Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how much money has been spent under section 22 of the Family Law Act 1996 on (a) the provision of marriage support services, (b) research into the causes of marital breakdown and (c) research into ways of preventing marital breakdown in each financial year since the Act came into force.
As policy responsibility for relationship issues has moved between departments several times since 1996, the information requested is not readily available and to provide it would incur disproportionate cost.
The policy responsibility for relationship issues currently sits with DWP. DWP does not make grants under section 22 of the Family Law Act (1996), however we have funded a range of work to help couples (including those who are married) to improve the quality of their relationships.
Since responsibility for this area moved to DWP, we have spent the following in each financial year:
2014/15 - £7.5m
2015/16 - £11.2m
2016/17 - £6.3m
2017/18 - £5.24m
2018/19 - £15.85m
2019/20 current forecast - £10.2m
Currently, these services are focused on the specific issue of parental conflict, and are delivered through our Reducing Parental Conflict programme.