
This article originally appeared on the Conservative Home website.
“The family, religious association, and local community… cannot be regarded as the external products of man’s thought and behaviour; they are essentially prior to the individual and are the indispensable supports of belief and conduct. Release man from the contexts of community and you get not freedom and rights but intolerable aloneness and subjection to demoniac fears and passions”.
Here, conservative philosopher Robert Nisbet explains why we Tories place such importance on the family as the fundamental building block of society. To paraphrase another conservative, our party is nothing if not the party of family, and there has never been such an electoral demand for an unashamedly family-friendly programme for government.
This prospectus must include concrete proposals to fundamentally improve and strengthen the UK’s woefully inadequate paternity leave policy. The social, economic, and political benefits of grasping the nettle of reform are inescapable and undeniable for our party.
It’s worth briefly reflecting on how poor paternity leave in this country is. At present, most fathers can take two weeks off once their baby is born and are eligible to receive a maximum of £184.03 each week – well under half the amount earned by someone working full time on the Living Wage.
This means that we compare terribly with other European countries, with most of our neighbours either offering fathers full pay, more time away from work, or a combination of both, immediately after their baby is born. Spain, for example, allows men to take 16 weeks off work at full pay.
Can anybody seriously argue that the status quo represents the most effective way of fulfilling a core part of the conservative mission: to preserve, empower, and protect the family unit? For many fathers who take paternity leave (and unsurprisingly some – especially those on low pay – don’t as they can’t afford to), two weeks proves an impossibly short time to learn the basics of parenting, provide sufficient support to their partner, and bond with the new baby.
Long-term, two-tier parenting can become ingrained, with the great potential for fathers to play a fuller role when it comes to childcare stymied by an inability to lay firm foundations from Day One. This imbalance can lead to weaker, more fractious families – something that no conservative could support.
Now, you might be thinking that this this is all well and good, but wouldn’t extending and strengthening paternity leave be a reckless use of public money, economically irresponsible, and place an unbearable burden on business? Well, not according to the research. Recent data shows that the policy would cost taxpayers a maximum of £1.6 billion but lead to a £26 billion increase in economic output.
The UK’s rapidly falling birthrate – the lowest ever was recorded earlier this year – clearly represents a significant economic threat. If current trends continue, economic growth and public services will fall victim to an insufficient number of workers supporting a growing elderly population. Current levels of net migration will pale into insignificance when we inevitably have no choice but to use labour from abroad to strengthen our workforce. We simply cannot afford not to take action now.
Would improving paternity leave single-handedly solve this crisis? No. However, there can be no question that a difficult or traumatic start to life as a parent facilitated by an insufficient period of paternity leave deters parents having more children. By incorporating paternity leave reform into a wider family-friendly package, we can help to safeguard the economy of the future.
Far from stifling enterprise, this move would be fundamentally pro-business. Like it or not, fathers are placing much greater importance on flexible working and a healthy work-life balance than previous generations, especially post-pandemic. Employers offering a package that caters to this demand will reap the rewards when it comes to attracting talent and creating a loyal and hardworking workforce.
Economics aside, this unashamedly pro-family approach is essential to the political fortunes of our party. The Conservative Party’s unpopularity with younger voters has been well reported, but it’s worth remembering that just 14 per cent of men and 15 per cent of women between the ages of 25 and 49 voted for the party at the last general election.
Transforming this woeful situation in one term will inevitably require a radical policy offering that makes it easier, more affordable, and more attractive to start a family. We will not create a new generation of Conservative voters if we deny younger people the opportunity to do the most conservative of things: start a family.
Broadly speaking, reform of paternity leave needs to revolve around three key pillars: money, duration, and flexibility. In short, we need to see new Dads face less of a financial penalty as soon as their baby is born, be eligible for more than two short weeks of leave, and be able to take their time off in a greater number of chunks. Any parent will tell you that the most challenging moments during the newborn period aren’t necessarily during the first two weeks, something which the system needs to reflect far more effectively.
Our party is at its best – and most electable – when we can combine sound economic policies with genuine social reform. An attractive offer on families, with a better paternity leave at its heart, would not only chime with the finest Conservative traditions but help to propel us back into power in 2029.
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