Marriage

Baroness Hollins Excerpts

Thursday 10th February 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hollins]

My Lords, I, too, am grateful to the right reverend Prelate for securing this debate. I declare an interest as an honorary member of the British Society of Couple Psychotherapists and Counsellors. I especially enjoyed the maiden speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, and agree wholeheartedly with her emphasis on the need for good preparation for marriage.

Extensive research has now documented that the breakdown of couple relationships has deleterious effects on the psychological and physical health of the couple, as well as on their children. Children suffer not only from the upheavals of the divorce process but from the impact of turbulent, conflicted marriages. Although divorce has apparently reached a plateau, couples that divorce today do so at an earlier age, with an anticipated 45 per cent of British marriages in 2005—perhaps more now—expected to end in divorce. As fewer couples marry, much relationship breakdown remains unreported.

The right honourable Iain Duncan Smith, in his comments earlier this week as part of National Marriage Week, estimated that the costs of relationship breakdown could be somewhere between £20 billion and £40 billion—rather more than the 1995 estimates of only £5 billion—in health consequences, the impact on children and lost working income. As the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, alluded to, while the Government have committed support to relationships, they have allocated only £7.5 million per year for marriage support.

I am also very concerned about the lack of financial support for marriage, especially since results from the 2007 adult psychiatric morbidity survey showed that the second most important predictor of mental illness was family debt. A recent international tax comparison by the charity CARE highlighted the fact that among OECD countries Britain is relatively unusual in failing to recognise marriage in the tax system. This has unfortunate effects, including the tax burden on one-earner married couples with two children, who have an average wage a third greater than the OECD average. There is clearly a need for the Government to fulfil their promise to recognise marriage in the tax system. I refer noble Lords to page 30 of the coalition agreement.

Although the consequences of relationship breakdown can be devastating, mental health professionals can now treat relationship breakdown, as well as contribute to its prevention through strengthening couple relationships. When breakdown occurs, mental health professionals can minimise the harm to children, adults and families. Vulnerable periods in the life cycle of a couple can be identified so that targeted interventions can be offered, as was suggested by me and others in the debate about early intervention and parent-infant relationships just last week.

There are also some vulnerable groups of couples in society. Perhaps surprisingly, young marriage and young parenthood are actively discouraged today, with young mothers feeling criticised by first-time mothers old enough to be their grandmothers, despite the biological advantage of young parenthood. They also increasingly have to begin married life without the advantages of support from their extended family.

Another group among whom marriage and parenthood are discouraged are people with learning disabilities—a group that I have worked with for the past 30 years. Research shows that such families do well when there is a reliable and constant supporter, such as a grandmother, social worker or health visitor. These parents may also benefit from relationship support when they have difficulties in sustaining their intimate relationships. However, such relationship support requires rather more specialist skills from the marriage counsellor.

Very little funding has been made available thus far to evaluate the effectiveness of psychotherapeutic interventions, and the lack of an evidence base, relatively speaking, impacts negatively upon the funding situation for organisations that study and treat dysfunctional relationships. What plans do the Government have to provide more research funding to evaluate the effectiveness of support, given the huge cost to society of marriage breakdown? What plans do they have for support in the tax system for married couples?