Fewer Britons saving for a rainy day; Women less likely to have a nest egg

2/16/11

A fifth of Britons admit to having no savings whatsoever while only just over a third of adults say they have less than £500 put aside for a rainy day, new research reveals today.

The figures from market research consultancy Mintel also show that women are least likely to have that all important nest egg. About 17% men, nearly a quarter (22%) of women and as many as 22% families admit to having no savings at all..

The findings paint a grim picture of millions of households unprotected by even the smallest of financial cushions as they struggle to cope with the everyday cost of living in tough economic conditions. Rising fuel prices and a hike in VAT have made the beginning of 2011 difficult. Increase in inflation is further bad news for savers finding the value of their deposits falling in real terms. The rise in the Consumer Prices Index to 4% in January from 3.7% in December means a basic rate taxpayer now needs to find an account paying at least 5%, just to stop the value of their savings eroding in value.

Toby Clark, head of finance at Mintel, said: “With unemployment continuing to rise and concerns about the health of the economy, those without a safety net could find they are financially exposed in the coming months. The accepted wisdom is that low interest rates are stopping people from saving, however we have found that it is only really an issue for the top end of the market and the reality is that meeting everyday costs and expenses is by far the largest savings barrier.”

When asked how they would generally describe their current financial situation, almost three in 10 consumers (28%) describe their conditions as tight, only just making ends meet. A further one in ten (8%) say they are really struggling, admitting they are in real danger of falling behind with bills or loan repayments. But those in the worst situation are the 4% of Britons who are in real trouble having missed loan repayments or household bills.

The largest proportion (42%) are those who feel that their financial situation is stable, but there is not a lot of money left by the time the basics are taken care of. Just 18% admit to being in a healthy financial position with money left at the end of the month for a few luxuries or to add to their savings.

The strains that the slowdown has put on the nation are showing. Over the past year, half (50%) of consumers have withdrawn from their savings, with lower income groups among the most likely to have taken funds from their savings. Around the same number (53%) admit that they can’t really save or invest at the moment.

For those who are lucky enough to have spare cash, saving rates highly on consumers intentions. When asked what consumers choose to spend extra money on, the top five spending priorities are dining out (35%), savings account/emergency/rainy day fund (33%), going out (pub, cinema etc) (33%), small extras for family members (26%) and books, DVDs and CDs (25%).

However, with savings being eroded by the effects of inflation and taxation, there is little incentive for people to save now. According to Andrew Hagger of Moneynet.co.uk, basic rate taxpayers now need to earn 5% gross on their savings to maintain their spending power – a rate unobtainable on any standard savings account at the moment.

Select your baby’s sex for £14,000: How British couples are being sent to Cyprus for illegal fertility treatments

A leading NHS fertility doctor is making money by sending couples abroad to choose the sex of their unborn baby – a procedure that is illegal in Britain.

Gynaecologist Charles Kingsland, clinical director of Britain’s largest NHS fertility unit and a former inspector for the fertility watchdog, refers at least one woman a week to a clinic in Northern Cyprus to be implanted with a selected embryo.

Helping hand: Charles Kingsland told our reporter he would prepare our statement – but would have to deny any knowledge. There is no suggestion the babies in this picture were subject to sex selection

Last night a leading cross-bench peer demanded an urgent inquiry into the ‘enormous moral issues’ after a Mail on Sunday investigation revealed that:

• Mr Kingsland uses NHS premises and staff to organise for profit a medical procedure that is illegal in Britain.
• Couples are paying up to £14,000 for the controversial service – more than four times the cost of standard private fertility treatment.
• Mr Kingsland tells patients he must cover up his involvement by claiming to be ‘ignorant’ of their reasons for travelling to Cyprus.

Mr Kingsland agreed to make the arrangements for an undercover Mail on Sunday investigator to undergo the procedure – even though there was no evidence that she could not conceive naturally.

Normally such a young, healthy woman with no known fertility problems would not qualify for IVF treatment on the NHS until she had spent at least a year trying to get pregnant by natural means.



Mr Kingsland also told her it was ‘better your GP doesn’t know anything’ about the treatment.

Sex selection was made illegal in Britain by the Human Fertilisation And Embryology Act 2008 except on very narrow medical grounds. However, the UK Cypriot Fertility Association (UKCFA), in which Mr Kingsland is a shareholder, is offering it to women who want to choose the gender of their child for purely social reasons.

On its website, the company advertises that the ‘family balancing’ treatment will be carried out at its affiliated clinic, the Cyprus IVF Centre in Famagusta, in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. The state – which is not recognised diplomatically by any nation other than Turkey – is the only place in Europe where sex selection is legal.

Our undercover reporter paid £200 for an initial consultation with 53-year-old Mr Kingsland in the Hewitt Centre for Reproductive Medicine, which is based at the Liverpool Women’s Hospital, where he is clinical director.

Two embryos of the required sex are transplanted back into the womb, with the remaining embryos stored, donated to other couples or ‘allowed to perish’, according to Mr Kingsland

He admitted that the treatment was illegal in Britain, but that many women select the gender of their embryo ‘just because they fancy it’.

However, he said the procedure was ‘perfectly doable’ for a cost of about £11,000 and that he would prepare our reporter for treatment. He suggested he would have to feign ignorance about the real reason for her trip to Cyprus.

Selecting the gender of a baby by sex has provoked intense debate in recent years. Critics claim it is ‘playing God’ and could lead to the creation of ‘designer babies’ where parents map out every detail of their unborn child without having to resort to donor eggs or sperm.

In China and India it is not uncommon to abort female foetuses because of a preference for male children, and it is feared that legalising gender selection in Britain could encourage this bias among some communities.

Although the UKCFA does not directly profit from providing the services carried out in the Cypriot clinic, it makes money by advising and preparing couples for the controversial procedures abroad.

Couples who contact the company are given consultations to determine their fertility and medical history, followed by tests for HIV and hepatitis.

Patients are then given injections to control the body’s hormone production and stimulate the ovaries into producing eggs.

A crucial injection is administered 36 hours before flying to Cyprus which prepares the eggs for release. The company says a stay in Cyprus of seven to ten days is necessary.

Controversial: The clinic in Famagusta, Cyprus, where treatment is carried out

A secretary at the Hewitt Centre, Jackie McGlashan, acts as unofficial travel co-ordinator for the company.

She told our undercover reporter: ‘I’ve worked for the Hewitt for 15 years but two days a week I can do this from home. Let me know your dates and I can help you sort out travel and save you money.’

Recommended hotels include the £44-a-night Salamis Bay in Famagusta, which is a £7.60 taxi ride from the clinic, or upmarket hotels in quiet, picturesque Kyrenia 30 miles away, such as the five-star Mercure hotel and the boutique Bellapais Monastery resort.

At the Cypriot clinic, couples undergo standard IVF to create embryos, which are then screened to identify their gender.

Two embryos of the required sex are transplanted back into the womb, with the remaining embryos stored, donated to other couples or ‘allowed to perish’, according to Mr Kingsland.

Couples have a 50 per cent chance of a successful pregnancy – comparable to normal IVF success rates.

‘We have many patients from England. Some of them come because we are able to do gender selection – which you can’t get in the UK.’

Patients pay the UKCFA for treatment carried out in Britain: £3,215 if women use their own eggs, or £2,355 if using donor eggs. The Cyprus clinic is paid between £8,000 and £11,000 for providing its treatment directly by the couple.

The clinic was set up in 2005 by Cypriot-born gynaecologist Dr Halil Tekan. It occupies part of a modern four-storey building in the north-eastern resort of Famagusta, which is also home to a pharmacy, laboratory and cafe.

The site is beside a main highway and a sign for the fertility centre, featuring a large logo of a sperm and an egg, is displayed prominently above the front entrance. A secretary, Hanze Neara, said: ‘We have many patients from England. Some of them come because we are able to do gender selection – which you can’t get in the UK.’

Its website boasts of its ‘unique partnership’ with the UKCFA.

On his profile on the Liverpool Women’s Hospital website, Mr Kingsland says he is an inspector for the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority.

However, the regulator said that he had not been employed by them for six years

He worked for them as an inspector and external adviser, and in 2004 he sat on a committee advising on safety issues.

In his role with the HFEA he would have had the authority to report IVF units that performed sex selection for purely social reasons for potential legal action.

The procedure is strictly limited to couples whom doctors deem to be at particular risk from passing down serious gender-specific genetic diseases, such as Duchenne muscular dystrophy, which affects only boys.

UK clinic: The Liverpool fertility centre where Charles Kingsland discussed the contentious issue of sex selection

Last night, cross-bench peer Lord David Alton, a member of the all-party Parliamentary Pro-Life group, called for an urgent debate.

Lord Alton, who was an MP for Liverpool for 18 years, said: ‘The HFEA should undoubtedly be debating this issue if it is its duty to ‘shelter the embryo’ as its chair Lisa Jardine has claimed. It can make recommendations to Parliament and introduce penalties. The financial connection should be probed. If you have a doctor with a vested interest in organising treatment that’s illegal in the UK, that raises enormous moral issues.

‘I have a big problem with the way the human embryo is regarded and oppose sex selection. It means more embryos are destroyed if they are not ideal.

‘It also means there are risks to women who would not normally undergo fertility treatment. It is deplorable that there are these ways to circumvent the law in Britain.’

He said that three million embryos had been destroyed since 1991, most of them following fertility cycles.

‘I made it very clear this is illegal in the UK’

Josephine Quintavalle, of the campaign group Comment on Reproductive Ethics, said it was shocking that British specialists would dismiss the ethical concerns.

She added: ‘IVF was developed to address genuine infertility problems, not to facilitate discriminatory social engineering of this kind.

‘Worldwide prejudice against girls has resulted in countries such as China and India as what is now described as gendercide, with des¬truction taking place either at the pre-implantation stage or sub¬sequently by selective abortion.’

The UKCFA is the trading name of Anglo Cypriot Limited, which was established in April 2008.
Companies House documents show Mr Kingsland, who lives in a £500,000 cottage on the Wirral peninsula, is a named shareholder, while his gynaecologist colleague at the Liverpool Women’s Hospital, Mehmet Gazvani, is director. Mr Kingsland’s wife Karen, a nurse, is secretary.

The firm has filed abbreviated accounts for the past two years which do not show profit and loss figures, but the total funds available to shareholders on April 30, 2010, were £40,914.

Playing God? The UKFCA website offers ‘family balancing’ treatment at its clinic in Cyprus, even though the procedure is illegal under British law

UKCFA has a profile on Twitter which it has used to flag up fertility issues, usually around egg donation. But it has not posted any messages since June last year, when one Tweet reads: ‘What is your take on sharing beuatiful [sic] eggs and getting a swan with no danger of an ugly duckling?’

Patients approaching the UKCFA are seen by either Mr Kingsland or Turkish-trained Mr Gazvani in Liverpool or at private consulting rooms in Harley Street, London.

Other doctors working for the company are prepared to see patients at private clinics in Chester, Crewe, Burton-on-Trent and Gateshead, and the company also plans to open a Leeds centre.

Fertility tourism, where couples desperate for a baby travel abroad for treatment, is a growing industry, fuelled by a shortage of egg donors in the UK.

Previously, couples who travelled abroad for sex selection would have gone directly to the overseas clinic after carrying out their own research. The most common choice is the US, where it is legal in almost every state.

Colleague: Hewett Centre secretary Jackie McGlashan makes travel arrangements for couples heading to Cyprus

An HFEA spokesman said: ‘The HFEA has no powers to prevent a clinic sending a patient overseas
for a treatment that would otherwise be disallowed here.’

The General Medical Council would not comment, but said a doctor had a duty to act within the laws of the UK.
The Liverpool Women’s NHS Foundation Trust would not comment.

When confronted by our undercover reporter last night, father-of-three Mr Kingsland said: ‘I would like to think I gave you a very balanced view of what actually happens and of my involvement.

‘I made it very clear to you that this is illegal in the UK, I hope.

‘At no point did I tell you we could offer you sex selection in the UK because that’s the case – we can’t. It’s illegal.

‘But I did make it clear I could point you in the right direction. If you do require that treatment then I…  we can facilitate that but not in this country. We haven’t done anything wrong.’

Reporting from Cyprus: Matt Sandy

 

‘This is perfectly doable – it will cost you about £11,000’

IVF: Eggs are placed in cryogenic storage before use in fertility treatment

 

Charles Kingsland offered to help an undercover Mail on Sunday reporter choose the sex of her baby during a consultation at his NHS offices at Liverpool Women’s Hospital.

Our investigator called Mr Kingsland’s UK Cyprus Fertility Association, saying she was a healthy young woman with no fertility problems who wanted to guarantee having a boy.

In a telephone call with UKCFA secretary Sue Hilton to book the consultation, our reporter was asked: ‘Would
you like to discuss egg donation or family balancing with Mr Kingsland?’

When told it was family balancing, Mrs Hilton replied: ‘Right, OK, that’s fine.’

The meeting took place in the Hewitt Centre for Reproductive Medicine, based at the Liverpool NHS hospital. Mr Kingsland is clinical director of the unit, which is the UK’s largest NHS fertility centre and also takes private patients.

Our reporter was asked to pay £200 for the initial half-hour meeting. Inside a consulting room, Mr Kingsland said: ‘What you’re asking is unusual but it’s not daft because it’s important to you.

‘It’s actually quite interesting because family balancing in this country, as you know, is illegal. It’s because of public opinion .  .  . but I think it will become legal within the next five years.’

He asked a couple of questions about the reporter’s fertility history, during which she confirmed she had never even attempted to conceive naturally.

NHS guidelines state that women should have been trying to get ¬pregnant for at least a year before they will be considered for procedures such as IVF.

However, Mr Kingsland said the procedure was ‘perfectly doable’ but would involve travel to Northern Cyprus, where ‘colleagues’ would perform it legally. He said: ‘If you wanted to have this done, you could have it done. The way it would have to work would be… I would happily do the bit that would prepare you [for sex-selection treatment] in ignorance of what you were going to do… that is, ignorance in inverted commas.’

When asked if that meant the consultation had never officially taken place, Mr Kingsland replied: ‘The conversation would have to be… what you do in Cyprus had nothing to do with me. But, you could get this treatment. OK?’

He acknowledged there were risks involved in undergoing fertility treatment, and discussed a condition known as ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome – a rare but potentially fatal reaction to the drugs that are used to encourage the ovaries to produce eggs.

Founder: Halil Tekan set up the Cypriot fertility clinic

Mr Kingsland said: ‘The downside is here we have a perfectly fertile woman coming for assisted conception with no evidence that she would have any difficulty conceiving naturally.

‘The difficulty there is my contract with you, which is first and foremost not to harm you. There is a risk that any woman going through assisted conception can come to harm.’

But he later said the procedure was proving popular, particularly in London, and claimed two couples a week were approaching the UKCFA about sex selection.

‘About one a week end up going to Cyprus,’ he added. ‘Most of them come to us in London because that’s where the big demand is.

‘It’s fair to say that a lot of women will wish to have this sort of treatment for disingenuous reasons, just because they fancy it.

‘You are unusual in that the women I see of Caucasian background, the vast majority want girls.’

He said if our reporter wanted to have the treatment, she could be in Cyprus by April. ‘If you want to go ahead, we would prepare your treatment schedule and co-ordinate with our colleagues in Cyprus.

‘It would cost around £11,000, but there are things you can shave off. We can put you in touch with a travel agent who organises travel to Northern Cyprus, which can be substantially cheaper. You basically book what will be the most expensive holiday of your life.’

He added that he would not inform the reporter’s GP of the treatment she planned to undergo.

In a later phone call, he said: ‘It’s up to you but at this early stage I think it’s better your GP doesn’t know anything.’

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1356403/NHS-fertility-doctor-Charles-Kingsland-sends-UK-couples-Cyprus-illegal-treatment.html#ixzz1DxmIwi6G

Judge refuses to allow women to have early medical abortions at home

2/14/11

A bid to relax the law on early medical abortions by allowing women to take some of their pills at home, was rejected by the High Court today.

The British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS) argued that advances in medical science meant the law should now allow the second dose of tablets for an early medical abortion (EMA) to be self-administered at home.

Health Secretary Andrew Lansley opposed the move. His lawyers argued that the 1967 Abortion Act still required women to take both first and second doses under supervision in a hospital or other medical premises.

Today Mr Justice Supperstone, sitting at the High Court in London, ruled in favour of the Health Secretary and dismissed the BPAS’s case.

BPAS lawyers said women suffered unnecessary anxiety about miscarrying on the way home from the clinic after the second round of tablets, especially if they had to travel long distances and use public transport.

Today the judge had to decide on the meaning of the words ‘any treatment for the termination of pregnancy’ under Section 1(3) of the Abortion Act, and whether they covered both the prescription and the administration of the drugs used in abortion.

The judge upheld the Government’s interpretation that the administration of both sets of abortion tablets amounted to ‘treatment’ which must be carried out by a ‘registered medical practitioner’ on premises approved under the Abortion Act.

He said the section was ‘consistent’ with the Health Secretary’s submissions as to the meaning of the concept of ‘treatment’.

‘Further, the section does make clear Parliament’s decision that it is the Secretary of State, not the medical profession, who has the responsibility for approval of the place where the treatment may take place.’

He said that the effect, ‘and indeed the very purpose’, of what was being sought by the BPAS would be that the Secretary of State’s approval would no longer be needed to designate approved places.

‘In my view this would be directly contrary to Parliament’s clear intention.’

But the judge made it clear that it was within the Health Secretary’s powers to approve a wider range of place where an abortion could take place – ‘including potentially the home’.

Later the BPAS said it was ‘disappointed’ that its interpretation of the Abortion Act was ‘not deemed viable’.

But the charity said it was at the same time “very pleased” that the judge had ruled that Section 1(3A) of the Abortion Act, as amended in 1990, enabled the Secretary of State to react to ‘changes in medical science’, and approve ‘a wider range of place’ for abortions.

The charity said the ruling showed that Mr Lansley now had power “to ensure women receive best possible care”.

The charity called for ‘a legal re-definition of treatment’ to enable women undergoing medical abortion in early pregnancy to take some of the medication at home rather than in a clinic.

BPAS stated: ‘This would put an end to women making multiple, medically unnecessary visits to clinics and eliminated the risk of abortion symptoms beginning – and in some cases the miscarriage itself occurring – as they travelled home after taking the tablets.

‘It would also have brought UK medical abortion practice, governed by laws dating back to a time when termination of pregnancy was entirely surgical, into line with international standards of care.’

The charity said the increasing number of women using tablets for abortion every year ‘means resolving this issue is now a matter of great urgency’.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1356833/Judge-refuses-allow-women-abortions-home.html#ixzz1DxlksK36

Surrogate mother fought legal battle after learning that would-be parents were violent

2/13/11

A surrogate mother who won the legal right to keep her baby revealed yesterday why she refused to hand over the child.

The surrogate – an inner-city single mother raising her own two children on benefits – agreed to give the baby to a wealthy man and his wife who had contacted her via email.

She believed they were the ‘perfect couple’ to raise a child and was paid £4,500 in expenses for her part of the deal.

But speaking exclusively to the Daily Mail, the surrogate, who can only be named as Miss N to protect the identity of the baby, told how she had changed her mind because of a startling series of confessions by the wife.

She said the woman, identified as Mrs W, told her her husband was controlling and violent towards her, and had once tried to strangle her with a car seat-belt.

The woman had previously tried to use a prostitute as her surrogate, Miss N claimed, and had told her she would abort any child with Down’s syndrome, describing children with the condition as ‘animals’.

Miss N said Mrs W had ‘snapped’ during a foul-mouthed row with an older teenage child, and that she had seen the woman bang the teenager’s head against an oven.

By that stage the surrogate, who is in her mid-twenties, was pregnant and refused to hand over the baby girl after her birth, prompting an extraordinary six-month court battle as the couple attempted to force her to give them the child.

The distraught wife even turned up at the hospital the day before the surrogate was due to give birth, to make a final plea for her to give up the child.

In an incredibly rare case, a senior Family Court judge ruled the surrogate should be allowed to keep her daughter, despite her earlier promise.

The case could have far-reaching consequences for countless other couples considering using a surrogate, and highlights the potential pitfalls involved in such a deal.

In this case, there was no formal contract between Miss N and the couple. Mr W, a chef in his mid-forties, already had a teenage daughter from a previous relationship, and Mrs W, a housewife in her late thirties, had three teenage children from a previous marriage, but they could not have children together because she had undergone cancer treatment.

Miss N spotted the appeal by the couple on a surrogacy forum in July 2009 and emailed Mr W, saying: ‘I am truly interested in helping you to make your family complete.’

Within a month of that first contact, the prospective parents had arranged the deal themselves, without the use of a specialist surrogacy agency.

The child was conceived using a crude technique to inseminate the surrogate with Mr W’s sperm, meaning they were both the baby’s biological parents.

 

The surrogate said she began to have doubts within weeks of conceiving, and had eventually decided she did not want the couple to rear her baby.

Miss N said: ‘I wanted to help this couple to have a child, and I thought it would be a wonderful thing to be able to do.

‘But as I got to know them I found they had told me lie after lie, which made me doubt what I was doing.

‘I didn’t mean to hurt anyone, and I’m sorry it has ended this way, but I couldn’t give them my baby. I had to do what was best for her. Now I think that she [Mrs W] only really wanted my baby as a toy. She needed something to occupy herself as she didn’t work and her husband was never there.

‘I’m also not convinced he truly wanted the baby. I thought he just wanted to keep his wife happy, like it was something he could buy for her.’

She added: ‘My kids are my world, and if I could give that to someone else, someone who couldn’t have children on their own, then that was something I really wanted to do. When I met this couple they seemed perfect. They needed me, and I wanted to help them.

‘I didn’t mean to hurt anyone, and I’m sorry it has ended this way, but I couldn’t give them my baby’

‘They had a beautiful house in the countryside, he had a good job and she didn’t work, so I knew she would have time to look after the baby. And they said they would pay for their child to go through private school.

‘Maybe I was gullible, but I believed everything they told me about themselves. Now I don’t know if any of it was true.’

The surrogate claimed Mrs W begged her to go through with the surrogacy arrangement and resorted to threats when her tearful pleas failed.

She said she threatened to report her to social services and have her other children taken into care.

Meanwhile Mr W demanded the return of the £4,500 expenses.

The surrogate still refused to hand over the child, who was born last July. She said the couple sent her an abrupt text message, saying: ‘Fine. We will see you in court.’

Within seven days of the birth, they launched legal proceedings. In the bitter court case, Miss N said she had pulled out of the deal because of her disturbing discoveries and because she had formed a powerful bond with her baby.

Mr and Mrs W vehemently denied her claims that they were in a violent relationship, and have accused her of deliberately deceiving them and forging incriminating emails to use against them.

The case was heard last month, when Mr Justice Scott Baker ruled Miss N had the legal right to keep the girl, now six months old.

He criticised all three adults in the case, but judged it was in the baby’s best interests to remain with her mother. In a powerful warning to other prospective parents considering surrogacy, he said they faced ‘very considerable’ risks.

‘In particular, the natural process of carrying and giving birth to a baby creates an attachment which may be so strong that the surrogate mother finds herself unable to give up the child,’ he said.

A review hearing is scheduled to take place later this month to decide on the level of contact between the baby and her biological father.

The judge said the couple were ‘understandably bitter’ about Miss N’s change of heart over her baby, identified in court as T, but added: ‘I have reached the clear conclusion that T’s welfare requires her to remain with her mother.

‘There is a clear attachment between mother and daughter. To remove her from her mother’s care would cause a measure of harm.’

Miss N now hopes her daughter will still be able to have a relationship with Mr W.

Cradling her in her arms, she said: ‘I don’t hate them now, I just pity them. I believe Mrs W truly wants a baby and I’m sorry it has worked out like this, but I can’t give her mine.

‘I would never consider being a surrogate now, especially not for strangers. To give a couple a child to raise you have to know them inside out. I have learned that lesson now.’

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1356176/Surrogate-mother-wins-case-baby-giving-birth.html#ixzz1Ds9Ib6ZM

If marriage is so damn good, why does it need propping up with tax breaks?

2/12/11

It’s National Marriage Week, apparently. Life is just one long honeymoon! I can’t say it’s affected me much because every week is bleedin’ National Marriage Week, as far as I can tell. Promoting the idea of marriage as a dream of sexual and emotional fulfilment is the white noise of our culture. When my eldest was a toddler she put on a white crash helmet and went round shouting: “I want to be dried! I want to be dried.” Was she mentally disturbed? She meant “bride”, as it turned out. Where did she get this information from, I asked desperately, because I did not exactly live in a world of white weddings. “It’s just there,” said a wise woman, “kids pick up these things through osmosis.”

Nonetheless, Iain Duncan Smith, the archbishop of Canterbury, the chief rabbi and Anne Atkins, among others, got themselves to the Palace of Westminster to inspire us to get married and, even better, to stay married.

What a palaver! If marriage is so damn wonderful, why does any institution or faith or government need to prop it up, explain commitment or reward us with tax breaks? Surely, a good marriage is its own reward. But not in a material world.

And that’s what it’s about. There remains a huge demand from the right that the state do more to support marriage. Those who fetishise tax breaks for marriage are often the same people who want the state to keep its nose out of our personal lives. As we know, David Cameron believes in less state and more society: Big Society or High Society, or something. The problem is really Low Society, where people breed for benefits. When I say people, I mean women who get impregnated and then “marry” the state.

I married the state once myself. Predictably, it didn’t last, so I ended up divorcing it and got a job!

No one denies there are massive flaws with the benefit system, though the amount that benefit fraud costs is as nothing compared to corporate fraud. Having raised the problem of Broken Britain, the solution is vaguely Big Society or more specifically, Big Marriage. Tory doctrine remains in peculiar denial about what causes the broken families they so abhor.

There are two separate issues. One concerns the people who don’t get married in the first place. The other is divorce. Duncan Smith has met some poor people and has seen that there is little reason for women to stay with men who have no work and contribute little. Generations of workless males mean, at best, men are treated as an extra, more burdensome child. The obvious answer is to provide training and jobs that give young fathers a sense of responsibility.

However, as a carrot – this idealised state of marriage – can’t work when the raw marriage material is nonexistent. So we get the stick. Benefit cuts to women and children. Marriage is the glue that should paper over the cracks in this system, but how can it?

The Tory concept of marriage is over – determined, as a Marxist might say.

But marriages fail not because people have read The Communist Manifesto, “Bourgeois marriage is, in reality, a system of wives in common…” but because the expectations we heap on to it, both personally and politically, are ludicrous. When marriage was viewed as an economic and sexual transaction largely related to property, no one expected it to embody lifelong friendship and sexual passion.

The idea of a joint loving, companionate partnership is relatively new. Yet it is what most people seek. Strangely enough, some of the weddings I have been to lately have been those of people who have been living together for many years, with their children, and do the deal precisely to avoid complications around property rights in the event of their deaths. It’s lovely to see people go the distance, of course, but it’s also miserable to see people stuck in unhappy marriages. When my own split apart, I was shocked at the number of people who wanted to tell me how awful their seemingly OK relationships were. They were only together because of the children, they had outgrown each other, they had affairs, they never had sex, or indeed hardly communicated.

At the same time, the number of younger people still prepared to jump into marriage stuns me. On this point, I agree with Duncan Smith, the amount people spend on weddings is insane. And I speak as someone who enjoys a party, a drink and a cry.

Nonetheless, younger colleagues spend their entire summers going to weddings, buying into the traditional package. The homogenous hen nights and gormless stag dos appear joyless but then if you believe this actually is your last night of “freedom”, I suppose it is. Freedom is, of course, code for anything other than prescriptive monogamy. The reality is that many lead lives of serial monogamy, or simply turn a blind eye to each other’s affairs. Until they don’t.

As well as the “worried well”, there is now a burgeoning market for those I call the “worried married”, who may not be so smug, after all. Things just aren’t as they were. Kids get in the way. The relationship has to be “worked on”, via the medium or tedium of mini-breaks and lingerie. You see these couples in every idyllic holiday setting the world over, sitting with nothing to say to each other. On a show about teenage sex the other night an 18-year-old was talking about how passion had dimmed after a year with her bloke. What hope is there for the rest of us?

But sexual satisfaction is hardly part of the emotional and economic equation the Tories are making. Theirs is a marriage of fiscal and social conservatism veiled with concern for children.

The only problem is these pesky women who refuse to stay trapped in marriages if they can afford to leave. It was not so long ago that the sanctity of marriage was preserved not by love but by fear. Fear of poverty. Fear of shame and blame.

Yet it is not demands of women that have undermined marriage, but the more everyday demands of needing two incomes, which is a huge pressure for families. The great majority of our 1.9 million single parents didn’t plan to end up this way, and would have preferred to keep their marriages intact.

The question is not whether I believe in marriage, which is like asking whether I believe in mortgages. They exist. The question is whether you believe in yours. If so, fantastic. Lucky you. Why punish those who don’t make that choice, or whose choices don’t work out? If the issue is, literally, children, then support for single parents should be paramount. But that’s not what is happening is it? Instead, we have a discourse of morality to counter material reality: poverty.

The “romance” that has brought us to our knees is the one between the adulterous City and cuckolded politicians. A marriage of convenience, if ever there was one. A match made in hell, as it turns out. So let’s get it straight: the dire state of the economy has nothing to do with whether people cohabit or not. Coupling and uncoupled. Leave us alone.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/feb/12/suzanne-moore-marriage-tax-breaks?INTCMP=SRCH

Crisis in Care: Interview with an anarchist support worker

1/31/2011

I work as a support worker for a private company that provides social care for people in Sheffield for people with learning disabilities and mental health issues. The company I work operates across the city. According to government officials, cuts to public spending will not harm front line services, workers, or service users. The reality of the situation is that working conditions are getting worse, day services are closing down, and those paying for the support services are being excluded from any of the decisions relating to care they supposedly direct and influence.

The Sheffield city council budget has been slashed by 8.35% for next year, and this has amounted to a huge cut to front line care. What this has amounted to on the ground is a huge reduction in staffing levels, pushing local unemployment even higher. Those left in the job are left with the unenviable task of filling in the gaps, which means being over worked, and stressed. Many care workers, some with over 20 years experience, are finding it too stressful to carry on, and are walking away from the job, meaning that the most qualified staff in the company are leaving, while new employees, who often aren’t given a decent (and legally required) level of training before they are left to work with clients. This is dangerous to both clients, who often have serious health issues, and to workers, who are not given help to do the job safely (some clients have histories of challenging behaviour, violence etc)

Many of the people I work with have been sent into intense panic, fearing that their disability benefits will be cut and that they will be forced onto a work fare scheme in order to claim. This has led to increased difficulties at work, which again impacts upon the well being of clients and staff. For staff, we have been given an indefinite pay freeze (rates of pay are already extremely low – and the price of food, bills, rent etc has risen fairly sharply in recent months) and a loss of a chance of promotion and advancement within the company. The tactics of management have in recent weeks been an attempt to shift responsibility downwards. In essence, this means an unpaid promotion – increased work hours and responsibilities without extra pay. People are worried, and the constant upheavals in company policy leave staff and clients confused. Many people within the company care deeply about the people they support, and the fact that they are leaving is causing massive emotional stress on all sides.

The company I work for claims to be not-for-profit, this tends to give people the impression that the company operates with some kind of ethical policy. The reality is that instead of money being invested in desperately needed equipment for staff (such as computers that are less than a decade old) instead money has been spent on redecorating the offices of the executive managers and the reception area of the company (in order to make it ‘look more professional’ – the appearance of good care being more easily achieved than the practice of good care).

The company has also engaged in the bizarre tactic of employing agency staff to work as short term “bank workers” in order to plug the gaps created by the redundancies they have introduced. This means that for every worker the company gets from an agency they are paying for two (agencies charge ‘service rates’ which are roughly the same as the employees wages). Essentially this means that the company is firing experienced and dedicated workers to employ untrained and short term agency workers, while paying double the cost for the privilege. The reasons behind this plan seem fairly obvious. Agency workers are in a precarious position, and if they complain about being over worked, and under paid then they can be fired with no notice, whereas an employee cannot. The changes that management want to bring in over the next few months require a work force that does not feel secure, and able to resist the exploitation that is happening.

Crisis in Care: Interview with an anarchist support worker

Women’s groups struggle amid funding cuts

2/2/11

Buried in a Department for Business document published a few days before Christmas was the news that the UK Resource Centre for Women in Science, Engineering and Technology would lose all its government funding.

The organisation’s clunky title obscures an important role. Set up in 2004 to increase the proportion of women in the science, engineering and technology workforce (just 12.5% of the workforce is female at present), the body is almost entirely government funded.

“It was a devastating blow,” Annette Williams, founding director of the centre, said. “One interpretation is that equality organisations are seen as a boom-time nice-to-have. In times of reduced funding, it is equality activities that suffer.”

Funding cuts to organisations that support women or promote genderequality are hard to map because they are scattered in so many places, but campaigners are increasingly anxious that these groups may be among the worst hit as central and local government cuts are announced.

The problems come at both national and local levels. Barely noticed among the quangos named for abolition in November was the Women’s National Commission, a body that helped ensure that government decisions took women’s interests into account.

“The abolition of the WNC will make it harder for government to devise informed policy that reflects the unique position of women in the UK,” the Fawcett society, a campaigning group, responded.

At a local level there is growing anxiety that groups that support women are viewed as easier to cut. Last month Devon county council announced plans to reduce funding for domestic violence support services by 100%, and other groups that provide similar services across the country are uncertain whether their funding will be renewed after April.

A final decision in Devon has been postponed until later this month, but there has been nationwide concern at the prospect that three local charities, which last year supported 2,709 victims of domestic violence, will have to close if the council withdraws £1m in funding.

“These cuts will increase the harm caused by domestic violence,” said Christine McKenna, general manager of Devon’s domestic violence and abuse service.

The next few weeks will be a particularly critical time for charities that provide services funded by local authorities. Council budgets will be decided at the end of this month, and with an average of 20% cuts expected, small, niche organisations feel particularly vulnerable.

The umbrella organisation Women’s Aid, which unites small charities working to end domestic violence against women and children, is monitoring how many of its member organisations have had their funding renewed for the next financial year.

“Fifty per cent of those who have replied so far are saying that have no idea if they are going to get funding at all. They have no information whatsoever about what’s going to happen after April – they don’t know whether they will be able to provide a service, or if they are going to have to make their staff redundant,” said Nicola Harwin, the charity’s chief executive. “There’s incredible insecurity.”

The Women’s Resource Centre, another charity that supports women’s groups across the country, is also trying to track funding difficulties.

“The experience of women’s organisations has been that commissioners of local services are dismissive and even sometimes hostile to women’s organisations,” said Karen Moore, policy director.

“These organisations deal with some of the most complex and challenging social issues of our time, such as sexual abuse and domestic violence. The fact that many people, unfortunately, would rather not think about such issues means that they are not popular in terms of funding priorities, no matter the devastating impact such issues have on our society.

“There is a widespread belief that women have achieved equality and there is no longer a need to address this issue … many local authorities are struggling to deal with the cuts and appear to be making knee-jerk decisions based on a sense of urgency rather than a rational examination of local needs – and women’s needs.”

Changes to the way money flows from central government to local government will further threaten funding for these groups. The coalition government’s localist agenda means that money for many longstanding schemes, such as the Supporting People programme, is no longer ringfenced.

Supporting People has helped vulnerable people get into housing, and has been used to help fund refuges for women fleeing domestic violence. Now that it is no longer ringfenced, councils are cutting the amount they spend on it, reducing the amount of support available for these women.

There have been a few positive exceptions to the prevailing mood of uncertainty. The Ministry of Justice last week announced £10.5m over the next three years for Rape Crisis Centres, offering medium-term stability to existing centres, but the End Violence Against Women Coalition said this was “only the first step”. Research in 2009 showed that nearly nine out of 10 local authorities did not have a centre offering support to victims of rape, and campaigners had hoped for increased funding to expand provision.

Elsewhere within the justice system, there is concern for the future of a project designed to keep women out of prison by referring them instead to a network of 44 women’s centres.

“The Ministry of Justice has for the past four years been funding 44 women’s centres, so that women could be sentenced to community sentences, and linked to probation services through the centres,” Frances Crook, director of the Howard League for Penal Reform, said. “That money will run out at the end of March.”

While she expected transitional money to be found to save some of the centres, some were likely to close. “I am very apprehensive. Some women who are fleeing domestic violence, who have drug or alcohol addictions or mental health problems, will end up going to prison unnecessarily, and won’t get the help they need. It will end up being far more expensive for the government.”

If organisations providing support to women are seen as increasingly vulnerable, groups that help minority ethnic communities are even more threatened.

Marai Larasi, director of Imkaan, an umbrella body that supports black, Asian, other minority ethnic and refugee groups working to prevent violence against women, said: “In our experience, commissioners are very rarely able to grapple with why you need services for women and specifically black and ethnic minority women.”

The nationwide picture remains messy and uncertain, as organisations mount last-ditch campaigns for their survival. After protests from the science community, the UKRC has been given another year of funding to allow it to search for new ways of raising money, but staff are not optimistic about long-term prospects. Elsewhere, most of the smaller groups also looking for alternative funding are familiar with research that shows that the public has historically been more ready to donate to donkey sanctuaries than to women’s organisations.

 

State pension age: women oppose government changes

They were born at the tail-end of the baby boom, as the first Bond novel was published, Stalin died and the discovery of DNA was confirmed. They’ve worked for 35 years and now a generation of half-a-million 50-something women are rising up against government plans to make them work at least another year before collecting their state pension.

MPs have been deluged with letters from worried women born in the mid-1950s who were put on notice earlier this month that they will have to work up to two years longer as the result of the government’s decision to fast-track changes to the pension age. The retirement plans of 500,000 women have been affected by more than a year, whereas no men will have to work more than an extra 12 months.

Charities are now coordinating a grassroots campaign to put pressure on the government to amend the bill when it returns to the house next month. Labour has also launched a campaign and nerves are beginning to show among some MPs on the government benches about the weight of public feeling among women, who represent a key demographic that all parties are chasing at the polls. The work and pensions select committee is to quiz the minister responsible, Steve Webb, when he comes before them this month.

The shadow pensions minister, Rachel Reeves, said: “I understand the implications of increasing longevity, and agree that deficit reduction is a priority, but the legislation is arbitrarily hitting women born in 1954 too harshly, while making no impact on deficit reduction in this parliament.

“In the most extreme case around 33,000 of these women, including my mother, will have to work for two more years before they get their basic state pension, with only seven years to prepare.”

The state pension age for women has been gradually increasing since 6 April last year at the rate of one month for every two months the woman was born after 5 April 1950, and was intended to reach 65 by 2020. Both men and women’s pension age would than increase in tandem to 66 between 2024 and 2026.

But the government announced earlier this month that it intends to accelerate the increase so the women’s state pension age rises to 65 by November 2018, and then to equalise the pension age for men and women at 66 by 6 April 2020.

The effect is that 500,000 women will have to work at least a year longer, of which 300,000 will work an extra 18 months. Webb was forced to admit in a parliamentary question this week that 33,000 of those, who were born between March 6 and April 5 1954, will have to work two extra years.

One Tory backbencher said she had received several approaches from constituents, but she insisted the changes were necessary to help reduce the deficit. “We all believe in equality in the workplace, this is part of that,” she said.

‘Blatant discrimination’

Since the Guardian first reported the changes it has received dozens of letters from affected readers. One from Chris Ronan, 56 and facing an extra two years before her pension kicks in, said: “I am all for everyone ‘doing their bit’ to help the state of the economy, but this is blatant discrimination against women born in 1954. We are thought of as a soft touch because women like us don’t usually make a fuss or complain.”

Ros Altmann of Saga, the consumer body for over-50s, said the campaign against the changes was not opposing the equalisation of the state pension age, rather its fast-tracking which had created a disproportionate affect for women.

“My concern is that the people who are going to suffer are the most vulnerable women,” she said. “Many are single, haven’t had a chance to accumulate a private pension and will be reliant solely on the state pension.” Many women were also unaware of the changes and weren’t prepared, she added.

Anne Begg, chair of the work and pensions committee, said: “Many women feel the retirement age is wriggling away from them – I think there are a lot of women who feel very worried. You need to give people time to order their affairs. For those who are going to have to work for an extra two years, that is very unfair.”

The changes are predicted to save the government £30bn before 2025, with another £13bn generated in taxes from people working longer. Webb said: “In a country where 10m of us will live to be 100 we simply can’t go on paying the state pension at an age that was set early in the last century.

“Although women will experience the rise in the state pension age more quickly than previously planned, they will still draw the state pension for longer, and our ‘triple guarantee’ means someone retiring today on a full basic state pension will receive £15,000 more over their retirement than they would have done under the old prices link.”

Pensions by numbers

Overall, 4.9 million people – 2.3 million men and 2.6 million women – are affected by the changes. Just over 1 million will have to wait less than a year longer to receive a state pension: 500,000 men and and 600,000 women. More than 3 million will have to wait exactly a year longer: 1.8 million men and 1.5 million women. Another 500,000 women born between 6 Sep 1953 and 6 March 1955 will have to work a year or more longer – no men will have to wait more than a year. Of those, 300,000 who were born between 6 Sep 1953 and 6 Sep 1954 will have to work 18 months longer. And of those, 33,000 born between 6 March 1954 and 5 April 1954 will have to work two years more.

See the Directgov website for more detailed infomation on the changes.

‘Treat latest gender pay-gap findings with caution’, says CIPD

Wednesday, 08 December 2010

The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) has been swift to comment on the historic fall in the pay gap between men and women announced in today’s Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings from the Office for National Statistics.

Said Charles Cotton, CIPD adviser on Performance and Reward, “We should treat the findings with an element of caution. The smaller gap is a reflection of the state of the economy between April 2008 and April 2009, when many men were impacted by pay freezes and cuts. Between these dates, by contrast, women saw their pay rise relatively faster, as they are more likely to be covered by public-sector deals or increases linked to the national minimum wage. The fear is that this gap could widen as the private sector starts to power ahead in 2011.

“That is not to say that employers are absolved from trying to reduce the pay gap. When significant amounts of investor or taxpayer money is being spent on salary and wages, it’s important to ensure that pay reflects employee performance, behaviours and skills, rather than prejudice and bias.”