The Government’s proposed changes to divorce law would weaken the family

Mar 4, 2020 by Jill

by Michael Farmer, Conservative Home:

Much has been said about the Government’s need to maintain the support of red wall voters. Influential new think tank, Onward, stresses the greater premium they place on ‘belonging’ and on resilient communities, than on the relentless pursuit of ever greater liberty. Doing justice to these values requires investment in social, not just physical, infrastructure.

So the 2019 Conservative Manifesto statement that a strong society needs strong families is a line they need to prioritise. Recently, Ranil Jayawardena, the party’s vice-chair of policy, supported by dozens of other Conservative MPs, called for a cabinet-level Minister to coordinate family-strengthening efforts across departments. This is the bold ‘machinery of government’ change required to address our family breakdown crisis and implement manifesto commitments to champion family hubs, improve the Troubled Families programme, and review the children’s care system.

We compare very badly with other OECD countries with our high rates of single parenthood, divorce and separation, and large numbers of children entering local authority care. Broken and dysfunctional family lives and the absence of fathers drive so many of the social problems this Government is grappling with, particularly knife and gang crime, county lines, mental ill-health, educational underachievement, early pregnancy, drug and alcohol addiction, and poor productivity.

Yet instead of charging ahead with these promised reforms, they have picked up David Gauke’s Divorce, Dissolution and Separation Bill which fell when Parliament was dissolved last year.

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Read also: This devious law that lets you kill off your marriage, no questions asked by Ann Farmer, The Conservative Woman