Liam Downer-Sanderson is a graduate of Georgetown University and a former local council candidate.
Creating, and conserving, anything worthwhile takes work. Tories know that this applies to Britain’s traditions and liberties. But it also applies to families: families require effort, but those who take up the challenge reap limitless rewards.
The Prime Minister knows this. In his own recent Conservative Home article, he said his family is an “invaluable source” of strength, stability, and love.
The academics agree. A 2019 study found that marriage increases long-term well-being. Further research shows that happy people have children, and remain happy enough afterward to have more. One Norwegian analysis shows that larger families give “highly significant” boosts to children’s mental health. And strong families support free countries, too: the sociologist Emmanuel Todd has forcefully argued that nuclear families support everything from the rule of law to innovation, and recent data-driven studies concur.
Modern family life, then, paints a very grim picture. Divorce in England and Wales ballooned after the 1960s, and the divorce rate ticked up after 2020, likely alongside its harms. Fewer Britons get married, leaving more individuals single and unhappy. Nearly half of them rule out having any children. Meanwhile, our fertility rate lies below replacement level.
The results? An older, more unhappy country that is not equipped for work, and less able to support an overstretched healthcare system. We need to take action now.
That is what I propose today. I urge the Conservative Party to back families to the hilt, with a wholistic approach across government that introduces a pro-family tax system, a childcare policy to cut costs and empower family choice, and an educational policy that prizes traditional family life.
Start with tackling our anti-family tax system. Post-1990 policies mean the system treats spouses as separate individuals while ignoring family size and cost. Since then, effective marginal tax rates on three-quarters average incomes ballooned from 34 per cent in 1990 to 73 per cent in 2018. One-earner married households face burdens 30 per cent above the OECD average.
By allowing spouses to combine their total allowances, scaling tax burdens to family size, and cutting the taper further for married Britons, Sunak can create a tax system that rewards marriage, and therefore one that promotes larger families with better childhood outcomes.
The second and more daunting task would be to fix our country’s broken childcare system. OECD reports show that Britain’s childcare spending lags well behind the OECD average, while other countries reap benefits from better schemes. Take France and the Nordic nations: both provide much stronger childcare support, and both have higher fertility rates; France’s might have even risen above replacement level in 2022. Why not ours?
Improving our system need not mean tens of billions in new spending in a high-inflation economy. Other measures could improve British childcare policy and help cut costs for families.
Start by streamlining the system. Current childcare subsidies (costing about 4 to 5 billion pounds per year) span at least eight schemes; this complexity has left, at minimum, £2.4 billion underspent. Like others, I believe that this vast, policy apparatus (from UC credit to the current Child Benefit) needs to be consolidated.
In my view, that is best done by a new “Family Credit”: a monthly, up-front, per-child benefit for all households whose highest earner makes at or below a fair and affordable level, with children at or under age sixteen. This system would be more flexible than the current UC childcare credit: unlike that refund, this credit could be spent however families wished, and one-earner families could receive it, too.
Unlike the current Child Benefit, couples need not bother with a benefit charge. This would cut administrative overhead, give parents the childcare choice they want (per the polls), allow more parents to spend more time with their younger children, and make it easier for Britons to have families.
The Government should also cut costs by expanding the provider market. The Truss mini-budget proposed cutting provider-child ratios, but this is risky in the near-term: other nations with reduced ratios require more training for their providers so they can handle more children, and British parents disfavour ratio cuts.
Instead, the current Government should focus on supporting the growth of independent agency childminding with the goal of reducing ratios (and increasing provider quality) in the future. Per a report from Onward, agency minders are cheaper and more accessible for parents; Government support on par with Olsted funding (£1000 per provider) can grow the supply of providers and cut costs accordingly. Maintaining current standards is important: an increased supply of carers cannot mean worse care.
But Conservatives must think beyond money; we need to promote an education system with the family unit at its heart, in two ways. First, by making family values British values. The law requires all publicly-funded and independent schools to promote certain, basic values. A serious Conservative Government would add another to the list: the traditional family. This means teaching that marriage and parenthood are pillars of society, while prizing the worthy family virtues of duty, loyalty, and selflessness.
Second, the Government should rein in wokeness. Gender theory and anti-motherhood feminism should keep out of young pupils’ studies. Likewise, radical environmentalist prophecies of an oncoming green Armageddon need to stop; nearly four in ten young people fear having their own children because of this. Why encourage that?
Standing up for our country’s children will not be easy. Good, new beginnings, including new family policies, need work. The Prime Minister, an exemplary family man, knows this. But Conservatives can win the coming election’s battle of ideas with full-throttle support for marriage and children.
Liam Downer-Sanderson is a graduate of Georgetown University and a former local council candidate.
Creating, and conserving, anything worthwhile takes work. Tories know that this applies to Britain’s traditions and liberties. But it also applies to families: families require effort, but those who take up the challenge reap limitless rewards.
The Prime Minister knows this. In his own recent Conservative Home article, he said his family is an “invaluable source” of strength, stability, and love.
The academics agree. A 2019 study found that marriage increases long-term well-being. Further research shows that happy people have children, and remain happy enough afterward to have more. One Norwegian analysis shows that larger families give “highly significant” boosts to children’s mental health. And strong families support free countries, too: the sociologist Emmanuel Todd has forcefully argued that nuclear families support everything from the rule of law to innovation, and recent data-driven studies concur.
Modern family life, then, paints a very grim picture. Divorce in England and Wales ballooned after the 1960s, and the divorce rate ticked up after 2020, likely alongside its harms. Fewer Britons get married, leaving more individuals single and unhappy. Nearly half of them rule out having any children. Meanwhile, our fertility rate lies below replacement level.
The results? An older, more unhappy country that is not equipped for work, and less able to support an overstretched healthcare system. We need to take action now.
That is what I propose today. I urge the Conservative Party to back families to the hilt, with a wholistic approach across government that introduces a pro-family tax system, a childcare policy to cut costs and empower family choice, and an educational policy that prizes traditional family life.
Start with tackling our anti-family tax system. Post-1990 policies mean the system treats spouses as separate individuals while ignoring family size and cost. Since then, effective marginal tax rates on three-quarters average incomes ballooned from 34 per cent in 1990 to 73 per cent in 2018. One-earner married households face burdens 30 per cent above the OECD average.
By allowing spouses to combine their total allowances, scaling tax burdens to family size, and cutting the taper further for married Britons, Sunak can create a tax system that rewards marriage, and therefore one that promotes larger families with better childhood outcomes.
The second and more daunting task would be to fix our country’s broken childcare system. OECD reports show that Britain’s childcare spending lags well behind the OECD average, while other countries reap benefits from better schemes. Take France and the Nordic nations: both provide much stronger childcare support, and both have higher fertility rates; France’s might have even risen above replacement level in 2022. Why not ours?
Improving our system need not mean tens of billions in new spending in a high-inflation economy. Other measures could improve British childcare policy and help cut costs for families.
Start by streamlining the system. Current childcare subsidies (costing about 4 to 5 billion pounds per year) span at least eight schemes; this complexity has left, at minimum, £2.4 billion underspent. Like others, I believe that this vast, policy apparatus (from UC credit to the current Child Benefit) needs to be consolidated.
In my view, that is best done by a new “Family Credit”: a monthly, up-front, per-child benefit for all households whose highest earner makes at or below a fair and affordable level, with children at or under age sixteen. This system would be more flexible than the current UC childcare credit: unlike that refund, this credit could be spent however families wished, and one-earner families could receive it, too.
Unlike the current Child Benefit, couples need not bother with a benefit charge. This would cut administrative overhead, give parents the childcare choice they want (per the polls), allow more parents to spend more time with their younger children, and make it easier for Britons to have families.
The Government should also cut costs by expanding the provider market. The Truss mini-budget proposed cutting provider-child ratios, but this is risky in the near-term: other nations with reduced ratios require more training for their providers so they can handle more children, and British parents disfavour ratio cuts.
Instead, the current Government should focus on supporting the growth of independent agency childminding with the goal of reducing ratios (and increasing provider quality) in the future. Per a report from Onward, agency minders are cheaper and more accessible for parents; Government support on par with Olsted funding (£1000 per provider) can grow the supply of providers and cut costs accordingly. Maintaining current standards is important: an increased supply of carers cannot mean worse care.
But Conservatives must think beyond money; we need to promote an education system with the family unit at its heart, in two ways. First, by making family values British values. The law requires all publicly-funded and independent schools to promote certain, basic values. A serious Conservative Government would add another to the list: the traditional family. This means teaching that marriage and parenthood are pillars of society, while prizing the worthy family virtues of duty, loyalty, and selflessness.
Second, the Government should rein in wokeness. Gender theory and anti-motherhood feminism should keep out of young pupils’ studies. Likewise, radical environmentalist prophecies of an oncoming green Armageddon need to stop; nearly four in ten young people fear having their own children because of this. Why encourage that?
Standing up for our country’s children will not be easy. Good, new beginnings, including new family policies, need work. The Prime Minister, an exemplary family man, knows this. But Conservatives can win the coming election’s battle of ideas with full-throttle support for marriage and children.