International Men’s Day

Debate between Miriam Cates and Luke Evans

Thursday 17th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Miriam Cates (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Con)]

It is an honour to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Watford (Dean Russell), who made an excellent speech. Let me also congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Nick Fletcher) on securing the debate, and on his phenomenal work—to which other Members have referred—in supporting men and boys. Let me say to him, as one Yorkshire MP to another, that I admire his ability to say it as it is, even if he sometimes gets some stick.

I must declare an interest in this debate. I have a husband, a dad, brothers, nephews and two sons. I was even fortunate enough to reach the age of 40 with both my grandfathers still alive. Sadly one of them passed away recently, at the age of 92, after a long and fulfilling life which included growing churches on the islands of the Torres Strait off North Queensland. The other recently reached the age of 90. He too enjoyed a fulfilling life and an amazing career, and could beat me at table tennis until the age of 80. I am extremely fortunate to have a family full of amazing male role models, including fathers such as my own husband, who at this moment is probably juggling teatime, homework and piano practice. I am very grateful to him for that.

It is a real privilege to speak in this International Men’s Day debate to honour all the great things that men contribute to our families, our communities and our nation, and also to discuss some of the unique challenges that are faced by men and boys in this country. Men and women are different—biologically, psychologically and socially. We have evolved to perform very different functions, in society and in families. Men and women are equal, but not the same. I think that one of the mistakes in recent years has been to push for equality between the sexes—which is right—without recognising important differences, and without celebrating male virtues and male roles. We frequently talk—rightly—about how to get more women into engineering or technology, but pay insufficient attention to the decline in the number of young men gaining technical skills, and the fact that boys are falling behind girls in education. When the traditional virtues of masculinity and male identity are portrayed as redundant or negative or not uniquely male, what is left for young men to aspire to? This is certainly a confusing time to be a young man.

[Dr Evans]

I entirely agree with what my hon. Friend is saying. Toxic masculinity is potentially very dangerous. We set our young boys up to think that there is something innately wrong with them in relation to the way in which they interact with society. Does my hon. Friend feel that that is a problem?

[Miriam Cates]

Absolutely. I think that the danger of not giving a positive version of masculinity—something that is unique, positive and good for society—is that, sadly, we are driving some young men and boys to the far right. They are given a version of masculinity that none of us here would support, but which offers them something that, at present, some of the discussions that take place in society do not offer. That is why it is so important that we do offer something to young boys.

I think that some of the economic and social changes that have taken place over the last 40 years have had benefits but have also led to significant costs, particularly for working-class men and boys. The decline of industry and hence of skilled, well-paid, secure jobs has caused a drop in wealth, health and status for many men.

The steelworks in the town of Stocksbridge in my constituency used to employ 11,000 men; it now employs 750. Steel jobs still pay 50% more than the average Yorkshire wage. They require skills and they confer status, but they are now few and far between. The economic and social consequences for men of the loss of such jobs have been severe. We need to consider how we can reinvest in British industry, not to go back to the past but to pivot to the skilled, advanced manufacturing jobs of the future, such as those at the specialty steel plant in my constituency. Not only would a revival in manufacturing and industry be good news for men; it would be beneficial for the UK economy, which has a terrible balance of trade—we make nowhere near enough stuff ourselves—and for our security and self-sufficiency in important materials such as steel.

While industrial and manufacturing jobs have declined, the number of young people going to university has soared. Of course, that has brought benefits, but there is no clear relationship between the number of graduates and the nation’s GDP, and we now have far more graduates than our economy requires. About 50% of recent graduates are thought to be in jobs that do not require that level of academic education. This focus—I might call it an obsession —on cognitive credentials and degrees over technical or vocational skills has been particularly disadvantageous to working-class young men.

Recent research shows that the median earnings of men who graduated from the bottom 23 universities are less than the median earnings of non-graduates. In other words, a significant number of younger men would be better off not going to university—and that is not to mention the debt they will acquire while there. I am delighted that the Government are pushing a skills agenda, but we must do more to open up apprenticeships to young men. The Chancellor’s announcement today that we will move towards a German and Swiss model of skills education is great news, but we should also consider whether some of our enormous higher education budget—I think it is about £14 billion a year—could be better deployed for the benefit of young people and the economy.

Men and boys have also suffered as a result of the decline in family stability over the last few decades. As my hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley said, the most stable form of family—and the one with the best outcomes for children—is where the parents are married. That is not a value judgment; it is clear from the evidence. Married parents are twice as likely to stay together as non-married parents. By the age of five, 53% of children with cohabiting parents will have experienced their parents’ separation, compared to just 15% of those with married parents. Married men live happier, longer, healthier lives, and boys with committed, present fathers have better outcomes than boys in families who do not have that presence.

Marriage is good for men and boys, yet marriage rates have declined significantly over recent years, particularly among lower income groups. Marriage has almost become a middle-class secret. Of the highest earning 20% of white couples, about 85% are married. In the lowest income group—the bottom 20% of white people—only 19% are married, and the divorce rates are much higher. A poor white child is very unlikely to have a father; a rich white child is very likely to have a father. That is how stark the difference is.

There has been a rise in loneliness among middle-aged men as a result of family breakdown. Family breakdown is also contributing to the housing crisis. I think it might have been the hon. Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Margaret Ferrier) who pointed out that a second home is needed when families break down. That adds to the housing crisis and creates financial problems for the family.

The UK is an outlier among western nations, in that our policies and our tax system do not recognise families, nor strong couple relationships and marriage. For example, in the UK we are taxed on an individual basis. HMRC sees only our individual income and we pay tax on that, without any account of how many people that income supports. If someone earns slightly more than £50,000 per year, which is considered a high wage—thinking about the tax thresholds—but they support, say, a family of six, they are taxed the same as a single person who earns the same amount but supports no one at all. As people enter the higher tax rate, they also lose their child benefit and there are all kinds of knock-on effects of the tax system. Other countries such as France, Germany, Canada and the US have different systems, in which the household is taxed or in which family policy recognises the benefits of parenting and supports families. We need to reform our taxation system to be much more pro-family and to make it easier for couples to stay together. I am delighted about the Government’s family hubs programme; we need to determine how family hubs will support fathers to be involved in the early years of bringing up their children.

Finally, there is an issue affecting the health and wellbeing of men, particularly boys, in a truly alarming way. We have a growing public health crisis as a result of the proliferation of online pornography. In 2020, pornography websites received more traffic than Twitter, Instagram, Netflix, Zoom, Pinterest and LinkedIn combined. For too long, society has viewed porn as a private matter, assuming that what people do in the privacy of their own home is their own business, but it is clear that the impacts on society have been significant and negative.

We must wake up to the destructive impacts of internet pornography. There is nothing “mainstream” about the porn now available online. Mainstream pornography platforms host vast quantities—unknown quantities—of filmed crimes: videos of trafficking, rape, non-consensual sexual violence, child sexual abuse material, sexual coercion, abuse and exploitation of vulnerable women and children, intrafamilial rape, humiliation, punishment, torture and pain, all available at the click of a mouse or the touch of an iPhone.

Analysis of 130,000 titles of videos that were recommended to first-time users of Pornhub and other major sites found that one in every eight described sexual activities that constitute sexual violence. “Teen” was the word that occurred most frequently across the dataset; the second most common category was physical aggression and sexual assault. Viewing such videos affects what men, particularly boys, think about sex—what they think is normal and what they think is acceptable.

It is right to think about the impact of pornography on women and girls. It is notable that so many high-profile rapes and murders in recent years, including the tragic murder of Sarah Everard, have been committed by men who were addicted to hardcore pornography. However, children’s consumption of online pornography has been associated with the dramatic increase in child-on-child sexual abuse, which now constitutes around a third of all child sexual abuse, so we also need to think about the negative impact on boys.

Approximately 50% of 12-year-olds have seen pornography online, and 1.4 million children in the UK access it each month. A UK survey found that 44% of boys aged between 11 and 16 who regularly viewed pornography reported that it gave them ideas about the type of sex that they wanted to try. We have seen the normalisation of strangulation during sex, and of anal sex among young people. A year or so ago, a case was reported of a boy who raped a girl in school; when the teacher asked him why he had not stopped, he said, “I thought it was normal for girls to cry during sex.” How are these boys ever going to enjoy normal, loving, fulfilling intimate relationships?

During puberty, boys’ brains develop an erotic imprint in which what they see as normal and appropriate sexual behaviour is laid down. That imprint will stay with them for the rest of their life. How many of these boys will be drawn into serious sex offences? How many will endure broken relationships or broken families, or never form relationships at all?

Pornography also affects boys’ health. There has been an increase in erectile dysfunction among teenage boys. At the extreme, the constant use of pornography can quickly lead men not to become aroused by anything other than hardcore online porn. That is why it is so important that we pass the Online Safety Bill when it returns to this House, and that it goes through the House of Lords and becomes an Act of Parliament. We must introduce secure age verification so that no children can access pornographic websites. We must stop children accidentally viewing or deliberately sharing pornographic images with one another online. While children’s brains are developing, it is so crucial that they do not have access to extreme material.

At the moment, internet pornography is completely unregulated. I am afraid that people who say it is parents’ responsibility to make sure their children do not view it are not living in the real world. Even if a child has no phone and no computer, all it takes is a classmate to put their own phone in front of the child for them to see this stuff. A child is only as safe as the least protected child in their class. It would be a bit like telling parents to teach their children to cross the road safely if there were no speed limit, no crossing points and no side of the road that we legally had to drive on—it would be completely impossible.

As well as being completely unregulated, internet pornography is a public health disaster. On top of the Online Safety Bill, we need the Department of Health and Social Care to lead a public inquiry into the harms of pornography—not only the harms to women and girls, the harms to the economy and the criminal aspects but the harms to boys and men and to their happiness, fulfilment and physical and mental health. The future social impact of this porn epidemic will be catastrophic if we do not protect our boys and girls. I believe that online pornography is the opiate trade of our age, and we should be outraged by what our children are seeing.

Our families, our communities and our nation need strong, confident, healthy and skilled boys and men. It is therefore in all our interests to invest in skills and industry, to support marriage and families, and to end the destruction caused by online pornography.