Child Development

Lord Browne of Belmont Excerpts

Thursday 11th October 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Browne of Belmont]

My Lords, I thank and congratulate the right reverend Prelate on securing this timely debate. In 2007, UNICEF published a report on child well-being which made for troubling reading. As noted in the opening pages of the report:

“The true measure of a nation’s standing is how well it attends to its children—their health and safety, their material security, their education and socialization, and their sense of being loved, valued, and included in the families and societies into which they are born”.

In this report the UK was ranked lowest of all the countries scrutinised and was in the bottom third of the rankings for five of the six dimensions of child well-being that were assessed. The report went on to highlight the disgraceful way in which we had failed to discuss and develop policies which meet the needs of children and improve their lives. While we have made progress in some areas, we must not pause until we are sure that we have in place the very best public policy framework. I am far from convinced, five years later, that this is the case.

The social science evidence clearly demonstrates that, on average, children do best in stable two-parent homes and that the public, lifelong, “till death us do part” commitment, recognised by law—that is, marriage—provides, again on average, by far the best environment for securing this. To this end I congratulate the Government on their commitment to end the current arrangement whereby, unlike most developed countries, our tax system does not recognise marriage or indeed family responsibility. It is certainly right that it should be no harder to marry here than in other comparable developed countries. Given that this commitment needs to be implemented within the 2010-15 period to which the coalition agreement pertains, the Government really need to start taking action, especially in the run-up to the next Budget. In a speech given in the run-up to the general election in 2010, David Cameron did just that, saying,

“that marriage matters is something we should not say quietly but something we should say loudly and proudly. What is so backward looking in a country where we have social breakdown and social problems of saying that committed relationships, encouraging people to come together and stay together is a bad thing?”.

In the same speech, he continued,

“if you look around the European Union, if you look around the OECD, we’re almost alone in not recognising marriage in the tax system. And why do we think, why do we think that with our appalling record of family breakdown that somehow we are in the right position and everyone else is in the wrong position; we’re not, they’ve got it right and we have got it wrong”.

Just this week, a report published by the Centre for Social Justice, Forgotten Families? The Vanishing Agenda, painted a less than rosy picture of the coalition Government’s support for the family. The opening sentence reads:

“In the vital area of family policy, the Coalition Government has been characterised by a lack of boldness and clarity of purpose which contrasts sharply with their approach to education and welfare reform”.

The same paragraph concludes with the shocking assertion that,

“48 per cent of all children born today will see the breakdown of their parents’ relationship”.

Given that, as we have heard, any implementation of a transferable allowance policy recognising marriage in the tax system will take some time to carry through as HMRC makes necessary IT changes, the Government must act now. I recognise that the coalition agreement provides scope for Liberal Democrats to abstain and that therefore the noble Baroness may not be the right person to respond. However, perhaps a Conservative Treasury Minister could do so and update us on the progress being made on implementing this important policy commitment. Two and a half years later, can a timeframe be provided for when this promise will be acted on?

Another issue of particular concern has been raised today and that is child trafficking. Today, which is the first United Nations International Day of the Girl Child, the need to ensure that children are protected and supported and allowed to develop free from oppression and fear must be driven home. By now we know the statistics but we cannot allow ourselves to become numb to them or to the young children the statistics represent. Between 2007 and February 2010, of 942 trafficked children rescued in the UK, 301 were subsequently lost from local authority care. Put another way, one-third of rescued children went missing. Progress must be made on this issue.

I end by again thanking the right reverend Prelate for securing this debate and simply say that where we can take action to right wrongs and to ensure that children are protected and afforded the best possibility to succeed in life and to thrive and contribute meaningfully to our national well-being, we absolutely must do so.