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Labour must stop penalising marriage http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2005/12/07/do0704 .xml Few figures in public life can claim as much insight into the effects of marital breakdown as Dame Elizabeth Butler-Sloss. So her remarks this week, reflecting on 35 years as a judge in the Family Division, deserve urgent consideration. Butler-Sloss has seen the damaging effect on children of divorce and separation. But she does not simply lament the fact that a third of all children in Britain today experience the breakdown of their parents' relationship. Her view is clear: the removal of all financial incentives to marriage, and the penalties on marriage in the welfare system, have contributed to this outcome. Marriage is, as Butler-Sloss confirms, "the most stable of all relationships between men and women", and so the fiscal bias against this important institution has serious consequences for children and for society. Research evidence certainly supports Butler-Sloss's claims. Last year, 42 per cent of all babies born in England and Wales were to unmarried parents. While many of these parents were cohabiting at the time, the chances of their staying together are statistically low. Data shows that, within five years of the birth of a child, 52 per cent of cohabiting couples will have split up, whereas among married parents the rate is only eight per cent. At the same time, evidence showing how children gain from having married parents continues to mount up. Children of broken homes are twice as likely to have behavioural and mental health problems, to perform less well in school, to become sexually active younger, and turn to drugs, smoking and heavy drinking. Seventy per cent of young offenders come from single-parent households. While many lone mothers do heroic work bringing up their children in difficult circumstances, it is impossible to ignore the evidence that children need fathers. Yet the financial bias against marriage to which Butler-Sloss refers is real enough, and it has been fuelled by the policies of the Chancellor. Figures published by the Centre for Policy Studies earlier this year show how the odds are stacked against married families. A one-breadwinner couple living on the average male wage pays £5,000 more in tax every year than it receives in tax credits and benefits. Yet if the couple split up, they can be net recipients of credits and benefits of up to £7,000 a year. An unemployed couple living apart, or in an "unofficial" relationship, will typically receive £70 more in welfare payments than if they marry or openly live together. The "lone parent trap", which ensures that a mother alone receives higher welfare payments than if she gets married, has long been a feature of the British welfare system, but the trap has been made deeper by Gordon Brown's tax credits. As the Institute of Fiscal Studies has pointed out, the level of child-contingent state support is now considerably higher for a lone parent than for a couple at the same income level with the same number of children, because the credits do not make allowance for the extra adult in a married household. Tax credit subsidies will therefore lift lone-parent households out of poverty, while leaving couples on a similar wage well below the poverty line. When unmarried parents consider the potential impact on their benefits and tax credits of moving in together, they can soon see that it is in their financial interests to keep the relationship unofficial. The only parental relationship that cannot be disguised is, of course, marriage. So it should not be surprising that the decline in marriage is most evident in low-income households. Overall, the proportion of children living with only one parent has grown by nearly a quarter since Labour came to power, and now stands at 27 per cent of all children in Britain -way ahead of the EU average. International comparisons show that lone-parent families are much more prevalent in countries that have generous state support for mothers bringing up children on their own, and Britain is the foremost example. The Government can no longer dissociate itself from the consequences of its decision to downgrade marriage. Yet the bias against marriage is not just harmful for children; it has also meant a huge welfare bill. About half of all lone-parent households are workless, compared with just seven per cent of couples. Last year, more than 900,000 lone parents were receiving income support, compared with 170,000 couple families. Raising more than a quarter of the nation's children in single-parent homes is expensive. Unless the trend against marriage is halted, the burden on taxpayers will grow. So what should the Government do? There are lessons to be learnt from other economies. In France, for example, where the proportion of lone parents is less than half that of Britain, the subsidies available on marital break-up and lone motherhood are much lower. In America, where family breakdown hit levels similar to Britain's more than 10 years ago, a programme of welfare reform and marriage support has slowed the growth in lone parenthood. The first, and urgent, step for the Government is to recognise the problem created by the decline of marriage, and to signal its determination to restore this neglected institution. This means acknowledging that its fiscal policies have been misguided. Providing a safety net for the victims of family breakdown is a necessary and compassionate function of welfare, but this must be balanced by clear tax incentives for marriage. A welfare system that penalises married couples, alongside a tax system that ignores them, is a lethal combination. (Jill Kirby chairs the Family Policy Group at the Centre for Policy Studies) |