THE Conservatives unveiled new plans for family policy yesterday with a pledge not to be too “prissy” about parents’ lifestyles.
A series of new measures will be aimed at improving childcare for “real families” and the Tories promised to approach the subject with “humility and care”.
In the first detailed set of policy principles launched under Michael Howard’s leadership, the party was keen not to be seen to be telling people how to live their lives after the row over gay adoption under Iain Duncan Smith. Mr Duncan Smith imposed a three-line whip in May 2002 instructing MPs to vote against gays adopting children. The move led to the resignation of John Bercow from the front bench.
Mr Howard handed the new job of Shadow Secretary for the Family to Theresa May, a key Tory moderniser, last week. Yesterday’s family policy speech by David Willetts, the Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary, showed that the modernisers were back in the driving seat.
Speaking with Mrs May beside him, Mr Willetts outlined a six-point practical approach devoid of moral diktat. He said: “The last thing that families need is politicians adding to the chorus of blame that has been heaped on Britain’s families. Instead, we want to offer parents something very different: support and encouragement, they must be our watchwords.”
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He said that the Tories recognised that more people cohabited and that there were more lone parents. “But equally there are some deep things that stay pretty much the same,” he said. “Most people still spend most of their lives in families headed by a married couple. The evidence is still that a healthy marriage is the best environment for bringing up children.
“But we must not be too prissy about this. I believe it was George Bernard Shaw who observed rather drily that ‘morality is the trade unionism of the married’.”
Mr Willetts said that the Conservatives wanted to remove obstacles to the supply of more childcare, such as planning regulations, in an effort to provide more affordable places for middle-class parents.
He promised to simplify the 26 different funding streams for childcare providers so that they were freed from the complexity of accounting and auditing to so many different bodies. He also said he wanted to reverse the culture of bidding for childcare projects so that funding was more reliable.
Mr Willetts said he was studying ways of increasing the number of childminders and pledged not to abolish the Government’s tax credits system, but to reform it to avoid confusing parents.