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It’ll Take More Than A Few Parenting Classes To Compensate For The Loss Of Parental Leave!

Jacqui Smith doesn't think Cameron is going to win over any female voters with his latest policy on maternity leave.

By Jacqui Smith

17 Oct 2011, 16:00

For a Prime Minister who has successfully and believably portrayed himself as a man in touch with his own and the nation’s families, David Cameron is presiding over a real mess in the Government’s family policy at the moment.

At the weekend, Children’s Minister Sarah Teather was briefing her plans for free parenting classes for those with children under the age of 6.  The scheme will be piloted from the middle of 2012 in three areas of the country.  Parents will learn about communicating and listening, building strong relationships and, very importantly in my book, how to discipline their children.  We only need to look at the viewing figures for programmes like Super Nanny or Nanny 911 to know that there is a real appetite for this sort of help.  

The last government ensured that parenting support was made available to those whose children had already shown signs of going off the rails with parenting orders and the Family Intervention Projects.  This was a good thing, but had the effect of suggesting that there was a stigma around taking advice on how to be a good parent.  Sarah Teather is right to want to remove this stigma with universal provision.

There are questions about whether state-sanctioned parenting classes will have the desired take-up, whether there are other more imaginative ways to get the same messages over and whether there will be ongoing support when all the easy certainties of parenting get thrown out of the window by the strops and sulks of the teenage years.  However, it is a good initiative and, in my view, deserves support.

The problem is that it was being briefed at exactly the same time as Equalities Minister, Lynne Featherstone felt the need to use an Observer interview to warn against some pretty draconian anti-family policies being currently considered at the highest levels of this so-called family friendly government.  Under the auspices of promoting growth, private equity millionaire Adrian Beecroft and the PM’s policy adviser Steve Hilton are reportedly proposing scaling back maternity leave and flexible working.  I’m as keen as the next person to see this government do something about promoting growth in the economy, but talk about aiming at the wrong target!  

I’m damn sure it isn’t Mums and Dads having time off to be with their young babies or reorganising their working hours to fit around caring for sick children or older relatives that is responsible for growth figures flat-lining at the moment.  Of course, I understand that small businesses worry about the cost and impact of having to find maternity replacements for workers taking their leave.  That’s why it is right for government to support them in these costs.  But overall, research frequently shows that there is a strong business case for enabling skilled workers to be able to combine work with their family responsibilities.  If they are forced to choose, people will rightly choose their families with serious financial implications for themselves and major costs of recruitment and retraining for their employers.  

All the parenting classes in the world won’t make up for the stress on families of charging back to work straight after giving birth or of having their children and elderly relatives left to fend for themselves because they can’t flex their work hours to suit employers and family needs.

David Cameron can prove that he really understands what it’s like to combine a family with a working life by stamping hard on these ideas now.  He can’t leave it to female Lib Dem ministers to try to ensure the government lives up to its family friendly label.  If he doesn’t, voters will rightly conclude that for this government, Tory dogma will always trump family life.