Child Poverty: Nuffield Foundation Review

Lord Farmer Excerpts

Tuesday 19th October 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)]

The noble Lord makes a very valid point. Without trying to sideline the issue, I will go to my colleagues in the department for housing—forgive me for not knowing what it is called now; the levelling-up bastion, perhaps—and make sure that the noble Lord gets an accurate answer to that question.

[Lord Farmer (Con)]

The Nuffield review outlined six elements for tackling early childhood poverty. Notably, these include, first, a multidimensional approach to multiple socioeconomic risks and the needs of families with young children, and, secondly, support for parental mental health and parenting from day one of a child’s life. What progress are the Government making in ensuring that all families have access to a welcome family hub as part of their cross-departmental best start for life policy?

[Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)]

Nothing would make my heart sing more than everybody having access to a family hub. At the moment, there is £34 million for those hubs. We are doing great work with them. I have decided, because I thought that family hubs would come up today, to do an all-Peers briefing on them so that noble Lords can hear exactly what we are doing and ask all the questions they wish.