OVER the past year, the economic recession has dominated our minds and captured the headlines. But there is another recession happening too – a social recession. These two recessions do not exist apart from each other. With every house repossessed and debt that is defaulted on, they reinforce one another.
We were reminded of this on Wednesday, when it was revealed that there are now around 150,000 unemployed people in Scotland. Every single day in the last month 200 Scots joined the ranks of those claiming unemployment benefit. That's not just some ec
onomic statistic, that's real people struggling to support themselves and their loved ones. Being out of work can seem like the hardest work in the world, and if it lasts for a while the desperation it causes can lead to all sorts of social problems.
So as we survey our broken economy, the hallmarks of our broken society are clearer than ever – crime, fear, incivility, teenage pregnancy, wasted lives. There's a theme that links all of these things together. We see it in their root causes of family breakdown, welfare dependency, debt, drugs, poverty, poor policing and failing schools. It all comes down to a society that is in danger of losing its most important value: responsibility.
You can see this loss of responsibility in the decades-long shredding of our civic fabric. There's been a deep erosion of duty, and of the unwritten codes of courtesy and neighbourliness that sustain our communities. This can't go on. That's why the Conservatives have put fixing our broken society at the heart of our agenda, and restoring a sense of social responsibility at the heart of our approach.
Let me explain what this responsibility agenda means for the two issues that are absolutely central to the social recession: family breakdown and crime. First, tackling family breakdown. This is about taking responsibility for those closest to us. We have one of the highest rates of family breakdown in Europe, yet we aggressively penalise couples in the benefits system, and we are one of the only countries in Europe that doesn't recognise the virtues of marriage in our tax system. We have to change that, and the Conservatives will.
I know there are people who say families are not the business of a politician. "Families are about emotions, love, relationships," they say. "What's that got to do with you?" But this is not about judging and interfering. Not least because politicians are flawed like everyone else – our relationships break down and our marriages break up too. It's about recognising that families are the crucial building blocks of society. The family is the place where a person's identity is shaped and values are formed. It's where they understand what it means to love, to live in a community with others and to respect those in authority. In short, they learn what it is to act responsibly.
Second, we need to make sure that everybody recognises their responsibilities to wider society, not just to those they are closest to – and that means tackling the causes and consequences of crime and disorder in our communities. This is intrinsically connected to the issue of family breakdown. That's why the Scottish Conservatives are holding a conference in Edinburgh this week on how a child born today can end up in a life of crime and violence – and how that path can be changed through successful intervention and good government policy.
It can be done. For a start we have to send stronger messages to our young people about what is right and what is wrong. It's about time we learned to say "no". It's time that children realised that they can and should be told to "stop it" by a teacher, a policeman or any other responsible adult. Because a society scared of its children is one that cannot be at ease with itself.
It doesn't help that in too many parts of Scotland every day lives are being blighted by crimes, such as vandalism and violence, that are simply going unpunished. What kind of message does that send?
When crimes have been committed, we have to make sure they are dealt with properly if we are to stop them happening again. That means we have to free our police officers from bureaucracy and let them get on with what they want to do, and what we want them to do. Yes, sometimes they will mess up, but it's so important that we get back to common-sense policing.
But our responsibility to wider society isn't just about abiding by its rules – social responsibility is more than that. We also have a responsibility to actively help other people in the community, not because we have to but because it's the right thing to do. Community groups that are working to tackle our deepest social problems are often far more effective at what they do than the Government.
Look at organisations like the Quarriers Family Resource Centre, a mentoring group working to keep families together in the East End of Glasgow. And look at the Gladiator project in Easterhouse, which is breaking up the Glasgow gang culture by bringing children together through sport. These organisations represent the best of our society, and we should be doing much more to support them.
I recognise the reality of a Scottish Parliament of minority parties, and that whilst the Conservatives in Holyrood are punching well above their weight, not all the decisions are ours to take. But these problems are UK-wide, and have to be tackled at all levels. We need a government that will fight the social recession just as vigorously as the economic one. At the moment, only the Conservatives are offering such a government.
