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We need to invest in, not take away from, our children – not least because they are the nation's future
David Cameron, a man with young children and a working wife, once promised that he would make this country the most "family friendly in Europe" . Families today come in all shapes and sizes but in trying to meet the challenge of giving a child a good start in life, they share much in common. Yet, as a succession of reports and findings revealed last week, the universal furniture of family life, including a reasonable standard of living, good affordable childcare and fruitful employment is in far from robust condition.
The concerns of "ordinary" families appear to have plummeted down the political agenda, unless, that is, they are deemed feral, feckless, workless and/or irresponsible. Recent figures from the Office of National Statistics show that UK households have experienced the biggest fall in disposable income for more than 30 years. As prices rise, so unemployment grows. Women are especially affected, a fact that is bound to impinge further on spiralling rates of female depression revealed in a study last week. At the same time, as The Observer reports, cuts to benefits are hitting children, in whom we should be investing strongly, particularly hard. It's as if government responsibility for ensuring the welfare of the many, both in the impact of its policies and the language it employs, is in danger of becoming subsumed by its determination to act as the disciplinarian of the few.
Last week, a study by the Daycare Trust and Save the Children revealed that parents spend almost a third of their income on childcare, more than anywhere else in the world. Yearly expenditure for 25 hours' nursery care per week for a child under two ranges from £5,000 to more than £14,000. Among the poorest families, 40% are considering leaving work because they cannot afford the cost. Childcare isn't just a route to a wage, training or education, it's also about the development of children. For those under two, from highly deprived backgrounds, it can unlock the door to a very different future.
In 1998 Gordon Brown, Labour's chancellor, announced a budget that would, he said, put women and children first. Childcare, he announced, was central to the national economy. It was as important as roads in getting people back to work. Then, the problem was that places were hard to find. Now, breakfast and after-school clubs, Sure Start, children's centres, improved parental rights in work and subsidised childcare are all part of the infrastructure that Labour created to benefit all families, irrespective of income.
That infrastructure is now under threat. Its very fragility sends a message to families that they cannot look to this government for the leverage that they desperately require. How can that perception change?
It demands a rational calculation by policymakers about which cuts to limit so that more aren't plunged into poverty; which budgets to pool; which professional silos to merge and where to invest more in families – not least because children are our future.
Instead, initiatives such as localism can undermine such action. A survey by the charity 4Children illustrates how councils who previously charged low rents to providers of after-school clubs have now increased them by up to 66%. One in four providers do not believe that their clubs will be sustainable for the next school year. That affects the family.
Unhappy Families, a study published by the TUC last week, says that the living standards of a typical middle-Britain family will drop by more than £4,600 by 2013. Add to that the 50% increase in the size of the contribution that families on working family tax credit have to make to childcare costs; the freezing of child benefit and the rise in university tuition fees and it's no surprise that so many families feel they are permanently stuck in first gear .
Next year a single universal credit will replace a hotchpotch of benefits, and caps on benefits will be imposed. Iain Duncan Smith, the work and pensions minister, has said that in the long run the reforms are expected to lift 350,000 children and 500,000 adults out of poverty. In the short term, yet again, however, it will mean families pay a high forfeit. Caps could mean, for instance, that larger, poorer families that now pay only £15 of their childcare costs will instead have to find up to £180 a week. Families with a disabled child could be up to £27 a week worse off; a disgraceful drop in income.
In 2009, David Cameron made a passionate commitment to abide by a Labour promise to end child poverty by 2020. "We will make British poverty history,' he said. On another occasion, he asked: "Who made the poor poorer? …Not the wicked Tories. [It was] you, Labour." Official figures show that from 1998 to 2010 child poverty was reduced by 900,000 to its lowest level in 25 years. The Institute for Fiscal Studies estimates that under current policies, child poverty, currently at 3.8m, will rise by 300,000 in 2014.
In fairness, this government is commendably active in its search for a solution to the 120,000 families that cost the taxpayer £4bn a year via a multiplicity of problems and ineffectual professional help. Iain Duncan Smith is firm in his intention to "make work pay". However, part of the problem for families is that work often does not pay enough: 58% of children in poverty are in families in which at least one parent has a job.
Alan Milburn heads the government's review on social mobility and poverty. The deadline for evidence is next month. He may conclude that families require a fresh social contract, one that includes more than a dead-end job: affordable childcare, and a sense that the government is a friend not a foe in the increasing struggle to make ends meet and fulfil parental responsibilities. What family policy lacks at present is logic and coherence and a narrative that sees families as an asset, not a liability. Government initiatives contradict each other and construct barriers that hamper, not help. This isn't just about extra spending. It's a matter of priorities, vision and will. After the riots, David Cameron announced a "family test" on all domestic policy. "If it hurts families … then we should not do it." The Conservative party conference next month is the obvious opportunity for him to explain how that rhetoric transforms into practice.
All politicians seek a legacy. David Cameron could do no better than to make a determined attempt to end child poverty and oversee the restoration of the modern family, in all its diversity, to good civic health.
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