Family Policy

Debate between Sarah Teather and Alan Meale

Wednesday 4th May 2011 Westminster Hall

[The Minister of State, Department for Education (Sarah Teather)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Meale. I congratulate the hon. Member for Erewash (Jessica Lee) on—I was going to say winning this debate, but I am not sure whether “winning” is the right word, considering what time she probably got to bed last night. There is some irony in discussing family policy in the least family-friendly institution in the UK. I congratulate all hon. Members on being here and on an interesting and informative debate. I particularly enjoyed the opening remarks of the hon. Lady, which addressed family policy across the piece. I doubt that I will be able to respond to everything in the time remaining, but I will do my best to pick up on as many of the points raised as I can.

I thank the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) for her profound affection for my colleague, the Under-Secretary of State for Education, the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton). I will of course pass on her remarks to him. I am sure that he will be terrified, but I will draw his attention to her flattery of his great skills.

The hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West said that this goes without saying, but I think it is worth saying again: strong and stable families are the bedrock of a strong and stable society. They are key to ensuring that children grow up in a loving and nurturing environment and develop into healthy, happy, successful adults. The quality of relationships matters. Adults in good, stable relationships have better life outcomes, and so do their children. Families are also the social capital that builds and sustains neighbourhoods and communities, as the hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Mrs Grant) said eloquently in her introductory remarks. They are the basic unit of society, and they are where we learn the social skills we need to survive and flourish in life. They are where we learn how to form relationships with other people, and the success of those relationships will affect our life outcomes as well as those of our children.

The make-up of the family unit is changing, as several hon. Members said. Families come in many varied shapes and sizes, including single-parent, multi-generational and foster families. Fathers are becoming more involved with their children, which I believe is a positive step forward that the Government should do much to support. Despite the many different changes referred to by the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) in his speech, families are, as he also said, happy on the whole with family life. Most families say that they are fairly or very happy; 93% of respondents to a recent BBC poll said that they were happy with their family life.

However, it is vital that we support families as much as we can, and this Government believe that we should do much better. It is our ambition to make this country the most family-friendly in the world. At the heart of all our policy making is the determination to ensure that family services are designed around parents’ needs rather than the other way around, and take account of changing work patterns, the evolving roles of parents and the financial pressures families face.

The hon. Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) said that some people believe that families are not the Government’s business. Sadly, many politicians who consider themselves progressive believe that the family is not an area in which the Government should be involved. There is sometimes a dichotomy between believers in a small state and in a big state regarding what they believe the role of Government should be. However, I believe that the Government have an important role in supporting families, systematically removing the barriers that prevent them from thriving and creating the right environment through legislative change, financial systems and the design of public services so that families can be the best that they can be. That matters to our children, and to their children as well.

It is also important that we intervene to support vulnerable families when things are difficult. All families go through times when things are harder. We know, for example, that there are pressures on families when they have a first child or when children move into the teenage years. Those with many social networks might manage to get through such times, but if life is stacked against people, as in some of the examples given in several hon. Members’ speeches—if they suffer from a mental health problem, have unstable relationships, live in overcrowded housing or have a drug or alcohol problem—it is much more difficult to do so.

That is why the Government are investing in extra health visitors, for example, to support people in the early years. It is why we are doubling the number of family nurse partnerships—to refer to the remarks of the Opposition spokesperson—and why we feel so strongly that Sure Start matters and must be focused particularly on families that need support at that time. It is also why we have begun a new campaign to support families with multiple problems to ensure that they get the support they need, rather than being passed from one service to another.

We will shortly consult on new proposals for family parental leave, an issue about which I feel strongly. Several hon. Members discussed fathers and the need to involve them more. Involving fathers at an early stage makes a difference to children’s outcomes. If the worst happens—if all the other things we are doing to support relationships do not work and the relationship breaks down—fathers who are engaged at an early stage are much more likely to remain engaged later.

I am running out of time, so I will not be able to speak about all the things that I wanted to address, but I will refer a little to our work on relationship support, which I believe is important to sustaining families who might go through difficult times, as any family will. As the hon. Member for South West Bedfordshire said, the Prime Minister recently announced that my Department will fund relationship support to the tune of £30 million, a substantial increase. As part of that, we are also providing funding through a series of voluntary sector organisations—at the moment, telephone and internet services are going out to tender—to ensure that all sorts of relationship support mechanisms are available to families.

The hon. Member for South West Bedfordshire will be pleased to know that we already support prisoners’ families with £1.3 million through about six voluntary sector organisations. I agree that it can have a dramatic impact on reducing reoffending. I have long been interested in the ideas that he mentioned involving greater availability of guidance and support before marriage. Having the skills to negotiate difficult times and knowing where to go for support can make a difference when couples hit rocky periods.

The work we are doing—

[Mr Alan Meale (in the Chair)]

Order. We now move on to our second debate. Can Members who are not going to participate in it please leave quickly and quietly?