families who do not live up to the idealistic norm may not feel welcomed in church. It seems to me that those who are separated or divorced need the Church all the more. Michael Marshall, in his colourful way, used to say that churches should be for the bad, the sad and the mad—I take the point and I hope that noble Lords all do as well. The attitude to divorce is quite quaint, given that divorce—or, rather, annulment—was a rather important factor when the Church of England was established all the way back in 1534 by Henry VIII. Perhaps we should be more considerate of no-fault divorces and non-conflictual separations in the Church. As the report says, we should move

“from the language of hostility to the language of peace”.

The Divorce, Dissolution and Separation Act 2020 was widely welcomed, but we must use that 20-week waiting period for support, information and advice for parents. It is fundamental that parent couples can talk openly and comfortably about their struggles without feeling criticised or alienated. Of course, even when there is divorce, they remain parents. Being a parent is not a role that you can divorce yourself from. The challenge is to ensure that those divorced parents retain an ongoing relationship with the children.

I want to say more about Anglican clergy and laity. In saying that, I refer to ministers and priests of all religions: they are a dedicated and powerful force, handling what can be a relentless task. I was once asked to speak to all the northern bishops’ wives by the Bishop of Carlisle, and I said, “Being married to a priest is exactly like being married to an MP. The Member of Parliament spends all their time helping other people’s children, helping other families, supporting them at Christmas, but their own family is completely on the back burner: it is a very difficult role”. Indeed, when I was the Children’s Minister, I was absolutely never at home, working all the time. I finally said to my daughter, “Darling, if a strange woman knocks on the door and says she’s your mother, let her in; it might well be her”. I think this is something experienced by a great number of similar people.

In paying tribute to the clergy, let me quickly mention Clive Potter, the vicar at my local church, St John’s in Milford, where he served for 16 years. He did not get a PhD in theology, he has not had a particularly privileged life and he has been the most wonderful parish priest: uncomplicated, virtuous, available, Christian. We said goodbye to him last weekend with great love and admiration. On the laity, I say in passing that Clare Sandy, just the most wonderful woman, who died last week, was always there to support and help the bad, the mad and the sad.

Our work is hugely enhanced by the number of female clergy—it is remarkable for those of us who remember there being no female clergy—and particularly in this place. I am delighted that the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Gloucester is here; she was the pioneer and she survived the test of time. It is tremendous that there are now five female Bishops, I believe.

I want to make a small point about the Lords spiritual. I passionately want the Lords spiritual to remain, but I do not think they enhance their prospects by looking like a Persil advertisement. I have spoken to virtually every Bishop about removing the robes. They do not need to wear them. So long as the Bishop saying prayers—officiating—is wearing a robe, they can keep the Robing Room, but all the others should modernise their attire and look more normal, even in their dog collars and attractive shirts. I have said this politely to so many Lords spiritual, but now I have had to call upon the House to help in my campaign.

I have so much more to say. I can say only that love matters and the Church matters.