The Centre for Social Justice

The Centre for Social Justice

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Release date: Sunday 5th December 2010

PRESS RELEASE FROM THE CENTRE FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE
RELEASE TIME: EMBARGOED UNTIL 00.01 MONDAY 6 DECEMBER 2010
Leading think tank disputes BBC family poll and reasserts the devastating effect of family breakdown
Claims that warnings about the demise of family life are “unfounded” are disputed today by one of the country’s leading think-tanks.
The Centre for Social Justice was commenting on a poll conducted for BBC Radio 5 Live’s “Family Week”, which based its central conclusion on the fact that 97 per cent of people say that their family makes them happy.
CSJ executive director Gavin Poole said that the BBC’s conclusion was “superficial” and risked breeding complacency about the extent of family breakdown in modern Britain and the damage done to children and adults alike.
Mr Poole said: “It will come as no surprise to most people that families are a source of happiness. The vast majority of people find comfort every day in their family, which helps them through good times and bad.

“In fact, all the poll really does is highlight the importance of the family. It is for this very reason that over the past four years, the CSJ has investigated the state of the family and made a raft of recommendations to strengthen it, such as better relationship education and tax breaks for marriage.
“However, we should be in no doubt that the family is under pressure. Our research, published in the ground-breaking reports Breakdown Britain (2006) and Breakthrough Britain (2007) found that:
“ Since the early 1970s there has been a decline in marriage, with a doubling in the numbers of lone parent families from 1 million in 1980 to at least 2 million today. One in four children grows up in a single parent household and is far more likely to experience poverty as a result.
“The ongoing rise in family breakdown affecting young children has been driven by the dissolution of cohabiting partnerships. The majority of these are less stable than marriage (recent official figures showed that three times as many cohabiting parents had split up as married parents by the child’s third birthday)
“YouGov polling conducted for the CSJ showed that those not brought up by both parents are 75% more likely to fail at school, 70% more likely to be a drug addict, 50% more likely to have alcohol problems, 40% more likely to have serious debt problems and 35% more likely to experience unemployment/welfare dependency
“Crime is strongly correlated with family breakdown – 70% of young offenders are from non-intact families and one third of prisoners were in local authority care.
“The Costs of family breakdown are estimated to be well over £20bn per annum.”
New statistics and commentary on the mistaken assessment of British family history are to be released this week by the CSJ to mark the fourth anniversary of the chilling state-of-the-nation report on family fragility – Breakdown Britain.
Family expert at the CSJ, Dr Samantha Callan said: “Whilst the vast majority of young people and adults aspire to marriage and most still get there eventually, it is now commonplace to have several less stable relationships en route. This is a problem when children are conceived along the way and go through these usually painful transitions and often lose track of their fathers in the process.”
“Around a quarter of all parents are no longer living together by the time a child is 5, indicating a culture of breakdown described by senior family court judge Sir Paul Coleridge as a "never-ending carnival" of human misery.”
Mr Poole added: “With the majority of the population aspiring to marriage, the state does not reflect that aspiration. There is a lack of support into and through marriage and very little recognition of marriage in our state system.”
The two CSJ publications coming out this week highlight the need for the new Government to take action to prevent family breakdown by

• restating the importance of marriage (and reinstating its distinctiveness in Government forms)

• fostering voluntary-sector relationship education initiatives at key life points such as the transition to parenthood

• making couple relationship support mandatory in Family Intervention Projects working with our most chaotic families per annum.

For media inquiries, please contact Nick Wood of Media Intelligence Partners Ltd on 07889 617003 or 0203 008 8146 or Alistair Thompson on 07970 162225 or 0203 008 8145.

ENDS

NOTES TO EDITORS

The Centre for Social Justice is an independent think tank established, by Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP in 2004, to seek effective solutions to the poverty that blights parts of Britain.

In July 2007 the group published Breakthrough Britain. Ending the Costs of Social Breakdown. The paper presented over 190 policy proposals aimed at ending the growing social divide in Britain.

Subsequent reports have put forward proposals for reform of the police, prisons, social housing, the asylum system and family law. Other reports have dealt with street gangs and early intervention to help families with young children.

The Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP stood down as Chairman of the Centre on his appointment as Secretary of State for Work and Pensions in May 2010 and is now the Founder and Patron.