Relationships and Children’s Well-being

David Burrowes Excerpts

Tuesday 21st October 2014 Westminster Hall

[Mr David Burrowes (Enfield, Southgate) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to take part in this vital debate. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) on securing it and on championing, not only in this debate, but over the years, the importance of supporting the family.

It is extraordinary that the debate is not better attended, but despite the lack of attendance among Opposition Back-Bench Members, with the exception of the hon. Member for South Antrim (Dr McCrea), we do face an epidemic, as my hon. Friend said, and it has been going on for many years. This epidemic needs the same attention we would give any other epidemic in our country, and it is interesting to reflect on that as we consider how well we are dealing with the scale of the problem.

My hon. Friend paid tribute to the report from the Centre for Social Justice. She mentioned a number of statistics, and one that struck me was that if we carry on in the same way, it is likely that, by the end of the next Parliament, more than half of children taking their GCSEs will come from broken homes. As she said, that is of particular concern as a social justice issue; in low-income households, half of those from the ages of nought to five do not live with both parents. The issue has been highlighted by not only the CSJ, but the recent Good Childhood inquiry, which said that family breakdown and conflict have the biggest adverse impact on children’s well-being.

I welcome the fact that my hon. Friend the Minister, who is with the Department for Work and Pensions, is taking a lead on this issue—quite properly, given the Secretary of State’s long track record on addressing family breakdown. However, it must be said that if our country was facing any other epidemic, Cobra would get together, and the Prime Minister would probably lead the meeting. There would also be a whole set of plans, and a significant amount of money would be thrown in to try to address the problem. I welcome the fact that the lead on addressing this epidemic is being taken by the DWP, but should it not be taken across Government at Cabinet level, as my hon. Friend said?

The Prime Minister has taken a lead—in fact, more than any other Prime Minister—not simply at the beginning of this Parliament, but very much as we get towards the end of it. I attended the speech he gave in August, in which he set out the steps we have taken, which are significant, and what we are doing now. My hon. Friend highlighted those points, but I should also emphasise the significant amount that continues to go into relationship support. That is welcome and important, but in many ways, it is the minimum we need to be doing.

Adoption reform is fantastic; what is happening is significant, and it must be welcomed. The belated introduction of the marriage tax allowance recognises the significance of marriage and helps to support it. The work done in the troubled families programme is also welcome. However, in many ways, that is only the minimum we should be doing to address the tide of family breakdown and instability, which is taking a huge toll on all our communities, but particularly the most deprived.

We should not simply accept that family breakdown is inevitable. We have to look at other countries. Sadly, we top the league of instability and family breakdown. There needs to be a shift, but it is not one that the Government can engineer; there needs to be a cultural shift, which will allow us properly to promote the benefits of marriage and committed relationships.

I do not want to give a commentary; in many ways, we all agree about the problems, the challenges we face, and the good steps the Government have taken. Instead, I want to address three issues. One is fathers. As we all recognise, fathers matter, but 1 million children in Britain today have no significant contact with their father. That is a huge problem and a huge shame. We all accept that fathers matter in family relationships, and we must do more to support fatherhood.

It is interesting that the Minister is here, because we need to do more in two areas. One is the joint registration of births. Schedule 6 to the Welfare Reform Act 2009 provides for the joint registration of births. Mothers are automatically registered, but unmarried fathers are not, and they have to go through a process to get on the birth certificate. I understand that the provisions have not been implemented yet, and they have no doubt been delayed by legitimate concerns about wanting to avoid problematic issues—for example, preventing a violent father from automatically registering and assuming responsibility for the child. However, the legislation does provide for exceptions, and I do not understand why we have not motored on with a decent piece of legislation introduced under the previous Government to ensure that, at the very least, we make it easier for fathers automatically to register. Being registered on the certificate is hugely significant; it says loud and clear that the father, as well as the mother, matters at the very start of the child’s life. Flowing from that, other shifts can take place, in terms of the father’s responsibility and the way in which he can be involved practically. Will the Minister therefore tell us how far we have got with implementing the legislation?

It is also important to look at how registration can happen practically. It does not need to happen at the registry office. Like others, I know the difficulty of getting everyone to the registry office to register. When couples are not married, or there are problems in a relationship, that can be even harder. We therefore need to look actively at registering births at children’s centres. That was recommended by the CSJ, and I ask the Minister to examine whether the Department for Education can look at the benefits. In particular, it has been recommended that we look at our children’s centres as real family hubs, where mothers and fathers can be together to access information and help to support their children. Even if there are problems in relationships, the mother and the father can still be involved in the child’s journey. Children’s centres can operate better as a wider family hub.

The second issue is one that does not always get a mention: grandparents and the extended family. Families come in all shapes and sizes: they go up, down and along in terms of their length, breadth and depth. We should recognise the unsung heroes of families—the 14 million grandparents in Britain today. They range widely in age, and we should not stereotype them. Half are under 65 and one in 10 is aged 50. One in four working families rely on them increasingly for child care. I understand from Grandparents Plus that they contribute some £7.3 billion of child care to society. We need to understand their role. They provide important practical and emotional support for parents, which is particularly needed in crises.

Kinship care is in some ways the poor relation in family policy. The Government have rightly done a lot about adoption, providing rights, support and access to information for adoptive parents. However, grandparents and other kinship carers are not on the same level. I invite the Government to think about how we can go forward on the reform of kinship care. It has such a significant role—particularly, as the Minister will know, when a child, or indeed a parent, has a disability. Grandparents can have an informal or formal role, and their involvement builds social capital within the family, but they also gain a lot of value themselves from being involved in the care of their grandchildren. It helps with their independence, and can avoid huge bills for social care subsequently. Much more active support for their role would be a win-win situation for the grandparents and the children.

In reality, grandparents struggle, particularly in crises. It is thought that up to 300,000 children are being brought up by 200,000 grandparents who carry out the role of family carers. In many instances domestic violence, drug or alcohol addiction, abuse and neglect are involved in the situation, and the only person who can be turned to is a kinship carer. That might be a grandparent, but it could be a sibling or other family member. Such approaches can also be important in crises, such as when there is a bereavement, an imprisonment or a combination of such factors. The reality is that 95% of children living with members of their wider family do not have formal looked-after status within the care process. Without that, kinship carers inevitably do not receive the same rights and benefit entitlements as those who provide formalised care. The evidence is that children do much better where there is a kinship relationship. Stress, anxiety, depression and isolation affect kinship carers immensely, and without the levels of support available to others, that is growing. Kinship carers may be affected by issues to do with housing and the availability of discretionary payments to enable them to cope during crises.

What can be done about the situation? When he gave the speech that I have mentioned, the Prime Minister was asked a question about kinship care and he said:

“You do see sometimes grandparents stepping in and effectively bring up children, and of course under the rules they don’t get quite the same set of rights as others. What you are saying is that if you can extend to adoptive parents things that birth parents have in terms of rights, couldn’t you do that for grandparents?

That is something I am very happy to look at in terms of manifesto, and we have got some Conservative MPs”—

in fact, there are two hon. Members present for the debate who were there at the time—

“who have got some responsibility for giving me ideas on that front, so I am sure they will take note of it.”

I encourage the Minister to take note, and consider the possibility of a local authority duty to consider the wider family before children are taken into care.

The Department for Education came up with good guidance in April, which states that

“the local authority should identify and prioritise suitable family and friends placements, if appropriate…before care proceedings are issued, as it may avoid the need for proceedings.”

That is very welcome; we need to think about how far that is embedded in local authority practice. The Department also said in guidance in April that foster carers should have 20 days’ paid leave for training and meetings, and that included grandparents who look after children. We should, furthermore, consider entitlement to adjustment leave to give kinship carers time to deal with family crises without losing their jobs. If the arrangement becomes permanent, they should be entitled to that leave. We should consider support based on need, not just legal status.

[Dr William McCrea (South Antrim) (DUP)]

Quite often, when social services step in when families are experiencing breakdown or trouble, instead of looking first to the grandparents, who may have affection for and a relationship with the grandchildren, they look at them suspiciously. Social services should be looking in their direction.

[Mr Burrowes]

Yes, there can be almost a presumption that a child should go into stranger care, rather than family care. That would run counter to many cultures, but sadly such an unwelcome culture shift exists in our society. An attempt is being made to shift things through the guidance, but that shift needs to be embedded in practice.

I shall be interested to hear what the Minister says about kinship care. Campaigners such as Grandparents Plus and the Centre for Social Justice talk about bringing in some equivalent to adoption reform. For example, it was welcome that the Government introduced the passport for adoptive parents, to give them access to continuing support for housing and schooling. If adoptive parents can have it, why cannot kinship carers, who play such an important equivalent role, also have the right to request assessments of need, information on legal status, and support? I should welcome the Minister’s views on that, and on benefit system support to enable kinship carers to care for traumatised children. I understand that the Department for Work and Pensions is progressing that, with the distressed children review, and it will be interesting to see the conclusions.

I want finally to mention mental health. A child’s well-being is wrapped up with their relationship with their parents and family, and the need for a stable, supportive, nurturing relationship is also wrapped up with their mental health needs. Whether the parents—ideally two parents—are around is an issue, but so is the quality of parenting, which affects children’s well-being and emotional and mental development. It may perhaps go without saying that when the parents are in conflict, the anxiety, depression and anti-social behaviour emanating from family relationships can have a direct impact on children. It may not go without saying, perhaps, that family breakdown is strongly associated with poor mental health in adults and children. We need to tackle mental health issues. The Government recently advanced a welcome mental health strategy, but it did not mention how conflicts between parents and in fractured families affect children’s mental health. Perhaps that is a given, but it needs to be explicit, because we need to consider how work can be done with whole families to tackle the causes of problems. The Good Childhood inquiry report has recognised poor parenting as a significant contributory factor in increasing mental health problems.

What can we do? The Government deserve to be applauded for the improving access to psychological therapies programmes, which have been extended, and into which a significant amount of taxpayers’ money has gone. They are focused particularly on cognitive behavioural therapy, which is perhaps the normative response, and which has been expanded. I understand that couples therapy for depression has also been expanded within IAPT programmes. Some have expressed concern to me that when someone goes to their GP with depression, the response does not go beneath things, into the causes of the depression within the family, which could well be family problems.

I understand that only a quarter of IAPT programmes offer couples therapy, and that only 0.62% of IAPT sessions have delivered couples therapy. That seems to be out of kilter with what is happening on the ground. It is only rarely considered as an option. Millions of pounds are going into IAPT, particularly for cognitive behavioural therapies, but it seems to be inappropriate that little is going into couples therapy.

I do not want to take up more time, because colleagues have a lot to contribute, but to return to where we started, we have a huge problem. There has been significant progress, but we must pull all levers of Government, together, to promote a cultural shift and show that we are on the side of families and better relationships, in the interests of children’s well-being.

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[Steve McCabe]

I certainly agree that, as the hon. Lady’s colleagues have also said, we should be putting a high priority on what is happening to our children, the quality of the relationships they are growing up with, and what we can do to assist and facilitate the best possible outcomes for children in those circumstances. However, we have to be conscious that what happens to couples is not divorced from economic policy either. We need to take that into account when considering some of our spending cuts. I was struck by the assertion by the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions that an increase in working credits could be related to a 160% rise in the divorce rate. I would like to know a lot more about how he arrived at those figures.

[Mr Burrowes]

I urge the hon. Gentleman to take a longer view of family breakdown and not just see it as confined to the last four years. He should recognise that before the great recession, family breakdown was a significant issue and was not just a result of Government. We are also talking about a cultural problem that has been around for many years and we have still not dealt with it properly.

[Steve McCabe]

I certainly accept that we would not want to try and explain family breakdown over a period of just four years. I will make the point later that there are a variety of issues; I am simply focusing on the fact that if we are considering the impact on how Government policy assists, we should not ignore the economic factors.

The hon. Member for Congleton referred to Dr Coleman and the OnePlusOne group, which makes the point that evidence shows that where couples enjoy a good employment situation, that in itself leads to a stronger relationship. That may be because they have fewer financial worries or a stronger sense of personal identity. I do not want to dwell on the issue unduly, but I do want to make the point that we have heard about family centres and the need to give Government support, and there are a couple of things from the past four years on which we should reflect. We should ask whether the decision to scale down Sure Start has necessarily been in the best interests of children.

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[Steve McCabe]

I simply make the point that if one third goes to pensioners who do not have children, it is a question of targeting. I can see what attracts the hon. Lady. I am not saying whether a married couple’s tax allowance is a good or bad idea; I am saying that if we are talking about targeting the policy, it is reasonable to say that it would be possible to do that a bit better. We could have a disagreement about that.

The hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate has mentioned that there are many factors besides economics. That is borne out in the briefing that the Relationships Alliance provided for this debate. It talks about a host of other factors that can affect people, including gender, age and marital status. I am not suggesting that there is one single thing. I think it would be interesting to spend some time looking at the factors involved. I noticed that the general focus of the remarks from the hon. Member for Congleton was on child well-being. I am also grateful to the Relationships Alliance for the things it had to say in that respect. It points out that children growing up with parents who have good-quality relationships or ones in which there is a lower level of conflict, even if the parents have separated, tend to enjoy better mental health and do better in a variety of other ways.

I thought that the point made by the hon. Member for South Antrim (Dr McCrea) was that we should be careful not to think that this area is something that Government or agents of the Government can always address. Parents have their own responsibilities; they have to decide what the impact will be if they separate. I am not suggesting that people who reach that conclusion should not be allowed to do so, but it does seem—if I can take the example cited at the outset—that very little thought can have gone into the operation if people are capable of separating before the end of the wedding reception. It strikes me that people perhaps need to adopt a bit more responsibility. When people decide that they must go their separate ways, they have a responsibility to consider the impact on their children and to shield them from the anger and bitterness that may be part of their separation but should not be part of their children’s lives. That is a very strong argument for encouraging mediation for couples contemplating divorce or separation.

The hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate talked about some of the mental health implications. It comes as no surprise to discover that children who are regularly exposed to intense and poorly resolved conflicts involving their separating parents often suffer more as a result of that than from the separation itself. The hon. Member for Congleton talked about the value of the return on relationship counselling. She talked about the return on every pound spent. There could be an argument for saying that there should also be counselling for children who are exposed to this situation. I do not know whether that is where the hon. Member for Salisbury (John Glen) was going with his comments about family centre models, but it seems to me that this is not just about the two individuals who are separating. I am happy to see money spent on providing relationship support for couples and help for couples who are going to separate, but just as much needs to be spent on the children.

Then, of course, we have to think about some of the broader things. We need better sex and relationships teaching for children in our schools and youth clubs. I know that the hon. Member for Congleton is a great fan of teaching children how to budget and manage their own affairs and how to start a business, but we also need to help them on issues of health, including sexual health, and sexual relationships. The recent Children’s Commissioner report on child sexual exploitation in teenage gangs is frightening, particularly the degree to which children who do not have sufficient support are in danger of thinking that what they see in porn movies is a reasonable model for how they should behave in relationships.

Of course, the issue of fathers is crucial. Like other hon. Members, I am kind of tired of the number of cases that I see at my advice centre of fathers who have really done nothing wrong. Their relationship has simply come to an end. Where there is no question of abuse or violence and no question that the father has done anything other than be part of a relationship that has come to an end, it seems to me that no court and no parent has a right to deprive that father—or that child—of that relationship. In that context, I am particularly impressed by the work of the charity Families Need Fathers, which does quite a lot to try to bring people together in these circumstances.

A key policy ask of the Relationships Alliance is that the Cabinet Office expand its What Works network to include a What Works centre for families and relationships. Will the Minister say whether he has any plans to take up that suggestion?

It is tempting to say a lot more, but I am conscious of what you said about the time, Mr Hollobone. I want to conclude by congratulating the hon. Member for Congleton on securing the debate. She is absolutely right to say that this is an area to which we must give the utmost consideration.

[Mr Burrowes]

Before the hon. Gentleman sits down, does he recognise that there has been a huge step change in one of the issues that affect well-being, namely the number of children growing up in households with at least one parent in work? The reality is that there has been a reduction in the number of workless households, and there are now some 200,000 more children growing up in households where at least one parent is in work. That must be a huge factor in their well-being. Does the hon. Gentleman recognise that step change and the way in which the Government have shifted from children the burden of growing up in workless households?

[Steve McCabe]

It is absolutely right that children should not have to grow up in workless households. Of course, the issue about working is the other stresses that it may place on parents, particularly single parents, so we also have to consider factors such as the value of work, the level of pay and child care.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Harper]

I will say one thing now, and I will write to my hon. Friend about the more detailed work that we are doing. The troubled families programme has helped by bringing together not only bits of central Government but local agencies in partnership with the local authority. In my local authority in Gloucestershire, local leadership and local agencies have been brought together as a result. Let me take away that thought, and I will speak to colleagues in the Department for Communities and Local Government to find out what work is going on at local government level and whether we can do more to create a joined-up process.

The Prime Minister also set out the family test, under which we will test all new domestic policy to see what its impact will be on families and family relationships. I think that is an important step. I will not touch on the other areas in great depth, because I want to talk about some of the issues that were raised in the debate.

[Mr Burrowes]

I welcome the family test and the Minister’s speech supporting that policy objective. Will he outline the timetable for that test? When will we see it reach fruition? I have referred to kinship care and other areas, so will there be a wider family test?

[Mr Harper]

My understanding is that the family test will effectively apply from November. From that time, as Departments develop domestic policies they should consider the impact on families. My hon. Friend made some sensible points about grandparents and wider family relationships. I am particularly familiar with the extra responsibilities of parents with disabled children and the help that they receive from grandparents and the wider family. He raises sensible points, and the Government are considering such issues. We have ensured that grandparents can claim child maintenance if they are the main carers. I know he also welcomes the Department for Education’s guidance on care, which recommends that local authorities now consider family options first before taking children into local authority care. There are obviously further ideas, and I think he ascribed both to himself and to my hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (John Glen) the Prime Minister’s invitation to contribute ideas both directly to him and to other Ministers on how we can make further progress in this area—not that either of my hon. Friends need inviting to contribute on policy areas in which they both have a long-standing interest.

We are also looking at piloting relationship education in both antenatal and post-natal provision, and we are looking at national guidance for health visitors, who are well placed to spot early signs of relationship distress. Through Early Intervention Foundation pioneering places, we are also considering joined-up approaches that we can take with local authorities. Those ongoing trials may shed light on the suggestions for What Works centres made by my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton, including using those children’s centres as family hubs. The shadow Minister also specifically mentioned the What Works centres.

I think there is general consensus among colleagues that we should recognise and support the involvement of both parents, and I hope colleagues welcome that following the Children and Families Act 2014 there is now presumed shared involvement of fathers and mothers alike. The welfare of the child still rightly comes first, but there is now explicit recognition that, except where there are specific reasons why not, the presumption is that the child should have contact with both parents. That recognition in the legal system is welcome.

The Government are also spending £10 million on the help and support for separated families innovation fund—it is admittedly not a catchy title—which covers 17 projects aimed at testing interventions to help parents going through a separation to work together and resolve conflict. Up to September 2014 those projects engaged some 53,500 parents. The projects consider innovations in delivering those services and the outcomes that we receive from them.

My hon. Friend the Member for Congleton also mentioned the appointment of a Cabinet-level Minister with responsibility for families. The Prime Minister said in his speech that, as well as bringing together all relationship support policy within the Department for Work and Pensions, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions will be that Cabinet-level Minister. The Secretary of State has a long history in this area, and he is very pleased to have been given that responsibility by the Prime Minister. The Secretary of State considers himself responsible and accountable for families, and he is already effectively doing that within the social justice Cabinet Committee, which he leads on some of those issues.

Those are some of the things that the Government have been doing, and in the remaining minutes I will address some of the issues that colleagues have raised in this debate. Both my hon. Friends the Members for Salisbury and for Enfield, Southgate mentioned joint birth registration, which was introduced in the Welfare Reform Act 2009. I was shadowing this brief at the time, and I distinctly remember those debates. Joint birth registration is a more complicated issue than it seems at first glance because, as both my hon. Friends mentioned, there are exemptions in the legislation for difficult cases. Other ministerial colleagues are considering that issue, so it would be sensible if I arranged for the relevant Minister to write to both my hon. Friends, to all Members attending this debate and, indeed, to you, Mr Hollobone, so that we can have a detailed response. In my constituency I have experienced cases such as those raised by the shadow Minister in which fathers have been involved in the upbringing of their children and want that important relationship to continue, regardless of the fact that their relationship with the children’s mother has broken down. I will consider that carefully.

The shadow Minister spoke about children’s centres. As of February 2014 there are 3,019 main children’s centres, with a further 531 sites open to families and children. Since 2010, despite the significant financial challenges that we inherited from the Labour party, only 76 centres have closed. Indeed, six new centres have opened, and 90% of eligible families in need are registered with their local centre. That sounds like a pretty good record on providing such support at local level, even where there have had to be very difficult financial savings to rebalance the public finances.

I welcome what my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate said about mental health. My Department is working on the improving access to psychological therapies pilots with the Department of Health. Those pilots are important for ensuring that we do a much better job not just of addressing children’s mental health—he will know that that is one of the passions of the Minister of State, Department of Health, my right hon. Friend the Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb), who has responsibility for care and support, and it is a passion shared by both coalition parties—but of helping adults with mental health problems either to stay in or return to work. Less than half of adults with mental health problems currently work, so the Government must improve what we are doing. I hope my hon. Friend welcomes what we have done so far, and I hope over the months to come he will welcome our work to improve that still further.

My hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury referred to an award he gave to Liz Sirman, who works at a children’s contact centre in his constituency. I am a glass-half-full kind of guy, so I welcome the Government’s support for the work of volunteers in helping to support families and children who have experienced difficult relationship breakdowns. Such work is welcomed, and I am pleased that my hon. Friend was able to recognise it so publicly at the weekend.

The shadow Minister referred to the importance of mediation when a relationship breaks down, and in the Children and Families Act there is now a statutory requirement for people to consider mediation before they rush off to court, which is helpful. There will clearly be cases in which mediation simply cannot work, but the fact that it has to be considered and in people’s thought processes before lawyers get involved is helpful—I am an accountant, so I can be slightly rude about lawyers. Having more mediation to support relationships means that, even if the parents’ relationship cannot be preserved, the relationship with their children can be preserved, which is welcome. My hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury mentioned child maintenance thresholds, and the Minister for Pensions has committed to reviewing the formula and the threshold once the current reforms have been safely implemented.

My hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate did a good job of responding to the shadow Minister on the economic issues, but I have a couple of further points. First, children are three times more likely to be in poverty if they live in a workless family. My hon. Friend is absolutely right that there are now 290,000 fewer children living in workless households, which is good news. That means that there are 300,000 fewer children living in relative income poverty than when the Government came to office.

Finally, the shadow Minister referred to the importance of work and people being in jobs, which is why I am sure he will join Government Members in celebrating that there are now 1.8 million more people in work who are able to bring home a pay packet and contribute to their family. That is a positive note on which to finish this excellent debate, which was secured by my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton.