Worst excesses of welfare; UK and NZ parallels

The destructive practice of paying women to have babies with casual acquaintances is starting to permeate the collective consciousness of the UK population. Even PM Gordon Brown is starting to talk about the ill-advised policy that pays 16 and 17 year-old mothers to live 'independently' in council flats.

A friend has just returned from the UK. She brought with her an article from the Daily Mail, knowing I would be interested. Fortunately it is also on-line. Here I will excerpt pieces and draw New Zealand parallels.

It opens;

Machetes by the door, drugs on the table - and mothers paid by the state to have babies with men they barely know. What HAVE we done to the British family? It's the most destructive crisis of our age - a generation of violent, illiterate, lawless young men living outside civilised society.

New Zealand - A prison population at an all-time high, convictions for violence at an all time high, gangs that are getting more vicious with no shortage of newcomers.

It always started the same way, he said: he'd start seeing a woman, and she'd tell him she was on the Pill.

Then two weeks later: 'Bang, she gets pregnant.' There was never any discussion about the pregnancy.

As far as he was concerned, they were barely an item at that stage - and they were certainly not about to move in together.

So why did these women choose to have babies by a man they barely knew?

Prince, who is 37, laid the blame squarely on benefits: 'Women get money from the Government; men get eradicated. What do you need a man for? The Government has taken our place.

Politicians, for their part, blame the rising numbers of troubled children on the breakdown of the family and the absence of fathers.

This is a fundamental mistake: they are presuming there is a family in the first place.

Above all, the Government needs to recognise that benefits are a powerful incentive, particularly for young girls.

For the past few years, Britain has had the highest rate of teenage pregnancy in Europe, with 90 per cent of births occurring outside marriage.

The British teenage birth rate (27 per 1,000 15-19 year-olds) is behind New Zealand's at 32 (and for Maori it rises to 80). There is a marked correlation between the high Maori teenage birthrate and high Maori crime rate.

An overhaul of the benefit system is clearly at the heart of transforming the lives of disadvantaged children. But to accuse their mothers of being feckless is unjust: they are merely responding to the economics of the situation.

They have grasped the consequences of our poor education system better than our politicians ever have.

Last year, less than half of teenagers finished compulsory schooling with five good GSCEs that included maths and English. Of those, the ones who do worst of all are children from lowincome families.

Then what happens? The boys take to crime - and the girls get pregnant.

Incredibly, more than a quarter of British children are now raised in single-parent families - and nine out of ten of them are headed by women.

At the last census 28 percent of New Zealand families with dependent children were headed by a single parent - eight out of ten are women. Male single parenthood is more common among Maori probably accounting for the gender difference with the UK.

What future is there in Britain today for a girl without qualifications?

Skilled and hard-working immigrants now monopolise menial jobs, and the next step up - a job, for example, in catering or hairdressing - pays about £10,000 a year before tax.

Which is slightly less than a girl with two children receives in benefits, and without the incentive of somewhere to live rent-free.

In Streatham, South London, I overheard two young girls pushing buggies talking about a friend. 'Why she got pregnant?' asked one. 'She's got a good job!'

In other words, if you were in well-paid employment, with good prospects, there was no reason to have children.

The average income for 18-24 year-olds is $384 - below the average income of a single parent on the DPB.

Sir Norman Bettison, chief constable of West Yorkshire Police, summed up the situation starkly: 'We are talking here about the perverting influence of welfare. The more kids you have, the more money you get.'

In New Zealand around 5,000 babies are added to an existing benefit each year.

Many single mothers are excellent parents, of course. But the Government has put disadvantaged girls in a position where the only career open to them, the only possibility of an independent life, is to have children - whether they want to or not, whether they are likely to be good mothers or not.

The state, as Prince pointed out, has indeed taken over the role of both husband and employer.

With a combination of financial incentives and poor schools, it is ensuring a steady supply of babies who start life with all the factors in place to become the next generation living on benefits or the proceeds of crime.

What is the Government doing about this cynical cycle of deprivation?

Over the past few years, it has come up with a plethora of schemes to intervene ever earlier in the life of a disadvantaged child. In other words, it has concentrated on the consequences of single parenthood - but not the cause.

Ditto, ditto, ditto for NZ. Last week the latest was announced. Getting parents back into the class room to teach them how to raise their ill-disciplined children.

What is the point of setting targets to end child poverty when the Government's policies are creating tomorrow's poorest children - and grandchildren?

Exactly. See my post about the Maori Party targets to end child poverty.

So why hasn't the Government reformed the benefit system? It's as if they're offering car drivers a bonus for every crash - then acting surprised when accidents shoot up.

Good analogy. Cash is offered to teenagers to have babies and then hands are rung over the rising teenage birthrate. The only defence of this stupidity is that the two are not related. Yet research has shown the two are related.

The absence of a male role model has a particularly profound effect on disadvantaged boys during their teenage years.

A third of 14-to-25-year-olds questioned for a survey by the Prince's Trust did not have a parent whom they considered a role model.

More than half said they'd joined a gang to acquire a sense of identity, while a quarter said they were in search of someone to look up to.

These boys are unlikely to find male role models in schools. The number of male teachers has slumped to its lowest level in at least 20 years; and in primary school, 85 per cent of teachers are female. Even in youth offending teams, women make up the majority of the staff.

This year, according to the latest research, one in three children who live with a single mother will spend less than six hours a week with a male role model - whether a father figure, relative or teacher.

All the odds are stacked against them. Even children on the 'at risk' register are five times more likely to have single teenage mothers - as Prince knows all too well.

Two of his children, he discovered recently, were being neglected by their 19-year-old mother.

'The house was like a crack house: dirty clothes everywhere,' he said. 'She fed them crappy food, she left the kids [to] fall asleep in front of the TV. My boy was underweight and quiet.'

Social services removed the children and gave them to their maternal grandmother to bring up. But Prince's ex-girlfriend, he says, has made no attempt to get her children back.

He shrugged. 'She's never had a job. She's lived off the Government and what men give her.'

'Prince' is no prince either. His holier than thou tone is somewhat derisible. But he is spot on when he sums up the situation. The government has usurped fathers and the vital role they play, causing massive social problems. And that is no less true in this country.