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What we want to do is reform the welfare system in the way that Tony Blair talked about 13 years ago but never achieved – a system that was created for the days after the Second World War. That prize is now I think achievable.
Kids are meant to believe that their stepping stone to massive money is ‘The X Factor.’ Luck is great, but most of life is hard work. We do not celebrate people who have made success out of serious hard work.
We do not celebrate people who have made success out of serious hard work.
If you look at the footballers, you look at our celebrity culture, we seem to be saying, ‘This is the way you want to be’. We seem to be a society that celebrates all the wrong people.
We have to challenge the whole idea that it’s acceptable for a society like Britain to have such a significant number of people who do not work one day of the week and don’t have any possibility of improving the quality of their lives.
We do a disservice to society if we ignore the evidence which shows that stable families tend to be associated with better outcomes for children.
A system that was originally designed to support the poorest in society is now trapping them in the very condition it was supposed to alleviate.
I am an optimist about the UK. We have been involved in trade with our European partners, which we will always be doing whatever this relationship is. We are a member of the EU. That gives us benefits. But we have to figure out where that is going. In the world, we are a global trader already.
By measuring the proportion of children living with the same parents from birth and whether their parents report a good quality relationship we are driving home the message that social programmes should promote family stability and avert breakdown.
When families are strong and stable, so are children – showing higher levels of wellbeing and more positive outcomes. But when things go wrong – either through family breakdown or a damaged parental relationship – the impact on a child’s later life can be devastating.