The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Ashley Dalton)
I congratulate the hon. Member on securing the debate. Through her leadership of the all-party parliamentary group for infant feeding, she is working to ensure that families across the country get the right support. I thank all hon. Members who have contributed—my hon. Friends the Members for Ribble Valley (Maya Ellis), for Altrincham and Sale West (Mr Rand), for South Derbyshire (Samantha Niblett) and for Brecon, Radnor and Cwm Tawe (David Chadwick), the hon. Members for Strangford (Jim Shannon) and for Exmouth and Exeter East (David Reed), and yourself, Madam Deputy Speaker.
The number of interventions and contributions has shown how important the issue is and how deeply it is felt across the House. The hon. Member for Chichester asked about the 10-year plan. I will not go into detail about what is in it, but—tick, tock—she does not have to wait long as the plan will be launched on Thursday morning.
I look forward to working with colleagues across the House and the wider health landscape on how we deliver the plan. In that plan, they will see that children’s early years are crucial to their development, health and life chances. That is why the Government are taking a mission-based approach to raising the healthiest generation of children ever and to ensuring that every child has a healthy, happy start to life.
Dr Danny Chambers (Winchester) (LD)
To reiterate the comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Chichester (Jess Brown-Fuller) and the Minister about all children needing to have a healthy start, we cannot emphasise enough how important gestation and the first six months of life are. The factors that affect gestation and the first six months of life have a bigger impact on long-term health than anything we can do after that—any conscious decisions we make about our health are less impactful than what has happened to us during gestation and the first six months of life.
Ashley Dalton
I agree. The hon. Member will see in the 10-year plan and some of the investments we are making—for instance, to reduce the number of women smoking in pregnancy—that the Government recognise that.
We recognise that infant feeding is critical to a baby’s healthy growth and development, and we recognise the significant benefits of breastfeeding for both mothers and babies. We are fully committed to supporting families to breastfeed should they choose to do so. We know that most mothers want to breastfeed, but many stop before they would ideally like to. While it has been positive to see many more mothers continuing to breastfeed in recent years, we know that they can face complex barriers to achieving their infant feeding goals.
I recognise the concerns raised through the World Breastfeeding Trends Initiative report on the UK infant feeding policy landscape. Health is devolved, and I would like to commend Northern Ireland for its performance in this area, which was raised by the hon. Member for Strangford. However, we know through the report that England scores poorly, and we want to change that.
Families need quality services, trustworthy information, affordable options and systems that support them, not hinder them. Midwives and maternity services play a crucial role through the perinatal period in preparing and supporting families around infant feeding. We have committed to training thousands more midwives to better support women throughout their pregnancy and beyond, and there has been an increase of over 1,300 full-time equivalent midwives in the workforce since April 2024. We will publish a refreshed workforce plan to deliver the transformed health service that we will build over the next decade.
To drive forward improvement in maternity and neonatal services, we announced the launch of a national independent investigation into maternity and neonatal care. The investigation will recommend one set of national actions by December. A national maternity and neonatal taskforce, chaired by the Secretary of State, will then bring together independent experts to co-produce a national plan to drive improvement.
As families transition from maternity services to the community, it is important that they continue to receive the support they need, and health visitors are key to this. However, we know that health visitor numbers have decreased and there is variation in the level of services across the country, but it remains a universal service, and we are committed to that. In the plan for change, we committed to strengthening health visiting services so that all families can access their support.
We are investing in family hubs and the Start for Life programme, with £18.5 million this year to improve infant feeding support across 75 local authorities in England. Start for Life services are helping parents to access support where they need it and in a location that suits them, whether that is their home, their family hub, a hospital setting or through the many voluntary sector organisations that have been referred to today. Local authorities are working with partners to embed local infant feeding strategies, joining up services for seamless support and tailoring them to their community, with both universal and targeted support. They are building up the workforce, investing in infant feeding specialists, delivering high-quality training and expanding networks of peer supporters. Funding is also helping to train staff to identify complex needs early such as tongue-tie, and to offer timely support.
Although long-term evaluation is needed to understand the full impact of the programme, some promising findings are emerging. For example, ambitious multi-layered integrated infant feeding plans have led to increased breastfeeding rates in Coventry, and local health visitor data shows an increase in breastfeeding at six to eight weeks from 51% to 57% in just 18 months. We are also helping families across the UK to access breastfeeding support 24 hours a day through the National Breastfeeding Helpline.
Jess Brown-Fuller
The Minister highlights some brilliant examples that are a gold standard in care, but does she recognise that the process the Government are currently undertaking, with only half of local authorities being funded, means that we still end up with a patchwork level of support for new mothers? They do not know where they are meant to go, because it is different when they cross a county border.
Ashley Dalton
This is very much targeted through the family hub service and support for Start for Life, and through the universal health visiting offer and the National Breastfeeding Helpline we aim to offer all women who are breastfeeding the support that they need to do so. Parental leave has been touched on, and we know that supporting parents goes beyond services. Returning to work can influence how families choose to feed their babies, and in the plan to make work pay we have committed to a review of the parental leave system. As the hon. Member said, that review was launched by the Department for Business and Trade in the Chamber earlier today, and we are delighted to see that come forward.
I have spoken a lot about breastfeeding, but we absolutely recognise that when families cannot or choose not to breastfeed, it is vital that they get formula that is safe, nutritionally complete and affordable. Infant formula regulations and Competition and Markets Authority recommendations are important, but we know that many families are struggling to afford infant formula. We welcome the report from the CMA into the UK infant and follow-on formula market. It highlighted some of the issues that the hon. Member raised, in particular by noting that families rely on brand reputation and price as a proxy for quality, often choosing more expensive products. However, specific regulations require all infant formula to comply with robust nutritional and compositional standards, so that all infant formula sold on the UK market meets the nutritional needs of babies, regardless of the price or brand.
The CMA has made 11 recommendations to the Government, with four aims: to eliminate brand influence in healthcare settings; to provide better information for parents in retail settings; to strengthen labelling and advertising rules; and to ensure effective enforcement of regulations. The Government are supportive of what the CMA is trying to achieve. We want parents to be confident enough to choose lower-priced products, and for manufacturers and retailers to compete more on price. The CMA recommendations are UK wide. We are considering them alongside colleagues in the devolved Governments, and aim to have a UK-wide response available as soon as possible.
In conclusion, I thank the hon. Member for raising this important matter. The Government are committed to giving children the best start in life, and we do not underestimate the challenge of getting this right for families. We will continue to strengthen key services, build on good practice, and identify where we can have the greatest impact for families. Tomorrow I will meet the all-party group on babies, and I look forward to discussing these issues further with them.
Question put and agreed to.