Sure Start

Baroness Walmsley Excerpts

Thursday 12th July 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Walmsley (LD)]

Following up on the previous question, is the Minister aware that yesterday, the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Children published a report showing that many local authorities are unable to afford the early intervention programmes that have just been mentioned and are so effective? The result is that a lot of children in some parts of the country are not getting the services that they would with the same level of need in another part of the country. Many children and families in that situation are going into a downward spiral and getting to the point where they need much more invasive intervention—even taking the child into care. It is cheaper and more effective to intervene early, so will the Minister have a look at the 12 recommendations of that report? They have the evidence, and the Government ought to act on it.

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

I thank the noble Baroness for bringing the report to my attention; I will certainly look at it. It is worth saying that although there has been a reduction in Sure Start centres, the proportion of centres serving the 30% most disadvantaged areas has remained constant, so the focus on disadvantaged areas has remained.