Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how much funding the Government has allocated under section 22 of the Family Law Act 1996 to (a) the provision of marriage support services and (b) research into (i) the causes of and (ii) preventing marital breakdown in each year since 2010.

Responsibility for delivering relationship support services moved to the Department for Work and Pensions in 2013. Although DWP does not make grants under s22 of the Family Law Act (1996), we have funded a range of services to support families to improve the quality of their relationships – including those who are married.

DWP is currently delivering the Reducing Parental Conflict programme, which is backed by up to £39m and aims to encourage local authorities and their partners across England to integrate services which address parental conflict into local provision for families. Around a third of this budget is being used to test eight face-to-face interventions, which evidence shows have the potential to be effective at reducing parental conflict.