ASK YOUR COUNCIL to support the single parent rights’ campaign

Councils are a part of UK local government. Councillors are elected through local elections and work with local residents, and others, to agree and deliver on local priorities which are then implemented by council staff. As such, councillors are there to listen to your issues and act on your behalf.

A motion is a request made by a councillor to discuss a specific issue at a council meeting and take a vote on the decision. Councillors can raise motions in support of issues which have a wider impact than just the local area. By getting councils to pass a motion in support of single parent rights, this sends a clear message to national government that single parent rights are a key issue for UK residents. It can also help ensure local issues of single parent discrimination are tackled.

If you are a member of a political party, you can also use this approach to ask the local branch of your party to pass a motion in support of single parent rights, and ask them to raise it at their national party conference so the party can officially support single parents being added as a protected characteristic in the Equality Act. Contact your local party branch secretary to get things started.

how can i get my council to pass a motion?

A motion is taken to a full council meeting (these are usually held once every three months). This is done by one councillor proposing the motion and a second councillor seconding it. The councillors then debate the motion, before taking a vote on whether the motion should pass. We have outlined four key steps to make this happen:

  1. Contact your local councillor and let them know about the issue of discrimination towards single parents. If they aren’t already aware of the problems single parents face, you can share details from our campaign. If you don’t know your local councillor you can find them by inputting your postcode on this government site.

  2. Ask your councillor if they are willing to propose a motion on single parent rights (a draft letter is provided below, or you could request a meeting to discuss it). They will need to find at least one other councillor to second it, and it will be helpful if they speak with other councillors first to ensure they have broad support for the issue to ensure the motion is likely to succeed. You might also want to let them know about other councils which have successfully passed this motion. An article on the success of councillors at Hackney Council is available here. You can also watch the debate on the motion. Listen from 3 hours and 2 minutes.

  3. Provide them with a draft motion. We have done this for you below. You can also share with them one which was passed by Hackney Council and is available publicly here.

  4. Keep us informed how it is going. If you would like to raise the issue with the local press we can support you. You might also want to write to your MP to let them know about what the Council is doing and ask them to support it by raising the matter in parliament.

LETTER TO YOUR councillor - TEMPLATE

“Dear [insert name],

I am a resident of [insert area] and I am writing to you as [insert something personal here e.g. a single parent/ a single parent ally/ an adult raised by a single parent] about the discrimination that single parents regularly face in the workplace, benefits systems and from businesses. [insert anything about the local area which is relevant e.g. is there a high number of single parents/ is there an issue that single parents often face discrimination on in your area?]

Research from the campaign group Single Parent Rights has shown that up to 80% of single parents face discrimination across all areas of life.

This discrimination is allowed to happen because UK anti-discrimination law doesn’t consider unfair treatment of single parents as discrimination, meaning single parents can legally be treated as second class citizens.

Single parents are calling on the government to change this so that single parents are afforded the rights and respect they deserve as equal members of society.

I would like you to request that [insert name of council area] passes a motion to support the request of the campaign group of which I am a member, single single rights, to add single parents as the tenth protected characteristic to the UK Equality Act. Only once single parents are a recognised group in law, protected from unfair treatment, will single parents be treated equally by all and able to thrive in society.

Hackney Council in London unanimously passed a motion on this issue with cross-party support from all members. I hope that we can do the same in our area.

I look forward to hearing from you on this matter.

Yours sincerely,

[insert name and postcode]”

draft motion for councils to support single parent rights

[INSERT NAME OF AREA] Council notes there are 2.9 million single parents in the UK, accounting for one in four parents. Around one third of parents experience some period of single parenting. Although almost 70% of single parents are employed a third of children in working single parent homes live in poverty and almost 30% (double that of coupled parents) report mental health concerns.  Single parents face discrimination throughout their daily lives, from the workplace to accessing housing. This has knock on effects for them, their children and society as a whole. [INSERT LOCAL STATISTICS IF AVAILABLE]

The Equality Act, 2010 outlaws discrimination towards certain groups who are deemed to have ‘protected characteristics’. Currently, there are nine protected characteristics: age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex, and sexual orientation. This Council believes that single parents deserve similar protections. 

Single parents face many challenges because of their status. Many of these challenges are intersectional in nature; 90% of single parents are women, around 27% live with a disability (compared with 21% of couple parent households), and black and mixed ethnicities communities have higher numbers of single parents compared with white communities.

This Council welcomes the call from local residents and the single parent rights campaign group to encourage businesses, employers, policy makers and service providers to proactively consider their treatment of single parents.

As a Council we are committed to equality regardless of marital or civil partnership status and valuing the contributions of all our citizens. The oversight of single parents at a national level needs to be rectified. Single parents are subject to systemic discrimination across all areas of life, and it is unconscionable that this has been allowed to continue for so long.

This motion seeks to ensure that the Council continues to embed single parent equality in its practices and policies. This Council also commits to campaigning for this on a national level.

[INSERT NAME] Council commits to advocate for single parents rights, working with local and national Government to ensure that single parents become a protected characteristic in the Equality Act.

Notes: Further details on single parent discrimination and the campaign to end this is available at www.singleparentrights.org

Proposer: [INSERT NAME OF COUNCILLOR]

Seconder: [INSERT NAME OF COUNCILLOR]

keep us informed

If you’re taking this forward with your council please do let us know. We are happy to provide support if you need. Once it gets to the point of the motion being debated or passed, we can help with local press work to help raise the issue. The more people hear about single parents raising their voice and institutions listening, the nearer we will get to recognition in national law.

TAKE MORE ACTIONS

Once you’ve got your local council on board, don’t forget to email your MP and sign the petition asking for single parents’ rights to be enshrined in the Equality Act.