Strengthening Families

Michael Tomlinson Excerpts

Thursday 8th February 2018 Westminster Hall

[Michael Tomlinson (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bone, and to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh). I, too, congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) on her manifesto, on securing this debate and on her powerful speech.

My hon. Friend mentioned a new Cabinet Minister. I warmly welcome the Minister to his place, whose ears may have pricked up at the thought of a new Cabinet post—a cross-departmental role—suitable for somebody young, eloquent and forward-thinking. I am sure my hon. Friend the Minister will have listened intently, especially to that point.

It is hard to overstate the importance of the family or of consistent and unconditional loving support. Facts and figures can be bandied around. My hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough was right to highlight certain facts and figures, and my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton was also right to say that we must have evidence-based policy.

Each of us instinctively knows the importance of family, whether we have benefited from it ourselves or not. I grew up in a family that was not materially wealthy, but rich in love and support. As children growing up, we knew that we could make mistakes through trial and error and still have the support of a loving family. Now I have a family of my own, I know the difficulties, stresses and strains—and the sheer hard work—that it takes to hold it all together. Given that, I am delighted to support the manifesto and the debate.

In my brief contribution, I will tackle a specific aspect, which was touched on by my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton. An overlooked part of ensuring that families are strong is the support given to families involved in the criminal justice system. The excellent Lord Farmer review looked in detail at the impact that good family work in our prisons can have on prisoners, their families and society at large through a reduction in reoffending rates.

This is one of two statistics that I will give during my speech: for a prisoner who receives a visit from a partner or family member, the chances of reoffending are 39% lower than for a prisoner who does not have a similar visit. Support needs to be given for the benefit of the prisoner and their family. If prison is truly to be a place of reform, we cannot ignore the reality that there must be a supportive relationship to help to achieve rehabilitation. The estimated cost of reoffending is in the region of £15 billion a year, so it is essential to find new ways of rehabilitation and of supporting and cutting down those high rates of reoffending.

This is the second statistic that I will give. My hon. Friend mentioned a figure of 50%, but one study shows that 63% of prisoners’ sons go on to offend and commit crimes.

[Fiona Bruce]

Forgive me, but I obviously did not articulate myself clearly enough. Just so we are on the same page, the figure I meant to cite was 60%.

[Michael Tomlinson]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I have also seen a figure of 63%, which may even be from the same study. Access to organisations and services with proven expertise in helping families that have members inside prisons is vital for protecting children’s life chances.

The Farmer review makes a lot of sensible and achievable recommendations. To give one simple example, today is the last sitting day before recess. Many families will be considering going on holiday over half-term, and some will even pass through an airport. The prison experience for visiting families should be treated in a similar way to airport security: it should be marked by courtesy, a customer service mentality and empathy for vulnerable and older people, for parents struggling with a young family and for children themselves.

[Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that one of the great works that volunteers do in prisons, such as Stafford Prison in my constituency, is giving support to visiting families? They welcome them with cups of tea and make the experience of visiting their relative a little easier than it could otherwise be.

[Michael Tomlinson]

I could not agree more. I could mention two local examples from Dorset and the south-west—the Footprints Project and Clean Sheet, a national organisation that operates in Dorset—that do exactly that volunteering work in prisons. We should also mention prison chaplains, who do so much in that area.

I am pleased that the Government have committed to supporting the Farmer review. I do not expect the Minister to respond to it in detail, but I look forward to the new prisons Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart), grasping and tackling the subject, as I know he will, and updating us in due course.

I have two final points to make. First, greater emphasis and training should be given to prison staff, who should be encouraged to build personal relationships with prisoners and their families, and to encourage prisoners in turn to build their own relationships with families and significant others. Secondly, when considering a prisoner’s application for release on temporary licence, family ties and supportive relationships should be a consideration. It should be a priority to ensure that an offender can improve family relationships ahead of release when it is safe to do so. A linked issue is the location of our prisons; we should ensure that prisoners are located as close to home as physically possible.

Families come in all shapes and sizes, but the evidence is clear. We know instinctively the importance of the family. I ask that the Government’s good work continue and that families’ importance be recognised, even within our criminal justice system.

[Mr Peter Bone (in the Chair)]

I call Carol Monaghan—not to wind up for the Scottish National party, but in her own right.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bone, and to follow so many excellent speeches. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce), with whom I share an office, for all the work she has done on this issue. I also pay tribute to our former colleague David Burrowes for the tremendous work that he continues to do in this area.

I want to comment briefly on two matters that have already been raised by Members. First, my hon. Friend the Member for somewhere in Dorset—I never quite remember where—

[Michael Tomlinson]

Mid Dorset and North Poole.

[Jeremy Lefroy]

My hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Michael Tomlinson)—it is south of Watford, anyway—spoke about prisons, which are an incredibly important matter. As I mentioned in an intervention, Stafford prison is in my constituency, and I had the privilege of visiting there at some length last Friday. I saw the excellent work that prison officers do with vulnerable prisoners and their families. It was a humbling experience to see the tremendous work that goes on there and the commitment and dedication of the officers, chaplains, staff and volunteers who put so much time into that. I am sure that outcomes would be considerably worse were it not for that dedication.

I would also like to follow on from what my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest West—or is it East?—(Sir Desmond Swayne) said about the need for support for military families. I have well over 2,000 serving personnel, three Signals Regiments and the Tactical Supply Wing of the Royal Air Force in my constituency. I see the commitments that they make and the pressures they face. I also see the pressures put on families, particularly in Signals, where they are often sent on fairly small missions to all parts of the globe, whether the Falklands or the middle east. The same is true of the Tactical Supply Wing of the RAF. I draw attention to policy 5 in “A Manifesto to Strengthen Families”, which states:

“Parenting and relationship support should be made readily available for military families. Life in the Forces holds advantages for families”—

the hon. Member for Glasgow North West (Carol Monaghan) questioned that, which I can understand—

“but it can also impose unique and significant pressures.”

I welcome that policy and urge the Government to implement it.

I want to concentrate on mental health, which is increasingly spoken about in Parliament, which I welcome. The subject is sensitive to most in the House, given the prevalence of mental health problems in many families. According to the charity YoungMinds, one in 10 children has a diagnosable mental health disorder—that equates to three children in every classroom—and that statistic increases to one in five for young adults. That is a profound hardship for individuals and their loved ones. Due to its significant adverse effects on income, wages, employment and social mobility, poor child mental health has been calculated as having a lifetime cost in lost income of as much as £388,000, and that is just the monetary cost—we also have the more significant social and personal costs.

The Prime Minister has recognised that inadequate treatment for those suffering from mental health problems in Britain amounts to a

“burning injustice…that demands a new approach from government and society as a whole.”

Given that 50% of all mental health problems manifest by the age of 14 and that 75% manifest by age 18, logic and evidence point to family circumstances being a hugely significant factor. That is why I wish to commend my hon. Friend for Congleton on securing this debate, which enables me to speak about a subject that needs more attention: the role that families play in a child’s mental health. I wish to make it clear that mental health can impact the most loving family, as well as the most challenged family. However, as ever in social policy, we need to follow the evidence and take appropriate action.

[Ms Karen Buck in the Chair]

The Early Intervention Foundation review commissioned by the Government concluded that inter-parental relationships are instrumental in determining a child’s mental health. Children of separated parents or in challenged families have been shown to be 50% more likely to fail at school, have low self-esteem, struggle with peer relationships and have behavioural difficulties, anxiety or depression. That is supported by a review of 18 international studies that was published this year by the University of Sussex. It found that family breakdown is consistently linked to higher risks of depression in children. I draw attention to the fact that those are international studies; they are not just about the United Kingdom.

New research recently published by the Marriage Foundation uses the latest data on 14-year-old children in the millennium cohort study. It found that family breakdown is a major driver of teenage mental health problems. It is in stable homes with nurturing relationships that children have the best chance to thrive. Sadly, that is a far cry from many children’s experience. The recent Department for Work and Pensions report, “Improving Lives: Helping Workless Families”, found that by the age of 16, 47% of all children do not live with both birth parents. That statistic has been referred to before, but it is well worth repeating. Indeed, between one and three in 10 children live in families where their parents say they are in unhappy relationships. The Early Intervention Foundation recently concluded that

“childhood mental health...may be improved by working to promote the quality of the inter-parental relationship.”

Couple therapists who work for Tavistock Relationships have witnessed the reality of that at first hand. They reported that the mental health difficulties of children of couples with relationship problems were significantly alleviated if they engaged in couples therapy. That is a blind spot in current health care provision.

A child interviewed by Common Room Consulting described their experience of therapy. They said:

“The main focus was on me, and changing my behaviours and thinking patterns, not on the causes. I tried to tell people that home wasn’t good on a few occasions, but they didn’t seem to have the time or the space for these discussions to happen...the focus was on the impact of my behaviour on my parents and sisters.”

A couples therapist based in a children and young people’s mental health team stated that she was unaware of any other multidisciplinary teams nationally that provided the service as part of their approach to tackling children’s mental health. That needs to change.

--- Later in debate ---

[Margaret Greenwood]

I thank the hon. Lady for that intervention.

The families manifesto also states that the drug strategy board should look at how parents can be supported to prevent addiction to drugs and alcohol from developing in young people. Obviously, we all want to support people going through such difficult experiences in their families, but the families listening to this debate who live in areas where drug crime is a real problem will be distraught at the Government’s failure to provide adequate funding for our police and will be acutely aware of the loss of the 21,000 police officers and 6,000 police community support officers since 2010.

[Michael Tomlinson]

It is very depressing to see the hon. Lady in splendid isolation reading out a party political rant. It is tempting to step up to intervene. She and her party voted but yesterday against a £450 million increase for our police officers and yet she continues to read that out.

[Margaret Greenwood]

Our position was that the money the Government are providing is not nearly enough. That was the point. [Interruption.] I am very unhappy that the hon. Gentleman is not even looking at me when I respond to his point. He says I am making a party political point, but I can tell him that I can think of areas in my constituency where people are really frightened about drug problems. They speak to me about the loss of police and police community support officers. It is a real issue. The lack of funding to police forces is devastating. We have lost 1,000 police officers since 2010 on Merseyside; that is 1,000 police officers no longer on the beat. I think I am entitled to make the point that the Government should fund the police properly if we are to support families in supporting people at risk of coming into touch with drugs and alcohol—and particularly with drugs and illegal substances. Families in the areas concerned desperately want the police to be properly funded so that they can feel safe in their own homes.

Reductions in local authority funding have also meant that youth services, for example, have been decimated. Parents in my constituency say to me, “Where are the youth services? We need them. Why are the Government cutting funding for those things?” It is important that there are activities for young people to do.

[Margaret Greenwood]

I understand the focus on family life, but it is acceptable to look at the effect of policing cuts. When constituents are going to their MP and pleading for support, saying they do not feel safe, we have a duty to reflect that. It is important.

The Labour Government took hundreds of thousands of children out of poverty, but research published late last year by the Institute for Fiscal Studies shows that the number of people living in poverty will soar to a record 5.2 million over the next five years because the Government’s social security cuts are biting deepest on households with young families. As the IFS said, the benefit freeze, the introduction of universal credit, and cuts to tax credits will mean a surge in child poverty, and the steepest increases will be in the most deprived parts of the country. That will have an impact on family cohesion and relationships.

Universal credit was introduced to smooth the transition into work and lift people out of poverty, but since 2010 work allowances and the taper rate have been cut. Today the Work and Pensions Committee report on universal credit has highlighted the Government’s inability to provide evidence that universal credit will enable more people to find work. I am talking about the full range of people: not just single unemployed people, but disabled people, single parents, carers and the self-employed, who are now claiming universal credit as the full service is rolled out. Ministers continually refer to statistics that cover only single unemployed claimants with no children; that is a strange focus if the Government are committed to supporting families.

It is important to consider the impact of the cuts to work allowances, because so many people on low incomes are in insecure work. Low pay and zero-hours contracts have an impact on the family life of hundreds of thousands of people. They make life extremely difficult for parents who have to pick up children from school or childcare, or arrange childcare in the first place. It is difficult to do that if someone is on a zero-hours contract. It is easy to highlight the importance of active fatherhood in a child’s life, as the manifesto does, but research by the TUC, published last summer, showed clearly that some employers seek to prevent fathers and mothers from taking time off for family emergencies.

I was surprised to hear the hon. Member for Congleton claim that family breakdown is the biggest social problem affecting the nation today. I would suggest that there are a number of contenders for that. My personal view is that the Government’s privatisation of the national health service will lead to the biggest social crisis in this country within memory. [Interruption.] Conservative Members may groan or laugh, but that is the case. There is so much evidence. I wish that they would look at what is happening in their constituencies, to verify it. The Government are also failing to tackle the housing crisis. Young people in their 20s and 30s are reluctant to start their own families, because they cannot find anywhere to live, and still live with their parents. In addition there is the Government’s failure to tackle the scourge of low pay and insecure work.

To conclude, there have been some sensible suggestions in the debate, which I welcome, but there is a danger, in focusing on couple relationships, of ignoring the reality that there are many different types of family—and Government policy must reflect that.

[Michael Tomlinson]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Margaret Greenwood]

No. I have given way plenty, thank you.

The manifesto has some important threads to it, but in some places it reads like some sort of fairy tale, ignoring the impact of Government policy since 2010 and the way it has made life so much harder for many families, especially those on low incomes.