Tory review backs marriage incentive

The Conservatives have published their social justice policy review, including a proposal for marriage tax incentives.

Former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith unveiled nearly 200 recommendations for tackling social breakdown on Tuesday through support for the family, the voluntary sector, drug and alcohol treatment centres, and the power for charities and parents to take over failing schools.

Current party leader David Cameron endorsed the thrust of the findings in a speech at the Kid's Company charity in south London, saying the tax and benefits system must lose its "anti-marriage bias".

However he said he would not "make the mistake of instantly picking and choosing policies from this report".

Much attention has focused on the marriage plans and a new £400m alcohol tax, and Cameron said he was committed to doing more to help families.

"The importance of family; the challenge of fixing our broken society; the vital need for more social responsibility and less state control, these ideas are what I am all about," he said. "And they are what Iain's report is all about."

Duncan Smith proposed a married couples tax allowance worth about £20 per week, aimed at making it easier for one parent to stay at home to look after children or elderly relatives. The move could cost the taxpayer £3.2bn per year.

Other suggestions included allowing parents to "front load" as much as £2,800 per year of child benefit when their children are in their first three years and claim less when they are older.

Lone parents would be then be expected to work 16 hours per week when youngest child reaches five and 30 hours per week when the youngest child reaches 11.

Commission

The policy group was commissioned by Cameron to look into issues including family breakdown, economic dependency, educational failure, addiction and personal debt soon after he became leader in December 2005.

It is the latest in a series of reviews to issue its final report which will now inform policy-making for the Tories' general election manifesto.

Among his other recommendations, Duncan Smith suggested that disaffected youths should be handed concert tickets and other rewards in return for doing charity work.

Primary school pupils could also be provided with £5 each by the taxpayer to spend on an anti-poverty charity chosen from among several giving classroom presentations, and secondary school students could be compelled to devise and take part in social projects.

Speaking at the launch of the report, Duncan Smith pledged to link the voluntary and the private sector "so you're able to pay people by achievement".

"We'd look to link some of the benefits to the conditionality of the way that people live their lives such as lone parents," he added.

He insisted "we want to support lone parents" and "there's nothing in this report that will damage lone parents at all because we think they have a tough job".

However, calling for lone parents to be "actively seeking work" once their children are over the age of five, he added: "We also think that work is the way out of poverty."

Duncan Smith's report argued that the so-called 'third sector' is best equipped to tackle social breakdown but is currently being held back by government interference and red tape.

"The war on poverty will only be won by liberating the third sector from the incessant pressure to do the government's work in the government's way," it said.

"Innovative social entrepreneurs and grassroots projects need to be trusted and equipped to find new solutions to these intractable problems."

On drugs his recommendations are set to include reversing the downgrading of cannabis from a class B to a class C drug and "cold turkey" treatments for heroin addicts.

Duncan Smith told GMTV on Tuesday that the plan aimed to recognise marriage in the tax system.

"It's about re-establishing a balance," he said.

He added: "What we're saying is the system at the moment is jigged against married couples and we want to set that right, not to give lone parents a bad deal, because they won't get a reduction."

Criticism

The government rejected the proposals, with Cabinet Office minister Ed Miliband warning the new tax system would damage children.

"I don't think that paying £20 a week to all married couples in this country - which would cost billions of pounds and I've got no idea how Iain would pay for it - is the right thing to do," he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

"What we should be doing is supporting children. We shouldn't be saying because of the decisions your parents have made, whether a spouse has left another, that children should lose out, and whatever Iain says that is the implication."

While the government believed in the family as a "bedrock of society", Miliband said it was not "right for politicians to come on and preach".

Duncan Smith's plan for an extra alcohol tax could also cause controversy.

The levy would add about seven pence to the price of a pint of beer to help fund treatment of alcohol abuse.

The suggestion has already provoked criticism from some Conservative commentators and prompted a source close to the Tory leadership to say that some proposals "will be adopted, others wont be".

From the left, the Labour-leaning IPPR think tank has also warned against the Tories being too prescriptive in their family policies.

"Family breakdown is an important issue but the social justice policy agenda is about much more than that," acting director Ian Kearns said ahead of the release of the report.

"It's what families do, not what they look like that counts and it is naïve to think that support for marriage will be an effective response.

"Public policy needs to focus on relationship and parenting support services for a wide range of relationships, including but not limited to marriage.

"But to be convincing on social justice, Cameron's Conservatives need to deal with helping people off benefits, in-work poverty reduction and the issue of work-life balance. At the very least, they should commit themselves to the target of ending child poverty by 2020, not just having it as an aspiration."

However volunteering charity CSV welcomed moves to boost the role of charities.

"We're in favour of encouraging volunteering. People are motivated by a range of different factors," executive director Dame Elisabeth Hoodless said.

"Tickets to rock concerts, entry to the Olympics or items for a CV are all factors that encourage or sustain volunteers.

"Eleven million people are waiting to be asked to volunteer. The real challenge is to ask these people to participate.

"There is a social inclusion issue. The families of many young people cannot afford to volunteer unless support is available. CSV believes everyone should have the chance to volunteer. Without reimbursement volunteering would be limited to the rich."