Real Equality

At least, Theresa May thinks so, but I have never understood this "right to ask for flexible working" business. Ask away, they can still say no. And they might have a perfectly good reason for saying no.

More generally, we need a legal presumption of equal parenting, the restoration of the tax allowance for fathers at least for so long as Child Benefit is payable to mothers (no interest to declare here, if it matters), and paternity leave to be available, as a sort of bank, at any time in the child's first 18 years of life. That last would assert paternal authority, and require paternal responsibility, at key points in childhood and adolescence.

Babies and toddlers need their mothers, who should be paid by the State to look after them rather than to farm them out to strangers. But older children and, especially, teenagers might very well have rather more need of their fathers.