NATIVITY plays across the country will focus on Jesus and Mary as usual this year, but one of the area's MPs thinks that fathers should look to Joseph as a good role model.

Iain Duncan Smith has described the often-overlooked Biblical figure as a classic example of a man who stands by his partner and their child, despite social pressures to turn his back on them, after she becomes pregnant while still unmarried.

Writing for the Daily Mail, the secretary of state for work and pensions said that Joseph's role in supporting his wife and new baby in the face of huge difficulties means his story “couldn’t be more important, or more significant, in today’s society”.

He continues: “In parts of our society, too many young men and women grow up without the experience of a loving father. And we seem to have forgotten what an important role a father plays.

“It’s about far more than earning enough money to provide shelter and place food on the table; it’s about nurturing, support and loyalty, it’s about providing the best male role model that a man can.

“I have seen how family breakdown, which often begins with fatherlessness, can lead to high levels of truancy, anti-social behaviour, youth crime, street gangs and teenage pregnancy.

“Whether it was battling for accommodation for his pregnant and exhausted wife in a crowded town or protecting his family as they fled from Herod’s soldiers, this simple man of courage and honour was always there when his wife and son needed him.

“For some children, we might reasonably ask: where are the men of such courage and honour today?”