Guest post from Nick Clegg: 'This is a watershed moment in the fight for a family-friendly Britain'

[MumsnetGuestPosts]

It’s not often that government legislation kick starts a revolution. Yet our Children and Families Act, which has just received Royal Assent, does just that. It takes us another important step closer to ensuring the more family-friendly Britain that Mumsnet and Mumsnetters have been campaigning for for years.

This is a watershed moment. Every dot and comma of the Bill puts into law measures that will transform outdated attitudes and systems in Britain. We want to give families like yours more freedom and flexibility to make the choices you want and ensure every child gets the best possible start in life.

So now, thanks to these changes, our parental leave system will no longer be built on the 1950s assumption that when a child is born, mum stays home while dad goes out to work. We want to ensure that fewer women feel like they have to choose between their family and career and that more men can spend the extra time they want with their kids.

And, now, if you’re a parent who wants to give your children the best care and opportunities, you’ll have improved access to good, affordable childcare and greater support through extended flexible working. You’ll also have the guarantee of a free healthy meal for your child during those important first years at school.

This is about more than changing laws. It’s about changing a culture that for too long has dictated rather than supported families’ choices.

Take the coalition government’s introduction of shared parental leave for new parents. In the old system, after a child was born, fathers got two weeks for paternity leave and mothers could take up to a year.

But what about the many parents who want to share these traditional roles between them, so they can better meet the needs of their family?

From April 2015, this flagship Liberal Democrat policy will make it possible for new parents to carve up the leave they’re entitled to, with much greater flexibility.

So if you want to return to work before your year’s leave is up or go back to work for a particular project, you can do so without losing out. We want to ensure that all career options remain open to women after pregnancy. Your partner can stay at home and use the rest of the leave and pay, if that’s what they want.

If you choose, you can even take off chunks of time together. Once you return to work, you’ll also be able to benefit from the support of family and friends who want to help out and will have the same right to request flexible working arrangements as you do.

These measures have been pored over by analysts, businesses and the people they impact to ensure they’re easy to understand, implement and use.

We don’t want to create an unnecessary burden, particularly for small businesses. So we've listened and responded to the concerns of business and their feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. Businesses recognise the more diverse, productive and skilled workforce shared parental leave and flexible working can bring. I have seen some excellent examples of family friendly businesses through the Mumsnet Awards. I’d like to see many more in the future.

Above all else, we want a system that works for everyone, and one of the policies that will benefit almost every family with young children is our plan to provide free school meals to pupils in reception classes, year one and year two of primary school from September. Experts have been looking at this policy for years and universal free school meal pilots have shown the genuine difference this can make.

At a time when many are still struggling to make ends meet, it will save families hundreds of pounds per child every year. It’s also been shown to help children do better in English and Maths. On average, pupils in the pilot areas were two months ahead of their peers, with children from poorer backgrounds showing the biggest improvements. Children in the pilot areas were also shown to be more likely to eat vegetables and fewer snacks.

We know this approach helps. That’s why we’re working closely with schools and teachers across the country to meet our September launch.

Building a Britain fit for modern families has been one of my biggest ambitions, and that of the Liberal Democrats, in government. Today takes us another step closer to making that ambition a reality, laying the foundations for our family-friendly revolution.

Together, we’re building a modern Britain we can all be proud of, with a stronger economy and fairer society. So every British family, no matter what their circumstances, can prosper, and every child, whatever their background, can rise as high as their talents and hard work will take them.

Mary
The grab bag option sounds awful. I've never seen it in a primary school in my area, which is not to say it doesn't exist.
I'd be quite cross if school provided that to my DS for his lunch!

Sienna - I have seen the food - it is all as honey badger describes - random meat in lurid sauces. Smells the same as it did when I was at school.

DS loves salad, he struggles with children's parties because there tends not to be any salad with the sandwiches etc.

The no sharing rule is very strictly enforced, besides DS loves his lunch and wouldn't want to swap it.

I'm sorry if I was a bit angry, but the assumption that schools dinner are fantastic and healthy, and packed lunches all bad and sent in by parents who want to fill their children with sugar is just utterly ridiculous and needs challenging.

i am glad you're here alibaba. i totally fail to see how overcooked veg and reconstituted meat on over cooked white starchy carbs is considered healthy? healthy compared to what? it is no better than the sandwich, piece of fruit and a little tub of chopped cucumber and pitted olives for example that i'd give ds for lunch. in fact it's full of preservatives and colouring and salt and stripped free of nutrients from over cooking.

not to mention being the exact kind of slop that puts kids off of eating.

Ali - I wasn't talking about your (or anyone's) DC specifically, I meant that free school dinners will benefit children as a population. If you don't think your DC will benefit you can still make them a packed lunch. That's why I think this is a good idea.

I'm genuinely surprised by the descriptions of school dinners on this thread, as it doesn't resemble the food that I have seen children eating in schools recently. I guess there must be a lot of variation in standards between different schools/areas?

Just had a look at my DS's school menu. This week meat options are chicken casserole, chilli con carne, Beef stroganoff, lentil curry, fish fingers, with veggie versions of the same thing. Starches are couscous, jacket potatoes, potato wedges and 2 days of rice. Different vegetables/salad everyday.
Desserts are all fruit based - yoghurt and fresh fruit, apple crumble, pineapple cake, fruit and jelly, banana & custard.
They also get toast in the morning and a piece of fruit in the afternoon.

Ive never seen/eaten it so dont knw about quality but this sounds healthy to me, and similar to the types of meals I've seen kids eat at work, which all looked and smelled nice - no soggy frozen veg or manky salad. If some schools can serve good lunches, surely they all can?

Interesting to see he makes no mention at all of SEN.

That's because nothing has improved for children with SEN, and in fact much has got a lot worse.

There should be a follow up that involves a dialogue rather than a simple advert for the Liberals/Coalition.

Isn't that a part of the MN campaign?

Painty I don't think it will make any difference at the stage you are at tbh. Local Authorities have been saying they don't do this/that/swing a cat/feed a bat long before there was any 'reform'.

IEP's don't do anything. They are just pieces of paper. You want to know what your child's difficulties are, what targets he has to improve on them, what support will be given, who by, and how you can help. This can be done in a variety of ways, - as long as it IS done.

Whether it IS done or not has no correlation to having an IEP, and every correlation to having a school with a good attitude, supportive SENCO, commitment to spending the SEN budget on early intervention for Children with SEN instead of using it all on getting as many level 4s as possible (which they can as it isn't ringfenced).

Constant messages about 1950's families as though they don't exist, there are still many traditional families out there, with two parents, married, one parent earning a good wage while working long hard hours and paying a lot into the tax system while partner stays at home to bring up children,packs them a lunchbox, ensures they eat breakfast and prepares a home cooked meal for dinner.Only one parent is there to sit with the children while they eat, they rarely see their dad during the week, if i were to work too my children would be brought up by strangers.
I have four children, we receive no benefits at all. One of my children has a long term health condition IBD which is not recognised as needing any financial support for.
We do not need free school meals, my four year old would refuse them, at least with a packed lunch i know she eats what i give her.
I would rather of kept our child benefit which we had no idea would be cut when we planned our children, yet this is still being given to two working parents on the same income.
There are many traditional middle earning families who are now being made to feel the choices they made are outdated, yet the news is full of obese children and many more problems, i think we should encourage the traditional family unit while supporting the change in others situations.

Families in the 1950s could survive on one wage, or technically 2 part-time wages.

Families therefore had more free time or at least time outside work to maintain their relationships, home, enjoy their children, be a bigger part of their communities, shop locally and ethically, develop skills, help out neighbours and volunteer etc.

In most ways they were much better off. The only real improvement to that would to ensure that there was true choice about who worked and when backed by equal pay and opportunities.

And they retired earlier, with decent pensions, and worked less hours.

lol at raised by strangers. take cover!

We are a traditional family who have one wage.
It's not the life of riley but we do ok, even manage quite a few luxuries.
Anybody who knows us, but not our finances would say we were middle class, or at least have a middle class lifestyle.
Certainly agree though choice is paramount. I don't think I'd be happy being made to feel we have to live like this.
It has and still is working for our family, but there are so differences to the 1950's.
I'm not sure I'd enjoy the old housework conditions and dh as the one to be obeyed.
1950's style in this age is great.

RaRa

Its fewer, not less.
I am a bit thick and really chuffed I learnt this. I want to tell the world.

If its measureable its fewer
If its a mass like sand its less.

So supermarkets are a pedants nightmare, with their 10 items or less.

I'm sorry if you find communication a challenge. Would you like me to explain my meaning?

The Govt must be living in cloud cuckoo land if they think employers will act any differently than they do now:

“By enabling any employee to request to work flexibly, we want to remove any cultural assumption that flexible working is only for women, or just for parents and carers. We want these reforms to bring about a culture change in Britain’s workplaces, allowing everyone to better balance work with their personal life in the way that works for them.

“The new system is good for business as it will create a more motivated and flexible, talented workforce. Employers will be able to attract and retain women - from the boardroom to the shop floor - and prevent them from dropping out of the world of work once they start a family. Flexible working will also help widen the pool of talent in the labour market, helping to drive growth.”

Rubbish. Employers regards flexible working requests as a pain in the neck. Flexible is what they expect employees to be. Come in at a moments notice, work longer hours or shorter hours or weekends at a moments notice is what employers want. It keeps business costs down. Flexible working employees raise business costs.

As an employer, you want a flexible workforce that turns up when you want them to not a workforce that turns up when they want to.

The answer to flexible working requests will still be NO! in most cases.

Unless it is a legal obligation to say YES! it just wont happen.

Sorry not to be back I have been busy dealing with some RL problems I am not going to dignify boffins attack on my right to hold an opinion with a response

Sienna I'm glad your ds school meals sound lovely my dcs do too only I happen to know that it is high in salt and sugar that things are frozen and reheated and mass produced that the meat is the cheapest they can get as is everything else. I also know that they don't 'make' the dcs eat any of it. They can eat chips and chocolate muffin everyday if they wish or nothing at all, they can not eat fruit or vegetables for the whole term.

I also know that hospital meals were £1.05 a day not that long ago and that malnutrition in people fed institutional food is a real and growing problem.

I happen to feel that this is not the best way to spend money, intervene in poverty, improve the health of the nation etc etc I don't believe this gov is truly family friendly.

Wasn't this some kind of vote for me freebie from Labour not that long ago?

Just my view

Oh and tuition fees Nick

For £2.10 my kids get:

1. Polystyrene cup of home made vegetable soup (optional)
2. Something like steak pie, mashed potatoes and peas, cooked from fresh (apart from the peas). Meat comes from local butcher. Alternative would be a veggie pie.
3. Yoghurt or a chocolate brownie.

They get this because the man who runs the catering company is ex-army and passionate about food, so he goes around negotiating decent deals on the raw ingredients. He also uses seasonal food. They have contracts for a number of schools, but not too many, so he can control operations effectively. He knows the business of school meals inside out, and more importantly, he cares what is going into kids' bellies. I believe there might be an arrangement whereby if the school has good take-up, the cost of individual meals can go down.

When the contract was being tendered, the local authority wheeled out a dinner lady who had been awarded an MBE as one of the presenters doing the pitch. She was dressed as though she were going to a dinner dance, completely inappropriate for a business pitch. When we asked about where the ingredients were sourced and cooked, either she didn't know, or it was clear that they were bulk buying entry level frozen stuff for reheating. We did a tasting and one of the choices was chicken and pasta. There was hardly any chicken, and the pasta and vegetables were badly overcooked, all drowned in a cheap bottled sauce that was very bland. The other choice was a deep fried chicken wrap, which was almost inedible - too spicy and mostly batter and very little chicken wrapped in a stale tortilla. The portion size was far too small for Key Stage 2. Salad was offered but was basically a few chopped bits and pieces dumped to one side of the display - clearly an afterthought. Dessert was a piece of sponge cake made from a packet, or a yoghurt. The yoghurt was about the only thing I would have wanted my kids to eat. The local authority offered something like £5000 towards the redecoration of our school dining room and they would have put their branding on it.

The other providers (there were three in total) waffled on about food sourcing and super foods - they really knew the patter. Clearly they also listen to the Food Programme, like me. However the food samples given to us were very low in protein content (2oz) and very high in processed carbohydrates, and one of the dishes, some sort of pre-packaged stir fry, was much too spicy for us, let alone the average child in our school. We suspected the spices appeared to be hiding poor quality ingredients. Again, pudding was a piece of sponge cake, although this time custard was served as the children's tasting panel had expressed a desire to test custard if at all possible, or a yoghurt. The sponge cake was cooked fresh and quite nice. This firm also offered £5000 towards decorating and branding our dining room.

As a result of this tendering exercise, I concluded that ultimately the problem with many school meals is that schools and governors have not been fussy enough about their contracts, and they don't put enough pressure on the catering firms to provide what they should. There is a lot of money to be made in school dinners in this country and we have to remember that. If people get together and explain exactly what they want from schools, and ask to be made part of the tendering process, it is possible to put the thumbscrews on providers and improve things, as we did. This is the area that needs attention, in my opinion. And this is why I think that the arguments about school food not being good enough to provide for free are not good arguments. We can do this well, and we can give it away, but we all need to get more involved at school level.