Bridget Phillipson: I want more young people to have children
Labour has said it wants more young people to have children, warning that Britain's 'plummeting birth rate' is a danger to society.
Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, has raised the alarm about a younger generation who are 'thinking twice about starting a family' because of the rising cost of housing and childcare.
She promised more help for young parents to make it easier for couples to have children, saying that 'families are the bedrock of our society and we need them to succeed'.
Her comments signal growing political alarm about the UK's falling birth rate, which is down to 1.44 children per woman and in 2023 saw the fewest babies born for almost half a century.
Phillipson raised the alarm over the trend, which means a future of fewer workers supporting a rising number of older people.
• Britain needs babies but it will take some pushing
Politicians have traditionally been wary of encouraging people to have more children, despite evidence that many couples have fewer babies than they would like. Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, thrust the issue into the mainstream last month when he promised tax breaks and welfare changes to 'help young, working British people who are not on particularly big incomes to have more children'.
Phillipson rejected his focus on marriage, saying 'no opposition party has the answers to our plummeting birth rate — a trend which has worrying repercussions for society but tells a story about the dashed dreams of many families'.
Saying she wanted to give people the 'freedom to choose', Phillipson wrote in the Daily Telegraph: 'It's why I want more young people to have children, if they choose; to realise the ordinary aspiration so many share, to create the moments and memories that make our lives fulfilling: having children, seeing them take their first steps, dropping them off on their first day at school, guiding them on their journey into the world of work or taking them to university for the first time.'
• Falling birthrate to leave UK reliant on immigration until 2100
Support for young children was 'my number one priority', Phillipson said, promising help with issues such as breastfeeding and reading, as well as an expansion of child care.
Experts have pointed to evidence that making it easier or cheaper to have another child can be effective. Under the previous Labour government, Gordon Brown's working families tax credit, which gave extra cash to low-income families, is estimated to have led to an extra 45,000 babies being born.
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