Cristina Odone is the Head of Family Policy Unit at the Centre for Social Justice.
Picture an institution that reduces the need for government to build more prisons or youth offending schemes, or invest in more alcohol rehabilitation services, violence reduction units or homeless shelters.
Even the most ardent big-state Labour-ite will see the benefit of this institution: there are manifestations of government the left, no less than the right, wishes to erase.
Step forward, the family: an ancient yet flexible institution that represents clear savings for the Treasury and, ultimately, the taxpayer.
With its all-for-one, one-for-all spirit, family delivers a welfare system that can support unimaginable strains and pressures, from cradle to grave. It provides a home for the unemployed, company for the disabled, and a place to convalesce for the elderly.
In this way the strong family reduces pressure on the state; and its members, bound by ties of affection and respect, assist one another generously and lovingly, avoiding the humiliation so commonly felt in a Job Centre queue or homeless shelter.
The public know this: when the Children’s Commissioner, during her national listening exercise last year, asked children and adults what they valued most in their lives, family came top.
Yet our politicians and policymakers routinely undervalue and overlook it. They value the contribution individual family members make to the country’s coffers over the contribution the family unit makes to the country’s welfare; rob parents of choice; and turn children into increasingly unaffordable luxuries.
The risk is that, after decades of being undermined, relationships between next of kin will atrophy. The state must then grow bigger and bigger to meet demand for the kind of support that parents, children, and grandparents once automatically expected of one another.
Enfeebled, the family can do little good; an ever more bloated state, meanwhile, can do a great deal of harm.
It’s time, then, to shore up the family.
The first step is to reform our fiscal system, which treats us all as autonomous individuals. HMRC refuses to take into account the number of dependent children in a household, or an individual’s status. Are they a lone parent, struggling to feed three children, or a singleton without a care in the world?
Regardless, an individual on £30,000 a year will pay the same amount of tax and National Insurance. Incredibly, a one-earner household with four children has to earn nearly £80,000 to have the same standard of living as a single person earning £27,000.
The Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) proposes instead to tax households rather than individuals – recognising in this way that the sacrifices parents make in raising children benefits us all.
Despite the best efforts of Nigel Lawson, the lack of any meaningful recognition of family in the tax system (David Cameron’s reforms permit couples to transfer just ten per cent of their personal tax allowance) punishes those families where one parent wishes to opt out of work to take on childcare responsibilities.
And yet neuroscience is clear: the first 1001 days of a child’s life are key for healthy cognitive development. Children in those first years need to attach to a continuous, nurturing carer. Failure to do so dooms them to poor outcomes including academic failure, fragile relationships, and anti-social behaviour.
Thus for the Treasury dragoon new parents back to work is, at best, woefully short-sighted. To right this wrong, HMRC should boost the Marriage Allowance to allow parents in legally-recognised partnerships earning less than the basic rate income tax threshold to transfer 100 per cent of their personal allowance to their spouse, if their child is under 16.
Meanwhile all parents have been robbed of choice over how to raise their children. Those who wish to take up their entitlement to 15 hours of free childcare for three- and four-year-olds in England may only do so if they leave their child with a government-approved provider.
Yet a recent landmark survey of 1,500 parents across the country found that the majority of parents regarded grandparents as their child-carer of choice. The parents surveyed (61 per cent of those with young children) wanted government to trust them with a childcare budget that they could administer themselves, choosing the best carer for their child.
Such a Family Credit, extending the existing Childcare Entitlement and combining it with Tax Free Childcare Relief, is eminently doable – especially as the current system is costly and clumsy.
Only 59 per cent of local authorities have childcare places for parents working full time, while take up for tax-free childcare is so low it has left a significant £2.4bn under-spend.
This reform would give parents direct payments for formal or informal provision, be that relatives, creche, a childminder, or the parents themselves; those claiming Universal Credit would continue to get support for childcare costs via a reformed benefit system.
Recognising the importance of the early years, it could also give parents the option to frontload child benefit for under-fives. This move would come at no extra cost to the Treasury but would boost cash support three-fold while cutting the weekly rate to a third for children over five years (worth slightly under £2,800 and slightly over £3000 per annum respectively).
Supporting families, by recognising their contribution to the wider community and restoring parents’ rights over their children’s care, is in the Government’s interest.
According to the Relationship Foundation, family breakdown costs the state £51 billion annually. Our own calculations show that those who experience family breakdown when aged 18 or younger are:
- Over twice as likely (2.3 times) to experience homelessness
- Twice as likely (2.0 times) to be in trouble with the police or spend time in prison
- Almost twice as likely (1.9 times) to experience educational underachievement
- Almost twice as likely (1.9 times) to experience not being with the other parent of their child/ren
- Approaching twice as likely (1.8 times) to experience alcoholism Approaching twice as likely (1.7 times) to experience teen pregnancy Approaching twice as likely (1.7 times) to experience mental health issues
- More likely (1.6 times) to experience debt
- More likely (1.4 times) to experience being on benefits
Family breakdown is also a major driver of children going into care, and the trajectory of a child through the children’s care system incurs similarly hair-raising costs: from £2,000 plus for needs assessments, through £10,000 or more for one year as a child in need, to £44,000 plus for every year spent in residential care.
The public understand the impact of family breakdown. Our survey with Public First found that three-quarters of parents believe that reducing it would help the country tackle the cost of living crisis.
The Institute for Fiscal Studies has proved them right, finding that poverty rose much more significantly among children of lone parents than of two.
Thus with almost half of children born in 2000 were raised by only one biological parent, and over half (51 per cent) of those who identified as “Black, Black British, Black Welsh, Caribbean or African Caribbean” lone parents in 2021, childhood poverty looks set to grow alarmingly.
Moreover, most lone parent households are fatherless – and the evidence is clear that children of a more engaged father do better than those without – especially boys.
Recent research undertaken by the CSJ Alliance charity Lads Need Dads found that across Essex, teachers reported that their male pupils growing up without a father were more likely to act up, be absent from school, and do poorly in class.
If the state is ever to stem the inexorable expansion of expensive responsibilities, it must boost the one institution that would allow it to do so. But it must move quickly, for the newest statistics reveal that stable families are increasingly rare.
Marriage continues to be the most stable family structure. Even controlling for income, there is a gap of approximately 13 percentage points between married couples staying together and cohabitees staying together. Yet the latest ONS figures show that there were 85,770 marriages in total in England and Wales in 2020 – the lowest number on record since 1838.
The need for a new family credit could not be more urgent.
Cristina Odone is the Head of Family Policy Unit at the Centre for Social Justice.
Picture an institution that reduces the need for government to build more prisons or youth offending schemes, or invest in more alcohol rehabilitation services, violence reduction units or homeless shelters.
Even the most ardent big-state Labour-ite will see the benefit of this institution: there are manifestations of government the left, no less than the right, wishes to erase.
Step forward, the family: an ancient yet flexible institution that represents clear savings for the Treasury and, ultimately, the taxpayer.
With its all-for-one, one-for-all spirit, family delivers a welfare system that can support unimaginable strains and pressures, from cradle to grave. It provides a home for the unemployed, company for the disabled, and a place to convalesce for the elderly.
In this way the strong family reduces pressure on the state; and its members, bound by ties of affection and respect, assist one another generously and lovingly, avoiding the humiliation so commonly felt in a Job Centre queue or homeless shelter.
The public know this: when the Children’s Commissioner, during her national listening exercise last year, asked children and adults what they valued most in their lives, family came top.
Yet our politicians and policymakers routinely undervalue and overlook it. They value the contribution individual family members make to the country’s coffers over the contribution the family unit makes to the country’s welfare; rob parents of choice; and turn children into increasingly unaffordable luxuries.
The risk is that, after decades of being undermined, relationships between next of kin will atrophy. The state must then grow bigger and bigger to meet demand for the kind of support that parents, children, and grandparents once automatically expected of one another.
Enfeebled, the family can do little good; an ever more bloated state, meanwhile, can do a great deal of harm.
It’s time, then, to shore up the family.
The first step is to reform our fiscal system, which treats us all as autonomous individuals. HMRC refuses to take into account the number of dependent children in a household, or an individual’s status. Are they a lone parent, struggling to feed three children, or a singleton without a care in the world?
Regardless, an individual on £30,000 a year will pay the same amount of tax and National Insurance. Incredibly, a one-earner household with four children has to earn nearly £80,000 to have the same standard of living as a single person earning £27,000.
The Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) proposes instead to tax households rather than individuals – recognising in this way that the sacrifices parents make in raising children benefits us all.
Despite the best efforts of Nigel Lawson, the lack of any meaningful recognition of family in the tax system (David Cameron’s reforms permit couples to transfer just ten per cent of their personal tax allowance) punishes those families where one parent wishes to opt out of work to take on childcare responsibilities.
And yet neuroscience is clear: the first 1001 days of a child’s life are key for healthy cognitive development. Children in those first years need to attach to a continuous, nurturing carer. Failure to do so dooms them to poor outcomes including academic failure, fragile relationships, and anti-social behaviour.
Thus for the Treasury dragoon new parents back to work is, at best, woefully short-sighted. To right this wrong, HMRC should boost the Marriage Allowance to allow parents in legally-recognised partnerships earning less than the basic rate income tax threshold to transfer 100 per cent of their personal allowance to their spouse, if their child is under 16.
Meanwhile all parents have been robbed of choice over how to raise their children. Those who wish to take up their entitlement to 15 hours of free childcare for three- and four-year-olds in England may only do so if they leave their child with a government-approved provider.
Yet a recent landmark survey of 1,500 parents across the country found that the majority of parents regarded grandparents as their child-carer of choice. The parents surveyed (61 per cent of those with young children) wanted government to trust them with a childcare budget that they could administer themselves, choosing the best carer for their child.
Such a Family Credit, extending the existing Childcare Entitlement and combining it with Tax Free Childcare Relief, is eminently doable – especially as the current system is costly and clumsy.
Only 59 per cent of local authorities have childcare places for parents working full time, while take up for tax-free childcare is so low it has left a significant £2.4bn under-spend.
This reform would give parents direct payments for formal or informal provision, be that relatives, creche, a childminder, or the parents themselves; those claiming Universal Credit would continue to get support for childcare costs via a reformed benefit system.
Recognising the importance of the early years, it could also give parents the option to frontload child benefit for under-fives. This move would come at no extra cost to the Treasury but would boost cash support three-fold while cutting the weekly rate to a third for children over five years (worth slightly under £2,800 and slightly over £3000 per annum respectively).
Supporting families, by recognising their contribution to the wider community and restoring parents’ rights over their children’s care, is in the Government’s interest.
According to the Relationship Foundation, family breakdown costs the state £51 billion annually. Our own calculations show that those who experience family breakdown when aged 18 or younger are:
Family breakdown is also a major driver of children going into care, and the trajectory of a child through the children’s care system incurs similarly hair-raising costs: from £2,000 plus for needs assessments, through £10,000 or more for one year as a child in need, to £44,000 plus for every year spent in residential care.
The public understand the impact of family breakdown. Our survey with Public First found that three-quarters of parents believe that reducing it would help the country tackle the cost of living crisis.
The Institute for Fiscal Studies has proved them right, finding that poverty rose much more significantly among children of lone parents than of two.
Thus with almost half of children born in 2000 were raised by only one biological parent, and over half (51 per cent) of those who identified as “Black, Black British, Black Welsh, Caribbean or African Caribbean” lone parents in 2021, childhood poverty looks set to grow alarmingly.
Moreover, most lone parent households are fatherless – and the evidence is clear that children of a more engaged father do better than those without – especially boys.
Recent research undertaken by the CSJ Alliance charity Lads Need Dads found that across Essex, teachers reported that their male pupils growing up without a father were more likely to act up, be absent from school, and do poorly in class.
If the state is ever to stem the inexorable expansion of expensive responsibilities, it must boost the one institution that would allow it to do so. But it must move quickly, for the newest statistics reveal that stable families are increasingly rare.
Marriage continues to be the most stable family structure. Even controlling for income, there is a gap of approximately 13 percentage points between married couples staying together and cohabitees staying together. Yet the latest ONS figures show that there were 85,770 marriages in total in England and Wales in 2020 – the lowest number on record since 1838.
The need for a new family credit could not be more urgent.