wfn.org | ACNS3381 Archbishop of Canterbury - maiden speech in the Lords

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ACNS 3381     |     ENGLAND	|     28 MARCH 2003 

Archbishop of Canterbury - maiden speech in the Lords

Dr Williams spoke in a debate on the importance of parents in the 21st
century:

My Lords, I too am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, for giving
us the opportunity of so timely a debate - a debate that recognises, as we
needs must recognise at present, a major cultural shift. The time was when
the family appeared as a safe and stable piece of territory, surrounded by
the ups and downs of public life. Now it is often the family itself that
appears fragile and in need of support from public attention and public
investment.

The word 'parenting', which has been thrown around already in this
afternoon's discussion, is in some ways admittedly a barbarism. As somebody
recently said, it would be nice to know what the corresponding duties of
'childing' involved. But we cannot do without that. However much it may
suggest an unhappy replacement of relation by contract, there are questions
here about skills and the management, nurture and development of those
skills, which have become a matter of increasing urgency for all those
reasons which your Lordships have already heard amply set out.

The noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, rightly referred to the weight of multiple
disadvantage that presses upon many families these days. I agree
wholeheartedly with the identification of that problem and see its effects
not least in the challenges that face many parents in the management of
stress, anger and conflict. Much of the most important work that can be done
in the field of parenting skills is in addressing these issues. 

At the same time, as the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas, has reminded us, we
face a culture of work that is in many ways inimical to the values we wish to
develop. It is, I believe, a fact that fathers of young children work,
statistically, the longest hours among our working population. Our attention
has already been drawn to this. It is a reminder to us that, while it is
perfectly right to think of work as one of the more reliable routes out of
poverty, that can only be true in a constructive way and in the long run if
our culture of work becomes more humane and less pressurised. I hope that
that, too, will be part of our considerations in this area. We are not simply
talking about the multiple disadvantage that weighs so heavily on
economically less advantaged members of society; we are also looking at the
burdens borne by those who are counted prosperous in the world's eyes.

It is because of the increasing awareness of these pressures and conflicts
that the level and quality of voluntary contribution to this situation has
developed so dramatically in recent years. The noble Baroness, Lady
Brigstocke, and the noble Lord, Lord Wright, have drawn our attention to one
of the most distinguished essays in voluntary assistance here. I am
particularly glad to hear the work of Margaret Harrison referred to, as not
only her practical work, but also her research, have proved a benchmark for
the understanding of these issues in recent years. It is an area where the
life of faith communities and the Christian Churches has become much involved
in recent years.

The Mothers' Union has been running a parenting skills programme that, I
believe, is currently educating 220 people in parenting skills, of whom
nearly a quarter now have professional accreditation. Christian groups have
been prominent in many other fields here. There are several names that might
be called to mind: FLAME, the Family Life and Marriage Education network;
Care for the Family; and the delightfully and aptly named Fathers Direct. I
do not believe that it is quite true yet that you can have a mail order
arrangement to provide a male parent, but this is a very important
contribution to precisely those areas that previous speakers in your
Lordships' House have mentioned in this afternoon's debate.

Unprecedented levels of skill and attention have been devoted to this in the
voluntary sector. This is where a note of, if not caution, at least concern
might need to be sounded. It is always welcome when statutory encouragement
and assistance are given to voluntary work in areas such as this. But, as
many of your Lordships will realise better than I, the promise of statutory
encouragement and assistance can sometimes be something of a Trojan horse.
The armed warriors inside brandish their weapons of accreditation and
accountability in ways that may be perfectly defensible and yet which create
their own problems in discouraging volunteers. Some of the effects of this
are already visible in some of those voluntary organisations that I have
mentioned.

We need some overview of the situation, able to balance the appropriate level
of statutory involvement with a proper flexibility about the volunteer and
his or her role. It is in relation to that question of an overview that I
make the first of two concluding points that I wish to leave with your
Lordships. This has to do with a question that has been ventilated more than
once in recent decades. Legislation affecting families and children crosses a
wide number of departmental boundaries in government. From time to time, the
cry has been raised that it is perhaps time to see some co-ordinating
structure that will have that overview of the needs of families and children,
which is able to interpret departments to one another and interpret the
common mind of government departments to the public at large and turn it into
effective action. I hope that that challenge to a co-ordinating role within
government will not go unheard.

If I may refer to it in your Lordships' House, the experience in Wales of the
development of the role of the Children's Commissioner has again reminded us
how very important it can be to have some figure or figures who have that
broader role and that broader vision and remit in their work.

Many more things could be said on this subject. I look forward to hearing
them from other speakers in the debate, not least the noble Lord, Lord Carey,
my distinguished predecessor. But one concluding reflection, which is perhaps
particularly timely, is in relation to the way in which faith communities are
capable of collaboration in the delivery of parenting skills. Experience in
urban south Wales suggested that collaboration between the Churches and the
local Muslim communities could break down many barriers of understanding. I
suggest to your Lordships that that area is well worthy of further
development at a time when relations between faith communities so need
reinforcement, cementing and solidifying.

It is a sad fact, and this debate will remind us of it, as many others will,
that it is not always shared aspirations that give us the deepest sense of
our common humanity-shared problems do that too. The cross-boundary problems
affecting faith communities, such as the difficulties of parenting and the
management of adolescents, have sometimes proved a major spur to better and
fuller co-operation between those faith communities that have a particular
investment in the health and nurture of family life.

___________________________________________________________________

For details about the Enthronement of the 104th Archbishop of Canterbury,
the Most Revd Rowan D Williams, visit http://www.anglicancommunion.org/

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