Meanwhile, it’s up to IDS and 44 Tories to make case for the family
A POWERFUL group of Tory MPs yesterday pressed Theresa May to do more to support marriage and the family.
The 44 MPs, including three former Cabinet ministers, called for bigger tax breaks for married couples and for school pupils to be taught the benefits of marriage.
Their 18-point family manifesto said fatherhood should be promoted and fathers helped to assume their family responsibilities. It said ‘couple penalties’ in the tax and benefit system that encourage mothers and fathers to live apart should be removed.
The manifesto also called for a Cabinet minister to be made responsible for families and said every Whitehall department should have a minister charged with ensuring its policies were family-friendly.
The move follows signs of unhappiness among Tory backbenchers at a lack of progress on help for couples to stay together and to form stable families.
Last week former Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith – one of the signatories of the new ‘manifesto to strengthen families’ – complained that ‘opinion formers’ in Whitehall are preparing to cut a £70 million programme of support for relationship counselling organisations.
Mrs May dropped David Cameron’s longstanding pledge to encourage marriage from the Tory election manifesto this year and her family policies remain obscure.
The new paper was signed by 44 Tory MPs and eight peers. Alongside Mr Duncan Smith, backers included former Education Secretary Nicky Morgan and former Environment Secretary Caroline Spelman, together with the influential figure of Graham Brady, chairman of the 1922 Committee.
One of the 44, Congleton MP Fiona Bruce, said family life must be strengthened ‘if the Government is to achieve its welcome aims to increase social mobility, deliver social justice, and make Britain a country that works for everyone, not just a privileged few’.
Families, she added, ‘are also vital for our economic competitiveness. While the price tag for family breakdown has been set at £48 billion a year, this is a fraction of the overall cost: stable, productive families that function well are usually wealth creators, fractured families are far more likely to be dependent on the state.
‘Strengthening families is a social justice priority: by the age of five almost half of children in low-income households have seen their families break apart, compared to only 16 per cent of children in higherincome households.’
Mrs Bruce added: ‘As the Prime Minister returns to Downing Street after the summer recess, this manifesto ensures that she will be well- equipped to make tackling family breakdown a top priority.’