Strengthening Families

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Thursday 8th February 2018 Westminster Hall

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) on a comprehensive and courageous speech, and for trying her best to solve what she described as one of the greatest epidemics facing our country. The strength of the epidemic and the misery that it causes seem to go beyond any solution that one could possibly dream up. In so many areas of Government, from the Ministry of Defence to the Department for Education, when we identify a problem, we have an idea of what we can do to counter it, but this is such an epidemic and it goes so much to the root of society that it is hard to know whether just appointing a Cabinet Minister for families, although a worthy aim, would keep families together.

However, at least my hon. Friend is trying to identify the problem. As she said, if there were other issues costing the nation, not £10 billion, £20 billion or £30 billion, but probably £40 billion or £50 billion, and that caused so many obvious problems, it would be considered a national emergency, but the problem is that society has so changed over the past 50 years and marriage has been so downgraded that Governments—Labour Governments, Conservative Governments, Scottish National party Governments in Scotland, French Governments, Italian Governments—have scratched their heads and wondered what they could do to resist the problem.

It is a pity, because all the evidence—I will not take a lot of time to go through it—is clear. There is an absolute wealth of evidence on the importance of marriage to the welfare of children, and a wealth of evidence that marriage works, in that couples are much more likely to stay together. It is all published, and one could go on and on.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies found that parents who cohabit are approximately three times more likely than those who are married to have separated by the time the child reaches the age of five. A 2009 report by the Department for Children, Schools and Families found that a child not growing up in a two-parent family is more likely to grow up in poorer housing, experience behavioural problems, perform more poorly in school, gain fewer qualifications, need more medical treatment, leave school and home while young, become sexually active or pregnant or become a parent at an early age, and report more depressive symptoms and higher levels of smoking, drinking and other drug use during adolescence and adulthood. None of that is to gainsay the fantastic job done by tens of thousands of single parents, many of them single parents through no fault of their own, but every study shows that marriage works.

I will mention one issue that has not yet been discussed. People are now saying that they want no-fault divorces, and that it is a charade that people must claim a reason for getting divorced. They say that it is a matter of tidying up expensive and messy legal paperwork and that such couples are totally irreconcilable anyway, and ask why we are going through with the sham of our divorce laws. They say that we should have a simple legal system—“I divorce you, I divorce you, I divorce you”—and that is that. However, I think that making life cheaper and easier for such couples would also send a profound, wrong message and would make it easier for hundreds and thousands of other families to break down. It would proclaim from this House that marriage is just a legal device, like buying a home or selling a company, and that we therefore want to get rid of any kind of explanation for why people want to get divorced. Producing that reform would be saying to the nation that encouraging couples to stay together in marriage is not our first priority.

Again, repeated studies have shown that 90% of couples who manage to stay together until their child is 15 will stay married. We know from all those studies that family breakdown is a key driver for poverty among women in particular, with half of all single parents living in poverty. Those are the factors for which datasets are increasingly allowing us—I hope—to understand the situation. We do understand the situation: we understand that marriage works and that the breakdown of marriage, or indeed marriage not taking place at all, drives many people into a poorer outcome for life.

My hon. Friend is leading the campaign, and we are encouraging her. We all want better educational treatment for our children and a decline in juvenile criminality; we want families to stay together. She is right to say that, despite the appalling complexity and strength of the problems, Government can at least attempt to be a facilitator of families and married people staying together, rather than an enabler of breakdown.

My hon. Friend is right to highlight the steps that some authorities are taking, such as family hubs. Benjamin Adlard Primary School is in Gainsborough south-west ward, which is one of the 30 poorest wards in the entire country. The headmaster, Sam Coy, runs the school, and I have visited it. So many of the problems that his children exhibit are due to family breakdown. I am delighted that he is leading the campaign to have a family hub in Gainsborough. Of course, having a family hub that gives help will not solve the problem—local authorities taking an interest will not prevent societal trends that have been so apparent for decades—but it is an attempt to do something. Brave young headteachers such as the headteacher of Benjamin Adlard Primary School should be given our encouragement.

My hon. Friend has mentioned the marriage allowance. A lot of people sneer at the marriage allowance and say, “It’s just ridiculous. Families don’t come together or split apart because of some change in the benefit rules,” but most developed countries and OECD members recognise family responsibility through family and marriage allowances.

Given that the cost of family breakdown is £47 billion, as my hon. Friend has explained, I do not believe that it is too much for the Treasury to recognise marriage in the tax system through a marriage allowance, for which I have campaigned for years. We are not trying to use the tax or benefit system to try to get people together or to stay together. All we are saying is that if one parent in a two-parent, married family wants to stay at home to look after the children full time, that should not be discouraged in the benefit system—that is a profound injustice.

We had to drag the previous Chancellor of the Exchequer kicking and screaming to bring in the allowance. He brought it in at a very low level and it has never been pushed properly. There are still many people inside Government and the civil service who do not like it and would like it to fade away, but all it is trying to do is right an injustice. If one person in a married couple wants to stay at home to look after the children full time, they should not be financially disadvantaged by the tax and benefit system.

Marriage rates among the better-off are still very high, but at the less well-off end of the spectrum they are much worse. Journalist Ed West noted that research for The Spectator showed that, in 2000, someone in the top socioeconomic class was 22% more likely to be married than someone in the lowest socioeconomic class. By 2017, that division had risen to 48%, and the crisis is growing. More needs to be done.

There are lots of sound recommendations in my hon. Friend’s manifesto, and she should be congratulated on putting pressure on the Government. Relate has written to us about a report it produced with Professor Lord Layard. He observed—this is such obvious common sense—that:

“In every study, family relationships are more important than any other single factor affecting our happiness…Of all the factors that affect happiness, your family life or other close relationship comes first.”

We all know from our personal lives what a blessing a long and happy marriage is. It is the most important thing in our life. Although in many ways society is infinitely more prosperous than when I was born in 1950, is not a happier place in many respects. That is nothing to do with the size of someone’s bank balance, the size of their overdraft or where their children go to school; it is to do with a sense of belonging in a marriage that lasts.

I sympathise with the Minister. His civil servants will have done their best, and no doubt he will say some warm words at the end of this debate. However, it is incumbent on us to have some courage when we debate this subject, not just to talk in simple terms about a new Cabinet Minister or something of that sort, although that is a good step, but to say that there is something profoundly wrong in society and that one of the reasons why society is an unhappier place now is the massive breakdown and decline in religion, which did and does allow people to raise their eyes above their present circumstances and gives them some support.

That massive decline is never mentioned by politicians, because we are afraid that we will be seen as putting ourselves on a soapbox and proclaiming that we are better than other people, or that people will say that the decline in religious observance and that sort of thing is a private matter. It is all far too difficult, but occasionally we have to have the courage to say what we believe in.

My hon. Friend is quite right. She gave a comprehensive speech. In the Minister’s response, I hope he will raise his eyes from his civil service text for a few moments, speak from the heart, and give a clue of how we can begin to address and be honest about the greatest problem facing our society today.

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[Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)]

I entirely agree with the case that has been made for the manifesto, of which I am a supporter. I will draw to the attention of the Minister—in so far as it has not been drawn to his attention already, because it most certainly has—the magnitude of the problem we face. My hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) drew attention to the quite shocking statistic that this country has the most volatile family life of the entire developed world for children under 12, and that comes with huge consequences.

Tomorrow I will hold a surgery, and the 10 or so people who attend will have a range of problems. Some of them will come and tell me about their debt, with the perhaps unrealistic expectation that there is something I can do about it. Equally, there may be a problem with housing—perhaps the completely inadequate nature of someone’s housing, which may be too small, or too damp, or bed and breakfast accommodation, or indeed appalling neighbour problems. It might be to do with schooling—not being able to get their child into the school of choice, the school not being near enough, problems with getting the child to the school, problems with the child’s performance at or behaviour at school. For children in my part of the country, the problem might be lack of access to mental health provision. It might be some other aspect of poverty, such as having to use food banks or whatever. But scratch the surface, and one finds that however that problem may have presented, for nine out of 10 of the cases that came through the door, the cause will have been family breakdown. It is the surest way to poverty and it is for that reason that I support my hon. Friend and this manifesto. Family breakdown is costing us billions and we have to make sure that, across all of Government, we pursue policies that will deal with this epidemic—and it is an epidemic.

Let me draw attention to two particular areas. We had a debate in Westminster Hall on Tuesday last week on marriage. In summing up, the Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, my hon. Friend the Member for North West Hampshire (Kit Malthouse), slipped into what I hope the Minister who is here today will not slip into—indeed, my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) warned him not to. I mean that habit of quoting civil servants, or whatever. The Under-Secretary responded to the debate by saying, “Well, of course, of course, families come in many shapes and sizes.” I intervened and asked him, “How many? How many shapes and sizes?” and I challenged him, saying, “A family is not just any collection of people who happen to share a fridge!”

When it comes to this education consultation that is going on at the moment with respect to relationships, I do not believe that it is satisfactory to say that, whatever the continuing education requirement is, relationships education must include family life. Actually, it is the other way round. The law now is clear—the education must be about marriage. Of course, we want relationship education—the strength of relationship education—to be about marriage and other relationships, not relationships including marriage. The emphasis is the other way round, which brings me neatly to the Bill that passed last Friday promoted by our hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton).

That Bill seeks to make civil partnerships available to mixed-sex couples. Civil partnerships were introduced in 2002 only for single-sex couples—same-sex couples—because marriage was not available to them. His intention is that civil partnerships should be extended; there should be equality and they should be extended to mixed-sex couples. I understand that the Government’s intention is that the Bill will be amended in the Bill Committee so that there is a review of whether there should be such an extension. I have an open mind. I was accused of seeking to undermine marriage by my support for the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013; my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham accused me of that in the Bill Committee. My fear was that introducing some sort of step-down marriage is the danger that will undermine marriage. However, I have an open mind about what a review under the current Bill should look at.

It seems to me that there is a possibility that extending what is a clearly protected, committed, legal relationship to people who would not otherwise have entered into one may actually be a significant advantage. Equally, it may be that, by introducing some form of “marriage-lite”, we actually undermine marriage, by persuading people who do not feel that they could go for the full-fat version that they can enter a civil partnership, on the basis that it is not quite the real deal. In fact, it is: the legal obligations and protection that provide for civil partnerships are identical to marriage in almost absolutely every respect, and I think it would be a mistake to persuade people that somehow they were entering into a relationship that was less committed if they were to enter a civil partnership.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

I intervened on our hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) last Friday, saying that there are unintended consequences to consider. I made the point that if he gets his way, everybody, of whatever sex, will be able to marry anybody they like, or have a civil partnership with anybody they like. The only people who would not be able to have a civil partnership are siblings.

I raised this issue in 2004, when the first Act on civil partnerships—the Civil Partnership Act 2004—got through. I had been written to by two sisters who had lived together all their lives, but when one dies the other one will be forced from their home. Like my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest West (Sir Desmond Swayne), I have an open mind on this subject, but if we are going to reform the law we have got to think of the unintended consequences. It would be fatuous if anybody can have a civil partnership or marriage apart from siblings.

[Sir Desmond Swayne]

My hon. Friend draws a very important and powerful corrective to proceeding with that Bill, certainly in its current form.

I am very glad that the hon. Member for Glasgow North West (Carol Monaghan) spoke earlier. I draw attention to what she said about service life. Those of us who have experienced service life and who have a constituency with a large number of service personnel will know that the statistics for marriage breakdown are much higher and much worse for military families. That is largely as a consequence of the pressures of having to deal with prolonged absences and the whole operational cycle. I put that to the Minister in the hope that he will draw it to the attention of Defence Ministers.

There certainly is scope within such institutions as the armed forces to provide training courses that will help with family breakdown. There are all sorts of courses available that help people to strength their relationships, and I have experienced them myself. I suggest that within a military environment there is scope for making such courses available to both partners—not just the serving partner—in a way that would not be available in civilian life. After all, those of us who have served did our MATTs every year. I have long ago forgotten what that stands for, but as well as the ordinary battlefield drills, skill at arms, and nuclear, biological, chemical and battlefield first aid, part of it was about standards and values, and it strikes me that there is scope under standards and values to strengthen relationships.

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[Jeremy Lefroy]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. Given that Middlewich is not too far from where I live and where I represent, with her permission I would like perhaps to come and talk to that headteacher, to see what I can learn from the school in her constituency.

As I say, the situation needs to change, and the Department for Work and Pensions has begun to recognise that. The “Improving lives” report announced plans to put £30 million into a programme to help workless parents to resolve conflict through independent providers. However, that provision does not go far enough, because the need is not just among workless parents. A far-reaching, holistic, family-based approach to tackling children’s health is needed, as the example in Middlewich shows.

The recent Green Paper on children’s mental health is an important step in the right direction, and for the first time recognises the importance of parental relationships on children’s wellbeing and mental health, but we need to do more to support families. By incorporating couples therapy into NHS provision, children and young persons’ mental health teams would not be syphoning funds from where they are most needed, but redirecting them to where they will be most effective. Training would be required to enable professionals and frontline workers to be confident in identifying and treating the needs of the couple, alongside an efficient system of referral. The roll-out of family hubs would facilitate a collaborative and consistent provision of couples’ support in addressing children’s mental health. Alongside providing for those affected by mental health problems, that would also help to prevent the mental health problems from arising by providing relationship support and encouraging the involvement of fathers in the family.

Sometimes there is a reluctance to make such points. My hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) talked about the reluctance to refer to faith and religious belief. I entirely support what he said, but also, in our western, perhaps individual-focused society, we do not recognise enough the support that the wider family, indeed the community, can give to families. When I was living with my family in Tanzania, we often came across a proverb that was originally in Igbo, a Nigerian language, but in Swahili is, “Inachukua kijiji kizima kumlea mtoto”, which means: it takes a whole village to raise a child. If we view a village as our community, we should not shy away from recognising that families cannot do everything, as I know from my own experience. They come under great pressure at various times. Parents are otherwise engaged, perhaps going through crises themselves. It takes a community.

In my constituency, and many others, we have an organisation called Home-Start, which works with troubled families. The problem is that Home-Start relies on volunteers who give their time. It takes professional co-ordination, but we find that the funding for that, which is frankly peanuts when one considers what else we spend money on, is often the first to be cut, as I found in my constituency. Local authorities who were very generous have been put under pressure and, because it is not a statutory requirement, will remove the funding. As a result, the whole service is put under pressure, and may even disappear. These are people working on a voluntary basis with families that are under pressure, and saving the state huge amounts of money, because those families might otherwise fall into needing extremely expensive services. In addition to the issue of mental health, which I have spoken about at some length, I ask the Minister to look at the possibility of making relatively small amounts of funding available to schemes such as Home-Start. We are talking about a few thousand pounds, or tens of thousands, in a whole local authority area. The total cost for the country would be pretty minor, and the savings substantial.

Finally, colleagues may disagree, but I have found the value of family time at meal times very important, as well as the value of not having television. I have never had television, either as a child or an adult, but if people do have a television, there is value in saying, “Well, it has its place, but it shouldn’t be the centre of family life, because it takes up so much time and stops people talking to one another.” I think we can extend that to social media. I was very encouraged to read in The Evening Standard last week of a school, I think in London, which has 10 commandments about the use of social media. That school is really improving the lives of the children, not by forbidding access to social media, but by saying, “Let’s put less emphasis on social media, and spend more time interacting with one another personally, face to face, rather than via small screens.”

We ought to spend more time together as families, and play more games together. Despite my distaste for games that take longer than half an hour, I have discovered a great game called Bananagrams, which is brilliant for families that enjoy that kind of thing. It is not something that the Government can get involved in, but schools and other organisations can provide opportunities and suggestions for families.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

Would it help Cabinet unity if they played Bananagrams?

[Jeremy Lefroy]

At the moment, I think one half of the Cabinet would be playing Bananagrams, the other Scrabble, but it absolutely would help unity. I would love the Cabinet to play Bananagrams together; it might be more productive than some of the conversations that are had from time to time.

In conclusion, the impact of positive family relationships and of family breakdown on mental health is a vital issue. I urge the Minister to look at the big picture on mental health, and at the relatively small initiatives that are locally based and enable communities to do their best through volunteering to support families that are under pressure.