Strengthening Families

Oliver Dowden Excerpts

Thursday 8th February 2018 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Oliver Dowden)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Buck, and it was a pleasure to have Mr Bone as our Chair prior to your arrival.

When we go to someone’s funeral, it is rare that people talk about that person’s educational or career successes. They certainly, as my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) said, do not talk about the money that person made during their lifetime. Almost always, the eulogy centres on the family. People want to be remembered for the family—for their contribution to family life and the stable family life that they built. Families are at the centre of all our individual lives. They provide us with a sense of stability, security and purpose, sustaining us through times of emotional, health and financial difficulty, and providing us with a sense of place and fulfilment. We all experience families in different ways throughout our lives, as children to our parents, as parents or indeed grandparents as we grow older, as partners or through our extended relationships. To answer a point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest West (Sir Desmond Swayne), of course we all know that modern families are not all two parents with two children. It has been established during the debate that it is not helpful to stigmatise people who do not conform to that measure, and I do not think anyone suggests we should do so.

As a dad with two young children, I know the importance of strong families and the role that families play in children’s development—not only physical development but cognitive, emotional and social development. I completely agree with the attitude of my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy) towards television and social media for children. The decline in the practice of children sitting at the table to eat with the family has profound consequences. When children eat with the family they learn many soft skills such as conversational ability and table manners that put them at an advantage and help them succeed throughout life. I certainly agree about playing games: my family like Articulate! My six-year-old already beats me at Cluedo so I am giving up on that one. I shall resist the temptation to speculate on games that members of the Cabinet might choose to play.

For all the reasons I have given, it is, for me and certainly for my party and the Government, families and not the state that form the cornerstone of our society. That is why families are at the heart of Government policy and why I am so pleased to have the opportunity to respond to the debate on behalf of the Government. It is an important issue, and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) said, it is also a cross-cutting issue where responsibilities lie with a number of different Departments. As a Minister in the Cabinet Office, which has responsibility for co-ordinating cross-Government work and policy, I am responding to this wide-ranging debate on behalf of the Government. Within the Cabinet Office, we are continually looking at ways to measure the impact of policies in relation to the family. We currently analyse that impact through mechanisms such as the implementation unit, which falls within my brief. That is a central part of the initiative.

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for securing the debate. I know what a strong campaigner she is on the importance of families, and how much of her parliamentary career she has devoted to championing the cause. That was demonstrated once again by her passionate speech today. I also pay tribute to all hon. Members who were involved in drawing up the “Manifesto to Strengthen Families”. I know that she chaired a roundtable on Tuesday with our hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) and David Burrowes. I join my hon. Friends in paying tribute to Mr Burrowes. He was a neighbour when he served as Member of Parliament for Enfield, Southgate and he is completely and passionately committed to this cause.

I am very familiar with this cause from my time working for the former Prime Minister. My hon. Friend the Member for Congleton mentioned “Breakthrough Britain”. I well remember that report and its impact and the significant contributions, not just from David Burrowes, but people such as Dr Samantha Callan, who are very committed to this project. For me, the statistic that brought it home during the debate is that children are more likely to have a smartphone than a father at home. What does that say about our values as a society if that is the case?

[Margaret Greenwood]

When the Minister is talking about values as a society, will he set out for us what his Government are going to do to tackle child poverty, which is set to rise to 5 million?

[Oliver Dowden]

As the hon. Lady has raised the point now, I am happy to talk about it. It was certainly my experience growing up that my dad losing his job at a wire factory had the single biggest impact on our family finances and our family life. It put the greatest strain on our family. I am very proud to serve in a Government under which more than 2 million new jobs have been created—that is hundreds of thousands of households where children grow up seeing their parents going out to work and having the stability and security of a wage packet.

That achievement stands alongside a range of measures that we have taken—for example, we are the first Government to introduce a national living wage. We are also cutting people’s taxes so they keep more of what they earn. We have essentially doubled the tax-free allowance, meaning that anybody working 30 hours a week on the minimum wage pays no tax at all. In addition to that, universal credit reforms pioneered by my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr Duncan Smith), the former Work and Pensions Secretary, have had a tremendous impact. When I visit jobcentres in my own constituency, I see the enthusiasm that people working there have because they know that we finally have a policy that genuinely incentivises people from welfare into work. We have a record of which we can be proud.

I did not want to descend into party political points at this early stage, but I would note on the issue of the so-called privatisation of the health service that I do not see how that accords with the tremendous increase in funding we have provided for the NHS.

[Margaret Greenwood]

Will the Minister give way?

[Ms Karen Buck (in the Chair)]

Order. Before the hon. Lady intervenes, I would remind Members that this is not a debate about the health service.

[Oliver Dowden]

I will give way in just one moment. Record numbers of operations are being performed on the NHS, record numbers of people are seeing GPs, and record numbers of people are being seen in A&E. We have committed an extra £8 billion in this Parliament and another £6 billion was committed in the Budget to the NHS. I will give way, and then I must move on.

[Margaret Greenwood]

I thank the Minister for giving way and I take on board your comment, Ms Buck, but I would say that the debate is cross-departmental and the document does refer to health. Accountable care systems or integrated care systems are suggesting bundling together budgets for the hospitals, the GPs, community health, public health and local authority spending of one area—Wirral, for example—and potentially giving that to one private provider. We have seen what happened with Carillion, so there is clearly a huge risk in taking that kind of approach. I would say that if that leads to the privatisation of the national health service, it will have a devastating effect on families.

[Ms Karen Buck (in the Chair)]

I call the Minister, and I would stress my earlier point to him as well.

[Oliver Dowden]

I thank you for that warning, Ms Buck. I will deal with the comment in one sense and move on to the substance of the manifesto.

There is virtue in integrating services, The sort of thing that is being pioneered in Manchester, where we bring together different services—it is in fact being pioneered by a Labour Mayor, in conjunction with the former Chancellor’s measures—is, I think, a way of improving health outcomes.

I will now move on to the specific measures in the manifesto, which form part of broader Government policy. For example, there is the important matter of education. There are now 1.9 million children in good or outstanding schools, which is a record number. My hon. Friend the Member for Stafford raised some important points about mental health. As was recognised, we are investing £1.4 billion in mental health services for children and young people, and we have set up a scheme in schools to raise awareness and help them to know how to deal with individuals in schools suffering from mental health issues. We have published a Green Paper to set out our plans to transform mental health services in schools. My hon. Friend made an important point about the need for a holistic, family approach to mental health, and hopefully the Green Paper will be a starting point.

As I said, a route into meaningful work is very important for improving children’s life chances. We now know that nearly three quarters of children from workless households moved out of poverty when their parents entered full-time work. That means 608,000 fewer children are living in workless households.

Before moving on to the contents of the manifesto, I would like to try to address some of the points raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton. The importance of champions for the family in Government was raised by several Members. As a starting point, I know that the Prime Minister is personally committed to this—she is the principal champion of families. We have already discussed the other Ministers with family responsibilities, but I have certainly heard the point about a specific, designated family Cabinet Minister loud and clear, and I will relay that to my colleagues in Government.

My hon. Friend the Member for Congleton raised the DAD scheme. I understand from my officials that the Department for Education has funded a range of family advice and support services since 2008, including Family Matters, which runs the website called DAD. The service is well used and is valued by its users. Ministers at DFE are considering the future requirements for the next financial year, so it is under active consideration. I am sure the representations made by my hon. Friend will have been heard loud and clear. On children’s centres, an important point was raised about family hubs. Clearly, local authorities have responsibility for children’s centres and they are free to pioneer family hubs. As my hon. Friend said, a great number are already doing so. She highlighted Westminster and the Isle of Wight. I would urge other councils to consider doing so.

My hon. Friend made an excellent representation on a transformation fund. Sadly, it is entirely beyond my remit to make public spending commitments, but I am sure the Chancellor will take note, particularly regarding the £90 million in dormant bank accounts. On the statutory duty to have the father’s name on birth certificates, it is worth noting that 94% of birth certificates already have the father’s name there, so we are making progress.

On relationships education, which came up in a number of contributions, the call for evidence is out at the moment. Some passionate pleas were made. I would urge hon. Members to respond to that call for evidence—I believe it closes on Monday. That is the route for formulating policy in that area. Again, I think a valuable point was made about the need for an annual statement on strengthening families and that is again something I will relay to my right hon. Friends in Government.

My hon. Friend the Member for Stafford talked about Home-Start, which is very important. I have looked into it very briefly, and I believe that comes under the local transformation plans that we put in place in 2014-15. There is an opportunity, as part of those plans, to provide for such schemes, but I will write to him further on that point.

Let me turn to the substance of the debate: this excellent manifesto. The Government introduced the family test in 2014 to bring a family perspective into policy making. It helps to ensure that the impact on family relationships and functioning, both positive and negative, is recognised in the process of policy development, and it informs policy decisions made by Ministers. We introduced the test to ensure that, across Government, we think carefully about the potential for new policies to support or undermine family relationships. The Implementation Unit has a role in ensuring that the family test is implemented. The test means that families are considered at the start of any new policy development.

[Margaret Greenwood]

How would the two-child policy, under which families are disincentivised to have a third child, measure up to the family test?

[Oliver Dowden]

The whole point of the two-child policy is that people on benefits should be subject to the same restraints as people who go out to work. Anyone who goes out to work has to think carefully about whether they can afford to have more children, and many people choose not to have a third or fourth child. All the policy does is to replicate that in the benefits system by ensuring a cap at two children. It is a perfectly sensible policy with which many members of the public completely agree.

[Margaret Greenwood]

rose—

[Oliver Dowden]

I really need to make progress, and I do not want this to become a two-way, Conservative-versus-Labour debate.

On the point about spending on childcare, I have already talked about the role of parents in children’s development. Children from less advantaged backgrounds are already behind in their learning by the time they start school, and high-quality early learning from the age of two can help us to close that gap. Parents have a vital role to play in their child’s development. Evidence suggests that, aside from maternal education, the home-learning environment is the single biggest influence on a child’s vocabulary at the age of three. That is why we have committed £5 million to trial evidence-based home-learning environment support programmes in the north of England—my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton referred to them. They will focus on early language learning and literacy. We are currently running a procurement exercise to identify an external organisation to work with us in delivering that trial.

The primary purpose of providing free early learning places for two-year-olds is to improve outcomes for children. We want to make it as easy as possible for children to benefit from early education. One of the interesting initiatives in that area is community-based nurseries, at which parents volunteer in return for lower childcare fees. Disadvantaged families are helped through the lower cost of childcare, and they learn parental skills by working in the nurseries. A number of those trials have already happened with voluntary organisations, and they have had very positive outcomes.

The “Manifesto to Strengthen Families” also recommended that relationship education should be extended online, with a dedicated campaign and virtual platform. The Government want to help all schools to deliver high-quality relationships education and relationships and sex education to ensure that pupils are taught about healthy and respectful relationships, and that they stay safe and are equipped with the knowledge they need to prepare for adult life. I completely agree that it needs to cover concepts such as commitment, respect and safety. Of course, marriage is a perfect example of all those things. I urge hon. Members to make sure their views are heard as part of that consultation process, because that evidence will shape draft statutory guidance and regulations, which will be subject to further consultation later this year. There will be many opportunities for hon. Members to have an input into that process.

In December, the Government published our social mobility action plan, which set out our ambition to close the word gap in early years. It is a clear direction for all those that have a part to play, including children’s centres. Our focus is on delivering that ambition. We welcome the development of family hubs as one way to meet local needs. We believe that local councils are best placed to understand local needs, so if they believe there should be a family hub, they should be free to set one up.

This excellent manifesto also focused on health. The Government are already working to reduce health inequalities by addressing the social causes of ill-health, promoting healthier lifestyles and tackling differences in outcomes of NHS services. We are doing that in a number of ways. We are investing more than £16 billion over the current spending period to support local public health services. That action is being led locally to ensure that the solutions reflect the needs of individual communities. Local authorities can also commission a range of children’s public health programmes that support women in pregnancy through childbirth and support children from early years through to adolescence. Clinical commissioning groups and local authorities are responsible for commissioning services to meet the needs of their local populations. As part of that, we also need to look at mental health. The Government are committed to parity between mental and physical health, which has been one of the challenges in our health service for successive Governments.

The manifesto contains an excellent recommendation about maternity services and maximising the involvement of fathers. Perhaps I can call myself a new dad—I was certainly there at the birth of my two children. There really are some excellent maternity services now. I was at a midwife-led unit at Watford General Hospital, just outside my constituency, and I saw how helpful it is to have a dedicated room in which the birth takes place with en suite facilities. That helps the father to be involved. That is why the Government have provided more than £37 million of capital funding since 2013 to support maternity services and to create safe, family-friendly environments. That includes increased provision of facilities in labour and post natal units, such as double beds, reclining chairs—which can be converted to beds for partners to rest in, especially overnight, and remain with their partner and new-born children—en suite toilets, new birthing pools, and dedicated family rooms.

The manifesto also raised the important issue of couples therapy. When children arrive it is a time of great happiness, but it can put a tremendous amount of strain on relationships, so it is important that we focus resources at that stage. The NHS already offers couple-based therapy as part of its Improving Access to Psychological Therapies programme.

On drug addiction, many hon. Members eloquently made the point that families play an absolutely central part in helping people through that very challenging time in their lives. At a national level, we have extended the troubled families programme to help local areas to ensure that their services have an integrated, whole-family approach. The programme now specifically supports families with younger children and those with a broader range of problems, including substance misuse, mental health problems and domestic abuse.

On the point about police and crime commissioners working with schools in which domestic abuse issues are prevalent, the Government are fully committed to tackling domestic abuse, and we will shortly be launching a consultation on the landmark domestic abuse Bill to improve protection and support for victims, to strengthen the focus on perpetrators, and to recognise the lifelong damage that domestic abuse does to children. The evidence on that front is completely overwhelming.

My hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Michael Tomlinson) made a passionate speech about the prison system and the role of families. I was particularly struck by his statistic that reoffending rates are 35% lower if partners and families are allowed to visit. That is also borne out by other studies. The impact of imprisonment on a family is likely to be long term, especially if the main breadwinner of a family goes to prison—the problems back home build up, with rent or mortgage arrears going up, and social stigma and loneliness for the family left behind.

While offenders are in custody, therefore, we have an opportunity to support them in changing their values and perspectives on their roles and responsibilities. As a Government, we believe that prisoners who are in touch with their family are likely to be more settled while in jail. Multiply that improved mood among prisoners, and we see a transformation in prison conditions. As we have heard, on 10 August last year the Government published a review by Lord Farmer that made several recommendations to strengthen family or significant other ties. As has been recognised, we have welcomed all those measures and will be working to implement them.

On the military covenant, the case was well put by the hon. Member for Glasgow North West (Carol Monaghan) —sadly, she is no longer in her place. We all know, and I certainly do from my previous role as the Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Defence Secretary, the huge sacrifice made not only by our armed forces, but by their families. That is often under-reported, with the families often the ones who take the strain of prolonged periods of absence and moving around, so it is important that we support those families under the military covenant, which is exactly what we have done.

The Ministry of Defence launched its first ever UK armed forces families’ strategy in 2016, which focuses and co-ordinates activity to support service families. The single service welfare organisations provide a flexible and inclusive network of welfare support to service personnel and their families. Defence also rightly works hand in glove with the principal service charities and organisations such as Relate to provide specialist support to families. In addition, we have launched a health and wellbeing strategy to improve mental health, and developed a memorandum of understanding with the Royal Foundation. As part of such efforts, I certainly take on board the suggestion of my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest West about ensuring that we include training courses.

I thank hon. Members for allowing me to speak for some time. I wanted to cover all the points included in the manifesto, as well as the other matters raised. If Members feel I have left anything uncovered, I undertake to write back to them. I believe that as a Government we are working towards a shared goal of putting family at the heart of policy making. I hope that we will continue in that vein, because all the evidence shows the value of families to our national life.

[Fiona Bruce]

I thank all right hon. and hon. Members who have spoken in this debate, and who have stayed the course in our final debate before we break for our recess. That demonstrates the commitment of colleagues to “A Manifesto to Strengthen Families”.

I thank the Minister for his response, which showed his personal interest, his genuine concern and his desire to see families strengthened in this country. We appreciate that very much. We appreciate, too, the fact that he represents the Cabinet Office, which indicates a recognition by Government that this is a cross-cutting issue that needs a degree of oversight by one Department, across the many Departments that we have referred to as being affected by the policies in the manifesto that we want to see implemented.

I have one further request of the Minister. So many issues have been raised today and so many have to be taken back to other Departments that, on behalf of my colleagues who have spoken, I would ask him whether he will meet us in a few weeks’ time for a further discussion of how the policies in the manifesto can be taken forward.

[Oliver Dowden]

indicated assent.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered strengthening families.