Thursday 28 January, 2010

UK
Politics
Family

SCARE-MONGERING: Leading the Government’s resistance to Tory support for marriage, Ed Balls has resorted to warning of the perils of ‘social engineering’.

By Andrew Halloway

Independent research has completely undermined Labour’s case against tax breaks for married couples – exposing the fact that political correctness is their main motive for opposition to the move.

A survey by Bristol Community Family Trust shows that marriage is the single most important factor for family stability.

This flies in the face of Labour’s claim that marriage should not be favoured in the tax system. Although Children, Schools and Families Secretary Ed Balls concedes that all the evidence shows children in married families “do better”, he insists that the evidence is a reflection of the economic position of married people, rather than of marriage itself.

He says: “Once you adjust for the fact that people who are married tend to marry older, be better educated and have higher incomes, you find it is not the legal form, it is the strength and stability of the relationship which is most important.”

But the Bristol research contradicts this conclusion. The Trust’s Harry Benson sums up what the evidence shows: “Based on data of 15,000 new mothers, marriage is the single biggest predictor, above and beyond the effects of income, education, age, ethnic group, benefit receipt and birth order.”

Not only that, but the Bristol unit’s research reveals that only three per cent of unmarried couples stay together until their child is 16 whereas, of those couples that are still together when their children reach this age, 97 per cent are married.

By contrast to Labour, the Tories have promised to bring in tax breaks for marriage should they be elected, pointing out that most other European countries already have such a system.

Struggling to defend their failure in this area, the Government is accusing the Conservatives of social engineering. But this is completely hypocritical, because Gordon Brown has constantly used the tax system for his own social engineering ends.

And what seems to have been forgotten by most of the mainstream media is that Britain always used to have tax breaks for marriage, up until very recently. They were only withdrawn in the 1990s by the Tories who, to their credit, have now realised their mistake – having researched the appalling social breakdown that accompanies the breakdown in marriage, like night follows day.

Philip Hammond, Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury, says: “Our approach is evidence-based: studies prove beyond doubt that children do better when their parents are together, and parents of young children are nearly four times more likely to stay together if they are married.

“Britain is alone among the major developed economies in not recognising marriage in the tax system.”

Ed Balls has previously stated that “marriage has been and still is the most important institution for making sure we have strong and stable families.” Yet bizarrely he refuses to support it. There is only one conclusion to be drawn: that Labour is more concerned about maintaining a false but politically correct position that all families are equal, than it is about providing a stable upbringing for children.

If Labour were really concerned about equality, they would still have to change the tax system – because under Labour it has actually discriminated against marriage. The minimum they should therefore do is make marriage tax neutral – i.e. make tax breaks the same for married and unmarried couples. At the moment it is cheaper to separate than stay married! So the Government has actually encouraged marriage breakdown, and favoured single parenting and non-married relationships. Yet it is irrefutable that children who live with both parents do better at school, are less likely to get involved in crime, and are more likely to go on to have a stable family life themselves.

Another argument Labour has thrown the Tories’ way is that to favour marriage stigmatises the children of unmarried parents. But if Labour is currently favouring unmarried parents in the tax system, by the same argument they are stigmatising the children of married parents!

But should we be surprised that this Government puts political correctness before everything else – including the facts? This is the same Government that last summer appointed Dr Katherine Rake as the chief executive of the Family And Parenting Institute – the state-funded mouthpiece on family life. It has been pushing its own social engineering for years – belittling marriage and denigrating the traditional two-parent family. Dr Rake, a hard-line feminist, has pushed that agenda even further. One of her first statements was that the Government should give up on trying to preserve “traditional family structures”, i.e. marriage.

With advisors like Dr Rake, is it any wonder that this Government appears determined that the needs of children should take second place to some ideologically inspired agenda to destroy the family, an institution that has been society’s bedrock for hundreds of years?

According to Dr Rake, parental splits are not a problem. She talks of how children can be raised by relations such as aunts and uncles and grandparents, instead of parents. But however admirable it is that relations should take on this role, surely relations are not an equal substitute for a child’s parents!

That other great safety net is, of course, the benefits system. Feminists back the welfare state because it decreases the dependence of women on men. So, no matter how many children a woman may have, with however many fathers, the State will provide. But the consequences for children have been devastating. Newspapers are filled with reports from today’s sink estates of feral children, with no father figure and no sense of family or belonging, roaming the streets to find people or property to attack.

The Government’s willingness to cave in to gay rights also shows their preference for political correctness over children’s welfare. Statistics show that gay partnerships are even more likely to break up than unmarried heterosexuals, yet the Government has forced through gay adoption rights. And Labour legislation has made it possible for lesbians to have children without having to identify the father on the birth certificate. So a child may grow up without ever knowing who its father is.

Of course, another argument thrown at the Tories is that a bit of extra cash won’t persuade people to get married, or to stay married if they feel like divorcing. And that may be true, but Mr Cameron’s argument is that the Government should lead the way in saying what is best for children, and that includes putting its money where its mouth is. He says: “To those who say … ‘Why pick out marriage? Why do you persist in aggravating people who for whatever reason choose not to get married?’ I say I don’t want to aggravate anyone, but I believe in commitment and many of us, me included, will always remember that moment when you say, up there in front of others, ‘It’s not just me anymore, it’s us, together,’ and that helps to take you through the tough times and that’s something we should cherish as a society… A stable home is the best start a child can get. That’s why we’ll back commitment by recognising marriage in the tax system – and we’ll also end the couple penalty in the tax credits system which, unbelievably, encourages parents to live apart.”

Mr Balls responds that the Conservatives “are going to have a tax advantage for marriage only if one partner stays at home, which ends up advantaging the rich.” No, one partner staying at home to look after the children is a sign of commitment by parents to their children, whatever their economic status. So long as the tax and benefits system does not force both parents to go out to work for economic reasons, there should be no problem in putting child before career. Yet every Government policy of the last twelve years has encouraged mothers to go back to work, whether single or married, instead of making it easier for one parent to stay at home. Is this the same Labour Party that claims to value children? Research shows that, in the early years at least, children do better if they are looked after by a parent than if they are handed over to a nursery while the parent works.

As he comes under increasing pressure to abandon his plans, even from within his own party, let’s hope – for our children’s sake – that Mr Cameron sticks to his guns.

David Willetts, the Shadow Cabinet Minister, has already admitted that no tax break would be included in the Tories’ initial budget on taking office as they simply won’t have the resources. It is to be hoped that their marriage policy does not become another casualty of the economic crisis.

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