Work and Families Bill

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Burnley (Kitty Ussher), who made such a powerful speech. I agree with many of her points. However, I hope to deal with matters that have been touched on only briefly in the debate. I read the Work and Families Bill with interest. It details how parents should have more choice through flexible working to create a better work-life balance. It advocates a longer period of paternity pay from 26 to 39 weeks from April 2007. It allows regulations to be made for additional statutory paternity leave and ties in with the Government’s 10-year strategy for child care. That is all good and to be welcomed. However, the measure is incomplete—it is half a Bill. It does not mention those mothers who want to stay at home to bring up their children. What about mothers who are forced back to work for financial reasons but would prefer to stay at home to look after their children? The measure is simply another Government initiative that will break down the family model, forcing parents to go out to work instead of giving them the genuine choice of looking after their children at home. It is a proven fact that children do better when they are brought up in a family environment and even better when one parent is at home to give them constant care and attention in the early years of their lives. I have run the Listening to Wellingborough and Rushden campaign in my constituency for many years. It aims to seek the views of local people, groups and organisations and campaign on their behalf for change. I listen to people through surveys, public meetings, door-to-door canvassing and visiting local residents. Throughout the time that I have run the campaign, the length of maternity pay, paternity leave or flexible working has never come up. However, families’ concern about the amount of tax that they have to pay comes up all the time. They are concerned about the detrimental effects of the inefficient and inconsistent tax credit system. They are worried that they would be financially better off if they lived apart. The Government are determined to get parents back to work as soon as possible after a birth. They have now realised that they need to extend maternity and paternity leave. However, they still believe that, after a few months—whether nine or 12—parents should return to work. They have given no thought to mothers who decide not to work but to bring up their children. Many parents are frustrated because there is no option to stay at home in the early years of their children’s lives. I must declare an interest. I have a son, Thomas, who is nearly five years old. I also have two older children who are 23 and 21. My wife has spent time at home to bring them up. She returned to full-time working only since Thomas started school. As with our other two children, Jennie and I believed that it was vital that she was with them in the early years. We were in a position to do that, but the Government have ensured that that is not an option for most families in our country. Such woolly-minded, liberal thinking will lead to disaster. The Government’s desire to control everything, whether through their nought-to-five curriculum, their insistence on getting children into school as soon as possible or the pressure on mothers to go back to work, constitutes nanny-state, centralist intervention. It is socialist planning that might go down well with Labour Back Benchers, but it is not good for 21st century Britain. It has more in common with the state planning of the former Soviet Union than with a modern, 21st-century country. When will the Government trust families and allow them personal responsibility? When will they allow children to be brought up by their parents, rather than by the state? I have no illusions; we are living in a changing world, and work and family life are very different from what they used to be. I completely understand that many women now choose to pursue a successful career, and that should be welcomed. However, my concerns rest with those women who want to be full-time mothers. The Government have removed the choice for such women to stay at home and bring up their children. The Government have also discriminated against the family by introducing measures that benefit couples living apart. In a recent report published by the charity Care, the tax credit system is blamed as one of the drivers forcing mothers out to work even if they would prefer to look after their children at home. The Government do not regard running a home and bringing up children as a worthwhile career option. They do not believe that it constitutes work, let alone hard work. If Ministers were to spend a few weeks trying to run a home and look after two young children, there could be a rapid rethinking of Government policy.