It’s official: families don’t need fathers. Last week the government declared that fertility clinics should no longer be obliged to consider the child’s need for a father when providing women with sperm for IVF.
By a freak of timing, the health minister Caroline Flint made this announcement shortly after a German laboratory revealed a startling fertility breakthrough. At Göttingen University, six baby mice have been successfully bred from artificially created sperm, opening up the possibility that women could in future be impregnated with sperm grown from their own stem cells.
It may be years before the experiments in a German laboratory become the norm in Britain’s IVF clinics. But in the meantime, single and lesbian women will be spared the difficulty of establishing that their babies will have a father figure. Flint is, however, anxious to reassure the public that fatherless children won’t lose out. “What’s important,” she says, “is that the children are going to be, as far as we know, part of a loving home.” So all you need is love then.
Flint’s confidence in the power of love seemed to be shared by David Cameron, as he sought last week to probe the causes of youth crime. In his “hug a hoodie” speech, the Conservative leader expressed concern at the unfair labelling of young people whose delinquent behaviour was, in his view, often connected with a lack of affection. “It is about relationships,” said Cameron. “It is about emotional security. It is about love.”
Cameron is a famously devoted father. But neither he, nor indeed ministers such as Flint, can really be under the illusion that love is enough. Family stability and long-term commitment by fathers are critical factors in enabling children to flourish. A hug is a manifestation of that commitment, not a substitute for it.
In a speech on family life last month, Cameron seemed to acknowledge this, alluding to the importance of marriage in providing children with stability and declaring that government should “support and sustain” the married family. He quoted from the evidence that has piled up over the past 20 years showing that children who experience family break-up and father absence are at a much greater risk of disadvantage. That disadvantage is not confined to financial hardship, but affects mental health and educational outcomes, and substantially increases the risk of delinquency. Children do need fathers and hoodies need fathers most of all.
But a big gap remains in the Cameron argument. The new, caring Tories have to show the link between loving words and actions. And no, this is not about fashioning policies, least of all detailed manifesto commitments. Those can wait. But Cameron and his party must, in the meantime, take the trouble to explain what his “compassionate Conservatism” means in practice.
Like Tony Blair before him (or rather, like the younger, idealistic Blair), Cameron wants to root out the causes of crime, not just deal with the consequences on the streets.
The Conservative leader believes rap music encourages crime, that family breakdown is partly to blame and that children on tough estates need somewhere to play. Many will agree. Our anger and unease about delinquency, knifings and Asbo kids are tempered by concern about the lives led by those hooded youths and how they came to be so detached from “normal” childhood. But politicians who aspire to lead us out of these problems, to a better place with safer streets and fewer fractured lives, must offer us more than the diagnosis. They must show us they have worked out the cure.
So what should Cameron do? He could look across the Atlantic, to a gently spoken but determined practitioner of compassionate conservatism. Dr Wade Horn, assistant secretary for children and families in the US Department of Health, is about as far from Caroline Flint as it is possible to imagine.
A former child psychologist, Horn believes passionately in the importance of fathers. Clinical experience in dealing with damaged young lives prompted him to set up the National Fatherhood Initiative.
Horn comes down firmly on the side of responsible fatherhood. Not absent dads and certainly not test-tube dads. But for Horn, ensuring the presence of committed fathers requires some “tough love”. So he supports the robust US welfare rules — enacted with cross-party support during the Clinton administration — which mean that a benefit cheque cannot stand in for a father. He also believes in strict child support enforcement to chase up “deadbeat dads”, which (in stark contrast to the collapse of our Child Support Agency) has raised collection rates by 50%. Combined with programmes of marriage and fatherhood education, Horn’s message is clear: marriage matters, fathers are essential, welfare is not a way of life.
One consequence of such policies in Britain would be that lone mothers would be less able to rely on government support. That’s not such a comfortable message for Cameron to sell. But if he really wants to stem the growth in lone-parent households — currently standing at 27% of all children in the UK and way ahead of the rest of Europe — he knows he has to make the case. So he needs to explain what is wrong with our current welfare system.
Taking a cue from the Institute for Fiscal Studies, Cameron could point out that Gordon Brown’s tax credit system, by substituting for a male wage, has made it less likely that mothers will need or declare the presence of their child’s father. Not everyone will love him for saying so. But if Cameron really wants to write fathers back into the script he needs to make this clear, and to assert that a Conservative government will not act as parents in their place.
In another accident of timing, the Church of England General Synod last week came off the fence and called on the government to remove the financial penalties on marriage in the tax and benefit system. A key factor in carrying the motion was evidence presented to the bishops about the dismal consequences for children of father absence.
While the synod will not get the chance to reform British welfare, Cameron just might. But he must show he appreciates the scale of his task and that he understands it will take more than loving words to carry him through.
Jill Kirby heads the Family Policy Group at the Centre for Policy Studies
Minette Marrin is away
