Sarah Olney (Richmond Park) (LD) I beg to move, That this House has
considered the matter of giving every baby the best start in life.
I am grateful to the Backbench Business Committee for giving us
time for the debate. Among all the turbulence created by the
pandemic and the lockdown, I am pleased that we have the
opportunity to debate at length the impact of those events on those
who are likely to live with its after-effects the longest. The
building blocks for...Request free
trial
(Richmond Park) (LD)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the matter of giving every baby
the best start in life.
I am grateful to the Backbench Business Committee for giving us
time for the debate. Among all the turbulence created by the
pandemic and the lockdown, I am pleased that we have the
opportunity to debate at length the impact of those events on
those who are likely to live with its after-effects the
longest.
The building blocks for lifelong emotional and physical health
are laid down in the period from conception to the age of two.
Those first 1,001 days are a critical time for development, but
they are also a time when babies are at their most vulnerable.
Babies do not yet have the language skills to advocate for
themselves, so carers and services must be equipped to do that on
their behalf. During the first 1,001 days, babies are also
uniquely susceptible to their environment. Chronic stress in
early childhood, whether caused by maternal depression, poverty
or ill health, has a negative impact on a baby’s development.
Early intervention and prevention to support the wellbeing of
babies during this time is strongly linked to better outcomes in
later life, including educational achievement, progress at work
and mental health. Failing to invest in giving babies the best
start in life delivers not only a human cost but an economic one.
The total known cost of parental mental health problems per
year’s births in the UK is estimated to stand at £8.1
billion.
(Ogmore) (Lab)
I thank the hon. Lady for securing the debate on an issue that is
close to my heart, having had a lockdown baby at the end of
January—he is just over nine months now, and he is very happy and
causing all sorts of chaos in my and his mother’s lives. The hon.
Lady mentioned mental health, and my constituent has spent many years speaking
publicly about the mental health issues he experienced after
having his first child. It is extremely important that we wrap
care around the mother and the baby after birth, but does the
hon. Lady agree that we should also do more to allow fathers to
get support with their mental health and to realise that becoming
a father is a deeply profound thing and that there is nothing
wrong with talking about our mental health as a father after
having a child?
I congratulate the hon. Member on the birth of his baby, and I
hope that all is progressing well. I am grateful to him for
raising that point about fathers, and I will come to it later in
my speech.
My interest in this topic arose from conversations I have had
with constituents who gave birth during lockdown. They told me
about the isolating experience of not being able to have their
partners in the delivery room with them, not being able to share
their new babies with the wider family and not being able to meet
up with other new parents to support each other and share their
experiences. Thinking back to my own experiences of early
motherhood—12 years ago—I remember how much it meant to me to
have all those people around me as I recovered from the birth and
got used to my new life as a parent. My heart goes out to all
those who struggled in isolation during those early months, and I
am determined that young families should be prioritised for
support as we emerge out of the other side of the pandemic.
The UK Government’s recent focus on investment in the first 1,001
days in their “Best Start for Life” vision and funding is very
welcome and will undoubtedly make a significant difference to
families. I pay tribute in particular to the efforts of the right
hon. Member for South Northamptonshire (Dame ), who has been unsparing in
her work to bring the needs of our very youngest citizens to the
forefront of public policy and funding.
One of the most important sources of support for new parents is a
health visitor. Even for those who enjoyed the most robust mental
health, having sudden responsibility for a tiny and vulnerable
new baby who is entirely dependent on them is a source of great
anxiety. Having a visit from a trained health care professional
who can give them advice, answer their questions and, above all,
reassure them is enormously helpful and can make all the
difference to their early experience of parenthood.
Although the UK is no longer in lockdown, both access to services
and working patterns have changed. Some support services, such as
playgroups, have not survived, and some have closed altogether.
Children’s centres have reopened, but numbers are limited and
places need to be booked in advance, which may mean that the
families with the least time on their hands will lose out. The
co-ordinators and volunteers at Home-Start Richmond, Kingston
& Hounslow have told me about the high levels of anxiety
experienced by new mothers unable to access health visitor advice
and reassurance. That is impacting new mothers’ confidence and
their ability to meet their baby’s needs.
Health visitors are a skilled workforce of specialist public
health nurses who have the expertise to provide holistic care to
families. As the only professionals positioned to reach every
young child before they start school, health visitors play a
crucial role in child safety and early childhood development.
They identify and manage developmental delay, as well as common
and serious health problems. They also provide support around
childhood immunisations and advice on infant feeding, safe
sleeping and mental health, all of which relieves pressure on NHS
emergency departments and specialist services.
However, there is currently no national plan to address falling
health visiting workforce numbers. The Government's spending
review stated that it
“maintains the Public Health Grant in real terms, enabling Local
Authorities across the country to continue delivering frontline
services like child health visits.”
In fact, the Government are maintaining the public health grant
at a level that is too low for many local authorities to resource
health visiting services that can deliver face-to-face visits and
the support described in the healthy child programme and other
national guidance.
Ahead of the spending review, 700 leading children’s sector
organisations were united in their call for investment for 3,000
more health visitors over the next three years. However, I am
concerned that £500 million over the next three years will not
deliver the Government’s pledge to rebuild health visiting. It is
of the most urgent importance that we restore face-to-face health
visiting to every new mother as the most essential building block
of support to families as they welcome their new babies.
The importance of early home visits by skilled healthcare
professionals was highlighted to me by one constituent who wrote
to me last summer. She said:
“My baby is now 6 months old and soon after birth he was
diagnosed with SMA type 1. If you are not familiar with it, the
full name is Spinal Muscular Atrophy and it’s a muscular wasting
illness. There isn’t a cure for it and without treatments and
proper care the life expectancy of a baby is less than 2 years.
He is currently under treatment but, and here is the reason for
this letter, every possible centre specialised in physiotherapy,
hydrotherapy or other physical activities for disabled people is
shut due to Covid-19.
My husband and I were the ones who had to notice something was
not right with Peter because, due to Covid, no one came for home
visits after birth to see the baby or me. I almost died in child
birth and because we were left alone I had to endure 1 month bed
ridden due to further complications, once again noticed by me.
Only once I was able to walk again we saw something wasn’t right
with the baby. If after 2 weeks the health visitor had been able
to come home, my son would have started treatment sooner without
losing the mobility of his legs.”
I want to talk a little more about the importance of diagnosing
and treating perinatal mental health. Maternal suicide is the
leading cause of direct deaths within a year of pregnancy. An
estimated one in four women experience mental health problems in
the first 1,001 days after pregnancy. While depression and
anxiety are the most common perinatal mental health problems,
other conditions include eating disorders, psychosis, bipolar
disorder and schizophrenia. One in 10 fathers is also affected by
perinatal mental health problems. Of the 241 families that
Home-Start Richmond, Kingston & Hounslow supported during the
most recent year, 66% were experiencing mental health
difficulties, including post-natal depression, anxiety,
depression and chronic mental health conditions.
I was privileged to be able to visit Springfield University
Hospital in Tooting recently to meet the perinatal psychiatry
team for the South West London and St George’s Mental Health NHS
Trust. I was extremely pleased to hear about the work the trust
is doing in successfully supporting new mothers who struggle with
their mental health, and particularly that it was able to
maintain its services during the lockdown and after. Akvinder
Bola-Emerson, the clinical services lead for perinatal
psychiatry, stressed in particular the need for peer support but
also the importance of health visitors, whom she described as the
“eyes and ears” of perinatal mental health services.
The visit highlighted for me that we also need better provision
for new and expectant fathers. Currently only mothers can be
formally diagnosed with a perinatal mental health problem.
Springfield provides services for fathers, but it is currently
able to identify mental health issues in fathers only when they
accompany a mother who is attending the hospital for perinatal
mental health issues.
(Carmarthen East and
Dinefwr) (Ind)
I am extremely grateful to the hon. Lady for securing the debate,
and she is making some very important points. Does she agree that
one of the worst situations expectant parents can find themselves
in is when there is a miscarriage and that parental leave for
such parents would be a welcome reform?
I am grateful to the hon. Member for his intervention. He is
absolutely right that there are a large number of events and
incidents surrounding pregnancy and birth—as I know from my own
experience—that can cause huge distress, and it is right that
mothers and the people supporting them, and fathers as well, get
the support they need, including statutory leave from employment
for the time it takes to come to terms with the miscarriage. That
is certainly something we should be looking at.
We know that impending fatherhood can be a cause of great anxiety
for men, and more services need to be developed to support them.
We also know that over a third of domestic violence starts or
gets worse when a woman is pregnant. I would speculate that some
of that is attributable to undiagnosed and untreated mental
health conditions in expectant fathers, which underlines the need
to do more to support them.
In addition to health visiting and perinatal psychiatry, support
for children and their families throughout their early years is
vital for enhancing children’s prospects at school and beyond.
Evidence shows that effective integration of services in the
earliest years can bring broad benefits. For example, Sure Start
children’s centres are shown to decisively reduce
hospitalisations during childhood. However, 1,300 children’s
centres have closed since 2010, and recent research has shown
that 82% of parents of young children have struggled to access
early years services. I am pleased that the Government have now
committed £80 million to introducing family hubs to 75 local
authorities across England, and £50 million for parenting
programmes. However, we need more information on what family hubs
can provide, and I would particularly like to ensure that health
visiting and mental health support are included.
The importance of the right support in the early years was
brought home to me after a recent meeting with primary
headteachers in my constituency. I heard about how difficult it
is for nursery and reception-age children to settle into class
and to get used to spending time with other children and not
spending all day at home with their parents. For adults, lockdown
has been 18 months of inconvenience, after which we expect to be
able to pick up the threads of our former life. However, some
young children who started nursery this term will have spent up
to a third of their life in lockdown, and we cannot yet know what
the long-term impact will be.
(Bath) (LD)
Is my hon. Friend alarmed, as I am, by the fact that domestic
violence has increased during lockdown, which has particularly
affected young or very young children? The Government need to
look at the backlog of cases that have arisen through the lack of
attention to domestic violence, or inability to look at it,
during lockdown, as it did not really come to our attention.
My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and incidents of domestic
violence during lockdown are a matter of grave concern. We know
there is a clear link between domestic violence starting or
worsening and a pregnancy in a family. That issue needs a huge
amount of attention; more mental health support for both partners
would help a great deal.
The lockdown will have increased disparities in educational
outcomes between those from poorer backgrounds and their richer
classmates, and I call on the Government to do more to provide
catch-up funding to our schools, and allow them to spend it on a
greater range of services. Local headteachers tell me that
funding can be allocated only to academic tuition, and that they
have identified many children, including the very youngest, who
need mental and emotional support to help them in school.
I will conclude by saying thank you to everyone who has talked to
me about their experiences in this area, but particularly our
health visiting and perinatal mental health teams, who do so much
good and valuable work for new families. I also acknowledge the
huge contribution made by the voluntary sector in supporting new
families, in particular the work of Home-Start, which provides an
excellent network of support. It takes only a small amount of
encouragement, a little word of advice or a sympathetic listening
ear to give a new parent confidence, but it can make a world of
difference to their children. A small investment in the beginning
of life can reap huge rewards, not just for individual children
and their families but for whole communities, and the right start
can enhance not just individual educational achievement and
wellbeing but reduce risky and antisocial behaviours. Few pounds
could be better spent, or yield a more valuable return, than
those invested in our youngest citizens.
15:01:00
Dame (South Northamptonshire)
(Con)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Richmond Park
() in this important debate, and
I congratulate her and the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne
North () as fellow co-sponsors
and tireless fellow campaigners for giving every baby the best
start in life.
Despite the rough and tumble of politics, there are times when
colleagues from all parties in the House come together. Early
years is one such cross-party issue. Over the past 11 years in
Parliament, I have been proud to work with many colleagues on the
early years. The hon. Members for Manchester Central () and for Washington and
Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson), my stalwart and long-standing hon.
Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (), and my hon. Friends the Members for Eddisbury
() and for Winchester () have all been amazing
campaigners for the earliest years, as has the hon. Member for
Glasgow Central (). The former Member for
Birkenhead, Lord Field, and the former Member for East
Dunbartonshire, , have been great allies, as have all those Members
who supported the all-party group conception to age two: first
1,001 days, and Ministers on the inter-ministerial group on early
years family support from 2018-19.
It is fantastic that since the 2019 general election, the early
years agenda has received fresh support from new colleagues such
as my hon. Friends the Members for Penistone and Stocksbridge
(), for Stroud (), for Cities of London and
Westminster (), for Truro and Falmouth
(), and for Ruislip,
Northwood and Pinner (). I also pay tribute to the
late Baroness . She and I worked together on
the 1,001 critical days agenda, and she campaigned for it to be
introduced as part of the sustainable development goals at the
United Nations. I must also mention the superb work of the Royal
Foundation and its Centre for Early Childhood. The commitment
from Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Cambridge and her team has
generated fresh attention for ensuring that every baby gets the
best start in life.
This subject has been my personal passion for more than 20 years,
from chairing the Oxford parent-infant project, to setting up the
parent infant partnership UK, and the Northamptonshire parent
infant partnership, establishing the 1,001 critical days
manifesto and the all-party group conception to age two: first
1,001 days, and chairing the inter-ministerial group in the
Government of my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs
May). July 2020 marked a huge opportunity when the Prime Minister
commissioned the early years healthy development review and
invited me to chair it. Since then, we have been able to build on
years of cross-party support, and a wealth of knowledge and
expertise from the early years sector, to create a new vision for
the 1,001 critical days initiative that was launched in March
this year. The review has put the baby’s needs at the centre of
all our work. Through meetings with parents and carers, virtual
visits to local areas, and detailed discussions with
parliamentarians, practitioners, academics and charities, we
heard about the experience of early years services and support,
and about what is going well and where change is needed.
First and foremost, we learnt from every parent and carer of
their strong desire to be the best parent they can be, but we
also learnt that new prospective parents often struggle to find
the support they need. We heard from many parents who had deep
concerns about their own or their partner’s mental health, and
struggled to get timely support. We heard from many mums who
desperately wanted to breastfeed but gave up because the support
was not there. Parents told us how frustrating it was to keep
telling their story over and over again to different people.
Their cry was, “Why don’t you people ever speak to each other?”
Equally, we heard from professionals and volunteers who said it
would have been so helpful for them if they had known before
meeting a new parent or carer about previous trauma or health
challenges.
We heard from many dads about how excluded they felt from what
they saw as “mum-centric” services. Some felt that they should
not ask for any support for themselves, while others just felt
sidelined and, in some cases, traumatised by what their partner
had gone through in childbirth. We heard from foster carers of
babies how little information came their way when caring for a
vulnerable baby. More specifically, in 40 cases of babies who
went into foster care, only two arrived with their red book.
Those carers had no formal information about that baby’s early
traumas that had caused them to be taken away from their birth
family.
We heard from same-sex couples about unhelpful assumptions by
early years professionals about their relationship and parenting
roles. We heard from black mums about how particular cultural and
health issues can be overlooked by busy staff. We heard from
single mums and single dads about how they can feel isolated, and
sometimes stigmatised, at such a life-changing time. We heard
from many parents with particular challenges, such as not
speaking English well, concerns about possible disabilities,
experiencing violence in their lives, or other significant
challenges. We heard that support is inconsistent and sometimes
hard to access.
It comes as no surprise that the covid pandemic has been an
extraordinarily difficult time for new families who, through no
fault of their own, have not been able to access services or
support in the normal way. The “Babies in Lockdown” report from
the Parent-Infant Foundation, Best Beginnings and Home-Start
reveals that nearly seven in 10 parents felt that changes brought
about by covid were affecting their unborn baby, their baby, or
their young child, and that 35% of parents would like help with
their concerns about their relationship with their baby. The
report also found that nine out of 10 parents and carers
experienced higher levels of anxiety during lockdown.
Despite the many stories of difficulties, we also heard fantastic
examples of good support for families. Many health visitors went
the extra mile to keep in contact with families who were
struggling, and many families found it incredibly reassuring to
be able to text or Zoom their health visitor at short notice.
Parenting programmes have been a huge support to many families,
and we virtually visited Camden’s Bump to Baby programme, where
classes continued online throughout the pandemic, and have proved
incredibly popular with new parents and carers who are also
helped to make friendships outside the programme. Dads gave us
positive feedback on services that gave them space to share their
experiences, without worrying about whether they were taking the
focus away from the other partner’s health and wellbeing.
In lockdown, we also heard about excellent online and virtual
services, and how they came into their own. One such service,
Parent Talk, provided by Action for Children, reported a 430%
increase in the number of parents seeking advice online during
the pandemic. The Baby Buddy app, produced by Best Beginnings,
has seen a huge take-up of its digital and virtual advice for
everything from breastfeeding to nappy changing, and from sleep
management to mental health concerns. Many local authorities are
now determined to improve their joined-up offer to new parents
and carers, so I certainly feel that we are pushing against an
open door.
Our report, “The Best Start for Life: A Vision for the 1,001
Critical Days”, was launched by the Prime Minister in March this
year. It contains six action areas. The first is that every local
area should publish its own joined-up set of start for life
services so that every parent and carer knows where to go for
help.
The second is a welcoming hub for every family, in the form of
family hubs. Those will build on the excellent work done by the
late Baroness and others on creating Sure
Starts, but the benefit of family hubs is that they will be the
place where every family goes for support and advice, including
from midwives, health visitors, mental health support workers and
breastfeeding advisers within their walls. Not only will those
services be physically available but they will be virtually
available through the family hub model.
The third action area is a digital version of the red book, which
will provide parents and carers with a record of their baby’s
earliest life, from lovely moments such as their first tooth and
their first steps, all the way to records of immunisations and
professional support interventions.
The fourth action area is about the workforce. We all know that
health visitors provide critical support for new parents and
carers, but we also know that their case load can be very heavy,
and parents and carers have told us that they really want more
continuity of care and more frequent contact in the earliest
years. We are therefore working with health visitors and local
areas to consider resourcing levels and training needs, and
whether a mixed-skill workforce can provide that greater
continuity of care.
The fifth action area is to continually improve the start for
life offer. A key action will be to establish parent and carer
panels in every local area to ensure that the voices of families
are heard when services are designed and improved. We are looking
at improving the collection of data, at the evaluation of
different interventions and at the need for proportionate
inspection of the start for life offer in each area. A final but
critical action area is to ensure that there is sound leadership,
both locally and nationally, to drive the ambition to give every
baby the best start for life.
I want to say a huge thank you to the Under-Secretary of State
for Health and Social Care, my hon. Friend the Member for Erewash
(), and to all the review’s
sponsoring Ministers, past and present, for their support for the
review. I am sure that it was their commitment, combined with the
support of the Prime Minister and the Chancellor, that ensured
such a positive spending review settlement for the earliest
years, with £82 million for family hubs, £50 million for
parenting programmes, £10 million for the start for life offer,
£50 million for breastfeeding support, £100 million for infant
and perinatal mental health support, £10 million for new
workforce pilots, and a £200 million uplift for the supporting
families programme. I believe that £500 million is a
transformational sum that will allow many more parents and carers
access to the vital help they need to give their baby the best
start for life.
Why does this matter so much to our society? Well, we know that
it is in the period from conception to the age of two when the
building blocks for physical and emotional health are laid down.
Babies born into secure and supportive homes will usually go on
to become happy children who do well at school and grow into
adults who cope well with life’s ups and downs and are more
likely to hold down a job, have better health outcomes and form
healthy relationships themselves. On the other hand, we know that
in families under pressure, particularly where there is partner
conflict, substance misuse, poor mental health or deprivation,
the consequences for a baby’s developing mind in that critical
early period can be far-reaching and very harmful.
Prevention is not just kinder; it is also significantly cheaper
than cure. For example, the NHS has estimated that for every
one-year cohort of births in England, the long-term cost of lack
of timely access to quality perinatal mental health care is £1.2
billion to the NHS and social services and more than £8 billion
to society. That is for every year’s cohort. We also know that up
to 30% of domestic violence begins during pregnancy, and that
health issues such as tooth decay and childhood obesity cost
hundreds of millions of pounds every year in health-related
expenses. We believe that those things could be significantly
reduced by better education and support for new families.
With these six action areas, I think we can transform our
approach to early years support and services, improving the
health outcomes and life chances of the youngest in our society.
Just as we need to level up economic opportunity across the
country, we must also focus on where it begins—that critical
period of human life from conception to the age of two.
The right hon. Member is giving a very comprehensive speech. Does
she also agree that the Government should look at the issue of
shared parental leave? The stats seem to indicate that fewer than
4% of eligible fathers take up the Government’s current policy.
The Government need to look at that, and the forthcoming
employment Bill may be an opportunity to strengthen those
provisions.
Dame
I completely agree with the hon. Gentleman that it would be
fantastic for families and babies if more dads took up shared
parental leave. Of course, as he will know, that has been
legislated for. Unfortunately, as he points out, far too few
fathers have taken it up to date. I certainly wish that more
would have the confidence to do so.
I believe that all colleagues across the House would agree that
the world in which we all want to live is one where every baby is
nurtured to fulfil their potential, where good lifelong emotional
wellbeing is the norm, where our society is productive and
co-operative, and where every one of our citizens has the chance
to be the very best that they can be.
15:16:00
(Newcastle upon Tyne
North) (Lab)
I thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting time to
debate this incredibly important subject. I also commend my
colleagues, the hon. Member for Richmond Park () and the right hon. Member for
South Northamptonshire (Dame ), for setting out so
eloquently and passionately the case for focusing on this issue.
I had hoped that, as co-sponsors of the debate and
co-conspirators on this issue, we would not just repeat one
another’s arguments, and I believe that, without co-ordinating in
any way, we will not. We agree on the problem—we agree on the
challenge and the importance of this issue—but today I want to
focus on the enormous challenge presented by poverty in
overcoming many of these issues.
We know from international evidence that so many important life
outcomes, from health to wealth and wellbeing, have their origins
in early childhood, but the reality is that not all childhoods
are equal. If we truly want to give every child the best start in
life, we must tackle poverty and economic disadvantage. There is
substantial evidence demonstrating the damaging, stigmatising and
often lifelong impact of experiencing poverty in childhood. It
affects cognitive skills, social and emotional development,
physical health, mental health, educational outcomes, employment
prospects, the likelihood of being in poverty as an adult, and
life expectancy.
Recent reports have highlighted starkly that the impact of
poverty begins in very early childhood, or even pre-birth. For
example, last month, MBRRACE-UK— Mothers and Babies: Reducing
Risk through Audits and Confidential Enquiries across the
UK—reported that
“babies born to women living in the most deprived areas are twice
as likely to be stillborn, and at a 73% excess risk of neonatal
death compared to babies born to women living in the least
deprived areas”.
Likewise, national child mortality database research published in
May found a clear link between deprivation and child death. It
concluded that around 700 fewer child deaths per year—a fifth of
all child deaths—might be avoided if children living in the most
deprived areas had the same mortality risk as those living in the
least deprived. Poverty is literally killing children.
Is the hon. Member as concerned and shocked as I am about data
showing that a mother from an ethnic minority background has a
much higher likelihood of experiencing complications during
pregnancy or birth that result in their baby being either
stillborn or born with a disability? Does she agree that we need
absolutely to focus on such discrimination and disadvantages?
Yes, I absolutely agree with the hon. Lady. As the Chair of the
Petitions Committee, I can say we received petitions on that
issue and debated it in Parliament. We have been given some
assurances from the Government, but it is imperative that all of
us in this House ensure an improvement in both the statistics and
the reality for those who experience it.
It is well established in education research that on average the
longer a child has been disadvantaged the worse their performance
will be at school, particularly in key stage 4 assessments. Even
where children from more deprived backgrounds do achieve the same
results as their better-off peers, they are still likely to have
lower lifetime earnings. How unbelievably disheartening is
that?
Sadly, child poverty is getting worse. Government statistics on
households below average income published this spring show just
how many families were struggling before covid-19. In 2020,
200,000 more children were pushed into poverty compared to the
previous year, using the measure of relative poverty after
housing costs. That means 4.3 million children living in poverty:
real children living in real hardship. I know the Government do
not readily accept the concept of relative poverty, but Ministers
should listen to the recommendation of the Work and Pensions
Committee to end the sole focus on absolute poverty and look at
broader measures. After all, if the Government are committed to
levelling up, improving the position of a child in Newcastle
relative to a child in Middlesex is surely more relevant to
comparing a child in Newcastle today with a child in Newcastle 11
years ago.
Even if we use only the Government’s preferred absolute poverty
measure, the proportion of children living in poverty rose by an
average of four percentage points in every north-east local
authority area between 2014-15 and 2019-20, while the number of
children living in absolute poverty across the north-east rose by
more than 21,000 during that period. The latter point is
particularly concerning as absolute poverty is a measure that has
always tended to naturally improve over time as living standards
rise, but in the north-east it is going in the opposite
direction. As troubling as the pre-pandemic figures are, none of
that should come as a surprise given the direction of Government
policy over the last 10 years. Indeed, the country went into the
pandemic expecting to spend £36 billion less on social security
because of Government welfare policy. That has to come from
somewhere, and it is coming from the poorest pockets and the
mouths of children.
Just as Government action can lead to increases in child poverty,
it can bring them down too. We have seen it before, especially
under the previous Labour Government. What we need is a
cross-governmental strategy for tackling child poverty, something
groups such as the North East Child Poverty Commission and the
Child Poverty Action Group have consistently called for. It needs
to go a lot further than anything we have heard from the
Government to date. It should include a welfare system that
prevents and reduces poverty, giving all families a dignified
safety net when they are going through tough times. It should
tackle unemployment and low-paid insecure work, the kind of work
that means most children living in poverty are now in working
families. We need concerted action to support families with the
cost of major outgoings: energy, housing and childcare.
All those things were problems pre-pandemic and they still need
to be addressed, but covid-19 and the lockdowns of the last
year-and-a-half have brought additional challenges for parents
and young children. For the past 18 months, the Petitions
Committee, which I Chair, has investigated the pandemic’s impact
on new parents and children, and expressed its deep concerns that
it is being overlooked by the Government. Our first report in
July 2020 highlighted the need for urgent catch-up investment to
help new parents access support services disrupted by the
pandemic, and to do more to ensure employers meet their health
and safety duties towards pregnant women. Unfortunately, the
Government rejected almost all our recommendations, saying that
support was “sufficiently generous” for
“the vast majority of parents”.
That, however, did not match up with all the evidence we heard
from new parents about their struggles. We heard that crucial
support for children’s wellbeing and development was being
missed, that there were concerns about employers not meeting
their health and safety duties towards pregnant women, and about
additional difficulties in accessing childcare. I fear that the
Government know that the impacts of all of that are long term,
and that by the time the impacts of their failure to invest will
be seen, they may be well gone, or at least their failure
forgotten.
This year the Committee decided to revisit those issues with a
follow-up report, but unfortunately it is already clear that we
are seeing the impact of the Government’s lack of action in this
area, including: children coming into early years classes behind
in their social development; increasing rates of poor mental
health among new mothers; and childcare providers going out of
business. The Committee found that new and expectant parents’
access to support has remained severely limited. Many have lost
out entirely on the crucial window of support available in the
early months of their child’s life, and issues around children’s
development and parents’ mental health will have been missed. I
have said repeatedly that there is a good reason why we wrap a
blanket of support around new mums and their babies—and dads,
too. It is needed at the time and the long-term impacts of not
providing it are well known. Urgent investment is needed to
provide catch-up mental health and health visiting support.
The Government have failed to deliver on stronger workplace
discrimination protections for new and expectant mothers, and
they have repeatedly promised to do that. That is especially
concerning as the economic impact of the pandemic continues to be
felt. I pressed the Prime Minister on that at the Liaison
Committee, and I urge the Government to pass those protections
into law as soon as possible. If mums are being discriminated
against, it is bad for their children, too.
The pandemic has also exacerbated pre-existing problems in the
early years sector. Government financial support has been
welcome, but it has not prevented many early years providers
seeing a significant impact on their finances, with low pay for
staff, many of whom are mums too, and high costs for parents. The
pandemic may well contribute to or even accelerate an ongoing
erosion of provision. I therefore urge the Government to consider
a review of early years funding to ensure it is affordable and
meets the needs of new parents seeking to return to work. They
could set out a clear vision for our children, our undervalued
early years and childcare workforce, and ensure that no parent
must choose between their child and their career.
Before I conclude, I want to ask the Minister some specific
questions on the Government’s proposed family hubs. Given that
there are 152 upper-tier councils in England and there will be 75
family hubs, it looks like just under half of local authorities
will benefit from the programme. Have the Government already
determined the criteria by which the funding will be allocated?
We assume it will be based on some measure of deprivation, but
will the Minister confirm that? May I urge the Government not to
continue their approach of forcing overstretched local
authorities to commit their scarce resources to making funding
applications? We should not be pitting local authorities with
high levels of deprivation and child poverty, such as those in
the north-east, against each other to receive support. How does
the Minister see family hubs working in large local authority
areas, often with poor public transport links? For example,
getting across Newcastle with young children to access services
via public transport can be challenging, particularly for my
constituents in the Outer West. Large rural areas like Durham and
Northumberland face their own challenges. I hope when the Minster
responds, she will confirm that services will be “within
pram-pushing distance” of the families they are intended to help,
as was the aim of the Sure Start programme.
In conclusion, the crushing pressure that poverty places on
families and children is clear. It impacts our children’s lives
directly when parents and carers do not have enough money to meet
their children’s material, social and educational needs. It
impacts on them indirectly by creating stress, insecurity and
conflict at home.
These adverse childhood experiences inevitably influence
children’s development and wellbeing, creating a vicious cycle.
To escape that cycle, we need a coherent, cross-departmental
anti-child poverty strategy, backed by proper investment. It is
fair to say that we are pretty far from that at the moment when
the Government often seem unsure about which Minister to send to
respond to child poverty debates. Such pervasive child poverty is
not inevitable. The last Labour Government reduced child poverty
and the concerns about child welfare that it creates. We can do
it again and truly give every child the best start in life. We
just need the Government to care truly about achieving it.
15:28:00
(East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)
I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Richmond Park () and the other colleagues who
secured the debate. It is great to be having a debate about early
years again; we are having a few of them these days. It never
happened when I first became a Member of the House and has not
for much of my 24 years here. It is really fantastic that such a
relevant and important subject to so many of our constituents is
now commonplace in the Chamber and that there is real, concerted
action. We may disagree over the extent or detail of that, or the
amount of money that is going into it, but I think we all agree
about the direction and emphasis.
It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Newcastle
upon Tyne North (), and I agree with much
of what she said. It is also a great pleasure—but a great
challenge—to follow my right hon. Friend the Member for South
Northamptonshire (Dame ), who is such a guru on this
subject that anything the rest of us say subsequently will pale
into relative irrelevance, but I will give it a bash anyway.
I want to recount an episode that happened when I was Children’s
Minister 11 years ago. I used to spend a week of the summer
recess going out on the frontline with some of the workforce,
without any fuss and without any cameras, just to see what their
job involved at first hand. I remember my first time: I spent a
week in Stockport going out with social workers, knocking on
doors, seeing cases at first hand, manning the overnight
emergency helplines, sitting in on morning meetings and liaising
with police and others. It was a fascinating experience, which I
recommend to any other Member. I think it should be compulsory
for all Ministers and their officials to spend time with the
professionals over whose regulations that Department has
responsibility. That is where we find out the most. I used to
find out most of my information from sitting down with groups of
children in care, as the Minister responsible for children in
care; that is where we find out what is really going on.
A really good social worker took me to my first case, and I think
that she deliberately chose the most challenging case in the most
run-down, depressing part of the town. We went into a house that
was a complete mess. There was a young mum with three young boys.
There were no carpets on the floor. There was virtually no
furniture, other than what had been dumped in the garden. There
was no food in the house—the fridge was bare—other than what the
kids literally were eating off the floor. There were bare
mattresses for beds and piles of dirty clothing.
One of the kids had had a really dire toothache for some weeks,
and the social worker had gone on at the mum about getting the
child some treatment for it. On the day that we visited, the mum
had had a toothache problem. On the previous day, she had gone
down to the emergency dentist and had her tooth fixed, but she
did not have the presence of mind to take her son who was
suffering from toothache along with her.
What does someone do with a family like that? Plenty of
professionals had been going in and out of that house to offer
different bits of help, but that mum required some serious
support. She had been abused as a child, as is so often the case.
The father was not on the scene and she had been subject to
domestic abuse, as is so often the case. We all know,
extraordinarily, that about a third of domestic violence starts
during pregnancy. So there she was, highly vulnerable and
desperately in need of support, but her life was not improving
and the life chances of her children were certainly not. So what
does someone do?
Those children could have been taken into care. They probably
would have been split up, going to different families across the
area and perhaps beyond. The mum would have been completely
distraught at that prospect. Inadequate though she was, for
whatever reason, in the care that she provided, she absolutely
doted on those kids and they doted on her, so what was the
solution? That is the sort of judgment of Solomon that our social
workers have to make day in, day out when dealing with those
really complex, challenging cases.
That case, which I will remember for the rest of the time that I
am involved in these areas, encapsulates all the challenges that
we face in children’s social care and all the challenges relating
to the whole issue of the best start in life and the project that
the Government have undertaken, thanks to my right hon. Friend
the Member for South Northamptonshire. That is why it is so
important. One of the answers is to have a joined-up approach
locally, with all the different professionals working together as
a team to encapsulate mum and family. It is about having somebody
who can literally take her by the arm and march her down to a
children’s centre to get family support and advice or march her
down to the dentist with little Johnny to make sure that he gets
dental treatment—somebody to take control of people’s lives and
get them on the straight and narrow until they can fend for
themselves and their family again. We need local professionals
working as one, with a lead person who has responsibility, who
has all the joined-up knowledge about what needs to happen, and
who has the force and confidence to make it happen.
We also need the Government to be joined up at the centre. I
remember that when we were trying to get the early intervention
grant sorted, we were getting the run- around from officials
because the fund would affect various Departments. We were told,
“Oh, we can book you an appointment with the Minister in that
Department in a few weeks’ time, and then perhaps you can have
another meeting with that Minister.” In the end, the only way my
co-Minister and I got the problem sorted
was by ringing up all the Housing, Health, Home Office and other
Ministers responsible. We all had pizza in the Adjournment,
agreed what the strategy should be, went back to our Departments
the following morning and told our civil servants, “This is what
we want to happen.” All the civil servants said, “That’s not the
way we do things here, Minister,” to which we all said, “Tough.
Do it.”
The problem is that government does not work in a joined-up way,
which is why the approach that my right hon. Friend the Member
for South Northamptonshire has taken is really pioneering. I pay
tribute to her for the way she has brought things together,
forcing Departments to sit down, work together and have a
strategy that works as one. That is the only way we will sort the
problem sustainably for the future, which is key to the whole
approach.
The hon. Member for Richmond Park has set out the problems: the
£8.1 billion that perinatal mental illness costs each year; the
£15 billion that we spend each year in this country on child
neglect, particularly in relation to younger children; the £6
billion that childhood obesity costs each year, which is likely
to rise to £9 billion within the next few years. As well as the
cost of domestic abuse and safeguarding, we are spending £20
billion to £30 billion-plus each year as the cost of getting it
wrong for some of the most vulnerable children and their
families. Spending a fraction of that on solutions to get it
right will be absolutely transformational.
Let us look at some research from the Institute of Health
Visiting. I will always speak up for health visitors; in my view,
frankly, they are one of our emergency services. They have been
diverted too often during the pandemic to other parts of the
health service, and their absence has been greatly felt. There is
a shortage of several thousand: the institute says that we need
at least 3,000 additional health visitors over the next three
years, and I completely agree. One of the great achievements of
the Cameron Government was building up the health visitor
workforce, which has since diminished, alas. A survey of health
visitors shows that 81% have seen an increase in perinatal mental
illness, 80% have seen an increase in domestic abuse, 80% have
seen an increase in child behaviour problems, 72% have seen an
increase in poverty affecting families and 71% have seen an
increase in child safeguarding.
The hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North is right, too.
Research from Action for Children shows that
“only 57% of children from poorer backgrounds were ready for
school at age five, compared to 74% of their better-off peers…82%
of parents of 0-5s in England struggled, or were unable, to
access vital non-childcare early years services…78% of parents
who were unable to access a service were worried about potential
impacts on themselves or their children. The most common concerns
were children’s development, and parents’ own mental health and
wellbeing.”
That is the cost of failure, and that is why it is so important
to have a co-ordinated, joined-up approach. One statistic that
has always stayed in my mind is that if a 15 or 16-year-old at
school suffers from depression or some form of mental illness,
there is a 99% likelihood that their mum suffered from some form
of perinatal mental illness or depression—the link is that close.
We should be spending so much more time and resources on looking
at the pre-school period, particularly from conception to age
two, because that is where it all goes pear-shaped. We see the
consequences throughout childhood, and they so often carry on
into adulthood and stay with the person for the rest of their
life. So of course we should be doing more about this, and I am
glad that at last the Government have recognised that that is
where all the action—or a lot more of the action —needs to be
focused.
On health visitors, I agree with the Local Government
Association, which has said it is important for the Government to
work
“on a children’s workforce strategy to support the development of
a well-qualified, well-resourced workforce with the appropriate
knowledge, skills and experience to work in a preventative way.
This needs to be an integrated strategy between local
authorities, health, education and community and voluntary sector
partners, which links effectively with established programmes,
such as Supporting Families, Sure Start and Family Hubs and puts
the child’s journey at the centre.”
That strategy, it adds, needs to be properly resourced. Well, we
are having a lot of extra resource. We could all argue that it is
not enough, and the more Opposition Members argue that it is not
enough the more I will welcome that, because we could always do
with more money; but I think this has been a good start.
Let us look briefly at some of the action areas. One of them is
the provision of seamless support for families. As my right hon.
Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire has said, we need to
have a lead person who knows all the facts and history of the
family involved, and who has the power to say, “This is what
needs to happen for that family”, and make sure that it happens.
Then there is the welcoming hub for families. I can answer the
earlier question from the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne
North by saying that 75 family hubs have been identified, in
about half the number of local authority areas. I hope very much
that the other 75 will follow very quickly, so that there is at
least one per authority.
Can we get away from the idea that these hubs are a challenge to,
or in place of, children’s centres? They are building on the
experience of children’s centres and are complementary to them,
but they are not just about bricks and mortar; they are about
services. I think that in the past we have been too hung up about
the amount of bricks and mortar that we have rather than the
quality of the services provided, whether as outreach or within
children’s centres, and, most important, the outcomes that they
are creating for the children for whom they exist and their
families.
It is important to ensure that families have the right
information at the time when they need it. When people are
reluctant to cross the threshold of a children’s centre or a
family hub, as my family in Stockport were, they need to have
other ways of obtaining that information. It may be a night-time
call line, or it may be online, on the internet. It may mean
having another professional to call on, or even volunteers—even
members of another family who are looking out for vulnerable
families. What those people need is a trusted source of
information that they can access, rely on and then act on to
their benefit.
I think we have all learnt in the past that a top- down approach,
with all the geeks in the civil service coming up with whizzy new
schemes and trying to impose the same scheme in Newcastle as in a
village in South Northamptonshire or a coastal town like
Worthing, rarely works. We need national frameworks and national
quality thresholds, and we need local design and local
implementation. We need to hold people’s feet to the fire. Every
local authority needs to come up with a best start in life plan.
That local plan needs to meet the thresholds for children’s
outcomes, and then the centre needs to ensure that authorities go
ahead with those plans and achieve those outcomes. In that way we
can have local ownership, local design and local flexibility that
are in the best interests of children and their families.
I welcome the “best start in life” programme, and I congratulate
all who have made it possible. This has been a huge joint effort.
It has been a false economy not to look at those initial few
pre-school years, because that is when we can have the biggest
impact on the nurturing value of parents and the attachment that
is so essential between a parent or parents and their children,
when a child’s brain is growing exponentially—and will be
impacted on for the rest of his or her life. At last we have a
programme that realises that. Let us ensure that we make it a
success for our future generations.
Madam Deputy Speaker ( )
Before I call the next speaker, I must tell the House that we
have another debate following this one in which 11 Members have
put in to speak so far, so we must be conscious that there are
slight time pressures.
15:44:00
(Washington and Sunderland
West) (Lab)
I would like to start by thanking the hon. Member for Richmond
Park (), the right hon. Member for
South Northamptonshire (Dame ) and my hon. Friend the
Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North () for securing this
debate at this incredibly important time. I also offer my thanks
to the right hon. Member for South Northamptonshire for her
tireless campaigning on this issue over many years, for her
recent leadership of the early years review and for her success
in securing funding for the sector in the recent Budget. All
those are to be welcomed. It is not easy getting money out of a
Chancellor, as we all know. She also knows my dismay at the
short-sighted cuts that preceded this funding, making it all the
more necessary. I know she agrees that we need to ensure that no
Government cut valuable services such as Sure Start or family
hubs ever again.
I stand here as a former shadow Minister for children and
families, a role now most ably held by my hon. Friend the Member
for Hampstead and Kilburn (). It has been said that once
anyone has been a children’s Minister, like the hon. Member for
East Worthing and Shoreham (), or a shadow, they can never quite leave the issue
alone. It is sort of like an “Order of the Babies” maybe, or a
ministerial Hotel California.
Covid-19 has had a profound impact on all of us, but the effects
of the lockdown restrictions and social distancing measures were
keenly felt in the early years sector. I welcome the “Babies in
Lockdown” survey report published today by the Parent-Infant
Foundation, Home-Start UK and Best Beginnings. The pandemic is,
sadly, far from over, and the report offers signs that the early
years sector has developed a form of long covid, if you like. The
survey found that nearly a third of mothers questioned reported
that health visitor drop-in clinics that existed before the
pandemic were no longer operating. I urge colleagues to read the
report.
But let me take Members back to 1970, well before Zoom and Teams.
Back then, fewer than a quarter of mothers worked; society
expected a full-time mother. Without a central focus on the early
years, and no talk of the 1,001 critical days or adverse
childhood experiences, the education of very young children was
neglected. , writing in 1974,
highlighted the fact that only 10% of three and four-year-olds
attended state nursery schools or classes in 1971, with some
areas receiving no service at all.
To combat the lack of state nursery education, the mothers did it
themselves. Belle Tutaev set up a playgroup with her neighbour
which eventually bloomed into the Pre-School Playgroups
Association. This has since become the Early Years Alliance. But
the state should have taken up this mantle, rather than the
already burdened mothers. Not everyone was convinced of that
principle, however. In 1980, , then the Conservative
Secretary of State for Social Services, said that he did not
“accept that it is the state’s job to provide day care to enable
the parents of young children to go out to work”.
Listening to the debate today, 40 years on, we can see how far we
have come from that thinking.
It was the last Labour Government who finally addressed this
problem. I have spoken before, as others have today, about the
late Tessa Jowell’s Sure Start programme being a beacon of early
years policy. Sure Start brought children’s services together
under one roof, uniting healthcare with wellbeing, education with
childcare, babies with other babies, and parents with other
parents. There were 3,620 Sure Start centres in 2010 under
Labour. That has fallen, as we heard from the hon. Member for
Richmond Park, by more than 1,300 in the past decade or more of
Conservative Governments. Those that remain have been effectively
hollowed out, offering only skeleton services with minimal
opening hours. While the Government’s pledge to fund 75 more
family hubs is obviously welcome, it does little to make up for
that loss. I know the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham
said it is not all about the buildings but, when we have lost
1,300 and replaced them with 75, it is trying to get a quart into
a pint pot, as they used to say.
Dame
It has been such a pleasure to work with the hon. Lady on this
topic for so many years. I just want to put on the record that it
is not 75 family hubs, but 75 upper-tier local authorities; it
will be for them to decide, but it could be hundreds or thousands
of family hubs. The hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North
() drew the same
conclusion, so I really want to set the record straight on that
point, if the hon. Lady will forgive me.
Mrs Hodgson
I am very grateful to the right hon. Lady. That is an important
clarification, and we must ensure it is out there that maybe it
will not just be 75, but that they can make it many more. Let us
hope it is 1,300; I am sure she will agree with that. That said,
I warmly welcome what I think is the Government’s tacit admission
that they got it wrong when they defunded the Sure Start
programme, even though, as we all remember, on the eve of the
2010 election, promised it would be safe in
his hands.
However, we are where we are. Earlier this year, I also
co-chaired a cross-party early years commission alongside the
hon. Member for Eddisbury (), who, as a former
children’s Minister, is also a member of the “Order of the
Babies” and a resident of the ministerial Hotel California. The
commission heard from a wide range of stakeholders, including
educators, academics and policy professionals. I will take the
House through some of the recommendations in the comprehensive
report.
First, there should be integration of health and education
support for children, ensuring that every child receives the
health visitor appointments they are entitled to and a new health
visit when the child is 18 months old. Secondly, because too few
families have access to essential services, a locally relevant
and dedicated parent support service is needed in every community
in every area. Thirdly, we should upskill early education
practitioners by investing in continuing professional
development, so that the workforce stay fit to face the
challenges of the future. Those proposals could easily be made
reality. I sincerely hope that, as part of the £500 million
brought forward in the Budget, the Government will deliver all of
what we seek in this debate.
As we take part in this debate, we are mindful that the babies
and children themselves will not be listening. They will not be
tweeting their agreement or penning letters to our offices. I
will spare a moment to mention how, beyond their value on their
own terms, reforms to the early years offer can be instrumental
in improving the lives of those without children, via the
economy.
The Early Intervention Foundation found that the cost of late
intervention in 2016-17 was £17 billion, owing to the need for
services to help with mental health issues, youth crime and
exclusion, including a £5.3 billion spend on looked-after
children. Early intervention can offset that cost. The Carolina
Approach to Responsive Education programme provided intensive,
high-quality childcare for ages 0 to 5 in the United States of
America and delivered a 13% return on investment per child each
year. It netted IQ gains, higher wages, increased likelihood of
home ownership and higher scores on achievement tests.
For the family unit, the economic returns are clear too. As the
hon. Member for Richmond Park said, parents in areas with Sure
Start local programmes moved into paid work more quickly than
those without, reducing the benefits bill to the taxpayer and
increasing tax receipts for the Treasury. But that is not the
full picture: the economic benefits are often only modelled on
specific, targeted interventions, whereas the benefits of
intervention fan out across a range of factors, such as reducing
the later burden on the public purse— the whole point of early
intervention—and greater participation in the economy over many
years. As such, it is practically very difficult to model the
effects of a web of measures applied at once. So just imagine the
results we could achieve if those interventions were provided
simultaneously, with wholesale improved outcomes delivered via
intensive early years support. Britain’s early years offer has
the potential to be much greater than the sum of its parts.
To conclude, I would like to look to the world we are creating as
legislators in this place. As we speak, delegates from around the
world are discussing the means of preserving the planet and
protecting the environment in Glasgow at COP26. It is incredibly
important that we limit climate change to an increase of 1.5°.
Missing, I believe, is leadership for those who will grow up into
these environments. The pursuit of climate justice is in no small
part to ensure that our children and their children’s children do
not face an uninhabitable, hostile world. As those at COP26 work
for the future of the planet, let us, here and now, seize this
golden opportunity to help those who will inherit it.
15:56:00
(Penistone and Stocksbridge)
(Con)
It is an honour to follow the hon. Member for Washington and
Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) and I thank the hon. Member for
Richmond Park () for securing this important
debate. I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for
South Northamptonshire (Dame ), whose leadership on the
issue and perseverance over many years has led to the incredible
result of this investment in the first 1,001 days —in such a
difficult economic time, it is a real achievement to secure that.
It has been a privilege to be part of the early years healthy
development review, with a number of others sitting in the House.
It has been a great learning experience as a new MP but also a
real honour to be part of that. This is an issue I am also very
passionate about.
There is no more important period in anyone’s life than the first
1,001 days. As we have heard from many hon. Members, that is the
time when the foundations are set for childhood and for the rest
of life. Building blocks in terms of patterns of behaviour, how
we communicate and our health are all connected and made during
that time.
Lockdowns have been so, so damaging for the youngest in society,
in all those areas we have heard about: lack of access to
professional services, to community support and even to family
support, which has really harmed the very youngest in our
society. So the £500 million funding comes at a crucial time. I
have to say it: it is time to build back better for babies. So
there is no better investment for the Government to make than on
the first 1,001 days. Babies who go through healthy development
have a far greater chance of becoming healthy, happy, fulfilled
adults who are going to contribute to the economy and, as the
hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West said, will be much
less likely to be a burden on the taxpayer.
One great paradox of human society is that parenting is so
important, but it cannot be left to the experts. About half of us
were brought up by people who had never done it before. The truth
is that having babies is really hard—I have had three and I
should know. It is amazing to me that something so natural,
desirable and fulfilling is also so incredibly challenging. It
does not always start well. My first child was a full two weeks
late and I just escaped induction. He came into the world
following a 32-hour labour, so we started parenting after two
full nights without any sleep—something I did not even manage to
achieve as a student. I had never even held a newborn, let alone
been responsible for its survival. When we add the challenges of
breastfeeding, living on no sleep, trying to identify when
nappies need changing, and eating with one hand when a meal
consists of a dry piece of toast that you can put in and out of
the toaster without even opening the fridge, it is really
tough.
I vividly remember one day, when my newborn was crying and my
husband was out. I desperately needed a shower, as we were going
out. He would not stop crying. I still needed a shower. I put him
in the car seat, strapped him in and stuck him on the floor of
the bathroom. I got in the shower and started crying myself. That
is just what it is like as a parent of a newborn—then throw in
mastitis and the challenges of getting to the town hall to
register the baby’s birth, before we get to weaning, potty
training and more sleepless nights. What kept me going, and what
kept us going, was family, friends and baby groups. Every day of
the week, I found a different group to go to. I developed a
routine that made sure that I saw adults every day of the
week—other people who were going through the same
experiences.
I was really fortunate to develop a strong group of friends who
learned to be mums together. Because of that support, interaction
and camaraderie, I can honestly say that it was a joy and a
privilege to care for a baby and to see them learn and develop.
Despite the sheer exhaustion, there is nothing more worth
while.
My husband and I had all the support we could ask for—I had a
full year of maternity leave and we had the financial security
and the practical support to enjoy the first 1,001 days—but it
was still really hard. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor, who
we know is not short of a bob or two, remarked in a recent
newspaper article that even they found it incredibly challenging.
It is tough, whatever a person’s circumstances. I would like to
say that I was a pro by the time the third child came around, but
I am afraid the challenges were just threefold.
The truth is that we are not supposed to care for babies alone:
it takes a village to raise a child. Every first-time parent
might be a novice, but the truth is that millions of other people
out there have done it before and can help. The sad fact is that
so many parents do not have the support that I was so fortunate
to have. If just one area of a person’s life is fragile—such as
relationships, mental or physical health, geographical isolation
or poverty, as the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North
() said—caring for a baby
can go from challenging to impossible. For many, there is a cycle
of generational abuse and neglect that it is almost impossible
for them to break on their own.
As we heard from the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland
West, the world has changed. A couple of generations ago women
did not work outside the home—they definitely worked inside the
home—and there was a network of mums, grandmas and aunties on
hand to help. Our social fabric was much richer. Nobody wants to
return to the 1950s, and we have made incredible progress in so
many areas—we must not deny that and must celebrate it—but we do
need to intervene to rebirth the social and relational support
that is so crucial in equipping families to thrive in the early
years. That is why family hubs are so important and why I am so
delighted that the Budget included £82 million to develop the
network further throughout the country.
Family hubs should provide a one-stop-shop for parents, not only
to make it easier for them to access professional support and
advice from midwives, health visitors and other professionals but
to integrate them with local community groups, build friendships
and support networks and bring together the whole community to
provide that “village” to help to raise the child, which every
parent so desperately needs and to which so many parents do not
have access, for all sorts of reasons. Family hubs can also be a
place where intervention can happen early so that families with
particular issues, whatever they may be, can be helped before the
problem gets out of hand and leads to damaging consequences for
both the baby and the parents.
How is a first-time parent supposed to know how to deal with
colic, with their baby not putting on weight or with conflicts
with a partner that are exacerbated by a lack of sleep? We do not
know this stuff without asking other people. That is why family
hubs should be available for everyone. Every parent needs support
and a great way to provide it is through family hubs. I support
the idea of allowing birth registrations at family hubs: if
parents have to go there, under a statutory duty, they have then
put their foot through the door, seen what is available, made
that first contact and, hopefully, built some relationships with
people in the community. That will make it that much easier to
get support in future. A parent going to their local family hub
should be as everyday an event as a person going to their GP
surgery, with no stigma attached.
Of course, the start for life offer is all about babies, but if
we want to use the language of the market, the parents and carers
are the clients, so the whole offer is actually aimed at
supporting and equipping parents and carers. I am delighted that
we are recognising parenting as the most valuable contribution
that anyone can make to society, so I am also pleased that £50
million for parenting skills is part of the offer.
On parenting, I wish to speak briefly about motherhood, which is
not something we speak about much. It is brilliant that women are
much more valued, in every sense, outside the home than we used
to be—we are valued in the workplace and have full equality under
the law, and those things should be celebrated—but I sometimes
wonder whether we are too much valued through the lens of the
traditional male role model, and the hugely important work that
many women do in looking after children and building community
through the home is massively undervalued, and sometimes looked
down on and talked about in the language of oppression. I do not
deny that that is the case for many women, but many women are
fulfilled in that role and choose it in the early part—the first
1,001 days—of their child’s life. There are good biological
reasons why women desire to do that, and I know that I certainly
did.
Even the Department for Education’s own stats say that mothers of
young children would prefer to work less, but we as a society
have made it almost impossible for many women—parents, but often
women—to choose to focus on their children in those early years.
Our ever-increasing drive to get everyone into the workplace, the
tax system and house prices make it impossible for the majority
of families to survive on one income. They make it impossible for
so many families to choose to take that crucial time out from
work in the first two years of a child’s life. We also have a
system that expects single mothers to be able to be the provider
and the care giver, and that places so many in an impossible
situation, which is difficult for them and difficult for the
children.
I conclude by saying that children are not an economic
inconvenience; they are our best hope for the future and
deserving of every investment and support that we can give them.
The start of life offer is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to
refocus our priorities, to put babies at the centre of policy
making, and to give every child the opportunity they need to grow
and flourish.
16:05:00
(Pontypridd) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Penistone and
Stocksbridge ().
When I was first elected to this House nearly two years ago, I
came here not just as a new Member of Parliament but as a
first-time new mother. As the hon. Lady has already mentioned, it
takes a village, and my village is the best. I had all the
support in the world, from my husband, from my family, and from
my mam especially, but I still found balancing motherhood and
work incredibly difficult. In all honesty, I am still struggling
to find the right balance.
How do we give every baby the best start in life? Quite simply,
we ensure that our baby is born in Wales. In Wales, we have a
real focus on childcare from our Labour Government. Everyone is
offered 33 hours of childcare each week for children aged three
to four with no terms, no condition. The Flying Start programme
in particular does fantastic work supporting families with
children under four who live in some of the most disadvantaged
areas of Wales. I am also very lucky to have some fantastic local
childcare providers in my constituency, including Little
Inspirations, which has branches in Tonyrefail and
Llantrisant.
Supporting families in looking after their children is an
incredibly important part of giving every child the best start in
life, and we must do more to support families at this difficult
stage in their lives. For many people, myself included, bringing
a baby home from hospital is not a straightforward process. I
have spoken many times in this place about my own experiences
when my son was being cared for on a neonatal unit, and I cannot
resist once again taking this opportunity to urge the Government
urgently to bring forward their promised legislation on paid
neonatal leave for parents. On this occasion, I also want to draw
attention to some research by the fantastic charity Bliss on the
specific challenges that young parents—those under 25—face.
Bliss found that babies born to mothers aged under 20 are at an
increased risk of premature birth and at a 75% increased risk of
neonatal death compared with those born to mothers aged 30 to 34.
Women living in the most deprived areas of the UK also have a
significantly higher risk of stillbirth and neonatal death than
more privileged women, as we have already heard today. In order
to ensure that every baby has the best start in life, we must
start here. Pre-natal and post-natal care are vital, and I would
be grateful to the Minister if she could outline exactly what
steps the Government are taking to address these
inequalities.
We know that the first 1,001 days—from conception to a child’s
second birthday—are vital. In many cases, these days are
predictors for what level of education a baby will attain, what
their health will be like, and even how long they will live. It
should be of paramount importance to any Government to work to
level this playing field. In this day and age, it simply should
not be the case that where a person is born, and who they are
born to is the most determining factor in their life.
This Tory Government talk a lot about levelling up, but when it
comes right down to it, they fail to act on their promises. Just
a few weeks ago, I and my colleagues on the Labour Benches lined
up to urge the Government to rethink their decision to cut
universal credit. We warned that nearly 300,000 children faced
being plunged into poverty, and, once again, they failed to
listen and failed to reverse the cut.
We have had a very high-profile U-turn from the Government in
this past week, so how about we have another one this week? While
I will not hold my breath for meaningful change, I will use the
brief time that I have left to raise genuine concerns about the
future of breastfeeding for mums up and down the country. I have
spoken out many times about my passion for increased education,
awareness and support for those who are breastfeeding in this
place, and I pay tribute to the fantastic Breastfeeding Network,
which gave a wealth of support to me personally when I was
struggling, but, once again, I have to say that the Government
have failed to protect those of us who are breastfeeding. I was
frankly appalled that the campaign to make it illegal to
photograph breastfeeding women without consent reached a halt in
the other place last week when a Minister implied that banning
photographs of this nature would potentially impact family
pornography and require a complex change in the law. We should
speak more and more about breast- feeding and the law surrounding
the practice, especially in the context of giving babies the best
start in life. I sincerely hope that the Minister and the
Government are listening. Diolch.
16:10:00
(Ruislip, Northwood and
Pinner) (Con)
All of us in this House who are parents or have young children
among our family and friends will know that there is an abundance
of advice available on the topic of today’s debate and many of us
take that advice: we talk to our babies in the womb; we play
games with them before they are born; we study baby-led weaning;
and we invest in stain-proof covers that never seem to extend
quite far enough. But wherever on the nurturing scale we sit as
mums and dads, babies thrive when they are surrounded by adults
taking an active interest.
The focus of my contribution is the babies and young children who
need extra help to thrive—those whose interests are at the heart
of the decision by the Government to invest in family hubs in the
recent Budget, as championed by my right hon. Friend the Member
for South Northamptonshire (Dame ). As many Members have said,
it is welcome that this agenda is taking a higher profile in the
context of levelling up, because we all recognise the need to
build on sound foundations.
Twenty years’ experience in children’s services has taught me a
lot about the strengths and weaknesses of the child support
system in our country. Like our NHS, we are very good at
emergency services, and studies by academics at the University of
Bristol and the University of Warwick show that the UK has a
world-leading child protection system. But today’s debate goes
beyond protection from harm, and into how we help children to
thrive and flourish—something that is a matter not just of social
responsibility but, as my right hon. Friend the Member for South
Northamptonshire highlighted, of long-term economic benefit to
our country.
Thriving children live lives that cost the taxpayer less and
contribute more to everyone’s benefit. To that end, I am going to
offer three points, which are focused on how we turn the
widely-shared aspiration that we hear in the Chamber—I grew up in
the village of the hon. Member for Pontypridd () and am glad to hear of
the progress it is making—into a change that children and their
families can see and feel in their lives.
First, we need to follow the flow of money. The funding for early
years, which is a key statutory responsibility for all local
authorities, remains mired in bureaucratic processes that are
dominated by those whose focus, for good reasons, is elsewhere.
Schools forums, which determine the distribution of the dedicated
schools grant, in which much of this funding sits, are dominated
by the interests of our secondary schools. A fragmented early
years sector of small private, voluntary, charitable providers
often struggles to be heard. There is a structure around the
money that inhibits innovation and flexibility, and stands in the
way of creating the joined-up local offer that my hon. Friend the
Member for East Worthing and Shoreham () highlighted. Although I can see that there is a
perceived political benefit to lumping that early years funding
in with schools, in reality the needs of the sectors are
different.
(North Durham) (Lab)
I have listened carefully to what the hon. Gentleman says about
ringfencing and I do not disagree, but that is why Sure Start
funding was directed through local authorities and ringfenced at
a local level for local authorities to draw up their local
strategies. He talks about levelling up, but this process did not
start in 2019. We have seen the devastation of Sure Start
centres, certainly in County Durham, as a result of cuts to that
funding by his Government—although I know that he perhaps was not
in the House then.
It is good to hear the right hon. Member’s contribution. I was in
a local authority throughout Sure Start’s implementation period,
and although it was welcome to see a Government giving a high
degree of priority to children in the earliest years of their
lives, there were a number of failings with that programme. One
was that the pace at which Government sought to deliver it—for
understandable reasons, it was a political priority—meant that
poor decisions were often made about the location of services and
exactly what was delivered. At a time when many activities
outside Sure Start were a high priority for local areas, Sure
Start was generously funded to meet the Government’s aspiration
while other activities, such as child protection, were starved of
cash. Although all Governments want to deliver their priorities,
we need to achieve a longer-term consensus about what is in the
interests of children in the earliest years of their lives.
I call on Ministers to consider how we free the early years
sector from the shackles imposed by the dedicated schools grant
and bring it together with other local authority and NHS budgets,
so that investment can be aligned with the needs of local
families and built on the strengths of the early years sector. We
must not forget that the sector is not just about nurseries; it
provides an opportunity to join up with a range of local
statutory and non-statutory services, which include health
visiting, child minding, family hubs, child protection, public
health, vaccination services, libraries, play and informal
learning. When I was a new parent, the services provided by the
libraries of the London borough of Hillingdon, including story
time for young children, were an outstanding example of that
early support. They were a chance to meet other parents whose
children were at the same stage, to get informal advice and tips.
That may sit outside what Government mandate, but it is exactly
the sort of thing that parents of young children treasure.
Having touched on the funding challenge, we need to ensure that
every area has the scope to develop a strategy for thriving that
suits local circumstances. Many of our councils—the 152 top-tier
authorities—are in partnership arrangements of one kind or
another. Some are council to council, and others reflect
outsourced services. That all reflects issues of local need and
capacity. Along with the statutory lead member for children’s
services and the director of children’s services, the health and
wellbeing board has the most scope to join up the offer to get
babies the best start in life. Those boards—statutory committees
of the local authority—still struggle to assert their role,
especially with the NHS, which in my experience is strategically
disengaged, despite their role as key partners.
The rearguard action fought by the NHS against making public
health a local and accountable service has also inhibited
innovation and tied up resources in rolled-over NHS contracts
rather than stimulating the reshaping of local services around
children. I have seen some outstanding examples of such
reshaping, however. I pay tribute to my constituent Dr Jide
Menakaya, a leading paediatrician who has led work across the
sector in his field of neonatal care in the London borough of
Hillingdon to join up children’s services and Sure Start so mums
and dads have a seamless experience. However, the system still
tends to stand in the way of creativity rather than promoting
it.
My suggestion to the Front-Bench team is that, in line with
previous asks of our health and wellbeing boards—for example, to
produce joint strategies on child mental health—we look at
setting a clear expectation for them on a strategy for helping
children to thrive in line with the first 1,001 days ambitions.
Much of this already exists in different forms at a local level,
but for a new parent or an expectant family, it can feel hard to
access and fragmented, because it is driven by the disparate
duties and funding regimes imposed by Government. In line with
the local offer for children with special educational needs and
disabilities, a strategic approach to the local offer for the
earliest years will deliver greater value for money and, vitally,
greater coherence for parents who access it.
The final area that I would like to put forward for consideration
is accountability. Successive Governments have adjusted the
regulatory environment for the early years, but broadly speaking
the two priorities today are school readiness—seen in the
regulation of settings such as child minding and nurseries—and
the avoidance of harm to children, which is seen in the
regulation of child protection and the NHS. We are in a context
where resources are extremely stretched—not just money, but, as
we have heard from a number of Members, the workforce too—which
tends to drive a risk-averse approach in the early years,
prioritising the absence of failure, rather than the promotion of
innovation. We need to consider how we line up the accountability
that we have all talked about with what we are seeking to achieve
for our children. My suggestion to Ministers is that we need to
look beyond the current inspection regimes and datasets used for
performance management, many strengths though they have, and
think about how we measure the things involved in a child
thriving—the positive health and social outcomes that we want for
babies in our country and how we incentivise the behaviour that
will deliver them. Time is tight, so I will simply say that we
have so many statutory duties in place that will help us deliver
that, but so often the holders of those duties lack the autonomy
needed to fulfil the aspirations we have. We need a permissive
approach from Government.
In conclusion, we need to recognise that much of what we do is
world class and of the highest quality, as many parents of young
children, including me, can attest, but the regulatory regime
still too often expects low standards. Rather than contributing
to success, we have a complex funding system that stands in the
way of local communities and their leaders delivering value for
money and good outcomes for every child. We all want to give our
babies the very best start in life. By enabling local leadership,
setting high standards and setting people free to innovate, we
give ourselves the best chance of levelling up life chances for
all our children.
16:21:00
(Bath) (LD)
It has been a real pleasure to listen to all the different
contributions made this afternoon. I congratulate my hon. Friend
the Member for Richmond Park () and her co-sponsors on
securing this debate. One of the observations I want to make is
in reference to the hon. Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge
(), who asked why we cannot
give women the choice. I absolutely agree. We all know that the
most nurturing environment for young children is with their
parents. The question then is why this country has one of the
poorest maternity pay and leave settlements compared with any
other country with a similar economy. We need to look at
statutory maternity pay.
I completely agree with the hon. Lady. Maternity benefits are
certainly something we should look at. As well as that, we have a
taxation system that penalises families—to the tune of 20% or 30%
for the poorest families—compared with the taxation systems of,
say, France, Germany or America. One of the problems we have in
this country is that we do not recognise the importance of those
early years in terms of protecting families from those costs.
That would have a far bigger impact on parents’ ability to choose
in those early years.
I absolutely agree with the hon. Member. We are on the same page.
We need to recognise the importance of parenting and the early
years and help families of all incomes to make that happen, but
the issue mostly strikes families of poorer backgrounds, where
women are then being forced into work much earlier than they
would like. The Government need to look urgently at that, as well
as shared parental leave, which is actually a transfer of
parental leave, rather than shared leave. We should look at how
we can fix that system, too.
I will speak briefly as the chair of the all-party parliamentary
group for the prevention of childhood trauma. Preventing adverse
childhood experiences from occurring is vital, particularly in
those first 1,001 days. Within the APPG, we are working to
improve understanding of adverse childhood experiences or
childhood trauma, how to heal them, and ultimately how to prevent
them. It is about breaking that cycle of trauma, which can so
often pass from a parent to their child.
Those who experience childhood trauma are two times more likely
to develop depression and three times more likely to develop
anxiety disorders. Adults who reported four or more adverse
childhood experiences had a four to twelvefold increase in
alcoholism, drug abuse and suicide attempts, compared with adults
who experienced none of those. Recently, the APPG heard from Josh
MacAlister, the chair of the independent review of children’s
social care, which produced “The Case for Change”. He made the
critical point that we have children in care who become parents,
and they often pass their childhood trauma to that next
generation of children unless it is treated and recognised. One
of the most important things on which I campaign as a Member of
Parliament is preventing childhood trauma, recognising trauma in
those who experience it later in life and making all our services
trauma-informed.
I pay tribute to the WAVE—Worldwide Alternatives to
Violence—trust, which does excellent work alongside the APPG. Its
70/30 campaign needs no introduction because it has just reached
500 supporters in the House—an incredible milestone. The campaign
aims to reduce child abuse, neglect and other adverse childhood
experiences by at least 70% by 2030. Professor Sir Harry Burns, a
former chief medical officer, said that
“reducing child maltreatment by 70%...is the minimum acceptable
outcome in responding to this unacceptable—and profoundly
costly—harm to our youngest children.”
We have all heard in various forms about how important it is to
get to childhood trauma. The Government can do much to achieve
that, but they must start by increasing early years funding, by
appointing a senior Minister for families and the best start in
life and by prioritising prevention in the early years.
Earlier this year, I tabled an early-day motion on giving every
child the best start in life, which calls on the Government to
adopt a comprehensive early years strategy to prevent harm to
children before it happens. It has now been signed by 100 Members
from across the House. I grateful to all of those who have put
their name to it and hope that many more will join them.
I have just two questions for the Minister. Given the
overwhelming support for the 70/30 campaign and my EDM, will she
give her public support to the campaign today? Will she also
commit to meeting the APPG so that we can discuss a way forward
and end childhood trauma once and for all? Let us start now to
ensure that every family has the full support needed to give
their child the best start in life. That would be to all our
benefit.
16:26:00
(Strangford) (DUP)
I commend the hon. Members for Richmond Park () and for Newcastle upon Tyne
North () and, in particular,
the right hon. Member for South Northamptonshire (Dame ) for sponsoring the debate.
I know that the right hon. Lady has pursued this issue in the
House for many years, and I am pleased to see the culmination of
her championing of it in the funding that the Government have set
aside. Congratulations and well done.
As the proud grandfather of five children—Katie-Leigh, Mia and
Austin, and two so-called lockdown babies in one-year-old Max,
and Freya, who is one-and-a-half—I believe that our babies and
our young families have never needed more help and, like others,
I have a fervent desire that we in this place get it right. We
must consider the pandemic’s effect on lockdown babies who have
never attended a mother-and-toddlers group, never learned to play
and share with another child, and never sung a nursery song or a
rhyme in a group. I believe that will have a huge impact that
they will carry into their early years at school. Others have
referred to that, and I want to refer to it as well.
I have spoken in this place about the pandemic’s academic effect
on schoolchildren and its mental effect on children. It is right
and proper that we also address its effect on babies. We can
simply do better. The debate may be England-centric, but the
problems faced in the UK mainland mirror those faced by parents
and babies in Northern Ireland. I am hopeful that proper funding
streams in the mainland will be replicated when the Assembly
allocates the Northern Ireland funding received for the
levelling-up agenda. It is important that we in Northern Ireland
also receive that assistance through the levelling-up agenda.
Action for Children has stated that, in 2018-19, only 57% of
children from poorer backgrounds were ready for school at age
five compared with 74% of their better-off peers. Its “Closed
Doors” report found that, between 2014-15 and 2017-18, the number
of children using children’s centres decreased by about 18%. That
is a worrying trend, as it is that the numbers fell fastest in
the most deprived areas. Those statistics give us concerns and
show us that the debate must focus most on the deprived areas
where the problems are.
Action for Children’s most recent report found that 82% of
parents of children in the nought to five age bracket struggled
or were unable to access vital non-childcare and early years
services. Some 78% of parents who were unable to access services
were worried about potential impacts on themselves or their
children. The most common concerns were about children’s
development and parents’ own mental health and wellbeing. Other
speakers have referred to that, and the fact that we are all
saying the same thing based on our constituencies tells us that
these issues are clear and real, so the work that Action for
Children carries out is essential for giving babies the best
start in life.
I am a great supporter, and always have been in all my years as
an elected representative, of Home-Start in Northern Ireland. It
knows that well trained volunteers complement the early years
workforce, significantly contributing to the support that
families receive and enabling them to access services when those
are most needed. More than 1,500 families are being supported by
300 Home-Start volunteers in 16 communities in Northern Ireland.
Newtonards, the main town in my constituency, has a Home-Start
facility. During the dark days of the pandemic, more than 200
families were supported by the volunteers, and that was really
significant and important work at a critical time. Although
volunteers are helping out, funding is needed to enable their
work to continue. Funds must be available to charities such as
Home-Start to make a real and practical difference to the lives
of the most vulnerable—our babies, who are what this debate is
really all about.
Some 59% of respondents to a Home-Start inquiry admitted to
feelings of loneliness and isolation, and 23% said they needed
help with their mental health. After help, 94% said they were
more able to cope, so it is clear that intervention can make a
difference. The money that the Government have set aside for this
strategy and these schemes over the next period can and will make
a difference. The next debate is about a separate issue, but some
of it will also refer to education and mental health issues.
It is my humble opinion that funding should be allocated to such
streams, which allow trained and interested volunteers to go into
homes and help with practical issues. The hon. Member for East
Worthing and Shoreham () referred to going to a home where the deprivation
and the problems were incredible and hard to take in, but these
volunteers help households to find mechanisms to better cope with
the pressures of young children. The UK mainland also uses the
Home-Start charity, and I am sure the Minister will have
cognisance of this great charity and the wonderful work it
does.
Time is short, and I am very clear about what you said earlier,
Madam Deputy Speaker, so I will come to the crux of my comments.
Time has prevented me from talking in depth about the wonderful
work carried out in churches. It is no secret, but I want to put
it on the record, that what churches do at parent and toddler
groups in community halls throughout the country is incredible.
We all know those groups, and I have a large number in my
constituency—indeed, I think that every church is actively
helping parent and toddler groups.
One of my local churches, Newtonards Elim, had to go ahead and
open its group again, and it has had massive numbers of parents
and childminders simply desperate for company, desperate for
their child to talk with others and to interact with them, and
desperate for normality. However, if more churches and community
facilities are to do these things, more expensive protocols need
to be put in place. Perhaps a one-off grant would encourage more
churches to take the same step, which can be somewhat daunting
due to the way things are. We cannot neglect, we cannot forget
and we cannot ignore what churches do and the commitment they
give to our constituents.
In conclusion, I believe that we can now safely meet, and if we
can, we must. The characters of our little ones are formed in
this time, and people need people—children need children, and
mums need mums. In this place we need to support, encourage and
facilitate the essential component of early years development.
Levelling up has promised it, but let us make sure that that
levelling-up process reaches out to all parts of the United
Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The levelling up
starts here, today, through this debate.
16:33:00
(Glasgow Central)
(SNP)
I want to pick up where the hon. Member for Strangford () left off and thank all the organisations in our
constituencies that provide such vital support to families in
their time of need. I have Home-Start in my constituency too, and
it does a fantastic job. I also thank the Backbench Business
Committee for giving us this debate, as well as all those who
have contributed so valuably to it. I particularly thank the
right hon. Member for South Northamptonshire (Dame ) for the work she has done
on early years and the first 1,001 critical days. We see by its
inclusion in the Budget that her work has been recognised by the
Government. I would like that money to go further, as I am sure
would many hon. Members, but it is certainly a good first
step.
Some might consider it slightly odd that the Scottish National
party Treasury spokesperson is winding-up this Backbench Business
debate, but there is an economic imperative to the debate. The
Women’s Budget Group estimates that 1.7 million women are
prevented from taking on extra hours as a result of lack of
childcare, which leads to a £28.2 billion loss in economic
output. Those on the Treasury Bench should consider that when
they think about childcare. It is not a burden in any way; it is
an investment and should be considered as such. The Nordic
countries have much better outcomes and more equal societies, and
they invest much more in their early years.
The hon. Member for Pontypridd () said that Wales is the
best place in the world to grow up. I dispute that—certainly
Scotland is up there as well, and we are doing a great deal on
that front. The Scottish Government baby box is emblematic of
that investment. A box is given to every new family, regardless
of their circumstances, and it provides them with all the
essentials they need. The feedback on that is overwhelmingly
good, and around 186,000 baby boxes will have been delivered to
families by its fourth anniversary. All families will have
benefited from that, with all babies entering the world with a
degree of equality, even when other things are not equal, as we
know.
I was glad—well, I suppose I was not glad—to hear the hon. Member
for Newcastle upon Tyne North () speaking about the
impact of poverty on young people; I feel that not everybody has
reflected on that crucial part of the debate. Significant
inequality is growing in the UK. Such things do not happen by
accident; they happen as a result of specific policies designed
by the Government and inflicted on the people of these islands.
Let us take, for example, the two-child limit for tax credit and
the rape clause that is part of that. By 2 April 2021, 308,520
families had been affected by that policy, and more will be
affected as it rolls out. It discriminates against children in a
family, based solely on the order in which they are born. Those
children cannot help when they are born. They are brought into
families, many of whom have babies because they think having a
child is a blessing, but they may end up in financial
circumstances that mean they find it much more difficult to get
by. That is a real barrier to many families, and it is causing
severe poverty across the UK. The UK Government should scrap that
policy once and for all.
Hon. Members have referred to the £20 uplift in universal credit,
which has been a lifeline for many families throughout the
pandemic. By not keeping that uplift, and by reducing the taper
on universal credit—something I welcome—the UK Government have
divided households into the worthy and the unworthy. The taper
rate affects those who are in work. I am glad for them and it is
right, but the Government are only fixing the harm that their
predecessors caused by adjusting the taper rate, and there is no
help for those who are out of work, many of whom have caring
responsibilities, illness or disability. There is nothing
whatsoever for those on legacy benefits whose children also need
that help. All of this is at a time when costs in shops are
increasing and fuel prices skyrocketing. What impact will that
have on children in those homes in the cold winter that is
coming? What impact does the lack of fresh food and a warm home
have on the lives of the babies we are talking about?
Sir Harry Burns, the former Chief Medical Officer for Scotland,
has spoken poignantly about the lack of a sense of control, and
the impact that that has on people’s lives. The hon. Member for
East Worthing and Shoreham () talked about a household he visited, and many more
households like that now exist after the past 10 years. Many
families have a lack of control over their lives, because they do
not have the financial resources to build a safe environment for
them and their children. That lack of control, certainty, or of
knowing what will happen when an unexpected bill or illness could
bring everything down around your ears, is no way to give babies
the best start in life, and neither is it to have families
reliant on foodbanks and charities. That only adds to the trauma
mentioned by the hon. Members for Bath (), for Newcastle upon Tyne
North, and for Strangford (). These families are growing up in trauma because
they do not know how to cope. They do not have enough money to
make ends meet, and living in such circumstances day after day
means trauma for those parents, and trauma for those children.
The Government should recognise that when they talk about
recognising trauma, and consider how they can lessen it.
I want to talk briefly about the impact on ethnic minority
families. There is a significant cost to them that is not often
recognised, and that is the cost of the immigration system. Many
families that come to me are finding life more and more of a
struggle because they have to pay for visas, which are extremely
expensive and a huge family cost burden. I cannot imagine how
those families in relatively low-paid work make ends meet. They
often cannot get the family support that the hon. Member for
Penistone and Stocksbridge () so valued having around;
they cannot get their mother-in-law, their mother or their sister
over to give that support with their babies because they are not
allowed visas. I have seen many families really upset by their
inability to have a family member there at that most important
time in life—and worse, I have seen families where there has been
a baby loss and all that mum wanted was to have her mother there,
but the Home Office said no. We need to recognise the wider
implications of family support in all Departments.
I also want to talk about the impact of no recourse to public
funds. There is a lack of data about how many constituents in
Glasgow Central are affected by no recourse to public funds, but
that immigration condition on benefits means that many families
are not entitled to the same support as their neighbours, and
they find it harder to make ends meet. I have had families come
back for support for school uniforms and for presents for
Christmas. They are working very hard, but not hard enough,
because they cannot earn enough money. That will only get worse
under the Nationality and Borders Bill.
I would be doing the all-party parliamentary group on infant
feeding and inequalities a disservice if I did not talk about
breastfeeding. Breastfeeding rates in Scotland are really
improving, because we have a comprehensive plan to improve them.
Almost two thirds of babies born in Scotland last year were
breastfed for at least some time after their birth. More than
half of babies were being breastfed at 10 to 14 days of age,
which has increased from 44% in 2002-03. There are increases
across the board. There has always been a marked gap in
deprivation rates, with more deprived communities tending to
breastfeed less. With the investment and comprehensive planning
that the Scottish Government have put into breastfeeding support,
that gap is beginning to narrow in Scotland, which is very
positive.
I have two brief questions for the Minister on that. The
“Becoming Breastfeeding Friendly” report was published in
Scotland in 2019, but it has not yet been published in England.
When is that going to happen, and when will the infant feeding
survey be reinstated and published? We cannot track that
data.
There is a great deal more that I would like to have said in this
debate, but I urge the UK Government to look to Scotland and the
comprehensive plans that are being put in place there, and to
improve services for everybody who requires them.
16:42:00
(Nottingham North)
(Lab/Co-op)
I am grateful to the hon. Member for Richmond Park (), the right hon. Member for
South Northamptonshire (Dame ) and my hon. Friend the
Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North () for securing this
debate. The collective case that they made was weighty, and I
think there was universal agreement; I certainly did not disagree
with anything that was said.
I associate myself with the comments made by the hon. Member for
Richmond Park about the importance and the centrality of good
health visiting. She also made very interesting points about
lockdown and covid that were shared by the hon. Member for
Strangford () and the right hon. Member for South
Northamptonshire, whose statistic that seven in 10 parents feel
that they have not had enough support was sobering. That shows
the scale of the challenge that we have in building back.
Of course, the right hon. Member has also gifted us her rich
report, which we are discussing, in many ways, today. I want to
take this opportunity to reiterate in public what I have said to
her in private about the Opposition’s support for her. She had
real success at the Budget, which we were all heartened by. We
know there is more to do, but she is clearly doing something
right and, as I say, we will be with her along the way.
My hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North made a
stark and powerful speech about poverty. She could have changed
Newcastle upon Tyne North to Nottingham North—my constituency—and
the entire thing would have read across, but particularly the
cruelty of pre-ordaining a child’s destiny at their birth.
The hon. Members for East Worthing and Shoreham () and for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner () talked about turning the
strategy into a local plan and putting an emphasis on local
authorities or health and wellbeing boards—in my case, I think
integrated care systems is the model. I proposed that in a new
clause that I tabled to the Health and Care Bill, which the
Government were not minded to accept. I hope that we might be
able to work together on that, and that we might get something in
the Bill to that effect in its remaining stages. I think that
would be a very good way to do that.
I pay special tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Washington
and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson), my predecessor in this role,
because so much of our policy is her policy and I have just been
carrying on that work. The point she made about the environment
was one I had not heard her make before. I am always fearful that
children can sometimes grow up in hopeless environments and the
future of the planet is one of the things that restricts hope.
That is a very important point and we have a responsibility in
this place to address it.
My hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd () made the point that, if
in doubt, look at Wales. In many ways, that is very much the way
to go.
Previously, and certainly for the last 10 years, the place to
start when talking about early intervention and the best start in
life was the breakthrough 2011 report on early intervention by my
friend and constituency predecessor, . Happily, the right hon.
Member for South Northamptonshire is providing him with some good
competition with her report. As we have seen in the debate, that
has established a cross-party consensus to make good on this. The
report confirms and builds on what we know about how critical the
first 1,001 days are.
In my maiden speech four-and-a-half years ago, I talked about
similar themes for my community and how these challenges are
cyclical, and said that the way to break those cycles is to
intervene as early as possible. A healthy pregnancy is very
important for mum, but also for the baby’s development. Beyond
specific dangers such as smoking, alcohol or drugs, we know that
stress can cause challenges for babies. That is an awful lot of
pressure on mums, so health visitor support is really important,
as the hon. Member for Richmond Park said. The next two years are
crucial, too, in setting out how a child’s life is likely to go.
The hon. Member for Bath () made important points about
adverse childhood experiences, which we know have a lifelong
impact. As I say, the case for change is well established, but we
have to have concrete things to do and the report and the six
action areas effectively laid out that route for us.
I want to briefly address Sure Start. We know that Sure Start
prevented hospitalisations, impacted children all through their
adolescence, improved mental health, helped particularly in the
poorest communities and, of course, made major, long-lasting
savings for the NHS. The tragedy is that any savings made by
cutting those services will be hoovered up in costs to the NHS.
It is dreadful public policy. I say that not to litigate the
events of the last 10 years, but because at the moment councils
are setting their budgets. Councils in cities such as mine will
be making decisions that mean children’s centres will again be
lost. So we have not adequately addressed this yet. It was not
adequately addressed in the support for local authorities in the
Budget. Family hubs are very welcome and I accept the point that
they are not a like-for-like replacement, but my point is that we
are weakening our approach in this area by filling the bath at
the top and then draining it at the bottom. I think that is a big
mistake.
I will make a final point on what I consider to be our greatest
hurdle in this endeavour: the public finances and the Treasury.
This is the sort of spending that we know—the hon. Member for
Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner said this—benefits future
generations. Politically, I think we can get our heads around
that. The previous Labour Government showed that we can do that.
The growing consensus is that we want to make long-term
investments, even if we are not in this place seeing the benefits
from them. However, I do not think we have quite got there yet
with regard to the Treasury. Clearly, significant progress was
made at the Budget—I want that to be recognised—but we need
models that, for the Treasury’s purposes of balancing the budget
and having good responsible public finances, also recognise that
investing now can give returns in a decade. Even if we are not
able to get the pound and penny of where that return will be, we
know that it will happen. I do not think we are quite there yet
and I would be very interested to hear the Minister’s thoughts on
that.
The report by the right hon. Member for South Northamptonshire
has set us a real road map. A political consensus is being
established around it. However, we now need to know the long-term
commitment. On the Labour Benches, we are committed in finance
and in public policy terms to make the investments here. The
Government showed at the Budget that they are starting to get to
that place, but I hope to hear from the Minister that that is for
the longer term and not just a one-Budget commitment. The prize
is so great for our nation. As a result, our ambition must be
great, too.
16:49:00
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social
Care ()
I thank the hon. Member for Richmond Park (), my right hon. Friend the
Member for South Northamptonshire (Dame ) and the hon. Member for
Newcastle upon Tyne North () for securing this
important debate. I also thank all hon. Members for their
important contributions; it has been a very worthwhile,
informative and forward-looking debate.
Ensuring that every baby gets the best start in life is of
central importance to the Government. The critical 1,001 days of
a child’s life lay the building blocks for lifelong emotional and
physical health. By investing in supporting the youngest members
of our society and the families who care for them, the Government
will deliver on their ambition of levelling up health outcomes
across the country.
The health and wellbeing of parents and carers is important for
the healthy development of their babies. Approximately one in
five mums and one in 10 dads experience mental health problems
during the 1,001 critical days of their baby’s life. Poor mental
health can impact on their parents’ ability to bond with their
baby and meet the baby’s emotional needs. Later development is
heavily influenced by the loving attachment that babies have to
their parents or carers, and there is a wealth of evidence that
poor parental mental health can lead to worse outcomes for young
children.
It is vital that parents and carers have access to the help and
support that they need to give their baby the very best start in
life. The Government’s vision is for every parent and carer to
have access to high-quality universal services in their local
areas. That is set out in, “The best start for life: a vision for
the 1,001 critical days”, published by the Early Years Healthy
Development Review in March. I thank my right hon. Friend the
Member for South Northamptonshire for that inspirational work.
Thanks to her dedication, the Government are delivering on six
priority action areas that will realise that vision.
First, we will ensure that all parents and carers have access to
clear information about the Start for Life offer and family
services in their area that they can access virtually and
physically. Secondly, we are championing family hubs and working
with local authorities to make them a place where families can
access universal Start for Life services.
Thirdly, we are designing digital, virtual and telephone services
around the needs of families with babies, including digitising
the red book. Fourthly, we are developing a modern, skilled
workforce to meet the changing needs of families with babies. We
are doing that by looking at new ways to support, train and
retain the skilled professionals that we need.
Fifthly, we are working across the system to ensure that local
services are high quality, considering how improved data can
enhance the evaluation of outcomes and how inspection and
feedback from parents and carers can drive excellence. Finally,
we are working with local areas to encourage them to nominate a
leader with responsibility for Start for Life services and
ensuring that Start for Life is at the heart of policy making at
a national level.
Alongside the Early Years Healthy Development Review, the
Government are implementing a wide range of policies to improve
child health. That includes the most ambitious child obesity plan
in the world, the transformation of children’s mental health and
maternity services and a world-leading immunisation
programme.
Investing in the 1,001 critical days is the most important
long-term investment that we can make. Failure to invest in that
critical period comes at a great social and economic cost.
Adverse experiences at the start of life are linked to negative
outcomes later in life, as a number of hon. Members have
mentioned. It is estimated that late intervention amounts to a
cost of £17 billion a year in England and Wales. Investing in
prevention and early intervention is a much better use of
taxpayer money. That is why the Budget announced a £500 million
investment package to transform support for babies and
families.
The Government will invest more than £80 million in expanding the
network of family hubs, improving access to a wide range of
integrated support services for families with babies and
children. A further £10 million will support local authorities to
publish clear Start for Life offers, helping parents and carers
to understand the services available to them locally, while £100
million will be invested in rolling out bespoke parent and infant
mental health support, helping to nurture parent and infant
relationships and improving access to support for new and
expectant parents.
There will be £50 million available to local authorities to
establish multi-component breastfeeding support services in line
with local needs, ensuring that parents receive the help that
they need where and when they need it. There will be £50 million
to fund evidence-based parenting programmes, which will support
parents and carers to have positive interactions with their
children. Seventy-five upper-tier local authorities in England
will benefit from this funding. The evidence and learning from
this investment will help to improve services across England
where they are most needed.
An additional £10 million will be available to trial and evaluate
innovative workforce models in a small number of local
authorities. This will enable local authorities to bring together
and train staff under the clinical supervision of health visitors
to provide babies and families with the high-quality, timely
support that they need. It will also support future workforce
reform.
Will the Minister give way?
I am short of time, so I will continue.
Some 300,000 of the most vulnerable families will be supported
with an extra £200 million boost to the Government’s supporting
families programme, which helps families through complex issues
that could lead to family breakdown. In addition to the £500
million investment to transform support for families, the
Government will provide more than £2 million per year to continue
the holiday activities and food programme, providing healthy food
and enriched activities for disadvantaged children in England and
delivering our flexible childcare fund commitments.
Before I draw my remarks to a close, I would like to address some
issues that have been raised this afternoon. The hon. Member for
Richmond Park raised the issue of health visitors. As I have
outlined, £10 million has been allocated to trial and evaluate
new workforce models. The specific number of health visitors and
case- loads is a locally determined decision based on local
health needs, so the number and ratio of health visitors support
staff will vary. She also raised perinatal mental health, which
has been recognised in the spending review with £100 million
allocated to rolling out bespoke parent-infant mental health
support.
My right hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire
rightly stated that babies’ needs should always be at the heart
of our work. She also highlighted some new ways of working that
have developed as a result of the pandemic, from Camden’s Bump to
Baby programme to Parent Talk, and the benefits that physical and
virtual support can offer in reaching out to even more
families.
My hon. Friend the Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge () said that we are building
back better for babies. She was quite right. I welcome her
support for family hubs and her recognition that they will
provide support and services from conception to the age of 19 and
to parents and carers.
The hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North also asked about
family hubs. In the Budget, as I said, the Government announced a
further £82 million to create a network of family hubs. Each of
the 75 selected local authorities will receive transformational
funding to support the change process of moving to a family hub
model.
My hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham () brought a great deal of experience to the debate,
as did the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs
Hodgson) and my hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip, Northwood and
Pinner (). The hon. Member for
Pontypridd () raised the important
issue of breastfeeding. I am delighted that the Chancellor has
announced £50 million to establish multi-component breastfeeding
support services in line with local needs.
Will the Minister give way?
I must finish; I am sorry.
In conclusion, we will continue to work across the whole Start
for Life system to improve health and development outcomes for
our youngest citizens. We must do everything in our power to
support all families to give their baby the very best start in
life.
Madam Deputy Speaker ( )
I call for a very brief wind-up.
16:58:00
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I thank all hon. Members who
have spoken in our debate, which has been really interesting. I
particularly thank the right hon. Member for South
Northamptonshire (Dame ) for all her work.
It was great to hear from the Minister about how much has already
been delivered and the spending that has been announced. I thank
the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North () for all her support in
getting the debate together. She made some very interesting
points about employment discrimination. I also want to pick up on
what the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs
Hodgson) said about the importance of climate change.
The hon. Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge () made some very interesting
comments about the economic impacts of motherhood. I was
particularly struck by her comment that children are not an
economic inconvenience; I agree 100%. I thank the hon. Member for
East Worthing and Shoreham () for sharing his personal experience, which was
really thought-provoking. I also thank my hon. Friend the Member
for Bath () for mentioning trauma and
adverse childhood experiences.
All hon. Members have added a really interesting dimension to the
debate. I thank them all.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered the matter of giving every baby
the best start in life.
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