1. I am writing this email to give you a different perspective on women in the labour force. The thrust of the commission appears to be that it would be very good if ideally all women are in the workforce. What about women who choose to remain with their children rather than enter the paid workforce. Many women believe they have a full time job, which is their vocation, looking after their own children. Many women believe that the man in most cases should be able to earn an income which would support a family thus allowing the mother to be able to bring up their children themselves with the support of their fathers which I believe is the gold standard of child care.
2. I believe the government should tax the family as a family unit not on an individual basis. I also believe that child tax allowances should be reintroduced. This would have the additional benefit of giving couples a fiduciary incentive to stay together which would incidentally take pressure of the woman to find paid employment in the event of a split. At the moment two earner families are allowed to keep more of their money than a single earner family. Many women make financial sacrifices to do what they believe is best for their own children.
3. At the moment women are paid for looking after other people's children but are financially penalised for looking after their own thus creating a perverse incentive for the mother to seek work. It reminds me very much of the situation in the early eighties when there was a big campaign to take the woman's wage and the man's wage  on the same basis when seeking a mortgage – almost immediately the price of houses shot up and rather than women having a choice of whether to stay at home many women were forced into the labour force to pay for their homes.
4. I am married with four children and four grandchildren – my youngest child is twenty and at university.