Marriage worth less than a stamp to the Government
Family breakdown costs the British taxpayer at least £51 billion a year – more than the entire defence budget. That works out at £1,809 per household, every year, whether your own family is intact or not. Meanwhile, 45% of teenagers in Britain now live apart from one of their natural parents – a fivefold increase since 1974.
Dr Michael Schluter CBE has spent four decades arguing that none of this is inevitable. He is an economist, social entrepreneur, and founder of the Jubilee Centre and the Relationships Foundation, and I was delighted to sit down with him to talk about what a government that took families seriously would actually do. I hope you will watch the full conversation.
Schluter is the thinker behind the concept of “relational proximity” – the idea, expounded in the book ‘The Relational Lens’ published by Cambridge University Press, that strong relationships depend on face-to-face contact, continuity over time, and shared values. His phrase “time is the currency of relationships” runs through everything he does. He recalls how his wife insisted they take half an hour alone together every evening while raising three teenagers – “so that the kids could not drive a wedge between us”. He admits he used to prepare for corporate board meetings but never once thought about what to discuss around the dinner table. “The family mealtime and the bringing up of my children has far greater long-term consequences than any board meeting, then why didn’t I prepare for it?”
His policy proposals deserve the closest attention. First: a meaningful couple tax allowance for married couples. The current UK Marriage Allowance is worth 69p a day – less than the cost of a postage stamp. That is what underinvestment looks like. That is not a strategy. It is neglect. Schluter argues that even a modest financial signal matters: “It does put a public marker down on the fact we value marriage and that marriage is good for you”. Marriage Foundation research confirms the stakes. Couples who marry before their child is born: 76% stay together. Those who never marry: 31%. The poorest married parents are more stable than the richest cohabiting parents.
Second: require every piece of legislation to carry a family impact assessment, just as it currently carries a revenue impact assessment. The UK introduced a voluntary Family Test in 2014, but a Centre for Social Justice review found its implementation inconsistent and unaccountable. Schluter wants teeth behind it.
And then there is Singapore. The Government offers married couples up to $30,000 towards buying a home if they live with, or within four kilometres of, their parents. “Incentivise them to live very close”, Schluter says. “It saves a huge amount of money on the Government budget in the end.” When family members live nearby, the State does not need to fill the gap.
None of these ideas are utopian. They are choices – choices a government could make if it believed that the lifelong, faithful union of one man and one woman is not a relic but a cornerstone. That belief is exactly what Coalition for Marriage exists to uphold – and every video view or like, every share, every tiny act of support, makes it harder for politicians to look the other way.