Child Poverty Bill

This is clearly a probing amendment. It raises a rather specific issue on which I seek the opinion of the Minister and Members of the Committee. I shall not need to speak to it at great length, but I hope that I shall get some responses. For those who want to make a formal commitment to one another or to their child, there is today really only one option, which is marriage. My purpose this afternoon is to draw attention to the case for one or more alternative kinds of formal commitment that parents could make. Many couples are scared of marriage—sadly, sometimes because of their experience of the family in which they grew up. Is there not a case for a formula of commitment that would be less scary than marriage but which would none the less help to encourage parents to think carefully about their obligations to the child whom they brought into the world and, in that context, to think about their obligations to one another? In 2004, the right honourable Frank Field, who has already been mentioned today in another context, introduced a Private Member’s Bill in another place proposing that a welcoming and naming ceremony be made available to all parents. In that ceremony would be an option for one or both parents to make a commitment to their child. It might be an absolute commitment or even, by choice, a ““promise to do my best”” kind of commitment. Amendment 40 suggests that, at the time of registration of the birth of a child, the registrar be required to hand to each parent information as to their responsibilities as parents and to draw to their attention the possibility of holding a welcoming and naming ceremony. Might this alternative to making no commitment at all find favour with some of those parents who are not yet ready for the much greater commitment of marriage? Having just celebrated the 50th anniversary of my wedding, I am conscious both of the obligation and of the joy and privilege of having a marriage. In so far as what I suggest was successful in causing the parents to stop and think, it would surely make a substantial contribution to reducing the risk both of child poverty and of economic disadvantage for the child. I beg to move.