Children’s Commissioner ‘misses opportunity to tackle Govt squeamishness about the family’

The Children’s Commissioner for England has called on the next Prime Minister to do more to help families stay together, saying the Government has been too “squeamish” about standing up for the family.

However, despite acknowledging the problem of family breakdown in her independent report, Dame Rachel de Souza went on to claim that family structure was less important than ‘relational quality’.

The Christian Institute’s Ciarán Kelly said she had “missed the opportunity to state plainly that children do best when they grow up with their married, biological parents”.

‘Squeamish’

Data collected by Dame Rachel de Souza shows that children fare much better in stable families, which she said provided “most powerful foundation for the future” and offers “universal values and provable protections”.

“What we should be supporting is stability and keeping couples together. We know that children in loving families do incredibly well and do better. That doesn’t mean there is any blame for those who do not, but it’s a goal that we all want to achieve.”

Dame Rachel noted: “It’s interesting that governments tend to be a bit squeamish about talking about family”, explaining that adults and children told her researchers that families “are the most important things in their lives”.

She added: “For whatever reason governments have ducked it, they could and should engage with it in a really positive way.”

Family structure ‘less important’

The Commissioner noted that 44 per cent of children do not spend their whole childhood living with both biological parents, while a massive 23 per cent grow up in single-parent households – almost double the European average.

Yet she went on to claim that whilst family relationships played an important part in child outcomes, the composition of the family was less significant.

She said: “I found having a stable and loving family, whatever form that takes, can determine a child’s future success”, adding that there should be a move away from “focusing solely on formation and measuring households” and instead a move towards the relational quality of families.

Marriage

The Christian Institute’s Ciarán Kelly welcomed the Commissioner’s desire to see families stay together, but said de Souza’s “own squeamishness had led to a missed opportunity”.

“It is certainly true that the Government has done little to keep families together – quite the opposite in fact, with the recent introduction of no-fault divorce. But Dame Rachel is wrong to downplay the importance of family structure.

“Research consistently shows that children do best when they grow up with their married, biological mum and dad. And that’s true even when controlling for education, income, and other factors.”

Family breakdown

In 2019, a report from the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) highlighted the dramatic effect family breakdown has on young people, with those whose parents split up significantly more likely to experience alcoholism, homelessness, debt, to get in trouble with the police, to underachieve in school, or to become pregnant while still a teenager.

CSJ Chairman Sir Iain Duncan Smith said in the report: “The stark fact is that the break-up of family relationships is one of the quickest routes to poverty.”

And in 2017, a study by the Social Trends Institute reported that marriage is “associated with more family stability for children across the globe”, while cohabitation is “typically associated with more instability”.