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Cameron speech at Demos on creating a responsible society; And here I want to pay tribute to one of the people who first understood this – even when it was unfashionable; even when it was difficult in his own party. For a long time Frank Field has been willing to say the unsayable. He has argued that the welfare state should be more than a money-redistribution system, but rather – in his words - “openly reward good behaviour and ... be used to enhance those roles which the country values”. He has drawn the link between family breakdown and “more instability, more crime, greater pressure on housing and social benefits”, arguing that a fundamental “principle of the welfare state should be to support families and children.” When he first started talking about these things, no-one quite realised how important they are. Now we do. His work has been built on by people like Iain Duncan Smith, organisations like Demos and – I would like to think – today's Conservative Party. But let me make it clear again: none of us would argue for one moment that material poverty doesn't matter. Of course there's a link between material poverty and poor life chances, but the full picture is that that link also runs through the style of parenting that children in poor households receive. Because the research shows that while the style of responsible parenting I’ve spoken about today is more likely to occur in wealthier households, children in poor households who are raised with that style of parenting do just as well. And successful parenting style in wealthier families occurs not because these people are intrinsically better, or that they love their children more. It is because with poverty can come a host of other problems that make parenting more difficult. Worse schools, higher crime, bad housing. Unemployment. Problems with alcohol and drugs. Mental health conditions. The wearying grind of worry about debt. So of course it's vital to alleviate material p...