Time and again our new Prime
Minister has demonstrated her commitment to improving life chances and working
for social justice. She was the reforming Home Secretary who called time on
Modern Day Slavery. And even earlier than that she was the first and only
person to have “Secretary of State for the Family” in her title – albeit she
was Shadow. When in this role she demonstrated genuine commitment to find out
what worked well for families. At a time when many Conservatives struggled to
find a good word to say about Children’s Centres, she visited many, and found
examples of good practice which are still informing policy deliberations today.
David Cameron, as her predecessor
Prime Minister, said more than once “families are the best poverty fighting
tool we have”. Absolutely agreed. But for too long many of us as Conservatives
have made impassioned speeches about improving life chances filled with
approving rhetoric about the importance of strong families. Meanwhile the
epidemic of family breakdown in our country, particularly amongst the poorest
and most vulnerable, continues devastatingly apace. Now is the time for action.
The Government should put rocket boosters under efforts to promote stronger
families, and invest accordingly. Timidity will not bring about the paradigm
shift desperately needed and in Theresa May I believe we have a Prime Minister
who will not shrink from such action.
We need big, bold measures, like
a treatment tax on alcohol which will provide the money to tackle the massive
drink problem blighting many children’s lives. Our new Prime Minister will be
familiar with the Home Office research showing more than a million children
live with one or more adults with a problem with alcohol.
Any efforts to regenerate the 100
‘worst sink estates’ in the UK, should put family and relationship support at
the heart of these new developments; regeneration of these estates needs to go
far beyond bricks and mortar if lives are to be transformed. A Healthy
Relationships Fund should be properly resourced to ensure that parenting,
couple relationship and family support programmes are included in the master
planning processes. This will be money well spent – for every £1 invested, Government
research shows £11.50 of the social costs incurred as a result of family
breakdown is saved. But the investment in young lives, and in improving their
life chances, is unquantifiable.
New parents of the Whats-App
generation now go online for support and advice. By working with Local
Authorities and charities the Government could develop a universally
recognisable online service to act as a one stop shop providing support for
families. If we can deliver health advice online through the NHS website, there
is no reason we can’t do the same to upskill parents to have the best possible
relationships.
It’s also time for the Government
to make a big deal of the role of Dads – in particular to deliver targeted
support to young men at the risk of becoming absent fathers. The Government
should appoint a Fatherhood Champion to bring together examples of best
practice and encourage their take up across the country.
This week I am launching a report
in Parliament which recommends that Children’s Centres in every authority be
transformed into ‘Family Hubs’. The report provides tried and tested solutions,
many based on great initiatives from across the country. These are already
working with families to address the challenges so many of them face as they
struggle with low incomes, poor mental health, addictions, debt and broken or
chaotic relationships.
We need to look afresh at the assets
we already have within our Children’s Centre estate and sweat them – by
expanding their community based early years help, to support parents of older
children, and indeed, to support family members of all ages – 5 to 105. Most of
us, at some point, need some support for our families whether light touch or
more structured – let’s normalise this by providing somewhere in every
community for people to go where someone will have answers.
A score or so of Local
Authorities are already enhancing their Children’s Centre offer by connecting
their buildings with the many other organisations, including self-help and
voluntary groups, which families can benefit from and forming ‘Family Hubs’.
These, for example, can learn from and integrate the successful Troubled
Families work with early help to catch problems before they mushroom; they
provide advice to couples as well as parents, and can even include a birth
registration point so everyone can see, right from the start, what is on offer
locally for them, for when they may need it in the future.
During the Welfare Reform and
Work Bill we were promised measures on family stability, addiction and debt to
supplement the statutory measures on education attainment and employment to
drive an all out assault on poverty. The Life Chances Strategy the Government
brings forward must include real and robust steps to boost family stability and
healthy relationships so that Government really can deliver against these
measures. I am confident this can happen under the determined and practical
leadership of our new Prime Minister.
