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House of Commons

Friday 16 March 1990

The House met at half-past Nine o'clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. Speaker-- in the Chair ]

PETITIONS

Human Embryos

9.34 am

Mr. Richard Alexander (Newark) : I have the honour to present this petition from the parishioners of the Church of the Holy Trinity, Newark. It concerns protection of the human embryo, and has been signed by 225 people. The petition reads :

Wherefore Your Petitioners Pray that the House of Commons will take immediate steps to enact legislation which :

(a) forbids any procedure that involves purchase or sale of human embryos, the discarding or freezing of human embryos, their uses as sources of transplant tissue or as subjects for research or experiment (unless this is done solely for the benefit of the embryo concerned) and (b) forbids all forms of trans-species fertilisation.

And Your Petitioners, As in duty bound, will ever pray etc. I present this petition with my support.

To lie upon the Table.

9.35 am

Mr. Max Madden (Bradford, West) : I wish to present a petition signed by Reverend Teodor Poloczek and 400 parishioners of Our Lady of Czestochowa Roman Catholic Church in Bradford, who affirm : That the newly- fertilised human embryo is a real, living human being : therefore we welcome the statement in the Report of the Committee of Inquiry into Human Fertilisation and Embryology (the Warnock Report) That "the status of the embryo is a matter of fundamental principle which should be enshrined in legislation", and its recommendation that the embryo of the human species should be afforded protection in law. And therefore we oppose all such practices as are recommended in the Report which discriminate against the embryo or violate his/her human dignity and right to life. Wherefore Your Petitioners Pray that the House of Commons will take immediate steps to enact legislation which (a) forbids any procedure that involves purchase or sale of human embryos, the discarding or freezing of human embryos, their use as sources of transplant tissue or as

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subjects for research or experiment (unless this is done solely for the benefit of the embryo concerned) and (b) forbids all forms of trans-species fertilisation.

I beg leave to present the petition.

To lie upon the Table.

9.37 am

Sir David Steel (Tweeddale, Ettrick and Lauderdale) : I wish to present a petition on the same subject, signed by Father John Robinson and 50 constituents in the parish of St. Cuthbert. Some of their anxieties will be met by the Government's Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill, but other observations in the petition will not coincide either with the Government's legislation or with my views. Nevertheless, I recognise the sincerely held views of a minority of my constituents in this matter and am therefore honoured to present the petition on their behalf.

The petition says :

Wherefore Your Petitioners Pray that the House of Commons will take immediate steps to enact legislation which (a) forbids any procedure that involves purchase or sale of human embryos, the discarding or freezing of human embryos, their use as sources of transplant tissue or as subjects for research or experiment (unless this is done solely for the benefit of the embryo concerned) ; and (b) forbids all forms of transpecies fertilisation.

And Your Petitioners, as in Duty Bound, will ever pray etc. To lie upon the Table.

Local Government Finance

9.38 am

Mr. Harry Barnes (Derbyshire, North-East) : I wish to present a petition on behalf of the residents of Barrow Hill in my constituency, who have been organised by Margaret Tighe of 23 Hill Grove, Barrow Hill, against the poll tax. It says :

To the Honourable the Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in Parliament assembled. The Humble Petition of the Residents of Barrow Hill, Stavely, Chesterfield, sheweth that legislation to introduce a poll tax will : Place an unbearable financial burden upon your petitioners ; Subsidise wealthy people at the direct expense of others ; Create fear and despondency amongst those who cannot pay ; Disfranchise many who will be frightened to claim their right to vote ; Destroy the democratic freedom of your petitioners to elect local Councillors who can act with a degree of independence from the power of the central state. Wherefore your petitioners pray that your Honourable House will take measures to repeal the Poll Tax legislation.

And your petitioners as in Duty Bound, will ever pray, etc. To lie upon the Table.

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Family Policy

9.39 am

Mr. Timothy Raison (Aylesbury) : I beg to move,

That this House believes that the family is as vital an institution as ever ; and calls for the further development of policies designed to support it.

I have been in the House for 20 years, with occasional intervals on the Front Bench, and during that time I have tried to win the ballot for a Private Member's motion. At last, after 20 years, I have succeeded. I hope that the House will feel that the subject I have chosen is an important and worthy one.

I am grateful that my right hon. Friend the Minister of State, Home Office, will be taking part in the debate. The motion that I have chosen covers some half a dozen Government Departments, perhaps more, and I imagine that there was a long queue of Ministers waiting to speak today. I assume that my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Health is anxious to test his larynx after the past few days. I should be surprised if my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Security did not want to want to return to the scene after just a couple of days. I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer feels that he has got a few moments to spare and would like to attend our debate. I also imagine that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment does not have much else to think about. In spite of that, I am delighted that my right hon. Friend the Minister is present today.

This debate is a serious one, as I believe that its subject will increasingly become a major theme in British politics in years to come. Looking back at the history of the welfare state and social services since the war--as it happens I have just written a book about that--it strikes me that, throughout the early post-war years, the dominant theme was resources and their redistribution. I shall not be so naive as to pretend that the distribution of resources will not continue to play a large part in social policy. However, I am sure that all of us accept that, on top of the traditional issues, there is an ever-increasing pressure to try to get to grips with the problems thrown up by family life, particularly the breakdown of it. Social policy must concentrate harder and harder on the questions of family life. We all have an uneasy feeling that, because of the things that happen in family life, the incidence of crime, vandalism, hooliganism and even child abuse has increased. Such behaviour causes great anxiety. I do not suppose that this debate will come up with agreed and definitive answers, but at least it will serve a valuable purpose by giving the House the chance to air such important issues. When we talk about family policy, we risk indulging in easy rhetoric. We all know that, when elections come round, we stand up to say that we are strongly in favour of the family--it sounds the right sort of thing to be. Beyond that, however, Governments, particularly my own, have tried to look hard at specific family issues and to take effective action.

My motion talks about

"the further development of policies designed to support it", because I believe that we already have such policies. Today we should try to take on board a commitment to a coherent and all-embracing family policy. We should look across the various parts of our system of government to ensure that we pursue objectives that I believe to be

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extraordinarily important. If we can find such coherent policies that are designed to help parents to bring up their children--in a sense, that is what the debate is all about--we shall have done something useful.

I shall not try to define what I mean by "family". If one looks in the dictionary, one finds the usual variety of definitions, from which one can choose according to one's taste. Essentially I am talking about the family in terms of parents and children, but I do so in the traditional sense, as I believe that the traditional institution of marriage is still the best mechanism for bringing up children. It is right and proper that we should state that belief. We know very well that we live in a world where alternative patterns, if I may use a rather ugly piece of jargon, are becoming prevalent. I do not believe that we should simply sit back and say, "Well, that's happening and there is nothing we can do about it. Let's just get on with it." We need a notion of a model that should underline our approach to this matter.

The breakdown of family life is clearly illustrated by current statistics, and it should cause us great concern. As I attend my surgeries in my constituency, it strikes me that the big change since I became a Member in 1970 has been the shift in the balance of cases with which I deal. When I was first elected, about 70 per cent. of those cases were to do with housing. They were straightforward cases in which people wanted a council house--sometimes it took a bit of time before they got what they wanted.

Today, the proportion of cases to do with some aspect of family breakdown is much larger. Housing problems are a vivid illustration of that, because the mere fact of a family breakdown immediately doubles the need for accommodation. Problems connected with social security reveal the same disturbing tendency of family breakdown. One or two statistics are necessary to set the scene and they are drawn from the 1990 edition of "Social Trends". In 1987, the United Kingdom, with Denmark, had the highest divorce rate in the European Community. In 1988, there were 166,000 divorces in this country. The figure for births outside marriage has been mounting steadily. In 1961, they accounted for 6 per cent. of births, in 1981 they accounted for 12 per cent. and in 1988 the figure had risen to 25 per cent. So, between 1961 and 1988, the percentage of births outside marriage rose from 6 per cent to 25 per cent.--more than a fourfold increase.

Lone parents are also an important factor about which we must think. The proportion of families with dependent children classified as lone-parent families went up from 8 per cent. in 1971 to 14 per cent. in 1987. Of lone mothers with dependent children, the percentage who were divorced rose from 24 per cent. in 1971 to 44 per cent. in 1987 ; the percentage who were single rose from 16 per cent. in 1971 to 29 per cent. in 1987 ; and the percentage separated fell from 29 per cent. to 19 per cent. The percentage of lone parents who were widowed fell from 31 per cent. in 1971 to 8 per cent. in 1987. That shows the strong increase in lone parents who are divorced and single.

One of the most important developments has been the way in which divorce has spread as a social habit throughout the socio-economic scale. There was a time when divorce was a rather upper-class and middle-class habit, particularly an upper-class one. In recent years that trend has reversed and the less well-off, the poorer sections of our community, are now ahead in their divorce rate. It would be wrong to make a value judgment about that, but

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one cannot evade the fact that divorce, which can be a hardship to many people, can be a particular hardship to those who are by definition the least able to meet the financial side of it --the poorest.

The statistics reveal a depressing situation, which as politicians, we should think about. I appreciate that there is a great danger of being seen to be moralising, but that is inescapable. We cannot talk about this subject without some notion of morality, but I hope that my remarks do not sound unbearably priggish. I am seriously trying to draw attention to what I see as a grave problem.

When we use statistics, we inevitably generalise. We know perfectly well that, in this issue, generalities conceal an enormous variety of particular circumstances. I do not want to use statistics to make a blanket, unthinking condemnation. One of the particular factors that we must face, however, is that those who are brought out by the statistics, particularly lone parents, lead lives that, overall, are marked by greater proverty and worse housing and that they are likely to face all sorts of difficulties in comparison with others. A sadly high level of crime emanates from those who have been brought up in broken homes. I visited an institution in Aylesbury, in my constituency, which houses just about the worst offenders among the 17--21 age group. The governor said that about 80 per cent. came from broken homes. Anyone who has visited some of the comparable institutions in the United States will know that their statistics are even more startling.

A briefing paper sent to hon. Members by Relate before this debate says that, by the age of 21, delinquency was twice as high among girls and boys who had experienced their parents' divorce while under the age of five. Relate said :

"Children who experienced their parents' divorce during their school years were more likely to have lower educational attainment." On 11 March, Professor Anthony Clare wrote in The Sunday Times :

"In 1989, Wallerstein and Blakeslee published Second Chance, their account of a 10-year study of 60 families affected by divorce. They found that five years on from divorce, a third of the children were significantly worse off than prior to the divorce. They were clinically depressed, doing poorly at school, and they had deteriorated to the point that disturbances such as sleep problems and poor learning had become chronic. Many still hoped their parents would be reconciled, fantasising that if they can get divorced once they can do it again'. They were still angry with their parents for putting their needs before the emotional needs of their children." I want to be careful how I express myself, but family breakdown is leading to a position which, in many cases, is not helped by a second marriage.

I want to cite a survey in The Spectator about the impact of divorce, and which quoted Polly Toynbee's article in The Observer on 10 September :

"Divorce is a financial catastrophe for most families. Women and children lose an average of half of their income after divorce. Remarriage is by far the best prospect for women. But failure of second marriages is even greater, with two-thirds ending in divorce. The blow falls doubly hard on children. A fifth of all children will see their parents divorce before they reach 16. Evidence is now mounting that shows quite how badly they suffer emotionally, educationally and financially. And the effects for most last right on until adult life. This is partly for emotional reasons and partly because they will have a childhood significantly poorer and in worse housing than children of the same class whose parents didn't divorce."

Ms. Toynbee then referred to people's regrets.

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Those statistics cover an enormous variety. I do not take the view that, in all circumstances, divorce is wrong. I accept that it is necessary to have it. I do not condemn people. However, that survey illustrates the problem that we must try to unravel. We all know that cause and effect are notoriously difficult to unravel in social science. Just to say that one set of figures matches another set does not prove the former causes the latter. It would be foolish to say that divorce should not be part of the picture ; I do not go along with the Roman Catholic view on that. However, we must think hard about how the system operates.

What can we do about the problem if we recognise the facts as I have tried to summarise them? It is a difficult matter. However, it is part of the purpose of the debate to re-establish and reiterate the basic value of marriage in all sorts of ways. We have become accustomed to campaigns on a variety of social issues such as drug-taking and AIDS. I do not know why a campaign for marriage should not be at least as valuable a part of our apparatus as any of the others. Of course, it should not adopt a crude note, but should strike chords to which people respond. It is an essential part of what we must do.

It is right that we build into our tax and benefit systems some incentive to marriage. We already do that to some extent ; indeed, the new law on independent taxation for wives allows significant benefits in favour of marriage, as well as for couples with children. I shall later deal with the best way to support children through the tax and benefit systems, but in principle it is right to accept that demonstration of society's point of view. It is important to provide the necessary practical back-up to marriage in such areas as housing, with which I shall deal in a moment. It is no good saying that people should stick together and have a happy marriage if they do not have a home in which to lead their married life. That is a crucial point. The divorce laws are of great importance and have become a topical issue. My right hon. and noble Friend the Lord Chancellor made a speech a day or two ago that I commend to hon. Members as well worth reading. He is a man of great wisdom and experience. He made his speech to the NSPCC, and it received some press coverage. However, it is a much richer speech than can be shown in a short press report. I do not agree with all that he said, but his speech illustrates our concern.

Scottish legislation currently in the other place includes changes in the Scottish divorce laws. I do not think that many hon. Members have followed progress of that legislation with quite the attention that it merits. It is the Law Reform (Miscellaneous Provisions) (Scotland) Bill which, in due course, will arrive in this House. It aims to reduce the period of separation from two years to one where there is consent, and five years to two where there is not. We could argue whether that is the right provision, but it shows that we are waking up to the fact that it is an important matter. The divorce laws should not just be left to the Law Commission and the lawyers, important though they are. It is a matter on which all the public should have their say. We must try to find the right answers. The English Law Commission is also preparing a report on the divorce laws. In 1988 it produced a preliminary report called "Facing the future", which gave a fairly firm idea of its thinking at the time. It appeared to come down strongly against any notion of fault. In a sense, our current laws do not really incorporate the notion of fault, but in effect the ground of unreasonable behaviour to some

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extent replaces former fault grounds in the previous law. The Law Commission appeared to be seeking what it described in its report as a morally neutral system. Before we reach any final decision on that, we must think hard about whether it is wise.

Is it right to say that the divorce process, although very properly showing great concern about what happens to the children--it would be ridiculous if it did not give an almost overriding priority to the children--should say that, in all cases, it should be a no-fault divorce? Let us think about the most obvious and simple example--that of the middle-aged man who abandons his wife in favour of a pretty young girl. Of course there are enormous differences between cases, yet underlying that is a moral failure by the man who is prepared to abandon his wife. It would be foolish to legislate such a fact out of existence.

However imprecisely, the marriage and divorce laws should provide some kind of moral sanction and buttress for holding marriages together. If we start from the position from which I started, that marriage is still the best of the institutions, it is right that the law should express its moral commitment in practical ways. When the Government consider the Law Commission report, they should bear that in mind.

My right hon. and learned Friend the Lord Chancellor--I am not sure whether that is how one refers to the Lord Chancellor, but he has all those qualities--talked about this matter in his speech. He spoke in terms somewhat different from those that I have used. Dealing with whether there should be fault, he said :

"Should bad behaviour by one partner give the other the right to a divorce without regard to the consequences, especially for the children?"

We must think seriously about that.

I would not dismiss what the Lord Chancellor said, but within what he said one can draw a distinction between the first question, whether we take a moral stance and the second question, what we do about the children. As I have said, I am sure that every hon. Member would agree that, after divorce, what happens to the children is of overwhelming importance. There is no dispute about that ; but that does not necessarily mean that we should eliminate some of the matters that I have mentioned.

I think that the House will agree with the Lord Chancellor's view that he does not want easier divorce. He and the Law Commission have said that whatever system of divorce we choose must contain real chances to bring about reconciliation, if that is possible. It must be a patient rather than a hasty process, and there must be an enormous focus on what happens to the children. It is foolish to support the slogan of easier divorce.

The qustion of timing is slightly different. I am instinctively against any further shortening of the period in which divorce can take place. It is very short now. The thing that most heartened me about the Lord Chancellor's speech was the firm statement, that the Government are comitted to marriage as the best guarantor of family life.

I accept that my thoughts are not necessarily tidy or entirely coherent. Like many people, I am trying to find the best answer. Rather than offering my own remedies, I am more concerned to do what I can to encourage public debate on a difficult but extremely important matter. We

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cannot sit back and say that, although there is a great deal of family breakdown, there is no need to do anything about it.

Mr. Julian Brazier (Canterbury) : Does my right hon. Friend agree that our divorce laws are such that it is possible for people who should carry most of the blame for the breakdown of a marriage to gain substantial financial reward as a result of the divorce?

Mr. Raison : That is possible, but I hope that my hon. Friend will have a chance to develop his thoughts later in the debate. Another important topic in the area of how we should support the family is the matter of day care and the question of what support we should give to the working parent. To be realistic, in this context that overwhelmingly means the working mother. The question has become topical as, in the pre-Budget period, there is much discussion about whether there should be tax reliefs to support day care. I do not know whether my right hon. Friend the Chancellor will do anything about that, but no doubt my right hon. Friend the Minister of State, Home Office will tell us what the Chancellor intends to do in the Budget. The issue of tax reliefs has aroused much interest. The case being made is that there should be fiscal support for people with children who wish to go out to work. As I have said, such people are predominantly women. Naturally, they feel that they must find some form of day care for the children and believe it right and proper for that to be supported. The argument focuses on various aspects. There is the question of whether there should be tax relief on what is seen as a benefit in kind. When a company provides nursery or day care facilities, should they be taxed as a benefit in kind in the same way as a motor car or any other similar benefit? The argument is that such facilities should not be taxed.

There is also the question whether one should be able to claim tax relief if one pays for day or child care through some other mechanism. There is also an argument that the state, or possibly companies, should provide child care vouchers to be spent on different forms of day or child care. Each of those alternatives has strong advocates and I see the cases they put.

There are several different strands to the argument. I suppose that, in a sense, one of the strands is part of the feminist movement, the desire by women to have more ability to go out to work and earn money than they have had historically. We know that there has been a tremendous growth in the employment of women in Britain, and the signs are that it will not diminish. We face the problem of the decline in the 18-year-old age cohort, which in itself will create pressure for more employment, and we know that in other ways the economic need for women to work is likely to be sustained. What should the Government do about this? Should they accept the argument to apply a bias in the fiscal system in favour of people who want to go out to work, or should they adopt what I see as a more neutral view?

I am against tax relief. It is fundamentally a matter of fairness. The mother who goes out to work is better off than the mother who stays at home to look after her children. It would be wrong to couple that to tax relief while the mother who stays at home has neither income nor tax relief. I do not say that we should bias the system

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the other way, but there should be neutrality. We should not tip the balance in favour of those who want to go out to work.

Mrs. Edwina Currie (Derbyshire, South) : Like many hon. Members, I hope that I will get an opportunity to expand my argument, but does my right hon. Friend accept that there is no equity at all between the tax on, for example, the workplace nursery for child care and the fact that the parking place at the office and the canteen may be completely free? Training and all sorts of other activities that enable women to go to work may also be completely free, and the tax man is not interested.

Mr. Raison : My hon. Friend makes a perfectly fair point, and I hope that she will take part in the debate. I am talking about the two different ways of trying to bring support to women who are bringing up children.

If we go for tax relief, we will tip the balance strongly one way. There is an altogether better way to approach the matter and the House will not be surprised to know that I intend to refer to it. It is, of course, the child benefit system which offers a much fairer and in many ways more satisfactory answer.

Mr. George Walden (Buckingham) : It would be a pity to move on from the point about child care without drawing attention to the growing need for a comprehensive and high-quality nursery school system. That is important from the point of view of the family. My right hon. Friend has spoken from the point of view of the mother, and I understand that, but there is also the child's point of view. From every conceivable aspect, whether it is our economic performance or a child's emotional stability if he is from a broken family, there is an increasing need for a high-quality educative nursery service.

Mr. Raison : My hon. Friend has, with the greatest persuasiveness and eloquence, anticipated what I was about to say. I entirely agree with him, and I shall come back to his point in a moment. The important point in all the argument which we have to face is that we do not have sufficient knowledge of what is happening in this area or about the impact of the different ways of bringing up children. All of us speak with prejudice and emotion about the best way to bring up a child. Some believe that it is far better for the child to be brought up with his mother at home, whereas others believe that it is better for the mother to be content, to go out to work, to have a reasonable income and a varied life, and to come back home in a better temper than if she had been cooped up with a child all day. All those arguments float around. They may all have some truth in them, but we suffer from the lack of a decent basis of research and knowledge on the subject.

It is not that there is no research, but that it is not of sufficient clarity to give us much help in shaping policies. Those of us with long memories will remember the terrific impact of John Bowlby in the post-war years, with his psychological studies of maternal deprivation. There was a strong feeling that to take a small child from its mother was likely to have long-term damaging consequences.

In more recent years, research has pointed in a different direction. Much of it has been carried out by people who are themselves working mothers and who are anxious to reinforce their own position. This is a subject on which we need to know more ; I hope that the resources of the Home

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Office and of other Government Departments will be provided to try to find out more clearly what goes on in the families we are talking about. I hope that my right hon. Friend the Minister can also say something on that point.

We must deal with the situation as it is. We have to make decisions ; we cannot simply say that we shall come back to the subject in five years' time, when all the research studies have been carried out. In practice, it would take 25 years, as the research we need is longitudinal research. We must face the present situation and try to make up our minds what we are going to do.

One point that strikes me is the fact that the movement for child care seems, to a remarkable extent, to be fuelled by the equal opportunities movement rather than by a child-based movement. It is interesting how often organisations that are concerned with equal opportunities, whether European or national, advocate the case for child care most frequently. I do not condemn them for doing so, and they are perfectly entitled to do so, but we must have a clearer idea of what is happening in the lives of our small children and whether what is happening is leading to the kind of social concerns about which we all have opinions.

I want to come to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (Mr. Walden). Whatever one thinks about the merits or otherwise of day care or child care for small children up to the age of three, we need far more extensive nursery provision than we have at present.

Hon. Members may recall that, a year or so ago, the Select Committee on Education, Science and Arts, of which I was then Chairman, produced a report on education for the under-fives, the essence of which was the need for education for the under-fives, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham has referred. It did not advocate teaching them sophisticated mathematical techniques or cramming them with things that could be learned more appropriately later, but it advocated quality and the idea that a three-year-old or a four-year-old is capable of an education that is concerned with the growth of his mind as well as with the more obvious areas of well-being.

We have much good nursery education. The most encouraging point of the report was to see how standards had moved on. I was a member in the 1960s-- a long time ago--of the Plowden committee, which devoted part of its report to the pre-school years. Whereas the progressive mood then had much to do with liberating the child and was in favour of a rather permissive approach, there is today in good nursery education a far stronger sense of coherence.

Good nursery teachers today have a stronger notion of a discipline in their activities. I mean not that they take out the birch and beat children at the first opportunity, but that they work out what the child should be doing. They have an interesting system, whereby they discuss with the child at the beginning of the day what the child will do in the course of the morning and they come back to it at the end of the day. There is a greater coherence, which is enormously valuable. That is true of the state sector and sometimes of playgroups and similar provision.

Although one sees work that is remarkably good, there is not enough nursery provision. There are still far too few children in some form of nursery provision. It is below the 50 per cent. mark, although it has increased. I was surprised by the extent to which nursery provision has

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increased in the past decade ; I had not realised that there had been a steady expansion of pre-school education, but it still has a long way to go.

I was encouraged by the way in which the Government responded to our report ; we received a more favourable reception than I had expected. I want to ask my right hon. Friend whether he will say a little about what is happening now. My hon. Friend the Minister of State, Department of Education and Science took over the chairmanship of the committee concerned with the implementation of some of the ideas that were put forward in our report. I hope that my right hon. Friend will tell us what that committee is doing and when we may expect my hon. Friend the Minister of State to report on the quality of nursery education. That would be of interest and value to the House.

There are many social as well as educational reasons why we need to develop pre-school education ; my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham referred to them briefly. I come back again to family breakdown, which is one of the most powerful reasons why a good nursery school can be of enormous advantage to a child from an uncertain and unhappy home.

Isolation is also a problem--the isolation of the tower block or of the rural community. Both are serious problems. Isolation is very much tied up with the fact that there are fewer siblings than there used to be. In days gone by, even in a tower block 10 children might be grouped together, and although conditions might be extremely uncomfortable, there would be a community of children with whom to grow up. The same was true of rural families. The farm might be in a very remote area, but there might be six of seven children in the family playing together, rather than the one or two children in a family that one finds today. Isolation is a problem with which we must deal.

Another important problem is the over-dependence on television in our culture--and much of that television is pretty mediocre, to put it mildy. There is no doubt that it is easy to plonk a child down in front of the television and to leave it there while one does something else. There are good programmes on television and it provides some stimulus, but there is much mediocrity. I have met good nursery teachers who have stressed that one of their tasks is to get children to use their minds rather than to sit in passive reception of what is pouring out through the channels.

We must have a strong commitment to pre-school education, which is a crucial part of family policy. I have mentioned housing briefly. Judging from my own constituency, there seems to be a resurgence of housing need among less well-off young married couples. The Government have been brillantly successful in the way in which they have promoted home ownership, and I have always supported the right to buy, which has been of outstanding value. I wholly accept that the housing association movement has much to offer and I am happy that it should be offering more. I hope that the Government's plans for the private rented sector are successful.

All that is fine, but I still face the fact that young couples come to me on Friday evenings in my constituency and say that they have nowhere to live. They may be living

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with their parents. They often say that each has had to go back to his or her own family because there is no room for the whole family in their present house.

The Government must accept that council housing, including new building where appropriate, must be part of what is provided to help such people. Circumstances change ; today, the problem is more local and regional than national. It was a national problem 25 years ago, but that is not true today. There is quite enough housing in many parts of the country. However, I am very concerned about the position of some of my constituents. I do not know what to say to them. They tell me that they need a house, but I can say no more than that I will take up their case with the local authority and that they will have to wait. We must take action to help those people.

As for financial support for families with children, I have already said that I do not believe that tax relief on child care is the right answer. Therefore, I have to face the question of what I favour. Predictably, what I favour is child benefit. The more one looks at the problems that face us, the more one realises that, as an all-round solution, child benefit stands on its own. It has a string of advantages. I do not intend to make a speech about child benefit--I have done that often enough--but I intend to refer to a few relevant points.

First, child benefit is neutral. It goes to everybody. I am delighted to see that the hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field) has arrived on cue. I hope that he will be able to make a contribution to the debate. Child benefit is neutral as between the working and the non-working mother. In principle, that must be right. Cost is involved in bringing up children, whoever we may be. Therefore I should like it to be supported in that way.

If child benefit is increased sufficiently, it will help the large number of single parents without putting the spotlight on them. It has one great advantage over child tax allowances, which the hon. Member for Birkenhead has shown some signs of supporting for practical rather than ultimate reasons : it gives more help proportionately to the people who most need it.

It is absurd to go on grumbling about child benefit on the grounds that it is indiscriminate if at the same time one supports tax allowances that are, to put it mildly, indiscriminate, except that in many cases they discriminate in favour of the better-off. Child benefit can be much better targeted than tax allowances. However, it has other enormous advantages-- not least the sheer simplicity of its administration by comparison with tax allowances, or a combination of tax allowances and means-tested benefits such as family credit and income support.

Then we must ask how much support should be given in the form of child benefit. We cannot say that we believe that child benefit is important if we do not uprate it. At the very least, it has to be uprated, if it is to be a meaningful benefit. However, I am becoming increasingly persuaded that there is a case for doing something far more dramatic.

The Child Poverty Action Group, with others, argues that it would be possible to double child benefit if we scrapped the tax allowance that goes to both married and unmarried couples without children. I am reluctant to take that on, in view of what I said earlier about my support for marriage. I should like a mechanism to be built into the system that supported marriage.

However, looking at the hard realities, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that, rather than giving every married couple support through the tax system, regardless of

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whether they have children, it would be better to transfer the £4.5 billion from them to people who are bringing up children. The case is almost indisputable that those who have children, rather than childless married couples should receive the benefit. That could not happen overnight. It would have to be phased in. We have learnt that over-dramatic changes cannot be made to the system.

We must consider all the options and try to find coherent policies that will help to rid us of some of the deepest social anxieties that all hon. Members share.

10.24 am

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