16/05/2025

Earlier in May 2025, the Secretary of State for Education, Bridget Phillipson, argued that childcare reforms would better support people who want to have children. This comes at a time where a growing number of people on both sides of the political aisle are becoming concerned about the widening gap between the number of children people want and the number they have—and its social and economic implications. In 2023, the total fertility rate stood at 1.44 per woman in England and Wales, despite women’s average ideal of 2.35 children.

The figures betray a situation in which people are not having the children they ideally want due to the constraints of modern society. Whilst the state cannot remove all of these constraints, it can make a number of changes at zero cost that would make the lives of new parents substantially easier and make it easier to become a parent.

This briefing contains evidence-backed policy proposals to make family formation easier. The proposals are all in keeping with both socially liberal and socially conservative worldviews and are consistent with—and often conducive to—economic growth objectives.

Recommendations

1. Front-loading child benefit. As costs rise most steeply upon becoming a parent, people benefit most from upfront payments.

2. Liberalising family-friendly planning permission in places where it has popular support.

3. Reforming the childcare sector to repurpose funding and cut costs for families.

4. Granting rights to extended unpaid parental leave.

5. Cracking down on deceptive university courses.

6. Allowing boys to be redshirted.

The report details how each of these recommendations are evidenced to support ease of family formation and how they could be implemented.

Ellen Pasternack, Research and Communications Manager at Civitas and writer of Back to Basics: What is childcare policy for? wrote:

“Often, we hear that it is impossible for the state to do more to support families and close the gap between how many children people want and how many they have because it is too difficult and expensive. But, as this report shows, there are a number of policies that could offer meaningful support to parents that are entirely cost-neutral. Approaches like these will be needed to address the global fertility crash, which looks set to become one of the most pressing challenges for the 21st century.”

Paul Morland, demographer and author of four books on population, including Tomorrow’s People, wrote:

“The CFE is a much-needed addition to the national conversation in advocating for more births. This paper sets out sane and self -financing first steps for policy makers on the long journey we need to take towards raising the birth rate and avoiding a population vortex.”

Bartek Staniszewski, Head of Research at Bright Blue and Associate Fellow of the Centre for Family and Education wrote:

“Low fertility is one of the greatest challenges of our day – not just in the UK, but across most of the developed world – yet its seriousness remains woefully underappreciated. As such, I am delighted to see the Centre for Family and Education release this manifesto for sensible pro-family policies, including many that Bright Blue would support and even called for. At a time of unprecedented fiscal pressures, it is no longer enough for campaigners to simply ask for more money – this manifesto does exactly the right thing by collating well-evidenced, pragmatic policies that would not cost the state an additional penny but could effect an enormous change in the ease with which young people in this country can start and expand their families.”