Love and marriage?

Olaf

Ok, but at the moment the system is weighted against marriage. It at least needs to be evened out.

Return to Victorian Values

Perhaps, before people married they should have to attend a preparatory course.

So much pressure is placed on young people, so much tosh is spoken and written influencing the young, that a course explaining all aspects, good and bad, could prevent those unsuited for each other from marrying and thus divorcing.

These course could be conducted by Churches - for those of a religious disposition- or properly accountable agencies, using married people as guides!

Perhaps introducing a 'mentor' scheme into life itself? why not.

David

I love the inherent paradox that marriage is thought of as so special and important, people will do it for £20 a week.

Government really has no business in this sort of area anyway.

Dave B

The Tories have repeated their marriage tax break policy many times, if they don't deliver, we'll notice.

davidke

For goodness sake, it's just a nudge in the right direction after a decade of massive shifts the wrong way.

abraham

I agree but will they listen? These people seem as slow to cut their losses on bad ideas as the current people in charge.

I wish the government would say "we were wrong about this so we are changing course before we throw any more money down the drain", but you never hear it from Labour and I get the feeling you won't from the Tories either.

bill

"Return to victorian value" has taken the Gordon Brown approach to the problem: Young people have too much information thrust upon them so the solution is... more information! Set up an action group! Tsk tsk

Chris Gilmour

If there's money to splash out on this, then how about a £20 a month tax cut for everyone? Just a suggestion.

C Powell

Isn't the problem that our current benefits and tax system provides a disincentive to married couples, especially for poor ones? Surely, what these proposals are trying to do is to make sure there is no financial disincentive to getting married or staying married, as there currently is? And if that is what these proposals are trying to do, it is a good thing. We could learn a lot from every other European country which do ensure that marriage is recognised in the tax and benefit system precisely because they recognise - as too many opinion formers here have forgotten - that stable marriages are the bedrock of society. To argue - as Collins does - that just because there are some abusive marriages, marriage as a whole should not be recognised is fatuous. A society which properly values the institution of marriage and the value which good marriages bring will - or should - ensure that those who abuse it are properly punished and that the victims are helped. A society which does not value marriage condemns all too many women and children to live in rackety, abusive, impermanent so-called families which, as all the evidence shows, are much more likely to lead to failure for the children, crime and all sorts of other unhappiness, as well as the consequent costs for society as a whole.

It seems to me that too many commentators are unwilling to accept that becoming an adult, becoming a parent involves having responsibilities and that this means that parents cannot do what they want, when they want as if they were single unattached people because others depend on them and that this involves a large element of self-sacrifice. This is a supremely selfish and adolescent view to take but should not form the basis of public policy.

EC

Any 'spare' money should be spent on child welfare and education.

Alan

Reducing someone's tax is not 'throwing public cash around'. That's socialist thinking.

Jonathan

The Tories have every right to reward marriage (and civil partnerships) because it saves the taxpayer future welfare bills – we know for a fact that children born to a married (as opposed to a co-habiting) couple or a single parent, are less likely to play truant, engage in anti-social behaviour, take drugs, commit crime etc… Instead, they are more likely to get a job and pay taxes. Of course, this is a generalization – some one parent family’s work very well (ditto co-habiting couples); equally some marriages are a disaster and divorce is the best option for all concerned, but taxation/welfare policy has to be based on the norm, not the exception. And since in the norm - Marriage provides the better outcomes, both for the individuals concerned and the state, the GVN should promote it.

Remember the Tories are only talking about providing extra benefits to married couples. There is no proposal to punish single parents or cohabitates by removing tax breaks and or welfare payments that are currently available. So where is the problem? As for your examples of unfairness Peter – I accept that the new system will not be perfect, but then nor is the current system that penalizes not just marriage, but cohabiting couples – I’ve actually heard of social workers advising young couples with children to split up, because financially they are better-off apart. Let’s face it, with a myriad a different family types in the UK – no tax-system will be perfect.

Peter from Maidstone

How is a tax break 'throwing money' at people? The tax is all our money in the first place and there should be some pretty good reasons for taking it off us at all. Taking less off of some people to support marriage is not giving them money at all, just taking less off them.

It could well be shown that more money SHOULD be taken of co-habitees because of the increased social cost (on average) this group incurs. But taking less tax is never giving anyone money.

If Spectator writers really begin from a premise that governments should take tax and may give some of that money back then there is essentially no difference between such a view and socialism.

Peter from Maidstone

David, I agree that government should not be involved in this area, except that the government has made a point of attacking marriage and family through so many skewed policies and tax structures. I certainly know people who have 'separated' because the family becomes much better off and receives many more benefits. This policy seems to me to be only a signal, and a good one, that society should value the public commitment of marriage. Marriage has little to do with romantic feelings of love, it has to do with the solid sacrifical type of love that weathers storms. Peter Hoskin is very wrong to consider it should be based on sappy motives, and if the government ande society can show both the value of solid marriage, and the basis on which it is constructed then that would be a good thing.

David

There is an inherent flaw in the IDS conclusions on marriage and broken families, in that he confuses correlation and causation.

Pete Hoskin

Peter from Maidstone: apologies, my language was imprecise and I've corrected it accordingly. You were right to pick me up on that.

Ray

Our European neighbours all appear to recognise marriage in their tax policies (and have lower levels of teenage pregnancy and co-habitation to boot). What's their secret?

In reality, nobody is going to stick with an violent spouse just for the sake of £20 a week, so the argument that such a scheme will ossify failed or abusive marriages is bunkum.

What this measure will do is nail a Tory government's colours firmly to the mast of marriage as the preferred way of raising children. After swallowing decades of drivel from the 'all-relationships-are-of-equal-worth' lobby (with all the wreckage of human misery in its train that we can observe all around us) the psychological effect of such a move would be well worth the money spent pursuing it (money which will in all likelihood be spent on the children anyway).

Nicholas

The problem is that those on the left and driving the "public narrative" through our biased media treat any attempt to bolster conventional marriage as a kind of discrimination against all the alternative arrangements. So much effort has been made to break down the conventions of marriage and family and to destroy the once straightforward structure of our society that the Tories won't be allowed to get away with this.

In the current climate most Tory initiatives will get a mauling, but there is a whole industry devoted to the antithesis of what they are proposing, with tentacles spread throughout the public sector, so that this will get shouted down from many different quarters and by a plethora of vested interests.

John Lea

I don't think the state should encourage people (financially) to get married or stay married; rather, the state should make it harder for people to get divorced and should also be more ruthless in forcing absent fathers to pay for their children.

Alan Douglas

"throwing public cash around"

Never thought I would read this on Coffee House. Allowing people who do things towards the public good, such as marriage as opposed to temporary liasons leading to single parenthood, which are a direct consequence of much of social breakdown, to RETAIN slightly more of their OWN money does NOT equate with "throwing public cash around."

Are you advocating continuing to reward single parents with cash, while, comparatively, penalising those who wish to make the long-term committment which is the bedrock of society ?

This shows just how far the lefties language and the assumptions it is based on has become the norm. Conservatism - oh, that old stuff.

Alan Douglas

Alan Douglas

David says "I love the inherent paradox that marriage is thought of as so special and important, people will do it for £20 a week."

I love the inherent paradox that being a single parent is thought of as so special and important, people will do it for Hundreds of pounds per week from the public purse, ie on the backs of "hard working families".

David, what you said is nonsense.

Alan Douglas

stereodog

Peter,
Whilst agreeing with your conclusions about not spending tax payer's money on private transactions I must disagree with your implied argument that the sole proper reason for marriage is love. CS Lewis (via Screwtape) puts this more elegantly than I could when he writes "They (humans) regard the intention of loyalty to a partnership for mutual help, for the preservation of chastity, and for the transmission of life as something lower than a storm of emotion". This view would shock our present epoch but not any other.

THX1138

It's going to take a lot of £20's to pay for the cost of wedding. As a bribe it's crap!

Pete Hoskin

Alan Douglas: re "throwing public cash around". Apologies - you're right, of course, and I'd already corrected it. Post written in rush this morning...

Mario

Peter,
Imprecise language is the problem. A quick fisk:

1) The £3.2bn cost of ending the current couple penalty in the tax AND BENEFITS system should not be described as a "tax break". It is about eradicating a current perverse incentive.

2) Polly's interview with IDS yestersay touched on exactly your point about £20 a week "encouraging marriage". Surprised you didn’t mention this.

3) Tax allowances for married or cohabiting couples are a separate issue from the couple penalty. It is confusing to mix the two.

For Collins to suggest that the three children "get nothing" shows that he not only doesn't understand how the benefits system works, but also grossly misrepresents and caricatures Tory proposals as a hand-out to the married rich.

His assertion "Children matter more than families" is also debatable.

Debt reduction should be the immediate priority, but failing to tackling social breakdown will be even more expensive in the long-term.

Craig Strachan

Anyone who would get married for 20 quid a week deserves it. The marriage I mean, not the money.

N James

It is about time a tax allowance was given to married couples and also stable couples who are not married (after a period of time) The Tories should also introduce a transferable tax allowance so the working adult can benefit from the non working adult's tax code therefore reducing a couples tax burden. The result would be a reduction in so called single parent tax credit claims with around 70% being fraudulent (they do have apartner they just do not declare it). Why do Labour resist helping married, stable couple households? after all single parents have many so called disregards given to them all over the place. ie child maintenance paid to them by an ex partner is disregarded as income if they are in work (no matter how much is paid) and this brainwave is being extended to single parents on income support as from april 2010 when the ex partner of a celebrity, film star or rich footballer will in theory be able to make a claim for income support as maintenance payments will be disregarded even £10,000 per month, and they could still receive housing benefit etc however if a wife or partner in a couple/parent household takes a part time job they lose any assistance from the tax credit system. Tax credits should be renamed single parent/fraudulent claim tax credits.