Posted on 07/10/2007 3:17:55 PM PDT by blam
Tories send a 'clear signal' about marriage
By George Jones, Political Editor
Last Updated: 1:33pm BST 10/07/2007
It is time to stand up for marriage and send out a signal that it is good for society, a Tory policy group said today.
Iain Duncan Smith wants the party to send a 'clear and unambiguous signal' about marriage
The group called for a "reinstatement and full public use" of the term martial status and associated terms "husband, wife, spouse and marriage" in government forms and statements.
This would send a "clear and unambiguous signal" about marriage, said the report drawn up by a social justice policy group headed by Iain Duncan Smith, the former Conservative leader.
It proposed that married couples would get a tax and benefits boost potentially worth thousands of pounds a year under a Tory strategy to avert family breakdown.
The transferable married couples tax allowance, worth around £20-a-week, would be aimed at making it easier for one parent to stay at home to look after children or elderly relatives. If applied to all married couples, it would cost £3.2bn a year.
The report calls for the "biggest shake-up of the welfare system" since the 1940s.
Under the proposals disincentives for couples to stay together would also be removed from the benefits system.
The measures are among 190 policy recommendations outlined in a 671-page report on tackling family breakdown, educational under-achievement and crime. The document sets the cost of social breakdown at £102 billion a year.
In a section on family breakdown, the report argues that the tax system fails to recognise the "benefits which marriage brings to society".
It says that the transferable personal tax allowance would provide symbolic recognition for the institution of marriage.
"It would indicate that marriage is valued because of its benefits to children and wider society," it adds.
David Cameron is not bound to accept the recommendations when drawing up his manifesto for the next election, although he has already promised to recognise marriage in the tax system if returned to power.
"I believe that this is the single most important step that the Conservative Party could take to start supporting stable family life," Mr Duncan Smith said.
In a further bid to help families, the policy group proposes "front-loading" child benefit to give parents greater financial freedom to look after their children in their first three years.
The report claims that, without urgent action, the number of children with two working parents in poverty will increase from 1.4 million to 1.8 million by the end of the decade.
Meanwhile, lone parents would be required to work full time once their children reached the age of 11, and part time once the youngest child is five, in a bid to get more people off benefits and into work.
"Helping more lone parents into work, through both a deliberate shift in expectations and providing support - including childcare as appropriate - will help them and their children in a very real way," the report states.
Other recommendations set out in the report include raising the gambling age limit from 16 to 18 and requiring the gaming industry to spend more than £10 million a year on research into anti-addiction programmes; a £400 million tax on alcohol to double the amount spent on drink and drugs treatment and reclassifying cannabis - which was downgraded to a class C drug - back to class B.
Maybe their conservative leaders don’t have as many divorces as our conservative leaders.
Are you referring to conservative leader Rudy Giuliani?
You answered your own question.
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