James Wright: We need a practical policy agenda for raising the birth rate

James Wright is a farmer, agri-tech entrepreneur and policy director of the Conservative Rural Forum. He stood as the parliamentary candidate at the 2024 general election.

Britain has a problem that no one in Westminster wants to talk about. We’ve become dependent on immigration as a quick fix for our ageing population, shrinking workforce, and increasingly fragile social care. But the deeper, more uncomfortable truth is this, we’re not having enough children.

For decades, successive governments have treated family size as a private matter, or worse, an inconvenience. As birth rates plummets, schools close and the budget deficit expands, it’s clear that strong, stable families with multiple children are not just a personal choice. They’re vital to national security.

Neil O’Brien recently did a deep dive on baby deserts. The average British woman now has just 1.5 children, well below the replacement rate of 2.1 needed to sustain a population without mass immigration.

This decline has consequences. Schools are closing in rural areas; businesses are struggling to find workers; and the NHS and pension system are creaking under the strain of too few taxpayers supporting an ageing population.

Take Minehead, a seaside town near where I live. In 2000 the population was 20 per cent over 65; it is now 34 per cent. The ‘systems’ answer has been to import more workers. But this short-term fix, creates even bigger problems down the line and does nothing to address the deeper issue.

As a father of two sons with another on the way, I know a home filled with children is a home filled with energy, purpose, and joy. Having more children isn’t just good for the economy, it’s good for society. Big families create resilient, self-sufficient communities.

Siblings learn responsibility, teamwork, and how to navigate life’s challenges together. In a high-trust society, communities of children play together, in our parks, our woods and on our streets. Parents in larger families tend to have stronger networks of support.

In this context, it’s essential to recognise the vital role of those who, for various reasons, may not have children of their own. Many children are in need of loving homes; as of March 2024, approximately 3,690 children in England had an adoption decision but were not yet placed. For fostering it’s even higher, at 32,480.

The adoption and foster process, while thorough to ensure the best outcomes for children, can be daunting. Prospective parents often face a process that, on average, takes about one year and seven months from a child’s entry into care to placement with an adoptive family.

While adopting a child within Britain typically incurs minimal costs, there can be expenses related to medical examinations, court fees, and necessary background checks.

Too often, the system works against families and those who want to create them. High taxes, unaffordable housing, and a cost-of-living crisis make it harder for working families to expand. Childcare policies favour dual-income households over stay-at-home parents. We need tax breaks for working families. Not more benefits for those that don’t.

If we want to reverse Britain’s demographic decline, we need policies that support larger families. That means rewarding those who are working, raising families and making a commitment to build a better world.

As a father, and entrepreneur I want to venture a few ideas to make it easier to not just have a small family but have a thriving one.

Recognising the Value of Stay-at-Home Parents

• Scrap the unfair bias towards dual-income households by allowing parents to share their tax-free allowance if one parent chooses to stay at home.
• Instead of subsidising nurseries, give parents the money directly so they can choose whether to spend it on formal childcare or stay at home themselves.

Make Britain the Best Country in the World for Family-Friendly Work

• Abolish inheritance tax for all but especially family-run businesses, making it easier for parents to start a business and pass it on to their children.
• Scrap university-style subsidies for pointless degrees and instead provide parenting grants and vocational training for young couples who want to start families early.
• Champion the role of fathers, ensure paternity leave is protected and expanded so fathers play an active role in family life.
• Decrease the cost of childcare by increasing the care giver to child ratio, bring the level to the same as most other developed European countries.

Adoption and fostering

• Streamlining the Adoption Process, reducing hurdles and expediting court proceedings can help place children into loving homes more swiftly.
• Offer robust support systems, especially were parents move from fostering to permanent adoption

Creating a Family Home Guarantee

• In the 80s councils across the country were investing in shared ownership schemes. We should be incentivising councils to use their investments and their reserves to create a new phase of shared ownership.
• Introduce planning reforms that force councils to prioritise family housing, not just one-bed flats for developers but proper homes with gardens near schools. Create an automatic right to have extra bedrooms for increase numbers of children.
• Stamp Duty abolition for growing families, if you are upsizing because of an additional child, you don’t pay stamp duty on your next home.

Restore Marriage as a Social Good

• Massively expand the marriage tax allowance, making it truly worthwhile to be married.
• Give family formation a higher priority in government decision-making, with a new Minister for Families to oversee pro-family policies across departments.

The alternative is decline. If we continue down the current path, the future is clear. A Britain that doesn’t value families is a Britain that withers. An ageing population, economic stagnation, and an ever-growing reliance on importing workers who don’t integrate to fill gaps.

Raising children is the greatest investment in the future anyone can make – not just for themselves, but for the country. It’s time we had a government that recognised that.