Unveiling the plan at a Barnardo’s event in London, Mr Clegg said that ministers would look at tackling ‘a hardcore of everyday bottlenecks that frustrate family life’.
The new body will look at areas such as extending the right to flexible working for all employees to help eradicate the ‘stigma’ that discourages men from asking for parental leave, giving greater support to disabled children, and providing more safe play areas.
It will also consider how to prevent family breakdown by improving access to help and advice for parents, and funding organisations that provide counselling and support for families and couples.
The taskforce will also examine how to protect children from advertising targeted at them, building on Dr Tanya Byron’s review on internet safety and Professor Buckingham’s review on the commercialisation of childhood, which were carried out under the previous Government.
Speaking on the role of men in society generally, Mr Clegg said that the fact that men make up just 2 per cent of the childcare workforce was ‘not good enough’.
‘We need a diverse range of providers, with greater gender balance, surrounding children with a range of role models – different people to learn from and relate to,’ he said.
The taskforce will be chaired by the Prime Minister and will be attended by Mr Clegg, children’s minister Sarah Teather, work and pensions secretary Iain Duncan Smith, science and universities minister David Willetts, health minister Anne Milton and economic secretary to the Treasury Justine Greening.
It will report by the end of the year and proposals will be developed in the context of the Comprehensive Spending Review.
Mr Clegg also said that a review of family law has already started to consider how to give grandparents greater access rights to their grandchildren when parents split up.
Sam Smethers, chief executive of Grandparents Plus, said, ‘We welcome the Government’s announcement of more rights for grandparents. This legal change is long overdue. Our ageing society, coupled with growing pressures on family life, means grandparents are increasingly becoming the family lifeline. But they are under pressure too. This new taskforce will have to get to grips with that changing reality.’
Shadow education secretary Ed Balls said the fact that the Government was cutting programmes such as child trust funds and free school meals for poorer families showed that the plans lacked credibility.
‘The fact that they have abolished the post of Secretary of State for children tells you everything about the priorities of the new Government,' said Mr Balls.
‘A serious approach to improving the life chances of children and families would be to continue with the successful reforms in Labour’s Children’s Plan, which had widespread support but have now been torn up.’
