Lord Farmer
To ask His Majesty’s Government what progress they have made in ensuring that Best Start Family Hubs support families with children aged 5–19 years old and up to 25 years old for those with special educational needs and disabilities.
Lord Farmer (Con)
My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper. I declare my interest as co-founder of the not-for-profit Family Hubs Network Ltd.
Baroness in Waiting/Government Whip (Baroness Blake of Leeds) (Lab)
My Lords, we are investing over £900 million in the Best Start Family Hubs and Healthy Babies programmes, with an ambition for 1,000 hubs by 2028. New guidance published on 30 March outlines delivery expectations. While there will be a focus on pregnancy and the early years, hubs will welcome all families with older children up to the age of 19, or 25 for those with special educational needs and disabilities, providing a universal offer for all.
Lord Farmer (Con)
I thank the Minister for that reply. Family hubs are not Sure Start rebranded. There is a multitude of problems affecting families with older children, yet all that is ever talked about, in my opinion, is the early years. Hubs need to support parents of teenagers to prevent them becoming and staying NEET. Alan Milburn’s report repeatedly highlights, in various paragraphs, why families are not a peripheral influence but central. Josh McAlister’s review found that teenagers are the largest growing cohort in child protection and care. What evidence can the Minister provide of family hubs’ outcomes in supporting parents with teenagers, and which local authorities are doing particularly well?
Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)
I recognise the noble Lord’s real commitment in this area and his work over the years. I stress that there are good examples of hubs providing support for families with teenagers, such as in Coventry, where over 400 young people were brought together with 65 partner organisations to facilitate access to services. We are talking about transformation. We are not talking about the older models; we are moving forward. I agree with the noble Lord that evidence of outcomes is important, although that takes time to come through, as the recent IFS report has shown. We are committed to evaluating the programme fully and are procuring for that now.
Lord Mohammed of Tinsley (LD)
My Lords, I welcome the family hubs, particularly the support for young people aged five to 19, or up to 25 with special educational needs. One of the issues we always have around these initiatives is the consistency of delivery and what is often referred to as a postcode lottery. Can the Minister assure us that we will get consistency of delivery, so that every young person, no matter where they live in the country, gets the support they need?
Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)
The noble Lord raises an important point. That is why the programme is committed to initially providing a hub within every local authority, expanding over the next two years to 1,000 hubs opening, recognising the diversity of need and that local areas will want to move the programme forward. There is clear guidance and there are clear expectations that every area will report on the outcomes they achieve, making sure that we drive forward the real desire for consistency that the noble Lord outlines.
Baroness Bousted (Lab)
My Lords, when in office, the party opposite oversaw an exponential rise in child poverty. It abolished Sure Start, the most successful programme which improved children’s physical and mental health, boosted their educational attainment and reduced serious youth crime. It imposed a two-child benefit limit, which condemned children to poverty. This Government have abolished the two-child limit and introduced Best Start to build on the Sure Start legacy. Does the Minister agree that this is the right way to reduce child poverty, rather than to ignore it?
Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)
I am tempted to answer with a simple and straight yes. My noble friend speaks absolute sense on this agenda. I want to highlight the devastation to provision that she outlines: between 2010 and 2022, 1,300 Sure Start centres closed; by 2024, one in three low-income families had no access to children’s centres at all. As she says, poverty soared and school readiness flatlined. I am delighted that this Government are making this one of their top priorities. I look forward to the outcomes and the benefits to families very soon.
Lord Kirkhope of Harrogate (Con)
My Lords, the Minister and I both know very well the work of PHAB in Leeds, under the guidance of its wonderful secretary Ann Hart, which has for many years been bringing together able-bodied people with those with disabilities and disadvantages. Will the Minister support me in congratulating Ann and that organisation, which I know she supports as well, on bringing together people who are in good health with those who have disabilities and making them work together for the benefit of both?
Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)
I am delighted to hear the noble Lord reference Ann and the brilliant work that has been done for many years. The whole principle of Sure Start was the universal approach, bringing together all sorts of people and not focusing on just one sector. Everyone needs support at different stages in their lives and everyone has something to offer. It is the interchange and support that you get through this type of vision that makes a huge difference to people’s lives.
Lord Weir of Ballyholme (DUP)
My Lords, the Best Start Family Hubs offer an opportunity for positive progress. However, if we are to provide the most assistance to families, particularly those with SEND children, it will require an integrated and holistic approach from the Government. Can the Minister outline how family hubs will integrate with the Government’s proposed reforms to SEND and their response to the Milburn report, so that we have an integrated, joined-up approach to support for families?
Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)
I probably do not have enough time in my short answer to go into all the initiatives, but I assure noble Lords that every Best Start Family Hub will have a Best Start inclusion practitioner. An enormous amount of resource is going into making sure that the training is there and the links can be made. The fundamental point that the noble Lord makes, which we absolutely endorse, is that there need to be strong local linkages, bringing together all the different services that work with young people and their families, to make sure we get the very best provision at the earliest possible opportunity to improve their outcomes.
Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)
My Lords, the test of the family hubs is not how many open but whether children are connected to the right opportunities. The Department for Education’s own guidance includes a minimum expectation that families whose young people are not in education, employment or training be connected to targeted support to ensure that parents are part of the solution. To what extent is this happening? Will the Government improve reporting to increase accountability?
Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)
Improved reporting is a mission for all of us, but most of all it is important to collect the data, as the noble Baroness suggests, and make sure that we use it. Running alongside the family hub model is the Youth Matters programme. Most important in this agenda is making sure that young people have a say and a voice, and that we design services in their local areas that are fit for purpose—and of course the wider family have a role in this. We are facing 1 million young people who are NEET, and I know that the noble Baroness recognises that policy over the last years of the last Government contributed to that. We are determined to work with those young people to make sure they can take advantage of all the opportunities we are creating.
Baroness Deech (CB)
My Lords, it is admirable that the Minister wants to lift children out of poverty. Why then has she not enthusiastically accepted the recommendations of the Public Services Committee about reforming the Child Maintenance Service, which is currently letting hundreds of thousands of fathers get away with paying nothing, hiding their assets and not having their obligations enforced, when they have a legal and moral responsibility to support their children? This has gone on for years. She has the power to move this forward.
Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)
I congratulate the noble Baroness on taking the opportunity to bring one of her passions into this broader debate. We understand the problems, and other departments are picking that up and taking it forward. I would not like to comment further at this stage.
Baroness Hyde of Bemerton (Lab)
My Lords, can my noble friend the Minister please explain how the Government will ensure that these brilliant hubs reach and build trust with all women. I am thinking, for example, of women who are the victims of domestic abuse, women who have poor mental health and women who have encountered the criminal justice system. Will she look at how women’s centres might close this gap?
Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)
I am happy to have a discussion with my noble friend but caution that family hubs will be working with all those who care for children and young people, including fathers. We have to make sure that the environment in those hubs is supportive and picks up on all the issues she has raised. From my own experience of working with Sure Start, I know that one of the most powerful things we saw was women disclosing for the first time to other women within their peer group that they were being subjected to domestic violence—not having to go through any agency or professional but getting support from other women and then being signposted to the support that they needed.