In a lecture at the Attlee Foundation last week, Field said the government should move the debate about welfare reform away from getting single mothers into work irrespective of their wishes and the implications for their children. He called for the debate to focus on unemployed fathers, saying that men who refuse to take a job offered by the government should lose their benefits.
Field added that the role of breadwinner has been taken over by the taxpayer because unmarried fathers are often "young, unemployed, unemployable and unskilled".
But Rob Williams, chief executive of think-tank Fatherhood Institute, said Field’s views dated to the 1950s and called on policy-makers to focus on schemes to support fathers’ engagement with family life.
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