Relationships and Children’s Well-being

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Tuesday 21st October 2014 Westminster Hall

[John Glen]

I agree absolutely that we must look at how relationships are formed in the home and recognise that families exist in a wide range of sometimes sad circumstances. We must not be squeamish about being honest about messy situations, but recognise that solid family relationships give children the best platform to develop good and meaningful lives in society.

I want to focus on the importance of children’s relationships with their fathers, especially when fathers cannot live with their children. I believe that fathers’ involvement boosts children’s self-esteem and confidence and that children with good relationships with their fathers are less likely to experience depression or exhibit disruptive behaviour at school. When fathers are actively involved in their children’s care, children are more likely to feel good about themselves, do well at school, avoid trouble and reach their potential.

Several months ago, a lady came to my surgery saying that her relationship with her partner had broken down after they had lived together for 10 years. During that relationship they had brought up their own child and another child who had been born a year before the relationship began. The acrimony of the breakdown of the relationship had led the departing father to arbitrate on which child—they were only a year apart in age—he would want to have contact with. The one who was not his blood relative—the stepchild—wanted to maintain the relationship because the man was the only father figure he had known, but his birth child was more reticent about seeing his father. The impact of the disruption on those children and the arbitrary removal of that father influence would have tragic consequences. That experience typifies many that we hear about in our surgeries and throughout society, and we must respond to it.

It is highly worrying that the Centre for Social Justice has estimated that more than 1 million children have no meaningful contact with their fathers by the end of their childhood. The shocking but quotable statistic that a young person is considerably more likely to have a smartphone than a resident father is a sad indictment of society.

The coalition’s programme for Government promised to encourage shared parenting from the outset and to look at how best to provide greater access rights to non-resident parents, but I would like to highlight three areas where we could do more. First, we should bring into force schedule 6 of the Welfare Reform Act 2009 on joint birth registration, which requires fathers to register themselves on birth certificates. As my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate said, there seems to be some ambiguity about why that has not happened. At present, the law on birth registration signals that fathers are less important to children than their mothers and that less is expected of them. If they are not married, the mother, not the father, is named automatically. Crucially, the mother’s approval is required if the father wants to be named. Obviously, there must be appropriate exemptions, such as when the mother does not know the father’s identity or whereabouts, the father lacks capacity within the meaning of the Mental Capacity Act 2005 or the mother has reason to fear for her safety or that of the child if the father is contacted in relation to the registration of the birth.

If that change was made and the mother wanted the father to be recorded, but that was against the father’s wishes, the mother could identify the father independently. Similarly, a father who wanted to be named but was obstructed by the mother could declare his paternity and have his name recorded against her wishes. Being named on a birth certificate confers parental responsibility and the right to be involved in decisions affecting where the child lives, their education, religion and medical treatment. If fathers are not registered on the birth certificate, that predicts both less involvement in their children’s lives and low or non-payment of child maintenance. Australia achieved a reduction of 20% in mother-only registrations during the 10-year period between 1994 and 2004 by adopting a similar measure.

Secondly, if parents separate, it is often highly beneficial to children if they continue to have a relationship with both parents. Yet it can be incredibly difficult to ensure there are well functioning contact arrangements with children. That can be incredibly painful for children, but it is understandable because parents’ inability to work together rarely repairs itself naturally after they have split up.

At this point, I want to refer to a meeting I had on Saturday in Salisbury, where I gave out some awards to volunteers at Salisbury’s contact centre, and in particular to Liz Sirman, who has spent the last five years managing that contact centre. I said then, as I do now, that it seems we can either say that the glass is half-full or half-empty. We can either say that it is lamentable to have children’s contact centres, where parents’ relationships are so broken that they have to rely on volunteers to arbitrate—one partner delivers the child and goes, and another comes to collect the child, and then there is the same process in reverse—or we can pay tribute to the work of such centres, as they try to rebuild relationships and help those families form better relationships in the interests of the children.

We need to be willing to support families once parents have separated. The Department for Work and Pensions innovation fund has invested significantly in better ways of doing that. Additionally, we need family relationship centres, such as those that have been functioning in Australia for several years. Pioneering centres such as Island Separated Families on the Isle of Wight and the Jersey Centre for Separated Families will shortly be joined by other centres in the midlands and the north-west of England. Their help for separated families could be delivered within the system for family hubs mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton.

Finally, although the contributory principle in child maintenance is indispensable, it should not have the unintended consequence of preventing non-resident parents from playing a meaningful role in their children’s lives. Some low-income parents are being left with too little money to look after their children adequately while they are in their care after paying child maintenance. That is because the current thresholds at which maintenance is paid are fixed at 1998 prices, and there is no self-support reserve in our system, unlike in many other countries.

This is a critical and controversial area, but we have to examine the reality of how these dynamics are working for the poorest in our society. We need to look at making interventions that change those rules to facilitate better dynamics between, and more involvement of, both parents in bringing up a child. I know that the Minister, who is universally seen as one of the most capable and thoughtful individuals in Parliament, will reflect very carefully on these points. I look forward to hearing what he has to say in response today and subsequently by letter, if some of these issues cannot be responded to today, but I urge him to reflect on the spirit and the substance of what has been said this morning. We are here because we can see an epidemic of family breakdown in our society. We are concerned about the life trajectory of those children, and I urge him to do anything that he can to improve that situation, such that those children can look forward to better lives, with both parents involved in their upbringing.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)]

The debate is due to end at 11 o’clock and we have two Front-Bench speakers. If they split the time, it is 18 minutes each, but the debate does not have to run all the way to 11 o’clock —it is entirely up to them. I call Steve McCabe.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Harper]

My understanding is that the family test will effectively apply from November. From that time, as Departments develop domestic policies they should consider the impact on families. My hon. Friend made some sensible points about grandparents and wider family relationships. I am particularly familiar with the extra responsibilities of parents with disabled children and the help that they receive from grandparents and the wider family. He raises sensible points, and the Government are considering such issues. We have ensured that grandparents can claim child maintenance if they are the main carers. I know he also welcomes the Department for Education’s guidance on care, which recommends that local authorities now consider family options first before taking children into local authority care. There are obviously further ideas, and I think he ascribed both to himself and to my hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (John Glen) the Prime Minister’s invitation to contribute ideas both directly to him and to other Ministers on how we can make further progress in this area—not that either of my hon. Friends need inviting to contribute on policy areas in which they both have a long-standing interest.

We are also looking at piloting relationship education in both antenatal and post-natal provision, and we are looking at national guidance for health visitors, who are well placed to spot early signs of relationship distress. Through Early Intervention Foundation pioneering places, we are also considering joined-up approaches that we can take with local authorities. Those ongoing trials may shed light on the suggestions for What Works centres made by my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton, including using those children’s centres as family hubs. The shadow Minister also specifically mentioned the What Works centres.

I think there is general consensus among colleagues that we should recognise and support the involvement of both parents, and I hope colleagues welcome that following the Children and Families Act 2014 there is now presumed shared involvement of fathers and mothers alike. The welfare of the child still rightly comes first, but there is now explicit recognition that, except where there are specific reasons why not, the presumption is that the child should have contact with both parents. That recognition in the legal system is welcome.

The Government are also spending £10 million on the help and support for separated families innovation fund—it is admittedly not a catchy title—which covers 17 projects aimed at testing interventions to help parents going through a separation to work together and resolve conflict. Up to September 2014 those projects engaged some 53,500 parents. The projects consider innovations in delivering those services and the outcomes that we receive from them.

My hon. Friend the Member for Congleton also mentioned the appointment of a Cabinet-level Minister with responsibility for families. The Prime Minister said in his speech that, as well as bringing together all relationship support policy within the Department for Work and Pensions, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions will be that Cabinet-level Minister. The Secretary of State has a long history in this area, and he is very pleased to have been given that responsibility by the Prime Minister. The Secretary of State considers himself responsible and accountable for families, and he is already effectively doing that within the social justice Cabinet Committee, which he leads on some of those issues.

Those are some of the things that the Government have been doing, and in the remaining minutes I will address some of the issues that colleagues have raised in this debate. Both my hon. Friends the Members for Salisbury and for Enfield, Southgate mentioned joint birth registration, which was introduced in the Welfare Reform Act 2009. I was shadowing this brief at the time, and I distinctly remember those debates. Joint birth registration is a more complicated issue than it seems at first glance because, as both my hon. Friends mentioned, there are exemptions in the legislation for difficult cases. Other ministerial colleagues are considering that issue, so it would be sensible if I arranged for the relevant Minister to write to both my hon. Friends, to all Members attending this debate and, indeed, to you, Mr Hollobone, so that we can have a detailed response. In my constituency I have experienced cases such as those raised by the shadow Minister in which fathers have been involved in the upbringing of their children and want that important relationship to continue, regardless of the fact that their relationship with the children’s mother has broken down. I will consider that carefully.

The shadow Minister spoke about children’s centres. As of February 2014 there are 3,019 main children’s centres, with a further 531 sites open to families and children. Since 2010, despite the significant financial challenges that we inherited from the Labour party, only 76 centres have closed. Indeed, six new centres have opened, and 90% of eligible families in need are registered with their local centre. That sounds like a pretty good record on providing such support at local level, even where there have had to be very difficult financial savings to rebalance the public finances.

I welcome what my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate said about mental health. My Department is working on the improving access to psychological therapies pilots with the Department of Health. Those pilots are important for ensuring that we do a much better job not just of addressing children’s mental health—he will know that that is one of the passions of the Minister of State, Department of Health, my right hon. Friend the Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb), who has responsibility for care and support, and it is a passion shared by both coalition parties—but of helping adults with mental health problems either to stay in or return to work. Less than half of adults with mental health problems currently work, so the Government must improve what we are doing. I hope my hon. Friend welcomes what we have done so far, and I hope over the months to come he will welcome our work to improve that still further.

My hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury referred to an award he gave to Liz Sirman, who works at a children’s contact centre in his constituency. I am a glass-half-full kind of guy, so I welcome the Government’s support for the work of volunteers in helping to support families and children who have experienced difficult relationship breakdowns. Such work is welcomed, and I am pleased that my hon. Friend was able to recognise it so publicly at the weekend.

The shadow Minister referred to the importance of mediation when a relationship breaks down, and in the Children and Families Act there is now a statutory requirement for people to consider mediation before they rush off to court, which is helpful. There will clearly be cases in which mediation simply cannot work, but the fact that it has to be considered and in people’s thought processes before lawyers get involved is helpful—I am an accountant, so I can be slightly rude about lawyers. Having more mediation to support relationships means that, even if the parents’ relationship cannot be preserved, the relationship with their children can be preserved, which is welcome. My hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury mentioned child maintenance thresholds, and the Minister for Pensions has committed to reviewing the formula and the threshold once the current reforms have been safely implemented.

My hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate did a good job of responding to the shadow Minister on the economic issues, but I have a couple of further points. First, children are three times more likely to be in poverty if they live in a workless family. My hon. Friend is absolutely right that there are now 290,000 fewer children living in workless households, which is good news. That means that there are 300,000 fewer children living in relative income poverty than when the Government came to office.

Finally, the shadow Minister referred to the importance of work and people being in jobs, which is why I am sure he will join Government Members in celebrating that there are now 1.8 million more people in work who are able to bring home a pay packet and contribute to their family. That is a positive note on which to finish this excellent debate, which was secured by my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)]

I thank all Members who have taken part in this extremely interesting, informative and important debate.