Families (Hansard, 21 May 1999)

§ Ms Sally Keeble (Northampton, North)
I am grateful for the opportunity to have this debate on the important issue of support for families. Despite the emptiness of the Chamber for a Friday Adjournment debate, this matter is of great concern to many hon. Members and is of great and growing interest to many people outside the House because of the changing pressures on family life.
The issue is rarely out of the public arena. Support for families is a source of great strength for many, and its decline is seen as a cause of social decay for many people. It is a particularly important issue for my constituency, because it contains about 12,000 families, which is well above the national average for constituencies.
I should like to read out the views of some of my constituents on family life. These people wrote to me about their experiences during six months of consultation and campaigning on family issues. A single parent wrote movingly about her desire to be at home to look after her child. She wrote: I had my child because I wanted to raise her myself, not to be a part-time Mum". She was retraining to go back to work, and wanted to be able to combine work with a constructive family life. A vicar wrote: Historically societies that have failed to uphold the family, and the sanctity of marriage, have often come to the point of collapse. A much older woman, whose family was grown up, wrote: I have no authority at all to pass opinions on how others should bring up their families, but I'm a great believer in family life. A teacher, expressing views shared by a number of people, wrote: Family/parenting/relationships etc could and should be dealt with more in schools and these messages should be reinforced through Government policies etc. Unfortunately I feel that many of these issues are hard to address because we are a very materialistic and therefore work driven society. Another older woman wrote to me. I thought at first that her letter would be about how women should stay at home looking after the children. She wrote: I firmly believe that children under four years need 'one to one' with a parent. I worked part-time when my two children were this age on data processing 6-10pm. My husband arrived home around 5.30pm and took over with the children and put them to bed. It seems now always that material possessions are given priority over the love and care given to bringing up children. Family policy is sometimes a difficult area for Governments to deal with, because it is on the fault line between the private and the public, the personal and the political. In the past, Governments who have talked a lot about family values have got into trouble. I am drawing on the views and experiences of my constituents, and I pay tribute to many people from all walks of life who participated in the debate that produced the report "Supporting Families in Northampton", a copy of which I have sent to my hon. Friend the Minister. It is based on a Government consultation document.
I thank Avon, Barclays Home Finance, Boots the Chemists, the bishop of Brixworth, Relate, Age Concern, Northamptonshire county council, Northampton borough 1424 council, the National Union of Knitwear, Footwear and Apparel Trades, Weston Favell credit union, and many members of the public who filled in questionnaires, came to meetings or just talked on their doorsteps about what they wanted for their families.
For most people, the big issue was change. There was change in the world of work; in particular, there was the impact of women working. In my constituency, many women work, many in part-time jobs, and their incomes are important to the family budget. In the long term, the growing economic independence of women will have profound implications; but in the short term there are practical issues affecting family life. There is also the changing nature of work, from full-time nine-to-five work to part-time work, or shift working in a 24-hour economy. Different types of job require different skills.
The other big change has been in what constitutes a family. Many families have broken up and reformed. Relationships are very different, finances have become more complicated, and, rather than having a nuclear or an extended family, many people have a network extending over a variety of families and generations.
Those changes have led to the need for a very different kind of provision and support, as was reflected in the ideas presented by my constituents. It was noticeable that people were not judgmental about the different types of family, but took a pragmatic approach to the supporting of families in the sometimes very difficult circumstances in which they found themselves, whether those families involved two parents or one, or were "reformed families".
People also made it clear that they considered that the Government's role was to support families—not to interfere in their private lives, decisions and choices, or indeed their life styles, but to provide practical assistance to meet their needs. For example, 100 per cent. of people aged between 25 and 40 who were surveyed in my constituency—including those with the heaviest family commitments—said that they thought that it was the Government's responsibility to ease the pressures of family breakdown, while 91 per cent. considered that it was the responsibility of employers to ensure that their employees could juggle home and work commitments.
People did not necessarily think that Government action had to mean legislative action. It could simply mean extending or reinforcing best practice, or, for example, using purchasing power to ensure that employers implemented family-friendly employment practices. Indeed, many thought that legal solutions were not the best, because they were adversarial and expensive, and inappropriate in the case of what were often interpersonal issues.
Most of the change that people wanted was in the sphere of work. Perhaps surprisingly, they wanted flexible working arrangements, allowing them time off work to deal with family crises. Many people, including the woman whose letter I quoted, went to a lot of trouble to juggle work and family commitments, so that their children could be cared for at home by a family member—perhaps with the mother fixing her working hours for when her partner was at home to care for the children. They wanted support in relation to those sometimes complicated arrangements. Quite a large number of people used nurseries, but, where people were working shifts and difficult hours, the hours of the nurseries, creches and such like often did not fit their 1425 working hours. They also wanted help with child care costs. I am pleased that those issues are being actively addressed by the Government.
People mentioned the impact on public services of the changes, with the need for public services to be organised around user rather than provider needs and priorities. From the public services—the local authorities themselves—came the view that that did not always have to mean extra money; there were different ways in which to provide services, using existing resources. Services such as NHS Direct and the youth offender panels, which provide services outside regular office hours, are welcome steps in the right direction, but, too often, public sector services lag behind the changing patterns of people's lives.
Another factor that came up was the importance of grandparents, especially when it came to child care. What emerged from the survey was that support from grandparents was regarded more highly by parents than by the grandparents themselves. I know that many hon. Members could attest to the importance of being able to telephone grandparents to ask for help when all other child care arrangements break down.
From the survey, the difficulty of juggling work and home emerged as the biggest pressure for 25 to 40-year-olds—it was an even bigger family pressure than finance. At a conference on the family, we heard from Boots that, for 90 per cent. of people, their ability to balance work and home life was a key factor in their commitment to their employer. Indeed, 20 per cent. said that they would take a pay cut if they felt that the changes in their working lives would lead to an improvement in their home life.
One of the biggest barriers, other than the practical ones of economy and staff management, to more family-friendly working was seen to be a lack of a forum for best practice. People said that there was a need for positive rewards and incentives, including from Government, for firms to introduce family-friendly policies.
Another big plea was for more support during the difficult time when families break down, when the biggest pressures were seen to be financial. Indeed, 60 per cent. of housing repossessions are due to financial problems following family breakdown; they are not due simply to debt problems. Often, those occur when women are left in homes with mortgages that they cannot afford and which the former partner fails, or refuses, to help to pay for. People had a raft of suggestions, including that financial institutions should examine different financial packages for families to ease them through the different stages of family life, for changes to mortgage arrangements and for arrangements for handling bad debt when things get tight.
There were suggestions for Government, such as ensuring that there was joined-up government not just between central Government Departments, but between local and central Government and Government agencies, including the Benefits Agency and the Child Support Agency. People saw Government as having a role in bringing together and providing backing for some of the more innovative ideas from financial institutions.
1426 People felt that there had to be much more focus on support for second families, especially the needs of children. On one of my school visits, I went to a school in quite an affluent part of my constituency. The head teacher spoke at some length about the special needs of children there, which surprised me. He went on to say that most of the special needs were directly caused by pressures on children due to family breakdown. The child who had the most severe needs was a girl of eight who had already lived in three different families.
Many people in my constituency talked about the need for a culture change—for a culture that was more supportive of families. For the faith communities, there were the important issues about marriage and family life. Those arguments are well known and have been well rehearsed, but, even from the more secular in our society, there was talk about changing values, so that our society was more supportive of families. People talked at great length about the impact of the media and the portrayal of violence; the emphasis on business; and the contradiction that they sometimes detected in Government policy—which seemed to support families, but also to punish them when things went wrong.
Many people spoke about the need for the educational system to teach young people about relationships. Many people—such as the teacher whose letter I quoted at the start of my speech—said that they thought that schools, communities and families were inextricably linked and needed to support one another.
I ask my hon. Friend the Minister, in replying to the debate, to deal with some of those specific points, and also to say when the Government will be implementing the initiatives described in the document "Supporting Families". There is a huge fund of good will supporting implementation of the initiatives and a Government lead in encouraging other institutions to provide a more family-friendly society. It also supports the Government's provision of a legislative and financial framework to help the many families in my own constituency and elsewhere.

§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Kate Hoey)
I am very pleased that my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton, North (Ms Keeble) has been able today to raise the very important subject of family policy. I agree with her wholeheartedly that, although it is a Friday afternoon and there are very few hon. Members in the Chamber—although it is very nice to see my hon. Friend the Member for Luton, South (Ms Moran) here—people feel very strongly and great concern about the issue.
Family life is the foundation on which our communities, our society and our country is built. Families are central to the Government's vision of a secure, just and inclusive society. The House owes a debt to my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton, North for the work that she has done in her own constituency in organising not only the survey but the conference, which has produced such interesting results. The Home Office official who attended the conference found it very interesting and was particularly impressed by the breadth of support shown for it by my hon. Friend's constituents, who were from all walks of life.
1427 The consultation document, "Supporting Families"—which has been mentioned already—was the first ever consultation paper on family policy. The public reaction to it—over 900 responses—has been overwhelming, and, in June, we shall publish a summary document. All the responses that we received will feed into the on-going work on family policy of the ministerial group on the family.
One of most important aims of the consultation was to raise awareness of family and parenting issues—and I think that it has already achieved that aim. My hon. Friend the Member for Northampton, North has led the dialogue on the issues in her own constituency, and a similar dialogue is being held across the United Kingdom—although I should say that the process elsewhere in the country has not yet produced results as detailed or in the same depth as it has in her constituency.
As the consultation process has been under way, we have made progress across a wide range of policy areas that will make a difference to families. My hon. Friend the Member for Northampton, North has already mentioned some examples.
A new National Family and Parenting Institute has been established with £600,000 of strategic funding from the Government. The institute aims to change the culture of parenting, so that seeking advice and information is seen as a sign not of failure, but of responsible parenting.
We have also established a new family support grant—with £7 million, over three years—to improve family support services in the voluntary sector. The grant will help to build infrastructure organisations working to support families, and fund innovative parenting and family support work so that we are able to learn lessons of good practice across the country. It will also support work with boys, young men and fathers—groups in which the ministerial group has identified a particular need for targeted support.
My hon. Friend found that 66.7 per cent. of 25 to 40-year-olds in her constituency would like a national helpline for parents to be established. The Government have given £300,000 to Parentline, to help it to expand into a national helpline for parents.
Parentline will also help the new National Family and Parenting Institute to identify the major problems facing families today through the use of anonymised call data on the issues about which parents call in.
The Government have committed £80 million in 1999–2000 to the sure start initiative for local work with families with young children in some of the most disadvantaged areas. The first 21 trailblazer areas for the sure start programme were announced on 9 April. The projects will start this summer.
In Northampton, 73.6 per cent. of people responding to the survey wanted firms to be more family friendly—an important issue. Since we published "Supporting Families", we have made progress in helping families balance work and home. The Employment Relations Bill will bring in a right to parental leave and time off for urgent domestic reasons and will simplify maternity rights. The Department for Education and Employment is taking forward plans for a wide-ranging campaign to promote family-friendly employment practices. As the Northampton report says, the Government should lead by example as a family-friendly employer. We are working on that in all Government Departments.
1428 One of the key themes in "Supporting Families" was the need to strengthen marriages and support adults in their relationships for the sake of their children. I was interested to learn that 75.7 per cent. of people responding to the survey in Northampton want the Government to intervene to help families when relationships break down.
The proposals in the consultation document were intended to increase the support and advice available throughout people's married lives, and in particular at times of stress such as when first children are born.
The survey in Northampton also revealed that 75 per cent. of respondents wanted Government funding for counselling services for couples in difficulty. As my hon. Friend will know, the Lord Chancellor has initiated a review of Government funding for marriage support services. The review will help us develop a more strategic approach to funding for marriage support.
All the responses to "Supporting Families" will help us as we develop family policy. The ministerial group on the family has already identified some key issues to be addressed over the coming year. In particular, it will be taking forward work on boys, young men and fathers. As we approach the new millennium, the lives of young men are undoubtedly more complex than they were in previous generations: a whole raft of social and economic factors have combined to create a need to find ways of preparing young men better for the realities they will face.
Our primary aim is to recognise the potential of young men to make a positive contribution to society. However, anything we do to help boys must not have an adverse effect on the advances that have been made for young women over recent decades. So, while the ministerial group on the family looks at the needs of young men, the women's unit will be taking forward parallel work looking at the particular needs of young women.
The role of fathers is crucial in this respect. Research has shown that boys who have no contact with their fathers are more likely to be violent, to get hurt, to get into trouble and to do less well at school.

§ Ms Keeble
One point that was hotly debated during a discussion about nursery schools was that boys can go through their early-years and primary education without a male educational role model. If they do not have a father at home either, they are very much adrift. Is that thought behind the work of the ministerial team?

§ Kate Hoey
I certainly hope so. I shall write to my hon. Friend and tell her exactly what is happening. Even when children are in contact with their father, voluntary organisations have told us that it is more difficult to encourage fathers to participate in parenting support. We want to encourage schemes for fathers and promote recognition of the fact that they have an important part to play.
The ministerial group will be taking forward family policy in providing help for families facing serious problems. In "Supporting Families", we looked at the particular problems of teenage pregnancy, youth offending and domestic violence. We recognise that many other serious problems face families, including mental health problems, disability, alcohol and drug abuse. We shall be looking at those problems to try to ensure joined-up thinking and joined-up services so that families get the help that they need when they need it.
1429 We are grateful to my hon. Friend for her work in raising the profile of family issues in her constituency and for sending us the results of her research. She has provided a useful opportunity to give more publicity to "Supporting Families". What we have learned from Northampton will help us in our attempt to make a difference to the lives of families in the United Kingdom. I congratulate her on the work that she has done in her constituency and on giving us a coherent resume of what her constituents have said. It will be useful as we develop our family policies.