Frank Field: stop stigmatising single mothers; take away benefits from bad fathers instead

[longfingernails]

Another excellent suggestion by Frank Field.

If Labour had listened to Frank Field, John Hutton and James Purnell then our welfare system would be in much better shape.

www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/jun/28/poverty-tsar-shirking-fathers-lose-benefits

Fabulous. Love it.

About time someone focused on the dads...

It won't last though, they'll poo poo it.

The CSA was set up to ensure that men paid maintenance.

3/5 of them still don't bother and the ones who do are in general paying a pittance.

So I doubt if there'll be any long term effects of htis.

Go Frank! About time this point of view got a serious hearing. I hope the government will actually take some notice.

That's great that this is finally being said. It's disgusting that mothers are always in the firing line.

He is focussing on benefits here but I wonder if there is a way of using the tax system to penalise non contributing fathers so it becomes worth their while to make their CSA payments (don't know how - maybe an additional tax per non resident child that can be reduced by the percentage of csa payments made in that tax year). And not to be sexist thisshort would be levied on any non res parent maybe.

Problem is it is such a logistical nightmare but something needs to be done.

Everyone backing Field here, go and comment on the Guardian story linked above. There is tons of negative comment so far, plus some denials that there is hostility towards single mothers! (would be if it weren't so )

I wonder if it would be possible for CSA payments to come off wages/tax declaration for self employed and go to resident parents?
But to be tax deductible like pension contributions etc?

Rewards NRPs who choose to contribute as much as they can afford to instead of the least they have to, while ensuring every NRP who works at all is paying at least the minimum. Normalising the idea that paying for your children who don't live with you is as important as paying tax/NIC/pension contributions.

Sounds like a good idea in principle but hasn't the problem always been tracking down the dead-beat dads? Whether it's for CSA payments or chivvying them back to employment. Mind you, I also know one woman who refused to have either of her children's fathers listed on the birth certificates because she didn't want them to have any say in the children's lives. Didn't want any money from them, she said, because it would eat into her benefits.

My only concern about this is that we could potentially see a situation where single parents are left high and dry. I'm all for tracking down absent parents and making them pay, but this will only work if the resident parent can rely on maintenance being paid in full and on time, and there will also need to be a benefit back-up that can step in quickly to compensate if maintenance is missed. Otherwise, government will simply use this initiative to pay out less benefits and it will, yet again, be children who suffer. I also worry that Frank Field will use this to 'encourage' a return to the traditional gender roles (all well and good if that's what you want, but I DON'T want to be a SAHM - I'd rather my XP paid maintenance to ease the financial burden placed on me by fulltime childcare).

IS is no longer affected by maintenance payments (since April this year) so the "risk" factor of relying on a sum of money from your ex - and not even having the back-up of the benefits is gone.

Most of the people I know who've had no money from their ex have been able to give the CSA just about every detail of where their ex lives/works etc etc they're still shite at it.

Woo yay and fucking hoopla.

I will never understand why single mothers are tarred with the 'irresponsible dole scrounger' brush whilst the men who left them and their children in that situation get largely ignored.

I have spent 5 years telling the CSA exactly where my ex lives, who he works for, that he is committing benefit fraud and working illegally, everything they could need to know really. In those 5 years they have managed to collect 6 months of payments from him, and then it was at the paltry rate of £1.67 a fucking week.

As Chil1234 said, there are many, many women now who don't put any man's name on the birth certificate.

Perhaps there's an argument for a national DNA database so no male could escape responsibility, even if the child were the result of a 10-second shag.

well that could well be down to the fact that if the mother and father aren't married then they either BOTH have to attend to register the birth, or the father has to sign a declaration (witness by a relevant person) form for the mother to take to the registrar.

You can't just waltz in on your own and put your non-married partners (or one night stand) name on the birth certificate

Totally support this idea, why shouldn't men be responsible for the children they create?

True, toccatanfudge.

My ex didn't want to go on the birth certificate originally, even though we were still together at the time. He did after I threw a strop but I know women who have been unable to name the father as he has refused to come with them to the registry office.

Yes, you need both parents to be present at the registrar if unmarried. If fathers know that signing on the dotted line makes them liable for payments or whatever then they'll avoid it as they do now. However, the woman I know engineered it deliberately that they were left out (something to do with a time-limit?) even though, ironically, at least one of them would have liked to be involved in their child's life. She was quite smug about how clever she'd been... then moved house about 100 miles away.

Perhaps the rules could be changed that the unmarried father's name can be registered, he is notified and if he wants to contest it he can take a paternity test? They have to 'opt out' of fatherhood rather than 'opt in'?

Christ, a lone voice of reason.
What a guy.
Go Frank!

fwiw (and totally off topic) wasn't present at any of my 3 DS's registrations - exH did them all. I've never once stepped inside a registry office !

there aren't many women who register the birth alone - according to Gingerbread's fact sheet (taken from proper research/stats) its only 6% of all registered births.

And only a further 9% are registered to parents who live apart.

So 85% of births are registered to parents who are married or who co-habit.

The comments about the article are amazing. Such ignorace and anger, and they all seem to be from men.

It sounds like a great idea to me.

Callisto

It's the Guardian. Their readers are still smarting because that august publication told them to vote Lib Dem. Guardian readers hate Frank Field for putting the good of the nation above that of the Labour party.

Yes, I got that feeling of betrayal about Frank Field. I think one loon went as far as to call him a traitor.

Doesn't look like the tories will do anything remotely along these very correct lines, seeing as one of their first 'reforms' was re-emphasise the single mother stereotype and make it obligatory for single mothers to be back to work upon their last child starting school.