Civitas

The Prime Minister’s response to the rise coincided with the publication of the Welfare Green Paper. With lone parents disproportionately likely to be out of work and claiming benefits, Blair made it clear that one implication of the Green Paper will be to put greater pressure on lone parents to enter employment. Furthermore, Blair's comments on the issue suggested that he is finally acknowledging that it is the organisation of his very own welfare system which has contributed to this dependency. However, what he has yet to acknowledge is the fact that current welfare arrangements are not only encouraging lone-parent dependency, they arguably also encourage lone-parenthood per se – at the very least in the sense that they provide perverse financial incentives for parents to leave their partners, and in that they in no way support or promote the couple family. Not just spokesmen from the Catholic Church, who argue that there is ‘an inbuilt bias against marriage’ but also the Liberal Democrats, directly blame the benefit system on the rising number of lone parents. Work and Pensions spokesman David Laws pointed to the fact that the current system presents a financial ‘disincentive’ for lone parents to re-partner.

Yet despite the evidence - particularly that from our overseas counterparts - the government continues to insist that the rise in the number of lone parents is simply a factor of that ethereal scapegoat ‘social change’.