Maurizio Lupi, national coordinator of Noi con l'Italia, outgoing parliamentarian, is a candidate for the Chamber of Deputies in Lombardy for the centre-right coalition in the single-member constituency of Merate (Brianza). He is also a candidate in the plurinominal constituencies of Milan, Milan Province, Monza and Bergamo.
My first proposal, if Noi con l'Italia-UDC will be in the majority, is to establish the Ministry of the Family. Not a delegation to an undersecretary or to a minister who already has other delegations, a minister who deals only with the family with a portfolio of his own. May he thus sit on the Council of Ministers, may he become the point of reference for all family associations that operate in society.
By deciding and assigning proxies, a government indicates its priorities. I believe that together with education and work, the family, and the demographic urgency associated with it, should be placed back at the center of our policies.
Consequently, my first proposal will be a single law dedicated to the family: a Family Act.
Just as in 2017 we finally managed, thanks to the insistence of my party, to dedicate a chapter of the State Budget Law expressly to the family (it was the first time since the establishment of the Republic), financing it with 600 million euros, the same is needed at the legislative level. No more single provisions scattered in the various decrees, but an organic policy brought together in a single law.
Organic policy for the family means embracing all the issues that concern it. From direct incentives, to the welfare system to the relationship with the world of work.
So, analytically detailing:
– Introduction of the "family factor", whereby the deductions for children grow proportionally with the number of children (from the current 950 to 1.150 for the first child, up to 8.400 euros for families with 4 children). It doesn't cost much, 4 billion against the over 20 of the citizen's income. Except that while the latter is a disposable welfare expense, the family factor is an investment in the future.
– Additional deduction of 500 euros (to the already foreseen 750) for each dependent elderly parent.
– Stabilization of the baby bonus, the new mother bonus and the kindergarten bonus. The example of France, which has begun to reverse the birth rate data, teaches us that bonuses work if they are stable rules over time, not if they are one-off.
– Deduction of fees for nursery schools and day care centers and expenses for elderly dependents hospitalized for serious illnesses in private rest homes.
– Revision of the ISEE with the exclusion of the first house as an indicator of wealth. Those who are paying a mortgage are no longer rich, cannot go shopping with the house in their wallet, but are often excluded from some free or subsidized welfare services precisely by virtue of owning the house.
– Reconciliation of family-work times: tax credit equal to 20% of the salary recognized to the employer for each day of absence of the new parents.
– Parent allowance: increase from 30 to 60% of wages for periods of parental leave up to the child's sixth year of life.
– Microcredit at subsidized rates (on the model of small businesses) for families in difficulty for determined and specific expenses essential to the life of the family unit.
– Strengthening of the guarantee fund for first home loans for young couples. The work of young people is increasingly fixed-term, and this is not enough for banks, the fund would remedy this difficulty.
– Increase of the resources of the National Fund for non-self-sufficiency and finding adequate resources to allow the functioning of the "After us" law. Creation of a master data of the disability.
All this is just the way in which society gives back to families what they give them: balance of the pension system, consumption, care for the elderly. Above all, they allow for a future to exist.
