During his recent speech at Conservative Party Conference, the Prime Minister said more teens have a Smartphone than live with their father. He was referring to statistics from the Marriage Foundation. In total, 41% - 43% of teens don't live with their father according to data unearthed by Harry Benson of the Marriage Foundation from the survey Understanding Society.

Certainly family breakdown is a real problem in our country. It is already estimated that the breakdown of families costs the Government an estimated £47billion every year. As CARE CEO Nola Leach pointed out recently, that is more than the Government spends on defence or social housing.

Mr Benson has outlined 10 more statistics about family breakdown which are summarised here. To read his full blog post, please click here.

1. 45% of teenagers studying for their GSCEs are not living with both parents.
2. Family breakdown costs the taxpayer at least £47billion every year.
3. 60% of lone parents are on housing benefit compared to 10% of couple parents.
4. For every £100 spent on family breakdown the Government spends 1.5p trying to prevent it.
5. Divorce rates are plummeting yet family breakdown is still rising. There has been a trend away from stable marriage towards the relative instability of cohabitation.
6. Cohabiting parents account for 19% of all couples, but 50% of all breakdown.
7. Parents who are married before they have a child are far more likely to stay together.
8. Only ½ of today’s teens will marry even though almost all aspire to marriage.
9. The UK has among the highest rates of family breakdown in Europe.
10. Being able to claim an extra £7,000 in tax credits by pretending to be single means some couples will pretend to live apart. The marriage tax break, while welcome, is nevertheless so paltry it does not properly incentivise marriage and certainly fails to compensate for the additional earnings you make if you are ‘single’ rather than married.

Commenting on family breakdown in the UK, CARE CEO Nola Leach said: “The current status quo is unacceptable and the Government need to be doing more to support families across the UK.

"Whatever happened to the much trumpeted 'Family Test' introduced only last year by the Government with the specific aim of acting as a safeguard against policies that undermine family life?

“It is all very well the Prime Minister and other Ministers talking positively about the family, but their words needs to be backed up by positive, family friendly policies.”