EU FP5 Thematic Network: The Social Problem and Societal Problematisation of Men and Masculinities

UK NATIONAL REPORT ON LAW AND POLICY ADDRESSING MEN´’S PRACTICES WORKPACKAGE 3

Keith Pringle with the assistance of Alex Raynor and Jackie Millett

1.  Key points

(i) It is striking that men figure so little explicitly in governmental discourses compared to their prominence in much of the critical (and not so critical) academic literature in the United Kingdom over the past ten years.

(ii) When men are addressed explicitly in government-produced material, this is far more likely to be in early-stage consultation documents or in enquiry reports than in hard recommendations, advanced consultative documents or (most of all) Acts of Parliament.

(iii) As in all the other UK National Reports, there are clearly overlaps in the governmental material between the 4 areas of this analysis: for instance, social exclusion and health; social exclusion and home and work. However, partly because gender (and in particular men) figure far less prominently in governmental material than in the academic (or even the statistical) data, then the overlaps are much less obvious here.

(iv) Men as violent partners have been the focus of some considerable attention in government discourses: certainly more than men as violent fathers – and this discrepancy needs some urgent investigation. Partly because some research clearly suggests that violent partners may be violent fathers too; and vice versa.

2.  The national, legal, policy and political background and context

(a)general information on legal, policy and political background

In the United Kingdom parliamentary system of government (which lacks a bill of rights or written constitution), policy-making power rests almost wholly with the political party which is in office and which therefore generally has a majority in the House of Commons, the main legislative body of the British Parliament. Draft laws are known as “bills”. Bills which become passed as law are known as “Acts” of Parliament. They are the main means of legislation. However, there are other, ancillary, methods of making laws within the British system such as: “case law” developed from individual judgements made in courts by judges; judgements made within the European Court of Justice; “regulations” have the force of law and may be passed by Parliament as additions to existing Acts of Parliament; Directives and (in practice more rarely) Regulations issued by the European Union.

Before the government writes a Bill to present for consideration by the two Houses of Parliament, typically it may issue a whole series of consultation papers. Strictly speaking, it is the formal assent by the monarch which creates law: however, the royal assent is in practice automatic once a Bill has been passed by Parliament. However, even when an Act has been passed and given the royal assent, the government may choose (for various reasons) not to implement various parts of the Act – or may choose to phase in different parts of an Act at different times.

The legislative and administrative frameworks in both Scotland and Northern Ireland have for a considerable period differed to various extents from those in England. For instance, child care law is different in Scotland; the abortion law is different in Northern Ireland. Both Scotland and Northern Ireland have characteristic local government structures. And, in various ways, the judicial systems are separate. The advent of the United Kingdom Labour Administration in 1997 ushered in devolved governments in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales which in many ways have increased these tendencies; and maintained the differentials in self-government between the constituent parts of the United Kingdom. Under devolution, Scotland has retained (and indeed increased) its position as the “most devolved” part of the United Kingdom. The Welsh Assembly and Executive are considerably less devolved. And the situation in Northern Ireland with, currently, a multi-party Executive is largely the product of, and remains contingent upon, the particular political environment there. Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales also continue to send members of parliament to the United Kingdom Parliament; and the United Kingdom Parliament and Executive still retain major responsibilities for (and over) those countries to various different extents. England, and the regions of England, do not as yet have devolved assemblies or executives: in a sense, the United Kingdom Parliament and Executive is the Parliament and Executive for England as well.

In the United Kingdom system (without a written constitution) there is considerable scope for legislative creation by the judges via, as noted above, “case law”. For instance, much law in the area of child care consists of “case law” built up over several years as individual judicial judgements have elaborated the workings of the main legislation, the 1989 Children Act. The judges in Britain are independent of the political system. However, it should be noted that key figures in the judicial and legal system are government ministers and not merely government appointees: in England, the Attorney General; the Solicitor General; and the Lord Chancellor.

The main United Kingdom ministerial departments influential in the framing of legislation in the fields we are scrutinising here are: the Home Office (ie the interior ministry),the Lord Chancellor’s Department, the Department of Health, the Department of Social Security, the Department of Trade and Industry and the Social Exclusion Unit within the Cabinet Office.

However, it is important to understand where the centre of political gravity lies in the United Kingdom as far as policy-making is concerned. Notwithstanding all the issues mentioned above including devolution, the United Kingdom system of government is still relatively centralised compared to many European countries. Moreover, potentially it gives far more freedom and unchecked power to the central executive to create policy and legislation than in most other democracies, provided the ruling party has an absolute majority in the House of Commons. And, given, the “first past the post” principle adopted in the United Kingdom national elections, it is relatively easy for a party to achieve an absolute majority. Moreover, when we talk about the central executive here we mean not simply the party in government but, as a result of the way cabinet government has developed in the United Kingdom, the office of Prime Minister itself. Even though the Prime Minister is not Head of State (ie that is the monarch), under the existing system the Prime Minister is potentially a very powerful (and considerably unchecked) constitutional figure. And this fact has been particularly crucial in the course of British Social Policy since 1979.

Since 1997, the UK government has been a Labour Party Administration with a considerable absolute majority in the House of Commons – and the Labour Party predominates numerically (to different extents) in the Scottish and Welsh Assemblies though does not rule there necessarily without coalition partners. As noted in the North of Ireland, the particular conditions have resulted in a multi-party executive, the biggest party being the Official Unionist (ie a conservative) Party whose leader therefore holds the office of “First Minister” there.

The present government has implemented a policy of “gender mainstreaming” in terms of legislative programmes. It is probably too early to assess the effectiveness of this strategy. However, we should not assume that “gender mainstreaming” necessarily represents progress in terms of social justice – although of course, it may. The manner by which it is implemented and the degree to which it is combined with more concerted gender programmes are crucial to its effectiveness. Where “gender mainstreaming” becomes simply an excuse for avoiding concerted gender programmes, it represents a step backwards.

As noted, the situation in the United Kingdom remains to be assessed over time: “the jury is out”. However, the United Kingdom is a signatory of CEDAW, having ratified the Convention in 1986. Significantly, when the CEDAW Committee reviewed the United Kingdom situation in mid-1999, it made several criticisms of the country’s approach to gender issues including recommendations about reform of both the Sex Discrimination Act (SDA) and the Equal Opportunities Act (EOP). The Committee indicated that the latter was in some respects “outdated” whilst the former (unlike the Convention) did not accept the principle of positive discrimination (CEDAW Press Release WOM/1132, June 1999). The Committee also raised other issues, not least the failure to involve men and boys in family planning issues when the United Kingdom had the highest levels of teenage conception in Europe: seven times higher than in the Netherlands. And one of the Committee experts reminded the United Kingdom about the importance of male responsibility in terms of promoting sexual health. These comments should at least alert commentators to the possibility that whilst “gender mainstreaming” in the United Kingdom seems impressive as a concept, the complementary requirement for more concerted action on gender issues may not always be fulfilled in the United Kingdom.

As we shall see below, United Kingdom government guidance and legislation is generally far less gender specific on many social issues than we might have expected, given the academic survey presented in Workpackage 1 - and even, to some extent, given the survey of the government’s own statistics presented in Workpackage 2. This

striking gap, between academic and (to a degree) statistical analysis on the one hand and government action on the other hand, is one of the most significant findings from the series of surveys in the United Kingdom carried out under the aegis of this Network. The reasons for this discrepancy need further urgent study: see section 7 below. At this stage, the finding may be regarded as potentially suggesting once again that “gender mainstreaming” so far not been accompanied by sufficient concerted gender-focused programmes aimed at countering sexism and patriarchal relations of power.

(b) Timescales

The focus of this report will be on the situation in the United Kingdom post-1997, though some attention will be paid to previous years. This is for two reasons. First, it is clear that, with the advent of the Labour Administration, the emphasis on gender as an issue changed and, in some ways, became considerably more visible than hitherto [the question of effectiveness of initiatives is of course another question, as noted above]. Secondly, there has been a massive increase in the amount of governmental/quasi-governmental literature pertinent to gender and men’s practices since 1997 [once again, the question of effectiveness is a separate one]. Given limitations of space, for these reasons I have decided to prioritise the post-1997 material.

3.  Home and work

Despite gender mainstreaming under the Labour Administration installed in May 1997, there are relatively few major initiatives which focus on men in a specific way. Some of the most important are mentioned below:-

(a)  Parental leave/Paternity leave

Throughout the 1980s, the Conservative Administrations of Mrs. Thatcher strenuously resisted efforts by most of the other members of the European Union to introduce a EU Directive regarding parental leave. Following the Maastricht Treaty and the “opt-out” of the UK from its “Social Chapter”, the other member states were able to go ahead on this initiative without the UK – which of course had no statutory right to parental or paternity leave. In 1996 the Directive was promulgated. Soon after taking office in May 1997, the new Labour Administration in the United Kingdom pledged to accept the “Social Chapter” and implement that particular Directive in particular. This was carried through by “The Maternity and Parental Leave etc. Regulations 1999”. Under these regulations, women and men employees (full and part time) with one’s year continuous service with the same employer, who expect to have parental responsibility for a child born, or adopted, on or after 15th December 1999 were, and are, entitled to parental leave. Thirteen weeks can be taken by each parent (if both fulfil the previous requirement) for each child born on or after 15th December 1999 and it can be taken until a child is five years old (or 18 years if the child is disabled) – or within five years of placement in the case of adoption. However, statutory parental leave in the United Kingdom is unpaid. Moreover, in can be taken only in blocks of a week at a time and a maximum of only four weeks can be taken in each year. Parents of disabled children are able to take the leave in blocks of less than a week. Employees have to give their employer 21 days’ notice of the intention to take parental leave, and employers have the right to postpone the leave if to grant the request would unduly disrupt the business.

It is clear from this description that statutory parental leave in the United Kingdom is a minimal right – and the take up has been very low indeed (about 3% of all employed parents, divided equally in terms of numbers between women and men: the amount of time taken by women and men has not yet been found by the author though). This is hardly surprising when one considers the difficulty encountered by many Nordic countries in encouraging men to take significant amounts of parental leave even though their provisions are generally far more extensive. In fact, the United Kingdom provisions remain among the most minimal in the European Union. And there is still no statutory paternity leave at all.