Government can't ignore family break up, says Cameron

David Cameron's constant recommitment to the centrality of family life is, for me, the most encouraging element of his leadership.

He recently appointed Dr Samantha Callan (pictured) as his policy adviser on family policy.  Samantha chaired the Centre for Social Justice's policy group on family life.  Along with Philippa Stroud, Jill Kirby and Maria Miller MP she is one of a quartet of women who have been critical to the Conservative Party becoming so family-friendly.

Supporting the family is not an issue of marginal importance.  UK society has been systematically discouraging good behaviour for fifty years.  In yesterday's Daily Mail, Professor Kenneth Minogue penned a devastating essay, recording how we've turned moral norms on their head.  My own list would include the way we've...

• incentivised couples on benefit to live apart;
• made exams easier and downgraded competitive sports so every child 'succeeds';
• ducked tough action against disruptive behaviour in the classroom;
• given counselling rather than punishment to persistent young offenders;
• turned a blind eye to celebrities who use hard drugs;
• penalised pensioners who put money aside for their retirement;
• given grants to extremist Muslim groups;
• given the lion's share of attention in the Northern Ireland peace process to Sinn Fein, not the moderate SDLP...

Just speaking to party activists in Wales, David Cameron has spelt out why public policymakers cannot ignore the strength of the family:

"I know there are people who say that families are not the business of a politician. “Families are about emotions, love, relationships,” they say, “what’s that got to do with you?”. My response is that this is not about judging and interfering. Not least because politicians are flawed like everyone else our relationships break down and our marriages break up too.

But let’s think about it.

That child at the back of the class constantly causing trouble, that guy sitting on his sofa who hasn’t worked a day in his life, that teenage girl who wants to have sex and have a baby because it’s the only way she can think of to get some love, spool back to the source of this irresponsibility and nine times out of ten it starts with their family.

If we want a more responsible society we cannot opt out of a really big, honest debate about the family.  So let me make it clear what I think. Families are the most important institution in our society. We have to do everything in our power to strengthen them.  Partly, that’s about changing cultural values. That’s why we will recognise marriage in the tax system – as a clear symbol of what really matters to a responsible society.  And partly it’s about changing economic incentives. That’s why we will end the couple penalty in the benefits system that pays parents to live apart.

But I don’t want anyone to think we have a mechanistic view of these things – that we think a tax break for marriage will stop family breakdown in its tracks overnight. Of course not.  And that’s why we’ve got to make clear the scale and depth of the family-friendly reform we want to bring about in this country.

Everyone has to play their part in this – not just the state but individuals, community organisations, business too.  We need to reduce family breakdown by reducing the pressures that help cause it.  That’s why we’ll help families spend more time together – by letting every parent with a child under eighteen request flexible working.  That’s why we’ll stand up to big business when it targets our children with unrelenting commercial influence.  And that’s why we’ll focus the state’s support where it’s most human and personal and can make the most difference, by boosting the numbers of trusted health visitors who are there for the family when it really needs help."

Tim Montgomerie

Comments

[Steve Foley]

Well said David! I am not a Cameroon, but I take my hat off to him for spelling out this "Inconvenient Truth". Keep at Mr Cameron and as a family man yourself put the "Nuclear Family" back into the centre of British life.

[David_at_Home]

Mr Cameron’s speech seems a bit soft soapy to me but I am pleased to read it nevertheless.

I agree 100% with Tim’s list of hard points.

[Sally Roberts]

I think we all agree about the importance of the family, but perhaps we are in danger of going down the "motherhood and apple pie" road? "Family" means different things to different people and much as many of us would like to, we cannot bring back the dominance of the Nuclear model as it was practised some fifty years ago. In addition, we must consider the fact that although many (such as David and Samantha Cameron) are fortunate enough to be in loving and happy marriages, many are not and I for one would not wish them to have to return to the days of miserable hypocrisy where thousands of couples stayed shackled together for life "for the sake of the children". There must be another way. I have suggested before that we might look at a radical solution of renewable marriage contracts (which obviously would not do for the religious), whereby a couple might have the option to go their separate ways after five, ten or fifteen years whilst still remaining jointly responsible for the children they may have produced together.

[Tony Makara]

"it’s about changing economic incentives"

This is a very important point. The welfare system even sucks in working people who have to resort to tax-credits and rent-rebates because they cannot earn enough to live independently of the state.

We have to question why our economy cannot provide enough disposible income for the lowest earners? The answer I believe can be found in the fact the Britain is no longer a nation that produces and for this reason cannot pay for better wages out of productivity.

If we are to change direction and develop a new mentality, a new social culture of self-reliance, then there has to be a complete change in the way the British economy is structured with the emphasis on supporting the productive sectors.

Change must come to the economy before change can impact on the rest of society.

[Philip]

It's good DC still seems committed to this, and hopefully supporting marriage in the tax system won’t be victim of necessary cut-backs to clear Labour’s debt mountain. That the family is the base of a strong society has been objectively proved by IDS’s work and shows we need to reverse the trend in policy of recent decades which has been to encourage various other arrangements and lifestyle choices at the expense of the one (mum-and-dad nuclear family) that works best for children and society. As has been said (probably by DC) before, rebuilding family and mending broken society should lead to less dependence on the state, and thus to a smaller state. Perhaps even more so if the support of extended family – grandparents, aunts, uncles etc – is factored in.

[sarah b]

"shows we need to reverse the trend in policy of recent decades which has been to encourage various other arrangements and lifestyle choices at the expense of the one (mum-and-dad nuclear family) that works best for children and society"

I see the deep seated bigotary that used to exist within the party is still there. You can have the nice mannered, pleasant Mr. Cameron at the helm but the party is still the same old nasty party.

Compassion on the outside, Coservative on the inside. Such a shame.

[Sally Roberts]

You clearly didn't read my post, sarah b - read it again.

[sarah b]

Do you post as Sally Roberts and Phillip as well? You clearly didn't read mine as it quotes from Phillips post.

You know, I have been reading your posts on here for a while now. What year did you actually vote for Tony Blair, go on, admit it.

[Malcolm Stevas]

Those bullet points: out of curiosity, how many of them are issues that have arisen since 1997, and how many were well entrenched long before then when, er, the Conservatives were in power for 18 years...?
DC has apparently said:
That child at the back of the class constantly causing trouble, that guy sitting on his sofa who hasn’t worked a day in his life, that teenage girl who wants to have sex and have a baby because it’s the only way she can think of to get some love, spool back to the source of this irresponsibility and nine times out of ten it starts with their family.
To which one is compelled to retort, No, it starts with the State and its gross, and growing, intervention in the minutiae of everyday private life, its subsidy of fecklessness and indolence, its overweening belief in politicians & civil servants knowing what is best for us - not to mention the possibility of a deliberate agenda to creat a lumpen client-constituency that will vote in perpetuity for more State handouts thereby ensuring loadsa jobs for, er, politicians and civil servants...
Sorry, this is just more touchy-feely soundbite drivel, cynical rubbish, vote-getting spin told by someone who I am sure knows the score but whose cynicism and desire for office outweighs anything as old-fashioned as principled honesty. And some here wonder why so many are disenchanted, to say the least, with the political class...

[Sally Roberts]

I have never voted for Blair, sarah b. The Conservative Party is a broad church - unlike your own party.

[Philip]

sarah b (1522), this is typical of liberal-left authoritarian labelling as 'bigotry' views other than those they try to force on us. "Compassionate" doesn't mean agreeing with all their views nor refraining from saying things that may be unpopular to some. And once again "Conservative" and "Compassionate are cast as irreconcilable opposites - a common error of social-liberals. "Conservative on the inside" - I hope so!

[Bill Melotti]

The excerpts from this speech cheered me up. I've always been slightly doubtful about the merits of putting marriage at the centre, family life yes, but that's not the same as marriage. I'm glad to read its will be broader, in particular...

"That’s why we’ll stand up to big business when it targets our children with unrelenting commercial influence."

This is spot on and I was very glad at conference a couple of years ago, when there was a minor debate on this suject in the main hall and it was carried (banning/curtailing ads to kids in essence)

I always feel a bit of sorrow when I see ads blatantly targetted at kids, knowing that pester power will do the trick, particularly when you know a lot of parents wouldn't be easily able to afford it. At xmas even worse, and this next xmas, when the re-possessions are kicking in that'll be truly shameless.

And yes I know kids should be taught that not everything is affordable, but this is about taking away some of the pressures.

[James Maskell]

Ive said before I dont agree with the Tory policy in trying to incentivise marriage. I dont think itll do anything and it wont actually remove the incentive to live apart since the money will still be going there. Theres no actual incentive to marry.

This policy would be better supported if Michael Gove would make some serious comments on the care system and changes the Conservatives would push for in Government. All families break down and children go into care from all walks of life. Its not just unmarriaed couples or single parents which 'fail' children.

I dont think Ill ever find myself agreeing with the policy, but I can see why the majority of Party members would.

[Hugh Oxford]

Until he says the word "marriage" and means it, and until he promises to support marriage, scrap the CP Act, and scrap all state support for cohabitation then we can assume he subscribes to the discredited, destructive left-wing idea that any arbitrary agglomeration of individuals is a "family", and therefore intends to support the disintegration and atomisation of society, the continued suffering of our most vulnerable people, specifically the poor, women and children and the attrition of the common good.

However, I am reassured that there are still good and honest people within the party who have not sold out to populist self-denial and are prepared to state what is palpably and obvious true, no matter the brickbats from the sociopathic left who have wreaked havoc throughout our land.

[Bishop Swine]

"Until he says the word "marriage" and means it, and until he promises to support marriage"

This is what we know is needed. So has he the guts to say so. I have great faith in D.C. in this respect. He will confirm the revolution we men and women of goodwill have in mind. The Next Administration will be radical because it will have little option but to act. Removing the penalty on marriage which puts many off commitment, is where we can make a difference. We need enhanced packages for those with the correct certification. We know Marriage is right, the sixties experiment was a disastor which has crippled far to many of our citizens. It should be crystal clear that a moral revolution will go hand in hand with a pulling back from the brink. 2012 is just around the corner but the Julian date? We need a willingness to correct and the guts to go through with it. The past was not a golden age but it was a stable reality, the world we currently inhabit is not. Is it any wonder the planet it wrecked when we have lost the very virtues that marked us apart from the animals. We need laws that encourage the best possible behaviours.
Indeed we could crucify whole estates(sic) without so much as a whisper, but we will not...
We should give fair warning of what we intend and allow some time for those affected to get their acts together. This should be a finite truce before all out war on the wetrot of the fabric of the nation.
If ever there was a need to defeat the pinko's and the leftist loonies then it will be post election. We should not be afried to tell the public that we are RIGHT and we intend to put things right. Thank God for mother Russia she sees the way forward is backward. All this trampalin of the Cross has to stop thats the only way to heal the rift with Islam. We must rise up again and enforce (in our case) Christian values on our flock.

[Jennifer Wells]

I'm delighted at this speech. David Cameron has moral authority as a tolerant man and happily married to talk on this issue. He's no fuddy duddy.

[Donald Peters]

We must not hide from important truths about our changing society, it's grim. Marriage rates have reached an all-time low; only 22 out of every 1,000 unmarried people got married last year. The divorce rate for new couples is about 45%. 44% of babies are born out of marriage, 55% in the NE.

We have to realise that the majority of people don't live in a "conventional family", that is, sadly, a rarity. Increasingly the British people are brought up in broken homes and splintered families. When constrcuting our policies I don't think we could ever over-estimate the significance of this change.

I deeply regret it, myself. But we should not ignore it.

[Henry Mayhew - Ukipper]

Interesting how few posts Mr Cameron's thoughts get these days.

That's what happens when you are a trimmer, I'm afraid. There is little point in people taking your current position seriously.

[resident leftie]

The benefits system currently penalising people who want to live together as couples, to the tune of about £20 a week between them, but is would cost billions to rectify this. If you want to encourage couples, this would be the way to do it - but where would you find the money?

I do think this would be an excellent policy, not because it encourages people to form couples unnaturally, but because it prevents them from not forming couples or lying about their status. Removing a disincentive is fine. Penalising people for remaining single is not.

[Malcolm Stevas]

Bishop Swine preaches:
”We need enhanced packages for those with the correct certification.”
You’re a Tory, right? And you would claim to be poles apart from all those interventionist, nannying, authoritarian Leftists who desire constantly to tinker with the intimate details of people’s domestic arrangements, and so on; I wonder if you see anything contradictory between such a claim, and this extraordinary statement.
”We know Marriage is right, the sixties experiment was a disastor which has crippled far to many of our citizens. …”
More prescriptivism! Whatever might have been most disastrous about the ‘60s (actually I had quite a good time then…) – pernicious, irresponsible experiments with education for example – can be laid at the door of the State and its crazed, insatiable urge to muck about with people’s lives by sponsoring this or that kind of behaviour; and in this regard one sees practically no difference in the records of either Labour or Conservative administrations. You don’t want to change anything for the better! You just want to engage in this insane tinkering in a slightly different way, but to equally disatrous effect! When will you people learn? The State is utterly crap at running practically anything, and for politicians & civil servants to presume to dictate this or that lifestyle is outrageous.
”2012 is just around the corner but the Julian date?”
Huh? Is this something to do with Nostradamus? Christ…
”The past was not a golden age but it was a stable reality…”
And “Huh?” again. Have you ever read any history at all? Stable reality my ar*e.
”We need laws that encourage the best possible behaviours.”
Oh goody, more laws…
”..crucify whole estates(sic) …a finite truce before all out war on the wetrot of the fabric of the nation…defeat the pinko's and the leftist loonies … we are RIGHT … Thank God for mother Russia she sees the way forward is backward…trampalin of the …rise up again and enforce (in our case) Christian values on our flock”
I hope most sincerely that this is some kind of clumsy satire. I would hate to think you meant any of this stuff. If you do, clearly the medication isn’t working.
I don’t know which kind of Toryism scares me more – the Labour-Lite stuff espoused by the current Junta, or the crazed post-feudal certifiable religious maniac brand.

[Marian]

"The benefits system currently penalising people who want to live together as couples, to the tune of about £20 a week between them, but is would cost billions to rectify this. If you want to encourage couples, this would be the way to do it - but where would you find the money?"

Dare I say cut the benefit of single people by £10.00 a week for now. Of course that would be unpopular. I suppose its going to far to reward Married people by treating them the same way as single people. £20.00 sounds a great deal right now but you give it a year or two with all that TARP monies inflicting inflation. Giving the marrieds an extra £20.00 will not be as expensive as it currently sounds. Really we cannot possible reduce JSA much further without real problems. Labour were in the process of starving the long term unemployed back to work.
( how disturbing a pop under)
I'm not for Labour-lite at all but I recognize that we have a duty to the whole Nation.
Bring back the concept of a tax allowance for married people. We have to make an incentive of doing the right thing. In the medium term it will cost us considerable less. I don't think we have a duty to penalize the very poor simple because we can. If unemployment stays high we should consider relaxing the POT laws, at least we can get a portion of the "burn money" back in taxation.Frankly I don't respect those who want to keep the current laws in place.
In fact I would be more than willing to examine why so many are against a sane and over due set of reforms. Prohibition only supports crime, it serves no other purpose.
The Average pot smoking middle class person is more likely to be run over by a bus than be arrested in possession. Labour lost its way with its nanny state criminalisation of thought we will not make the same mistake.

[The BIshop Swine]

"More prescriptivism! Whatever might have been most disastrous about the ‘60s (actually I had quite a good time then…) – pernicious, irresponsible experiments with education for example – can be laid at the door of the State and its crazed, insatiable urge to muck about with people’s lives by sponsoring this or that kind of behaviour"

Some of the crap the civil service where fed under Labour like "Gestalt therapy " was very nasty indeed. I could tell a few stories that would curl your toes. If you have read C.S.Lewis "that hideous strength"
and not drawn similar conclusions to me, that a very dark plot was hatched in the 60's
then I would recommend that book simply because it mirrors (if in a fictional way) much of the civil service reality of the 1960's. My wife was exposed to some very poor behaviour paid for and encouraged by the state. As an example encouraging marrieds to break as they wanted to promote "equality of partnership". So a couple made up of two usful people, was preferred to a marriage with a partner at home raising kids.Such pressures were very real in the white heat of the sixties.

So yes I do propose some very prescriptive remedial action aimed at rooting out the nasty elements. I think we have to be willing to address the problems that we will inherit when this Labour party has fallen.
Thankfully the godless and so natural MP's of Labour can't help "outing themselves" Smith should go....or we should give 2 wide screen TV's to benefit recipients.