Cost of Living

Debate between Sharon Hodgson and Malcolm Wicks

Wednesday 16th May 2012 Commons Chamber

[Malcolm Wicks]

It could well be a factor. Certainly I acknowledge the hon. Gentleman’s main point that, although we often talk about the childminder or the nursery or the crèche, as I have been doing today, the role of the extended family—granny and granddad—can be vital.

To support my case that we need to take parental leave far more seriously, let me cite a recent, or fairly recent, pamphlet published in 2008 and written by a number of people, including Catherine Hakim. The publisher was Policy Exchange. Politically I am widely read, or rather the Library has briefed me widely. Catherine Hakim and her colleagues produced some interesting data. When parents were asked what, ideally, they would like, they did not all say “More child care, more child care”. Many simply wanted to spend more time with their own children when they were tiny. According to the report,

“Overall, a two-thirds majority of working mothers of pre-school and school-age children would prefer to work fewer hours or not at all, even if better childcare were available. Given the choice, what mothers prefer is to be at home with their children, not more and better childcare”.

That is an interesting finding, but I would qualify it by saying that we must not turn this into a debate about how mothers should be at home, as we are in danger of doing. Many mothers have educational qualifications that are superior to those of their partners, and careers that are blossoming. The debate about parental leave is not just about mums, but about dads as well. Too often in family and social policy, we talk about families as if they were just women and children and do not talk enough about fathers.

[Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Malcolm Wicks]

I will give way to all sorts of people shortly.

We need to draw on some of the experience of Sweden and other Scandinavian countries. We need parental leave which—almost in a social engineering way—enables and encourages dads as well as mothers to take parental leave.

--- Later in debate ---

[Malcolm Wicks]

That is good, and when we see the Government’s proposals we can debate whether they go far enough and what our long-term ambitions might be.

On parental leave, perhaps we should be thinking of several years, rather than shorter periods. However, with dads in more and more families playing a much greater role than their own dads did, we must concoct the policy so that we give them, as well as the mothers, maximum encouragement to take parental leave.

The Secretary of State’s intervention—on an aspect of nuclear family policy, rather than nuclear policy, which he is shyer about—made a point that Government Members need to understand. Getting the right balance between work and family life—not just for parents but for carers of elderly people and many others—is not a distraction from economic growth; rather, it enables us to have a modern work force that will help promote growth.

[Mrs Hodgson]

My right hon. Friend is making an excellent and thought-provoking speech, especially on child care. Only one in five women earn more than their partners, the effect of which on the ability to take shared parental leave we should consider.

[Malcolm Wicks]

That raises the serious and fundamental question of why this inequality still exists. It also raises a more practical question, which I think my hon. Friend was implying: how can dads who are bringing in the great majority of the family bacon take much in the way of parental leave?

[Mrs Hodgson]

indicated assent.

[Malcolm Wicks]

I understand that point, which raises the difficult issue of what financial allowance we can make for parental leave. We need to get to grips with this.

I turn to an issue that the House has discussed before. I put it to the Government that their policy on child benefit is a case study in unintended consequences—and I am being kind here. I speak as a great advocate of child benefit, which, along with the family allowance before it, has had its supporters on both sides of the House, right back to the pioneering work of Eleanor Rathbone, who wrote such important works on the importance of what she called family endowment. This Government’s decision to end the universal nature of child benefit by withdrawing it from people who earn above a certain income is a catastrophic strategic decision. It is a move towards potential means-testing that we need to be aware of.