David Cameron spoke this week at single parent charity Gingerbread’s AGM in a bid to clarify what a Conservative government would mean for the 1.9 million single parent families living in Britain today.

SUPPORT FOR LONE PARENTS

In a speech fully transcribed on Gingerbread’s website, the Tory leader spoke of his goal to “improve the experience of childhood in our country.” A Conservative government would back marriage in the tax system and end the couple penalty that pays people to live apart rather than together. But, he said, lone parents would not be left on their own. Single parents and working mothers would benefit from combined state and social action, action on tax and benefits plus increased help at home.

SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY

Britain’s children today, said Mr Cameron, are growing up “too fast and too slow.” While, on the one hand, they are being denied the risks and adventures they need to grow and learn, on the other, they are drinking, having sex, wearing adult clothing, having adult conversations and being commercialised at an increasingly early age. This loss of innocence, he said, is not due to commercial and technological changes within society, but the changing relationship between adults and children - not parents and their own children, but adults and other people’s children. Adults are no longer carrying out basic social responsibilities to children for fear of being sued or arrested or branded "a weirdo."

BUILDING A FUTURE

A Conservative government would try to rebuild this relationship, said Mr Cameron. It would introduce a National Citizenship Service to give voluntary organisations the opportunity to teach and inspire young people. It would restore authority to teachers. It would bring back the Right to Buy in local communities so that local residents could take over derelict buildings and set up community spaces. It would cut back on “the nonsense of the Independent Safeguarding Athority” making it easier for adults to volunteer and help out informally with children. And it would aim to “bring some common sense back to the health and safety compensation culture.” This is the future we want, he said, “together we can build it.”

To read the full transcript of David Cameron’s speech, click here.

11 December 09