𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

Boys are now “more likely to have a smartphone than a dad”, a new study warned. There are 2.5 million children in the UK with no father figure at home, but this is linked to poor school results, mental health problems and unemployment in later life, according to a report by the Centre for Social Justice. The think tank called on the Government to get behind families by fully restoring the married couple’s tax allowance – providing a tax break for many couples on modest incomes.

It also urged Ministers to launch a campaign warning parents that allowing children too much time staring at a phone or tablet could be bad for their development. And it called for an end to “squeamishness” about discussing the benefits of marriage. Well-meaning attempts to avoid stigmatising single mums were hurting children, the think tank said.

White children in low-income families are the most affected, and just two in ten children in the poorest white households live with married parents compared to almost six in ten children in low-income non-white families.

Former Conservative MP Miriam Cates, now a Senior Fellow at the Centre for Social Justice, said: “The most significant social change of our time – the undermining of marriage as the norm for raising children – has been perhaps the most damaging development of all.

“We are familiar with the arguments for why boys need dads in their teenage years, but this report shows how much even little boys need a present father.

“The current trends – towards daycare, screens, ‘equality’ and fatherlessness – all undermine the vital foundations of boyhood.”

A married couple’s tax allowance could allow a couple to merge tax thresholds, the amount a person can earn before paying tax. This would significantly cut bills in households where only one person works, or one spouse earns a low salary.

Other measures recommended in the report include increasing child benefit for children up to the age of four, when some experts say the money does the most good, and cutting or ending it after that. The report also calls for an expansion of family hubs, which provide services for parents, and for these to ensure they welcome fathers as well as mothers.

Ms Cates suggested better support for parents could be funded by axing the pensions triple lock, which ensures pensions rise in line with the highest of inflation, earning growth or 2.5%, and simply pegging the state pension to inflation. She said: “Pensioners in the UK have been the principal beneficiary of fiscal policy choices for well over a decade, leaving spending on workers, children and young families frequently shrinking in comparison.”