Journal of European Social Policy

http://esp.sagepub.com/

Shifts in family policy in the UK under New Labour

Mary Daly
Journal of European Social Policy 2010 20: 433
DOI: 10.1177/0958928710380480

The online version of this article can be found at:

http://esp.sagepub.com/content/20/5/433

Published by:

http://www.sagepublications.com

Additional services and information for Journal of European Social Policy can be found at:

Email Alerts: http://esp.sagepub.com/cgi/alerts

Subscriptions: http://esp.sagepub.com/subscriptions

Reprints: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.nav

Permissions: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav

Citations: http://esp.sagepub.com/content/20/5/433.refs.html

>> Version of Record - Jan 5, 2011

What is This?

Downloaded from esp.sagepub.com by guest on March 11, 2013

 Article

Shifts in family policy in the UK under New Labour

Mary Daly*
Queens University of Belfast, Northern Ireland

Summary In the years since it came to power in 1997, New Labour has set about reforming key
elements of the British welfare state. In its wide-ranging vision, project even, the family has had a
central place. This article probes the meaning and significance of New Labours focus on the family
and considers whether it represents a change compared with past policies. The impressive range of
measures put in place by New Labour suggests considerable change. These measures address, inter
alia, childrens early education and care, services to stabilise and improve the quality of family rela-
tions especially in low-income sectors of the population, parental employment and greater flexibility
in work and family life. But the balance between change and continuity is a relatively fine one. While
New Labours concerns about family have sui generis aspects, they also draw upon long-standing
features of and concerns around the welfare state in the UK. One conclusion, then, is that while there
has been innovation, not least in the policy settings and instruments, New Labours approach to the
family draws upon and reinforces existing philosophies around welfare and the family. However,
under New Labour, the family became more rather than less important as a concern of policy. A
second conclusion, then, is that New Labour has sought a balance between its selectivist approach
and a more universalist concern to elevate family as an agent and source of social stability. A third
conclusion and a key element of the argument advanced is that New Labours policy has to be under-
stood as part of an ideological project that is both social and economic in nature.

Keywords Children, family policy, gender, New Labour, United Kingdom

Historically, the UK lacked what Maetzke and
Ostner in the introduction to this special issue call
institutional or sui generis family policy. Hence,
while financial and service supports were in place
for families and Child Benefits were universally
paid for all children, policies oriented to the pro
tection and support of family as a social institu-
tion (such as existed in France and Germany, for
example) never developed in the UK. In the last ten
years or so, however, social policy in the UK has
undergone major restructuring, and family-related
matters have been at the centre of the reforms. One
result is that the UK has more family in its policy
portfolio than ever before. How did this come
about? The UK is an unlikely case for a move
towards family policy for many years its strong
liberal heritage corseted social spending around
anti-poverty and pro-employment goals, and the
prevailing ideology was that family works best
when the state and other institutions intervene only
in cases of need or crisis.
These initial observations set the departure point
for an investigation that identifies and analyses the
nature and significance of the main changes in UK
family policy over the last ten years or so. As with
other papers in this issue, the overall goal is to inves-
tigate the nature and depth of the changes. The
paper offers two main insights on the British case:

*Author to whom correspondence should be sent: Mary Daly, The School of Sociology, Social Policy and Social Work,
Queens University of Belfast, 6 College Park, Belfast, BT7 1LP, Northern Ireland, UK. [email: m.daly@qub.ac.uk]

The Author(s), 2010. Reprints and permissions: http://www.sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav Journal of European Social Policy,
0958-9287; Vol. 20(5): 433443; 380480; DOI:10.1177/0958928710380480 http://esp.sagepub.com

Downloaded from esp.sagepub.com by guest on March 11, 2013

434 Daly
the appearance of substantial change and innova-
tion masks deep-seated continuities; some change of
policy instruments and adjustment of existing
instruments altered the policy framework but were
not sufficiently profound to constitute a change of
policy paradigm. In terms of explanation, New
Labours political philosophy is given a leading role.
A key element of the argument advanced is that
New Labours policy has to be understood as part of
an ideological project that is both social and
economic. The family is seen by New Labour to be an
economic agent but also, and this is the more novel
aspect in a UK context, to serve important social
functions (particularly in relation to social integra-
tion and social order). New Labours philosophy
around the family, therefore, is a major part of the
explanation for what has been put in place in the
UK. In terms of the substance of policy, the claim
advanced is that the UK now has a functional family
policy with some institutional elements (using both
terms in the sense employed by Maetzke and
Ostner). That is, the goal of policy in the UK under
New Labour is to effect a change in individuals
behaviour and to locate individuals and families
closer to the market and also to enhance the social
integration functions of the family. This makes for
not just complexity but also some instability in that
policy has to try and target the behaviours of those
who are most deviant while at the same time univer-
salizing a concern for family functioning and legiti-
mizing a role for the state towards both sets of ends.
This set of arguments is developed in two analytic
steps. The first examines New Labours policy pro-
gramme in terms of whether the individual measures
represent change or continuity. In the second, the
depth and origins of the changes are interrogated
utilizing Peter Halls (1993) three-fold distinction of
a first-order change in settings, a second-order
change in instruments, and a third-order paradig-
matic change. The search for paradigmatic change is
operationalized in terms of whether the philosophy
and functioning of the welfare state, the role and
nature of family, and the orientation to gender rela-
tions (three defining features of any family policy
configuration) have been profoundly altered by
New Labours policy. Developments in family policy
in the UK, and especially England and Wales,1 since
New Labour came to power in 1997 provide the
empirical substance of the article. Methodologically,
the main policy milestones are analysed for their
Journal of European Social Policy 2010 20 (5)
Downloaded from esp.sagepub.com by guest on March 11, 2013
nature and significance and for what they reveal
about the aims and intent of social policy when it
comes to individuals behaviour and the place of the
family in economic and social life. For the purposes
of the article, family policy is not a narrow field but
is located within the general domain of social policy
stretching across social security, income and taxa-
tion, health and care, labour and education provi-
sion. In a nutshell, the focus in this piece is on
measures that intentionally or otherwise affect the
well-being and organization of key aspects of family
life and family functioning. This directs attention to
the following specific instruments: cash payments,
tax allowances, services for families and employ-
ment leaves.
Innovations in UK family policy
New Labours policy culture was one of continuous
reform. The Blair and Brown governments can be
credited with making employment central to social
policy in the UK. Families, too, were the focus of
considerable policy attention. New Labour crafted its
approach to families along six main lines: the educa-
tion, care and well-being of children, financial support
for families with children, services for families, paren-
tal employment, work/family reconciliation, and
family functioning. Aiming for a systematic approach,
Table 1 pinpoints the aspects that represent change
and those that have their roots in the past. This clas-
sification is informed by Halls analytic framework,
which will be explicitly discussed in the third and final
part of the article. Caution is called for in interpreta-
tion, since these are not absolute thresholds and in
practice each set of measures contains elements that
are both new and have antecedents.
The UK has discovered something of a new policy
domain in early childhood education and care. New
Labour worked hard to add substance to a policy
field that when it came to power consisted of a frag-
mented set of early childhood services, bifurcated
between a limited and diminishing stock of publicly
funded child day care, which had strong overtones
of welfare and stigma, and a growing private sector
(Lewis, 2003; Penn and Randall, 2005). Successive
New Labour governments oversaw a wide-ranging
reform of childcare and early learning services,
which attended inter alia to matters of supply,
affordability, quality, governance, and diversity of
provider. Some 21 billion was invested between
 Family policy under New Labour 435

Table 1 Changes and continuities in New Labours family policy programme

Change Continuity

Early education and childcare
Financial support for families
with children
Services for young children
and their families
Employment activation
Workfamily reconciliation
Parental responsibility and
behaviour
Expansion of childcare and early Promotion of markets and a
education services mixed economy of care
Universal early education guarantee Reliance on demand side
(for 3- and 4-year- olds) measures
Introduction of tax credits Social class fault line
Increased level of financial support Activation approach
for families with children encouraging employment
Expansion of family-related services Targeting focus on poorest
under Sure Start neighbourhoods
Localism, community development
orientation (also under Sure Start)
Introduction of tax credits Prioritization of employment
Promotion of employment among
lone and other parents
Extension of maternity leave Maternalist orientation
Introduction of paternity leave Family continues as main
Right to request flexible working provider of care
Greater intervention into family life Emphasis on social control
and social order

1997 and 2006 (HM Government, 2007). The first
ever national childcare strategy was issued in 1998,
and revised in 2004 (DfEE, 1998; HM Treasury,
2004). In terms of supply, the stock of childcare
places doubled in the period since 1997 (HM
Government, 2007: 34). The affordability of child-
care was another big issue, especially as the UK
has some of the highest childcare costs in the
EU (Himmelweit and Land, 2007). A number of
measures were put in place to address this. New
Labour continued and extended the Conservative-
introduced childcare voucher scheme which subsi-
dizes childcare for parents, at the time of writing to
the value of 55 a week. More widely, parents were
assisted with costs associated with purchasing child-
care through the Childcare Tax Credit. Introduced
in 2003, some 450,000 families received the Credit
in 2006 (Adam et al., 2007). It is a targeted benefit;
the level of support depends on means, the number
of children in day care (up to two), and the type of
childcare used. It can technically cover up to 80 per
cent of the costs of childcare, subject to a maximum
total subsidy of 140 per week for one child and
240 for parents with two or more children in reg-
istered childcare. Plans to pilot full coverage of
childcare costs through the Childcare Tax Credit
scheme were announced in January 2009.
This fed into a second area of reform. Under New
Labour the system of financial support for families
with children in the UK saw several changes in struc-
ture and a significant increase in generosity since
1997. In terms of structure, financial support for chil-
dren was shifted decisively towards tax credits making
for a more integrated set of supports. Starting in
October 1999, the benefit for families on low wages
Family Credit was replaced by Working Families
Tax Credit. This was a refundable tax credit, payable
even if it exceeded the familys income tax liability. It
was targeted at families with children in which parents
were on low to moderate incomes and working for 16
or more hours a week. Significantly more generous
than the benefit it replaced, one of its overall effects
was to increase the numbers of families subject to
means testing. In April 2003 the system was further
reformed with the introduction of Child Tax Credit
and Working Tax Credit, in what has been said to be
the biggest change in support for children since the
introduction of Child Benefit in 1977 (Adam et al.,
2007: 117). The Child Tax Credit merged several
parts of the tax and benefit system that supported
families with children, while the Working Tax Credit
extended in-work support to adults without children,
as well as providing subsidies for childcare expendi-
ture for some working parents.

Journal of European Social Policy 2010 20 (5)

Downloaded from esp.sagepub.com by guest on March 11, 2013

436 Daly
Other reforms in the child-related payments
altered whether they are paid to the main earner or
the main carer in couples, the volume of support to
families with children and aspects of the institu-
tional structure. With the tax credits in particular,
New Labour transferred payments for couples from
the earner to the main carer, a change that by the
20045 tax year was estimated to have increased
mothers incomes by about 10 per cent (Campbell,
2008: 462). In terms of generosity, the UK average
child-contingent support per child per week
increased from 24.13 in 1997 to 38.92 in 20067.
In the UK as a whole, spending on child-contingent
support was 61 per cent higher in 2006 than it was
in 1997. The increased priority of children and the
politicization of child-related provision and well-
being also led to institutional change. A new depart-
ment of state for children was set up in 2003 and in
2007 this was integrated into a new Department for
Children, Schools and Families.
A third line of innovation was in redirecting and
expanding services focused on families with chil-
dren. The Sure Start programme, introduced by New
Labour shortly after it came to office in 1997, her-
alded significant innovation as an early intervention
programme intended to streamline existing and
where necessary introduce new services so that an
integrated platform of child- and family-centred
services would be available locally in poor areas. In
a nutshell, it was conceived as a one-stop shop or
hub for services for disadvantaged 0- to 3-year-old
children and their families. As well as targeting
families in low-income neighbourhoods, Sure Start
pioneered principles of community development in
family-oriented services. Its origins are diverse: a
growing legitimacy of childrens development and
human capital acquisition as a focus of policy activ-
ity, improved governance as a general objective
(and especially joining up services), worries about
employment degeneration among low-income
sectors, declining social order especially in inner-city
communities, and as a response to cases of major
failure in services for children. While offering a set of
core services, each local programme was designed, in
theory anyway, to meet local need on the basis of
community development principles, which enable
local people to participate in determining the content
and management of the programmes. Funding was
on a grant-in-aid basis, ring-fenced for ten years
and by UK standards generous: equivalent to roughly
Journal of European Social Policy 2010 20 (5)
Downloaded from esp.sagepub.com by guest on March 11, 2013
1000 per child over the programmes planned
seven- to ten-year lifetime. The programme had a
universalist cast to the extent that the services were
available without a test of means to all families living
within prescribed catchment areas. However, the
fact that the programme was limited only to particu-
lar areas made for rigidity in accessibility and a cov-
erage rate of only around 30 per cent of poor and
needy families as a whole (La Valle and Smith, 2009).
Over the course of time, however, the nature of
the programme changed, with generalization of the
service model being traded for local diversity and par-
ticipation. The Childrens Centre programme, which
served to reframe Sure Start from 2004 onwards,
was strongly oriented to childcare services, aiming
for universal provision in some 3500 centres by
2010 (trebling the 2006 provision). A concentration
on integrated services by a multi-disciplinary team
remained but childcare and parental employment
were placed at the centre of the programme.
As is now well known, activation was a watch-
word in the New Labour approach to well-being and
sufficiency. Parents, too, were targeted in a drive
against what have been problematized as workless
households. The governments target was an
employment rate of 80 per cent of the working-age
population. From 2002, promoting the employabil-
ity of parents on benefits became one of the core Sure
Start service targets. In addition, financial support
was reframed to incentivize employment. Lone
parents employment rates were also in New Labours
sights, with a rate of 70 per cent targeted. This was
ambitious lone parents employment rate was 57
per cent in 2007 up on 45 per cent in 1997. As well
as the tax credits, which were designed initially to get
lone parents off benefits and into work and were
then extended to couple families outside employ-
ment, the strategy for increasing employment among
lone parents centred on a targeted activation pro-
gramme the New Deal for Lone Parents. Introduced
in 1998, this was voluntary in nature, centred on
giving information, advice and access to training and
other programmes. From 2008 however, compulsory
elements were introduced with lone parents on ben-
efits being required to seek employment once their
child reaches the age of twelve years (and seven years
from 2010).
Workfamily reconciliation was another plank
of policy. While this is a protean concept and in the
UK and elsewhere has had a number of different
 Family policy under New Labour
incarnations (Lewis and Campbell, 2007), it spells,
inter alia, a recognition that the organization of
employment has to be made more compatible with
the rhythms and exigencies of family life and vice
versa. In arguing for worklife balance policies,
New Labour like its predecessors gave a high
profile to the business case (Lewis and Campbell,
2007). The focus on workfamily balance led the
UK in a number of new directions. It was the
source, first, of some new and the extension of
existing instruments and rights associated with
care-giving. The Employment Act 2002 introduced
both paid paternity and adoption leave and the
right to request (but not necessarily receive) flexi-
ble working for parents of young or disabled chil-
dren. It also significantly extended paid maternity
leave (from 18 to 26 weeks). The Work and
Families Act 2006 extended these rights further.
For children born or adopted after 1 April 2007,
the period of paid maternity leave was extended by
a half to 39 weeks and mothers could take one year
off work after childbirth by putting together the
paid entitlement with unpaid leave. Paid paternity
leave, introduced in 2003, is of two weeks dura-
tion and paid at a flat rate but from 2010 it was
planned that fathers would be able to take over the
maternity leave 20 weeks after the birth if the
mother returns to work. However, given that this is
the period when the flat-rate compensation kicks
in, fathers will suffer a considerable income loss by
taking it (Lewis and Campbell, 2007: 373). Second,
the workfamily balance focus has introduced
greater flexibility around working time. From
April 2003, parents of children aged under 6 years
(and, as of April 2009, parents of all children aged
16 or under) have the right to apply to work flex-
ibly and their employers have a duty to consider
these requests seriously. This right to request flex-
ible work was extended to carers of adults in April
2007.
Finally, under New Labour social policy in the
UK assumed a role in strengthening family relation-
ships and furthering good parenting. Attention
here is on parents skills, how they perform their
parenting roles and their presence in the lives of
their children. In relation to skills and role perform-
ance, the aim of policy was to ensure that all parents
are able to access parental support throughout the
life of their child as and when they need it. This
included improved access to universal information
Downloaded from esp.sagepub.com by guest on March 11, 2013
437
services, including enhanced helpline provision,
and more focused services within the early years
setting. Among the measures oriented to this end
were investment in relationship support, delivered
mainly through the third sector, and support serv-
ices for conflict resolution for parents whose rela-
tionships have broken down. By 2010 all schools
should offer a range of parenting support, including
information sessions as well as more specialized
support for parents whose children have problems
with attendance or behaviour. In addition, the
Green Paper Care Matters (Department for Edu
cation and Skills, 2006) outlined proposals to help
local services support families to stay together,
such as assessing the impact of intensive parenting
support or therapy.
Continuities in the UK social policy
approach to the family
These innovations notwithstanding, the New
Labour programme had many points of reference in
the past. Two factors suggest that a more of the
same label is appropriately applied to the UK under
New Labour. First, New Labour took on without
significantly changing many of the elements, philo-
sophical orientation and instrument alike, of the
preceding Conservative administrations; second,
many of the new measures embodied features that
reach deep into the classical design of and emphases
in the UK welfare state.
The move to early childhood education and care is
an insightful case study of continuity. It drew on
several short and long threads to the past. First, the
underlying strategy of encouraging the creation of
markets in early childcare was in essence a continu-
ation of previous policy. Not only did New Labours
preference for service delivery partnerships between
government and the private sector (both for-profit
and not-for-profit) continue the trend set under the
former Conservative regime but New Labour deep-
ened marketization of childcare provision (Lloyd,
2008: 482). There was also a heavy, although not
exclusive, reliance on measures that had been tried
before, especially demand-side subsidies (e.g. tax
credits and vouchers). New Labours childcare policy
programme was not just about markets, however.
The early childhood provision rested also on an ideal
of a mixed economy of care, and so the last decade
saw the inauguration or expansion of a range of
Journal of European Social Policy 2010 20 (5)
438 Daly
different types of childcare provision. One result was
that childcare and early education is a very complex
and crowded field in the UK, including Sure Start
childrens centres and neighbourhood nurseries
targeted initially anyway at low-income neighbour-
hoods and early excellence centres; extended
schools; nursery schools; play-groups; crches; out-
of-school services or kids clubs; holiday clubs and
registered child minders. Schools play a major role
and theirs is a contribution that is ever extending. It
was planned, for example, by 2010 to have schools
open year-round from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. To these,
as the registered types, one must add a range of
informal providers (mainly family, friends and
neighbours) (Smith et al., 2008).
The bifurcated and targeted nature of childcare
provision also draws upon classic divisions in the
UK. A social class fault line manifests itself in two
main ways. The universalist cast to its rhetoric not-
withstanding, New Labour presided over reforms
that in essence continue the targeting of different
sectors of the population. In relation to childcare, for
example, more affluent areas are mainly served by
private providers, with services fashioned by market
forces and increasingly concentrated in the hands of
large corporate chains. Deprived areas, in contrast,
are reliant on government intervention and a mix of
public and voluntary-sector providers. Sure Start,
too, was above all an example of targeting, although
the intention was to roll out over time the pro-
gramme to all neighbourhoods. In addition, whereas
the free early education guarantee achieved almost
universal uptake, it was low-income parents who
had greatest difficulty accessing both it and child-
care, and the childcare tax credit was more likely to
be claimed by middle-income parents than those
further down the income hierarchy (La Valle and
Smith, 2009: 80). There is another sense also in
which the old class settlement remained salient in the
UK: the guiding model and preferred arrangement
was that of more affluent mothers. Well-paid women
with partners or husbands who work on a full-time
basis have long tended to purchase childcare in the
market, whereas mothers in the lower-income groups
have been much more reluctant to hand over their
children to virtual strangers as part of a financial
transaction, preferring to care themselves or care by
family members, neighbours and friends (McDowell,
2005: 369). It is the middle-class model that is being
generalized by a process that, as Saraceno (2008: 7)
Journal of European Social Policy 2010 20 (5)
Downloaded from esp.sagepub.com by guest on March 11, 2013
points out, has a particularly negative impact on
low-income and low-educated women, since they
have to exchange an emotionally and culturally
valued role for low-qualified and low-paid jobs.
Some are of the view that a welfare model of early
childhood provision that targets poor mothers in
order to transform their parenting has been put in
place in the UK (Penn, 2007; Lloyd, 2008).
When it comes to financial support for families,
while it is true that the volume of financial assistance
increased and that the tax system was made the main
conduit of such support, take-up is known to be low
and targeting rather poor. Only 68 per cent of all
families with young children receive the Childcare
Tax Credit, for example, and those in the poorest
deciles are less likely to receive it compared to those
in the middle and upper income sectors (Penn, 2007:
197). The situation remains that parents pay roughly
70 per cent of the cost of childcare overall, which is
double the contribution made by parents in many
other EU countries (Himmelweit and Land, 2007)
and not a whole lot different to the situation that
existed before New Labour.
Turning to other areas of policy activity, it is nothing
new for a UK government to impose duties and
responsibilities on family members, especially on
those families that are seen to be dysfunctional. One
could even argue that it was the Conservatives who
discovered family solidarity when John Major
launched his Back to Basics campaign in 1993, using
the rhetoric of family stability and traditional family
values to warrant greater law and order, personal
responsibility and moral probity. New Labours
emphasis on improving family relationships had
strong undercurrents of social order and social
control, again characteristic elements of the liberal
welfare state model which has always had a prefer-
ence for differentiating between the deserving and the
undeserving and censoring the latter. Parenting
Orders, for example, compel parents whose childrens
behaviour brings them to the attention of the courts to
attend parenting classes and fulfil other requirements
deemed necessary by the court. In addition, there are
parenting contracts, which are two-sided voluntary
agreements between parents and the local authority
(or other bodies) to address specific behavioural or
school attendance problems. As Lister (2006) com-
ments, these developments have taken family policy
into the sphere of justice policy. So how is New
Labours approach to the family to be judged overall?
 Family policy under New Labour
Assessing the significance of New Labours
policy programme on the family
Halls (1993) analytic framework on policy change
is helpful in assessing the nature and depth of devel-
opments in UK family policy. His framework is one
of the most systematic available; it also demands a
historical rendering of developments. Hall offers a
three-fold distinction around the weight of change,
between a first-order change of settings, a second-
order change of instruments, and a third-order para-
digmatic change, which involves a fundamental
alteration of the philosophy and hierarchy of policy
goals. The application of Halls framework here is
concerned not with outcome changes it is too soon
yet to pin down the extent to which New Labours
policies resulted in changed behaviour, practices and
structures but rather change in policy settings and
inputs, especially instruments and ideas.
First-order change, which Hall defines as the
process whereby the instrument settings are
changed in the light of experience and new knowl-
edge, while the overall goals and instruments of
policy remain the same (278), focuses on the setting
or contexts of policy instruments. This change of
modality Hall construes as more or less routine
policy learning occasioned by a change of circum-
stances and/or new knowledge. There is for the UK
evidence of considerable change at this level for,
while New Labour took on many of the existing
instruments, it also adapted and changed them to fit
its particular policy goals and the prevailing circum-
stances. So the existing maternity leave was extended
significantly; Sure Start drew upon an extant set of
provisions in the family centres and local authority
childcare centres, extending them in volume, remit
and function; the tax credits built on an existing
system of supports for those on low wages; employ-
ment tests were extended as a condition governing
benefit receipt.
But New Labour went beyond the existing
toolbox in several respects, indicating second-order
change in Halls terms. The evidence for this rests on
both the new instruments introduced and some
changes in orientation under New Labour. In terms
of innovations in instruments, paternity leave was
new, for example. So also were the institution of a
universal guarantee of childcare and the steps taken
towards putting in place a system of early educa-
tion. As an instrument Sure Start too was new.
Downloaded from esp.sagepub.com by guest on March 11, 2013
439
Novel also were the many New Deals focused on
turning benefit recipients into workers. While there
had always been a strict test of employability in UK
social assistance, the New Deals, with their imprint
of tailoring provision to the employability prospects
of individuals or population sectors, took the British
welfare state in the direction of skills development
and motivational (even moral) transformation. The
tax credits if taken as a system were also new and
they effected movement from (albeit limited) univer-
salism towards means-tested benefits as well as
some transfer of financial support from the benefit
system to the tax system (which made up over 60
per cent of social expenditure in 2006 compared
with around 40 per cent in 1997) (Adam et al.,
2007). In addition, as well as encouraging parental
employment, New Labour made it easier for parents
to take leave from or adjust their employment for
childcare-related purposes and the emphasis on
reconciliation of work and family life legitimated
some recognition of family-related exigencies as a
counter claim to employment-based rights and
responsibilities.
The overriding question is whether there was
third-order change. This is the big bang in Halls
characterization, it entails simultaneous changes in
instrument settings, instruments themselves and a
rearrangement of policy goals. It is, therefore, a
change in the entire intellectual framework within
which policy problems are understood and policy
solutions devised. The kind of question that needs to
be posed in order to determine if third-order change
occurred is whether New Labours policies on family
were within or outside the existing paradigm.
Further specification is required, however, because
for paradigm change one has to move beyond instru-
ments or policy foci (the basis of Table 1) to con-
sider underlying orientations and philosophies
about institutions and big relationships. Three foci
get at such big relationships in the present endeav-
our: the nature and philosophy of the welfare state;
the role and nature of the family and of family rela-
tions and functioning; and gender relations. While
there are other possible indicators, these are suffi-
ciently definitive of policy on families to get at the
core changes in philosophy or approach.
In regard to the welfare state, some changes in
philosophy are identifiable. New Labours policy
approach spelled greater state responsibility for the
fate of the poorer sections of the population, greater
Journal of European Social Policy 2010 20 (5)
440 Daly
focus on family as a reference point and organiza-
tional unit for benefits and services, and a greater
willingness to intervene in and commit resources for
the purpose of family functioning. That said, the
seas did not part and the skies open. The changes
made can generally be accommodated within the
paradigms that were already lodged in the UK
welfare state before New Labour. The recourse to
selective and targeted policies and the increase of
means-testing both have a long history in the UK
and were definitive of the welfare state model devel-
oped under New Labour also. Equally, the focus
on employment also drew on the past for this is a
welfare state that has classically understood citizen-
ship in terms of economic engagement and for which
managing poverty, rather than guaranteeing income
security, has been an overriding objective. One
could argue that what New Labour did is update the
deserving and undeserving fault line, which existed
as far back as the New Poor Law of 1834. This has
led to moral continuity: the undeserving, then as
now, were the indigent, the passive, those com-
pelled or content to subject themselves to the benef-
icence of the state. There was ideological continuity
also: the role of the state is to resist creating depend-
ence. Activation as a solution fits well with this
orientation. The conclusion, therefore, is that the
underlying paradigm of social policy in the UK and
the role accorded the welfare state were not changed
profoundly.
In relation to the family, the key question is
whether the role and nature of the family has been
altered. Here, too, there are good grounds to ques-
tion the depth of change. The part-time nature of
the childcare guarantee fits with a liberal view of the
appropriate (limited) role of public provision in the
lives of young children and of families generally.
While Lewis (2003) is correct that greater state
assumption of responsibility for childcare and a
guarantee of universal nursery education for three-
year olds (in 2004) and four-year olds (in 1998)
were both significant new developments, the free
entitlement to 12.5 hours a week during the school
year (due to be increased to 15 hours from 2010)
made family care essential and so hardly represents
a fundamental change in paradigm or approach.
Out-of-home care is complementary to family care
rather than a substitute for it (Smith et al., 2008)
and the family remains the main carer of young chil-
dren. In fact, making available some out-of-home
Journal of European Social Policy 2010 20 (5)
Downloaded from esp.sagepub.com by guest on March 11, 2013
care could be seen as a way of undergirding a highly
unequal system and enabling continuity under
changed economic and other circumstances. For one
needs to be clear: what does not exist in the UK is a
universal, publicly funded, integrated and equitable
childcare system uncoupled from parental status,
family income level and family investment in care
(Lloyd, 2008: 483). Now this, if it were effected,
would constitute a paradigm change.
Turning to the third parameter gender relations
there are grounds also to question whether New
Labours policies represented a fundamental change.
There was certainly a stronger promotion of employ-
ment for mothers and the role of worker was nor-
malized for all women. Those who choose this
option got back some paid and unpaid time to care
(but only for the care of young children). There was
also a stronger state promotion of a form of father-
hood that is more involved with children. But
choice, while it might have the appeal of being seen
to respond to social change and popular prefer-
ences, is no antidote to inequality. There are three
reasons to suggest that New Labours gender para-
digm was relatively unchanged from what existed in
the past. First, women were still conceived as the
primary carers. Consider the decision to signifi-
cantly expand maternity leave rather than go down
what is now the more common parental leave route
in EU-Europe of parental leaves. Maternity leave
endorses separate spheres between women and men
unlike parental leaves which are in essence an enti-
tlement to be shared between parents and which
have as one of their possible intentions a shift from
the traditional, gender-based division of labour and
responsibility to a more egalitarian distribution of
tasks and responsibilities. While there was some
policy attention turned on fathers, granting men
two weeks of paternity leave paid at a flat-rate is a
rather minimalist intervention. In any case, given
the strong policy interest historically in the UK in
getting men to financially support their children, the
introduction of paternity benefits may stem from a
desire to enable men to bond with their young chil-
dren rather than to change the gendered division of
labour and responsibility around parenting. Second,
while it introduced greater financial compensation
for care, New Labour did little to valorize care or
recognize its connections to gender inequality. Paying
for some care does not go very far in valorizing
care as a socially worthy activity (Saraceno, 2008).
 Family policy under New Labour
Furthermore, the way it funded childcare for
example stimulating the growth of low-waged
care in the private sector could be argued to
devalue care (Williams, 2005). Nor does work
family reconciliation, which is admittedly broader
than a pro-employment agenda, represent at heart a
valuing of care. Third, rather than moving defini-
tively away from a gendered family model, policy
sought to strengthen family relations (by the service-
oriented interventions, the parenting orders and
other legal provisions, the granting of longer leaves
from employment). There was a modernization of
the old family/maternal care model rather than a
new model. Overall, New Labour was not seeking
to strip women of functions around care but rather
to place other providers alongside them, including
fathers to some extent, and to financially recom-
pense mothers (and the family more broadly) for
some of the costs involved.
Looking across all three parameters, New Labour
philosophy was and is therefore compatible with
key existing elements. So while New Labour insti-
tuted change, this was mainly confined to some
alteration of existing measures as well as the intro-
duction of some new measures. In suggesting that
New Labours approach does not amount to a para-
digmatic change in the sense of fundamental rupture
with past philosophy and policy objectives, this
piece goes against the view of people like
Dobrowolsky and Jenson (2006) and Lister (2006)
who have argued that the social investment strategy
of New Labour represents a new paradigm. They
attribute particular import to the strong focus on
children and on the future-oriented approach which
views social expenditures as valid only if they have
a future return. Childhood has become politicized
and children a potential asset to be harvested in the
future, provided the long-term and life course effects
of childhood poverty and deprivation are addressed.
While these were both new and significant emphases
in the UK, they emerge from and intellectually can
be accommodated within the existing philosophy of
welfare that exists in the UK. Over time, the hierar-
chy of goals remained the same in the UK and whilst
social investment added a new dimension to the
ideational framework, it resonated easily with the
existing liberal orientation of the British welfare
state. Extending the activation paradigm to children
and giving them some social rights does not alter the
underlying economic model of citizenship. The view
Downloaded from esp.sagepub.com by guest on March 11, 2013
441
of the family and childrens relationship to family,
state and market is unchanged in fundament.
That said, the complexity of what New Labour
tried to do should be acknowledged. Driver and
Martell (2002) are convincing in suggesting that
New Labour had neither purely conservative nor
solely progressive agendas at play in relation to fam-
ilies. On the one hand, New Labour was concerned
about preserving the family based on marriage and
responsible parenthood; on the other hand, succes-
sive New Labour administrations had been suffi-
ciently grounded in the realities of everyday life not
to view family structure narrowly as the cereal
packet family based on marriage. In New Labours
approach, a concern with improving family rela-
tions, especially intergenerational relations, sat
alongside and sometimes dominated a concern with
family structure. New Labour recognized diversity
in family structure however it did its utmost to try
and ensure that this should not be a source of insta-
bility. New Labour had problems with individual-
ism, striking a different course to what it perceived
as Thatcherisms economic individualism and old
Labours social individualism (Driver and Martell,
2002: 47). For its middle-ground philosophy, New
Labour drew on the Third Way philosophy as artic-
ulated by Anthony Giddens (1998), who was special
advisor to the first Blair government. What is often
missed about the Third Way is that it was as much a
social philosophy as an economic philosophy and
that New Labour valued it also for its capacity as a
society-oriented analysis that addressed economic
goals (Daly, 2004). With social exclusion as one
analytic lens, a key problem is the voluntary or
involuntary exclusion of whole sectors of the popu-
lation, not just from the embrace of the market but
also from family, community and ultimately society
itself. Hence, a sole focus on economic factors, such
as getting people into the labour market, would not
suffice. To New Labours way of thinking, it is
enduring family bonds and responsible parenting
that animate the notion of the dutiful individual
(Driver and Martell, 2002: 48). For this and other
reasons, a key New Labour interest lay in how the
behaviour of family members, especially parents,
could be mobilized to improve social order and in
the process (re)fashion the family as an agent of
social integration and economic responsibility.
Policy sought to put (back) together a sense of col-
lective life and especially to prevent family life from
Journal of European Social Policy 2010 20 (5)
442 Daly
becoming dysfunctional, fragmented by changing
economic and social conditions and divorced from
community and responsibilities thereto.
Two questions bring this piece to a close. The first
is whether the UK model has changed substantially.
The answer given here is no. While it has more
family-oriented measures as compared with the past
and while New Labour legitimized a more explicit
and broader role for the state in regard to the family,
the UK continues as a market-oriented, family policy
model (as classified by Ferrarini, 2006). What New
Labour was engaged in, in essence, is a reposition-
ing within an existing framework. Family members
and the family itself have been located more closely in
a market context. The rhythms and exigencies of
family life have been reframed in an activation mode.
However, in New Labours view family is an impor-
tant source of stability and so a balance had to be
struck between, on the one hand, promoting employ-
ment for individuals and giving individuals greater
autonomy vis--vis the family and, on the other,
injecting greater quality into family life and ensuring
endurance in family relations (especially those
between parents and children). This twin set of social
and economic concerns led New Labour to a more
directive, explicit and instrumental policy on family
as compared with the past.
The second question is about what kind of family
policy the UK has today. This is not easy to answer
either, not least because one needs to be careful about
seeing New Labours policy as uni-dimensional or as
fully coherent. What Britain has now is a mixed family
policy, partly institutional, partly functional. Whereas
in the past the family was left more or less to its own
devices, the UK state is today more active in, on the
one hand, refashioning family life and behaviour and,
on the other, stabilizing family relations and recogniz-
ing stable family life as significant for social stability
and social order. Reform under New Labour was
Janus-faced, in two senses. First, state policies on
family in the UK were oriented to individual auton-
omy and rights but also to re-embedding individuals
in family life and elevating family as a form of social
integration. Second, New Labour continued the
strong selectivist tenor of social policy in the UK but
it also espoused universalist ambitions. Given that the
former was given priority, time (as measured espe-
cially by electoral disaffection) and inherent contra-
dictions between the two approaches were against it
achieving the latter.
Journal of European Social Policy 2010 20 (5)
Downloaded from esp.sagepub.com by guest on March 11, 2013
Acknowledgement
I would like to thank Timo Fleckenstein for his
valuable and insightful comments on an earlier
draft. The advice of the editors is also gratefully
acknowledged, as is that of the anonymous review-
ers. The work undertaken for this article benefited
from funding by the Anglo German Foundation for
the project Sustainable Welfare and Sustainable
Growth: Towards a New Social Settlement in
Germany and the UK.
Notes
1. Developments in England and to a lesser extent Wales
are the main focus given that, since devolution in the
late 1990s, policy in Scotland and Northern Ireland
sometimes varies in detail and governance.
References
Adam, S., Brewer, M., Browne, J. and Phillips, D. (2007)
An Analysis of Children in Northern Ireland,
Government Financial Support for Children across the
UK: How Does Northern Ireland Compare? London:
Institute for Fiscal Studies.
Campbell, M. (2008) Labours Policy on Money for
Parents: Combining Care with Paid Work, Social Policy
& Society 7(4): 45770.
Daly, M. (2004) Changing Conceptions of Family and
Gender Relations in European Welfare States and the
Third Way, in J. Lewis and R. Surender (eds) Welfare
State Change Towards a Third Way? pp. 135154.
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Department for Education and Employment (DfEE)
(1998) Meeting the Childcare Challenge. Cm 3959,
Norwich: Stationery Office.
Dobrowolsky, A. and Jenson, J. (2006) Social Investment
Perspectives and Practices: A Decade in British Politics,
in M. Powell, L. Bauld and K. Clarke (eds) Social Policy
Review 17: Analysis and Debate in Social Policy 2005,
pp. 203230. Bristol: Policy Press.
Driver, S. and Martell, L. (2002) New Labour, Work and
the Family, Social Policy and Administration 36(1):
4661.
Ferrarini, T. (2006) Families, States and Labour Mar-
kets: Institutions, Causes and Consequences of Family
Policy in Post-War Welfare States. Cheltenham: Edward
Elgar.
Giddens, A. (1998) The Third Way: The Renewal of Social
Democracy. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Hall, P. (1993) Policy Paradigms, Social Learning and the
State. The Case of Economic Policymaking in Britain,
Comparative Politics 25(3): 27596.
HM Government (2007) Building on Progress: Families.
London: Cabinet Office.
HM Treasury (2004) Choice for Parents, the Best Start for
Children: Ten Year Strategy for Childcare. London:
HMSO.
 Family policy under New Labour
Himmelweit, S. and Land, H. (2007) Supporting Parents and
Carers. Manchester: Equal Opportunities Commission,
Working Paper.
La Valle, I. and Smith, R. (2009) Good Quality Childcare
for All? Progress towards Universal Provision, National
Institute Economic Review 207: 7582.
Lewis, J. (2003) Developing Early Years Childcare in
England, 19972002: The Choices for (Working)
Mothers, Social Policy & Administration 37(3): 21938.
Lewis, J. and Campbell, M. (2007) Work/Family Balance
Policies in the UK since 1997, Journal of Social Policy
36(3): 36581.
Lister, R. (2006) Children (but not Women) First: New
Labour, Child Welfare and Gender, Critical Social
Policy 26(2): 31535.
Lloyd, E. (2008) The Interface Between Childcare, Family
Support and Child Poverty Strategies under New
Labour: Tensions and Contradictions, Social Policy &
Society 7(4): 47994.
Maetzke, M. and Ostner, I. (2010) Introduction: Change
and Continuity in Recent Family Policies, Journal of
European Social Policy, 20(5) [this issue].
Downloaded from esp.sagepub.com by guest on March 11, 2013
443
McDowell, L. (2005) Love, Money and Gender Divisions
of Labour: Some Critical Reflections on Welfare-to-
Work Policies in the UK, Journal of Economic
Geography 5: 36579.
Penn, H. (2007) Childcare Market Management: How
the United Kingdom Government Has Reshaped its
Role in Developing Early Childhood Education and
Care, Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood 8(3):
192207.
Penn, H. and Randall, V. (2005) Childcare Policy and
Local Partnerships under Labour, Journal of Social
Policy 34(1): 7997.
Saraceno, C. (2008) Gender and Care: Old Solutions, New
Developments? Annual Hirschman Lecture, European
University Institute, Florence, April 22.
Smith, R., Speight, S. and La Velle, I. (2008) Fitting it All
Together: How Families Arrange Their Childcare and
the Influence on Home Learning. London: Department
for Children, Schools and Families.
Williams, F. (2005) New Labours Family Policy, in
Powell, M. et al. (eds) Social Policy Review 17: Analysis
and Debate in Social Policy. Bristol: Policy Press.
Journal of European Social Policy 2010 20 (5)