Early Years Intervention

Baroness Jones of Whitchurch Excerpts

Thursday 8th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lady Massey for tabling this debate and I add my tribute to her consistent record of championing children’s issues in this House. The issues that she and other noble Lords have raised encompass a wide sweep of social policy. We have heard about some impressive initiatives that are taking place on this issue—but that does not take away from the scale of the challenge that remains ahead.

As the latest Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission report says, Britain is on the brink of becoming a permanently divided nation, with rising living standards bypassing the poorest in society. It concludes that there is little chance of the Government meeting the current statutory target of eradicating child poverty by 2020, which has clear and damaging consequences. As we have heard in this debate, what starts as a scandal of children being born into poverty, holds them back for a lifetime. Their education will suffer compared to their peers; they will end up in less well paid jobs; they will live in more overcrowded housing; and their health will suffer. Their children will be born into poverty and the cycle will begin again.

Sadly, what is missing is a coherent and ambitious government plan to break this cycle. The truth is that different departments are pulling in different directions, with disadvantaged children losing out. For example, a recent report of the Children’s Commissioner into the tax and social security measures of this Government since 2010 shows that families with children lost out and that the greatest losses were for the poorest 10% of families. It also shows that the most vulnerable children, such as those with a disability or being raised in a single-parent family, lose out the most. This is the result of a deliberate government fiscal policy.

Similarly, the Government’s independent adviser on health reports that the impact of this poverty can already be seen among five year-olds, with those on free school meals lagging behind their peers in being “school ready”. This includes being able to listen to stories, pay attention, use the toilet, dress themselves, and begin to read, write and do sums. As we know, this educational attainment gap widens as these children progress through schools. His report concludes that this disadvantage will be accompanied by poorer health, higher teenage pregnancy, higher numbers out of education, employment and training, and finally lower life expectancy.

Breaking this destructive cycle is not only a challenge for one department or one term of government: it requires a different mindset with a longer-term vision about the kind of society we would like to see in the 21st century. Certainly on these Benches we would argue for a fairer, more equal society where those deep divisions were addressed. We took this approach in the last Government and would do so again.

We would also hope to create a wider political consensus on the measures needed. This is why I join with my noble friends Lady Massey and Lady Warwick in paying particular tribute to my honourable friend Graham Allen, who has not only championed the case for early intervention as a solution to breaking the cycle but has managed to win support from across the political spectrum for his approach.

Crucial to Graham Allen’s approach is a belief that we need evidence-based solutions. We need to collate the very best research about which interventions work, share this best practice and refresh our learning as we progress. Inherent in this approach is the understanding that this is a long game and that policy initiatives cannot be instantly evaluated. This point was eloquently made by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans and my noble friends Lord Giddens and Lord Winston. For us, of course, as policymakers, this is incredibly frustrating as we like instant solutions. Nevertheless, we have to face the fact that it is true.

I pay tribute to the Government for funding the Early Intervention Foundation to do just that. It is not as much as we would like but it is a start. I hope that the Minister will be able to confirm his continued support for this programme. After all, we all hope that we can prove the ultimate goal, which is that effective early intervention will not only improve the life chances of young children but will save the state money in the longer term.

Arguably, when we talk about early intervention, we need to talk about the earliest intervention. To make a real difference we need to intervene while the child is still in the womb, or even before conception, to make sure that it is a planned birth. Young people, who may not have had strong role models of their own, need education and support to understand the social and emotional, as well as the practical, challenges of bringing up a child. I very much echo the comments of the noble Lords, Lord Sutherland and Lord Ramsbotham, about investing in speech and language therapy in early years as part of that important development.

Research from Joseph Rowntree and others has confirmed the point—made by a number of noble Lords in this debate—that early interventions which focus on parenting skills are some of the most effective in improving the child’s educational outcomes and thereby their future employment prospects.

This is exactly what the Sure Start programme introduced by the previous Government was intended to do, which is why it is so sad that David Cameron has reneged on his promise to protect the service. A recent local authority survey by 4Children showed that one-third of the remaining children’s centres are at risk of being shut down, on top of the 600 or so that have closed or merged since the coalition came to power. Conservative-run Swindon Council has this year cut the budget to children’s centres by £770,000, leading to the closure of seven out of the 12 centres, despite a promise to local parents that the service would be protected from further cutbacks. This is not only a broken promise to families in Swindon but is incredibly short-sighted and leaves many of the city’s most vulnerable children without a place to go.

This is why our approach will be to renew Sure Start by opening up the centres to other local family services, such as health and childcare, to maximise the use of buildings when money is tight. By collocating family services in the centres we can create family hubs in localities which can focus on effective learning, provide help and outreach and become more responsive to the communities they serve. These family hubs are exactly those proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, and I pay tribute to his contribution. Perhaps when the Minister replies he can clarify what plans his Government have for revitalising the Sure Start network and give some reassurance to all those families who rely on the service currently or would want to do so in future.

It was interesting to hear from a number of noble Lords who are members of the Affordable Childcare Select Committee, and we look forward to their report. We believe that our policy to expand free childcare for three and four year-olds from 15 to 25 hours a week for working families will help guarantee quality childcare in safe settings while avoiding the risk of driving up childcare prices for parents. This is in contrast to the Government’s childcare policies—some of which, of course, are welcome—which fail to address the fundamental problem of supply.

There has been a reduction of more than 35,000 in early years places since the Government came to office, so it is not surprising that the cost of childcare for those who pay is continuing to ratchet up, to an extent that even the proposals in the Government’s Childcare Payments Act cannot hope to alleviate or match. Perhaps the Minister can explain what steps they are proposing to take to increase the supply of quality trained nursery nurses and quality places to meet this additional demand. Can they make a commitment to implement the Nutbrown recommendations to ensure that that quality and training is underpinned?

Our approach is based on a holistic model that works with families and communities. Our mission is to reform public services, to shift from crisis intervention to early intervention. We believe that our intervention model will reduce inequality, boost social mobility and narrow the gap between the most vulnerable and the rest. I look forward to hearing whether the Minister is able to match our vision and provide a persuasive programme for tackling these issues in the future.