The creation in 2003 of a new Ministry for Children, Young People and Families marked the emergence of an explicit, universal and child-centred family policy. Many policies have been unprecedented for Britain, and have moved from some of the earlier inauspicious moves, such as the cutting of lone parents’ benefits in 1997, and the more conservative endorsements of married family life in Supporting families (Home Office, 1998). They have included a commitment to abolish child poverty by 2020; a National Childcare Strategy guaranteeing a place for every threeor four-year-old; a National Carers’ Strategy; the development of Sure Start to support families with young children in deprived areas; a range of tax credits to help working families on low incomes and for working parents to pay for child care; extended maternity leave and pay and paid paternity leave; and the right for parents to work part time and to take unpaid time off to care for children. Policies have been wide ranging: at the liberal end, New Labour has promoted measures to equalise legal and social conditions for lesbians and gay men; at the disciplinary end, they have introduced the enforcement of parental obligations in relation to children's behaviour.

But the development of policies like these has not only been New Labour inspired. They find reflection in other European countries that have been subject to similar social changes and political pressures. Increases in women's employment, the inadequacy of a single income for households, increases in divorce, cohabitation and lone-mother families, and an ageing population, all point to what EU-speak calls the ‘care gap’. And to some extent, too, policies around work–life balance have been shaped by EU policy directives. In addition, the combination of those policies which provide care receivers or care givers with cash to buy in services, which enhance opportunities for mothers and fathers to take paid work, or which involve the private and voluntary sectors in service provision, also reflects some of the more general features of welfare state redesign in Europe. By the end of their second term in 2005, New Labour's family policy had gathered speed.