Giving Every Baby the Best Start in Life

Andrea Leadsom Excerpts

Tuesday 9th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Dame Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney) in this important debate, and I congratulate her and the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell) as fellow co-sponsors and tireless fellow campaigners for giving every baby the best start in life.

Despite the rough and tumble of politics, there are times when colleagues from all parties in the House come together. Early years is one such cross-party issue. Over the past 11 years in Parliament, I have been proud to work with many colleagues on the early years. The hon. Members for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell) and for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson), my stalwart and long-standing hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton), and my hon. Friends the Members for Eddisbury (Edward Timpson) and for Winchester (Steve Brine) have all been amazing campaigners for the earliest years, as has the hon. Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss). The former Member for Birkenhead, Lord Field, and the former Member for East Dunbartonshire, Jo Swinson, have been great allies, as have all those Members who supported the all-party group conception to age two: first 1,001 days, and Ministers on the inter-ministerial group on early years family support from 2018-19.

It is fantastic that since the 2019 general election, the early years agenda has received fresh support from new colleagues such as my hon. Friends the Members for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Miriam Cates), for Stroud (Siobhan Baillie), for Cities of London and Westminster (Nickie Aiken), for Truro and Falmouth (Cherilyn Mackrory), and for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (David Simmonds). I also pay tribute to the late Baroness Tessa Jowell. She and I worked together on the 1,001 critical days agenda, and she campaigned for it to be introduced as part of the sustainable development goals at the United Nations. I must also mention the superb work of the Royal Foundation and its Centre for Early Childhood. The commitment from Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Cambridge and her team has generated fresh attention for ensuring that every baby gets the best start in life.

This subject has been my personal passion for more than 20 years, from chairing the Oxford parent-infant project, to setting up the parent infant partnership UK, and the Northamptonshire parent infant partnership, establishing the 1,001 critical days manifesto and the all-party group conception to age two: first 1,001 days, and chairing the inter-ministerial group in the Government of my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May). July 2020 marked a huge opportunity when the Prime Minister commissioned the early years healthy development review and invited me to chair it. Since then, we have been able to build on years of cross-party support, and a wealth of knowledge and expertise from the early years sector, to create a new vision for the 1,001 critical days initiative that was launched in March this year. The review has put the baby’s needs at the centre of all our work. Through meetings with parents and carers, virtual visits to local areas, and detailed discussions with parliamentarians, practitioners, academics and charities, we heard about the experience of early years services and support, and about what is going well and where change is needed.

First and foremost, we learnt from every parent and carer of their strong desire to be the best parent they can be, but we also learnt that new prospective parents often struggle to find the support they need. We heard from many parents who had deep concerns about their own or their partner’s mental health, and struggled to get timely support. We heard from many mums who desperately wanted to breastfeed but gave up because the support was not there. Parents told us how frustrating it was to keep telling their story over and over again to different people. Their cry was, “Why don’t you people ever speak to each other?” Equally, we heard from professionals and volunteers who said it would have been so helpful for them if they had known before meeting a new parent or carer about previous trauma or health challenges.

We heard from many dads about how excluded they felt from what they saw as “mum-centric” services. Some felt that they should not ask for any support for themselves, while others just felt sidelined and, in some cases, traumatised by what their partner had gone through in childbirth. We heard from foster carers of babies how little information came their way when caring for a vulnerable baby. More specifically, in 40 cases of babies who went into foster care, only two arrived with their red book. Those carers had no formal information about that baby’s early traumas that had caused them to be taken away from their birth family.

We heard from same-sex couples about unhelpful assumptions by early years professionals about their relationship and parenting roles. We heard from black mums about how particular cultural and health issues can be overlooked by busy staff. We heard from single mums and single dads about how they can feel isolated, and sometimes stigmatised, at such a life-changing time. We heard from many parents with particular challenges, such as not speaking English well, concerns about possible disabilities, experiencing violence in their lives, or other significant challenges. We heard that support is inconsistent and sometimes hard to access.

It comes as no surprise that the covid pandemic has been an extraordinarily difficult time for new families who, through no fault of their own, have not been able to access services or support in the normal way. The “Babies in Lockdown” report from the Parent-Infant Foundation, Best Beginnings and Home-Start reveals that nearly seven in 10 parents felt that changes brought about by covid were affecting their unborn baby, their baby, or their young child, and that 35% of parents would like help with their concerns about their relationship with their baby. The report also found that nine out of 10 parents and carers experienced higher levels of anxiety during lockdown.

Despite the many stories of difficulties, we also heard fantastic examples of good support for families. Many health visitors went the extra mile to keep in contact with families who were struggling, and many families found it incredibly reassuring to be able to text or Zoom their health visitor at short notice. Parenting programmes have been a huge support to many families, and we virtually visited Camden’s Bump to Baby programme, where classes continued online throughout the pandemic, and have proved incredibly popular with new parents and carers who are also helped to make friendships outside the programme. Dads gave us positive feedback on services that gave them space to share their experiences, without worrying about whether they were taking the focus away from the other partner’s health and wellbeing.

In lockdown, we also heard about excellent online and virtual services, and how they came into their own. One such service, Parent Talk, provided by Action for Children, reported a 430% increase in the number of parents seeking advice online during the pandemic. The Baby Buddy app, produced by Best Beginnings, has seen a huge take-up of its digital and virtual advice for everything from breastfeeding to nappy changing, and from sleep management to mental health concerns. Many local authorities are now determined to improve their joined-up offer to new parents and carers, so I certainly feel that we are pushing against an open door.

Our report, “The Best Start for Life: A Vision for the 1,001 Critical Days”, was launched by the Prime Minister in March this year. It contains six action areas. The first is that every local area should publish its own joined-up set of start for life services so that every parent and carer knows where to go for help.

The second is a welcoming hub for every family, in the form of family hubs. Those will build on the excellent work done by the late Baroness Tessa Jowell and others on creating Sure Starts, but the benefit of family hubs is that they will be the place where every family goes for support and advice, including from midwives, health visitors, mental health support workers and breastfeeding advisers within their walls. Not only will those services be physically available but they will be virtually available through the family hub model.

The third action area is a digital version of the red book, which will provide parents and carers with a record of their baby’s earliest life, from lovely moments such as their first tooth and their first steps, all the way to records of immunisations and professional support interventions.

The fourth action area is about the workforce. We all know that health visitors provide critical support for new parents and carers, but we also know that their case load can be very heavy, and parents and carers have told us that they really want more continuity of care and more frequent contact in the earliest years. We are therefore working with health visitors and local areas to consider resourcing levels and training needs, and whether a mixed-skill workforce can provide that greater continuity of care.

The fifth action area is to continually improve the start for life offer. A key action will be to establish parent and carer panels in every local area to ensure that the voices of families are heard when services are designed and improved. We are looking at improving the collection of data, at the evaluation of different interventions and at the need for proportionate inspection of the start for life offer in each area. A final but critical action area is to ensure that there is sound leadership, both locally and nationally, to drive the ambition to give every baby the best start for life.

I want to say a huge thank you to the Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, my hon. Friend the Member for Erewash (Maggie Throup), and to all the review’s sponsoring Ministers, past and present, for their support for the review. I am sure that it was their commitment, combined with the support of the Prime Minister and the Chancellor, that ensured such a positive spending review settlement for the earliest years, with £82 million for family hubs, £50 million for parenting programmes, £10 million for the start for life offer, £50 million for breastfeeding support, £100 million for infant and perinatal mental health support, £10 million for new workforce pilots, and a £200 million uplift for the supporting families programme. I believe that £500 million is a transformational sum that will allow many more parents and carers access to the vital help they need to give their baby the best start for life.

Why does this matter so much to our society? Well, we know that it is in the period from conception to the age of two when the building blocks for physical and emotional health are laid down. Babies born into secure and supportive homes will usually go on to become happy children who do well at school and grow into adults who cope well with life’s ups and downs and are more likely to hold down a job, have better health outcomes and form healthy relationships themselves. On the other hand, we know that in families under pressure, particularly where there is partner conflict, substance misuse, poor mental health or deprivation, the consequences for a baby’s developing mind in that critical early period can be far-reaching and very harmful.

Prevention is not just kinder; it is also significantly cheaper than cure. For example, the NHS has estimated that for every one-year cohort of births in England, the long-term cost of lack of timely access to quality perinatal mental health care is £1.2 billion to the NHS and social services and more than £8 billion to society. That is for every year’s cohort. We also know that up to 30% of domestic violence begins during pregnancy, and that health issues such as tooth decay and childhood obesity cost hundreds of millions of pounds every year in health-related expenses. We believe that those things could be significantly reduced by better education and support for new families.

With these six action areas, I think we can transform our approach to early years support and services, improving the health outcomes and life chances of the youngest in our society. Just as we need to level up economic opportunity across the country, we must also focus on where it begins—that critical period of human life from conception to the age of two.

[Jonathan Edwards]

The right hon. Member is giving a very comprehensive speech. Does she also agree that the Government should look at the issue of shared parental leave? The stats seem to indicate that fewer than 4% of eligible fathers take up the Government’s current policy. The Government need to look at that, and the forthcoming employment Bill may be an opportunity to strengthen those provisions.

[Dame Andrea Leadsom]

I completely agree with the hon. Gentleman that it would be fantastic for families and babies if more dads took up shared parental leave. Of course, as he will know, that has been legislated for. Unfortunately, as he points out, far too few fathers have taken it up to date. I certainly wish that more would have the confidence to do so.

I believe that all colleagues across the House would agree that the world in which we all want to live is one where every baby is nurtured to fulfil their potential, where good lifelong emotional wellbeing is the norm, where our society is productive and co-operative, and where every one of our citizens has the chance to be the very best that they can be.

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[Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)]

I would like to start by thanking the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney), the right hon. Member for South Northamptonshire (Dame Andrea Leadsom) and my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell) for securing this debate at this incredibly important time. I also offer my thanks to the right hon. Member for South Northamptonshire for her tireless campaigning on this issue over many years, for her recent leadership of the early years review and for her success in securing funding for the sector in the recent Budget. All those are to be welcomed. It is not easy getting money out of a Chancellor, as we all know. She also knows my dismay at the short-sighted cuts that preceded this funding, making it all the more necessary. I know she agrees that we need to ensure that no Government cut valuable services such as Sure Start or family hubs ever again.

I stand here as a former shadow Minister for children and families, a role now most ably held by my hon. Friend the Member for Hampstead and Kilburn (Tulip Siddiq). It has been said that once anyone has been a children’s Minister, like the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton), or a shadow, they can never quite leave the issue alone. It is sort of like an “Order of the Babies” maybe, or a ministerial Hotel California.

Covid-19 has had a profound impact on all of us, but the effects of the lockdown restrictions and social distancing measures were keenly felt in the early years sector. I welcome the “Babies in Lockdown” survey report published today by the Parent-Infant Foundation, Home-Start UK and Best Beginnings. The pandemic is, sadly, far from over, and the report offers signs that the early years sector has developed a form of long covid, if you like. The survey found that nearly a third of mothers questioned reported that health visitor drop-in clinics that existed before the pandemic were no longer operating. I urge colleagues to read the report.

But let me take Members back to 1970, well before Zoom and Teams. Back then, fewer than a quarter of mothers worked; society expected a full-time mother. Without a central focus on the early years, and no talk of the 1,001 critical days or adverse childhood experiences, the education of very young children was neglected. Baroness Blackstone, writing in 1974, highlighted the fact that only 10% of three and four-year-olds attended state nursery schools or classes in 1971, with some areas receiving no service at all.

To combat the lack of state nursery education, the mothers did it themselves. Belle Tutaev set up a playgroup with her neighbour which eventually bloomed into the Pre-School Playgroups Association. This has since become the Early Years Alliance. But the state should have taken up this mantle, rather than the already burdened mothers. Not everyone was convinced of that principle, however. In 1980, George Young, then the Conservative Secretary of State for Social Services, said that he did not

“accept that it is the state’s job to provide day care to enable the parents of young children to go out to work”.

Listening to the debate today, 40 years on, we can see how far we have come from that thinking.

It was the last Labour Government who finally addressed this problem. I have spoken before, as others have today, about the late Tessa Jowell’s Sure Start programme being a beacon of early years policy. Sure Start brought children’s services together under one roof, uniting healthcare with wellbeing, education with childcare, babies with other babies, and parents with other parents. There were 3,620 Sure Start centres in 2010 under Labour. That has fallen, as we heard from the hon. Member for Richmond Park, by more than 1,300 in the past decade or more of Conservative Governments. Those that remain have been effectively hollowed out, offering only skeleton services with minimal opening hours. While the Government’s pledge to fund 75 more family hubs is obviously welcome, it does little to make up for that loss. I know the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham said it is not all about the buildings but, when we have lost 1,300 and replaced them with 75, it is trying to get a quart into a pint pot, as they used to say.

[Dame Andrea Leadsom]

It has been such a pleasure to work with the hon. Lady on this topic for so many years. I just want to put on the record that it is not 75 family hubs, but 75 upper-tier local authorities; it will be for them to decide, but it could be hundreds or thousands of family hubs. The hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell) drew the same conclusion, so I really want to set the record straight on that point, if the hon. Lady will forgive me.

[Mrs Hodgson]

I am very grateful to the right hon. Lady. That is an important clarification, and we must ensure it is out there that maybe it will not just be 75, but that they can make it many more. Let us hope it is 1,300; I am sure she will agree with that. That said, I warmly welcome what I think is the Government’s tacit admission that they got it wrong when they defunded the Sure Start programme, even though, as we all remember, on the eve of the 2010 election, David Cameron promised it would be safe in his hands.

However, we are where we are. Earlier this year, I also co-chaired a cross-party early years commission alongside the hon. Member for Eddisbury (Edward Timpson), who, as a former children’s Minister, is also a member of the “Order of the Babies” and a resident of the ministerial Hotel California. The commission heard from a wide range of stakeholders, including educators, academics and policy professionals. I will take the House through some of the recommendations in the comprehensive report.

First, there should be integration of health and education support for children, ensuring that every child receives the health visitor appointments they are entitled to and a new health visit when the child is 18 months old. Secondly, because too few families have access to essential services, a locally relevant and dedicated parent support service is needed in every community in every area. Thirdly, we should upskill early education practitioners by investing in continuing professional development, so that the workforce stay fit to face the challenges of the future. Those proposals could easily be made reality. I sincerely hope that, as part of the £500 million brought forward in the Budget, the Government will deliver all of what we seek in this debate.

As we take part in this debate, we are mindful that the babies and children themselves will not be listening. They will not be tweeting their agreement or penning letters to our offices. I will spare a moment to mention how, beyond their value on their own terms, reforms to the early years offer can be instrumental in improving the lives of those without children, via the economy.

The Early Intervention Foundation found that the cost of late intervention in 2016-17 was £17 billion, owing to the need for services to help with mental health issues, youth crime and exclusion, including a £5.3 billion spend on looked-after children. Early intervention can offset that cost. The Carolina Approach to Responsive Education programme provided intensive, high-quality childcare for ages 0 to 5 in the United States of America and delivered a 13% return on investment per child each year. It netted IQ gains, higher wages, increased likelihood of home ownership and higher scores on achievement tests.

For the family unit, the economic returns are clear too. As the hon. Member for Richmond Park said, parents in areas with Sure Start local programmes moved into paid work more quickly than those without, reducing the benefits bill to the taxpayer and increasing tax receipts for the Treasury. But that is not the full picture: the economic benefits are often only modelled on specific, targeted interventions, whereas the benefits of intervention fan out across a range of factors, such as reducing the later burden on the public purse— the whole point of early intervention—and greater participation in the economy over many years. As such, it is practically very difficult to model the effects of a web of measures applied at once. So just imagine the results we could achieve if those interventions were provided simultaneously, with wholesale improved outcomes delivered via intensive early years support. Britain’s early years offer has the potential to be much greater than the sum of its parts.

To conclude, I would like to look to the world we are creating as legislators in this place. As we speak, delegates from around the world are discussing the means of preserving the planet and protecting the environment in Glasgow at COP26. It is incredibly important that we limit climate change to an increase of 1.5°. Missing, I believe, is leadership for those who will grow up into these environments. The pursuit of climate justice is in no small part to ensure that our children and their children’s children do not face an uninhabitable, hostile world. As those at COP26 work for the future of the planet, let us, here and now, seize this golden opportunity to help those who will inherit it.

Baby Loss Awareness Week

Andrea Leadsom Excerpts

Thursday 23rd September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Cherilyn Mackrory]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for your words and my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Nickie Aiken) for intervening.

Today, I wish to extend my sincere condolences to anyone who has experienced the loss of a baby. To anyone to whom this has happened, despite what they may see, I say that the sun will shine again. It does not feel like it now, but one day it just does. For me, the dark clouds of shock, anger, guilt and dreadful, dreadful sadness do eventually dissipate—

[Dame Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con)]

I pay huge tribute to my hon. Friend for her courage in coming to this place to share her views. I know that she is speaking for so many people who have such a tough time, whether through miscarriage or stillbirth. This was her terrible experience of a child who was not going to make it, but all of us here have her back. We all agree with her, and there are so many people here who would like nothing more than to see much more done in that critical period of maternity. All our thanks go to her for her bravery today.

[Cherilyn Mackrory]

I thank my right hon. Friend for her intervention and kind words.

I entered Parliament and suddenly had the opportunity to speak with many people who had experienced the loss of a baby. Unlike me, many have no idea why their baby had died. As well as prevention of baby loss, which I will come to later, my focus in this place is on the care for bereaved families. The all-party group was instrumental in the creation of the Government-backed national bereavement care pathway, which seeks to improve the quality and consistency of bereavement care received by parents in NHS trusts in England after pregnancy or baby loss.

There are different experiences from place to place. While the Department of Health and Social Care strongly urges the trusts to take part in the pathway, mandating it and its nine standards would lead to greater time, funding and resources being made available to healthcare professionals to deliver this. Poor bereavement care, from the moment of diagnosis and the breaking of bad news, exacerbates the profound pain felt by parents. Although approaches to bereavement care in the UK have greatly improved in recent years, inconsistency still remains, often resulting in a postcode lottery for parents.

As of last month, all NHS trusts in England have either expressed interest in, or formally committed to, implementing the pathway within their hospitals and their services. Trusts require additional funding, however, to fully implement the standards, especially to ensure that every hospital has an appropriate bereavement suite, specialist staff and training.

As I mentioned earlier, the care that we received in Cornwall on the weekend that we lost Lily was second to none. However, while I was able to access bereavement counselling through my work, my husband has never been offered anything. It is my opinion that supporting partners and the wider family are not being looked after in the way that we would hope. Because the mother births the child, dads and supporting partners often feel the need to be “strong”—to be there for them. People often ask how mum is, but may not ask how dad is. That is not healthy. What about the wider family? Grandparents are grieving for their lost grandchild and wondering how best to support. Siblings are wondering what has happened.

My daughter was only four when we lost Lily. She knew I was pregnant and we tried to explain what had happened in an age-appropriate way. She seemed to accept this as children do and did not mention it again—until a couple of weeks ago. Completely out of the blue and without warning, she said, “Mummy, when I was four, you were going to have a baby but then didn’t.” Crikey! Wham! What do you do? On the hoof, I needed to explain calmly to my now almost seven-year-old what had happened. I do not know whether I explained it in the right way, but she knows now that, if there are questions, we are always here. I do not want it to be a spectre on her childhood to wonder what happened to her mystery sister. It reminded me that a child’s mind can often make up what they do not know, and we need to make sure that siblings and the wider bereaved family are cared for long after the event.

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[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Maria Caulfield)]

I thank all Members of the House who have taken part in the debate this afternoon. The shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Tooting (Dr Allin-Khan), is right to say that this is an issue that unites us all and puts politics aside. The loss of a baby is never easy to discuss, whether it is the loss of your own baby or a baby known to you, or the experience of a constituent, it is a hugely emotional and sensitive area, and time is often not the great healer it is made out to be. This debate has raised some difficult but important issues.

I also thank the co-chairs of the all-party parliamentary group on baby loss: my hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth (Cherilyn Mackrory), who spoke extremely bravely about her experience of losing baby Lily; and my right hon. Friend the Member for South West Surrey (Jeremy Hunt), who also helped to secure this debate. The response and strength of feeling shows how many lives have been affected and touched by this issue. There have been so many moving contributions, and I cannot name them all, but they included those from the hon. Member for Pontypridd (Alex Davies-Jones), my hon. Friend the Member for Bracknell (James Sunderland) and the hon. Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Patricia Gibson), who talked about baby Kenneth.

This is the sixth year that a debate has been held to mark Baby Loss Awareness Week, and I am honoured to take part as the new Minister for primary care and patient safety and to work with all hon. and right hon. Members across the House to make a difference in an area as vital and important as maternal and neonatal safety. It is perhaps fitting that the debate is happening so soon after I have taken on this role, as it has sharply focused my mind on the huge amount of work there is to do in improving the outcomes for families and babies.

The Government’s maternity ambition is to halve the 2010 rates of stillbirth, neonatal and maternal deaths and brain injuries in babies occurring during or soon after birth by 2025. The ambition also includes reducing the rate of pre-term births from 8% to 6%, and we are making progress on that. Since 2010, there has been a reduction of 25% in stillbirth rates and a 29% reduction in neonatal mortality rates for babies born after 24 weeks gestation. There is, however, progress to be made on reducing maternal mortality rates, brain injury rates and pre-term birth rates, because progress has been slower than any of us would have hoped. There are pilot schemes in place, however, including those introduced under the brain injury reduction programme, which saw £9.4 million-worth of investment during the spending review last year going towards reducing the incidence of birth-related brain injuries. The pilots will produce cutting-edge training and expert guidance, and I hope to report back to the House on their impact.

My hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth raised some incredibly important points, and I want to touch on a few of them. Financial investment can of course make a difference in improving maternity services. NHS England announced earlier this year an additional £95 million of recurrent funding for maternity services to support the recruitment of 1,200 midwives and 100 consultant obstetricians and the implementation of the actions arising from the Ockenden report. NHS England and NHS Improvement are also providing an additional £52 million to fast-track a long-term plan commitment for all women to be able to access their maternity notes and information via a smartphone or other device by 2024.

Money is not the only solution, however. One key way to improve outcomes is to look at what has gone wrong in the past, and the perinatal mortality review tool is important in that regard. The Health Departments in England, Wales and Scotland collectively fund the perinatal mortality review tool so that the deaths of all babies between 22 weeks gestation and four weeks old are reviewed to provide answers to bereaved parents about how their baby died and so that the NHS can learn lessons and improve care. All bereaved parents now have the option to be involved in a high-quality review of the death of their baby and, according to the last perinatal mortality review tool annual report last year, 84% of review cases in England, 86% of cases in Wales and 87% of cases in Scotland included parents in their final reports. It is by learning from parents and listening to their concerns that we will ultimately improve services for families and save lives.

The shadow Minister and my hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth raised the issue of tackling inequalities in perinatal outcomes for women from black, Asian and other minority ethnic groups. There are huge disparities in outcome across different communities. Earlier this month, NHS England and NHS Improvement published an equity and equality strategy, supported by a £6.8 million investment, to address the causes of inequalities in health outcomes, experience and access. It provides guidance for local maternity systems and focuses on black, Asian and minority ethnic groups, who currently experience poor maternal health outcomes. This is a priority area for me, and I take the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth about the importance of continuity of care.

In helping to support bereaved families following the tragic loss of a baby, I am delighted to hear that we have now reached the milestone of every NHS trust in England having expressed an interest with Sands in joining the national bereavement care pathway programme, and 65% of trusts are now members. We will continue to take a cross-Government approach to assessing what more needs to be done to support bereaved families.

I will discuss with my ministerial colleagues the point raised by the hon. Member for Lanark and Hamilton East (Angela Crawley), in particular, on leave for those who have experienced a miscarriage before 24 weeks.

Important points have been made about mandating a pathway and funding to ensure that every hospital has an appropriate bereavement suite and specialist staff and training. I will feed back to the House on our progress on that, as I recognise that we need to move swiftly.

My hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth, like many other hon. Members, commented on mental health support for bereaved fathers, parents, families and siblings. We heard from my right hon. Friend the Member for South West Surrey about the impact that the loss of baby Sarah had on his whole family. Losing a baby can have a massive impact on the whole family, and this Government are committed to expanding and transforming mental health services in England so that people, including those affected by the loss of a baby, get the help and support they need. My hon. Friend the Member for Guildford (Angela Richardson) could not have been more eloquent about the experience of not getting it right.

We have a long-term commitment that a further 24,000 women will be able to access specialist perinatal mental healthcare by 2023, building on the additional 30,000 women who can access such services this year.

[Dame Andrea Leadsom]

Does my hon. Friend agree that, along with all the things she is talking about, we need a joined-up set of start of life services, such as the Government are already working so hard to implement in their “Best start for life” work? If we could provide continuity of care and wraparound support for families, so many of the health disparities and terrible outcomes would be avoided.

Coronavirus

Andrea Leadsom Excerpts

Wednesday 16th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

My right hon. Friend makes a really important point. The answer is that the majority are in the younger age group who have not yet had the chance to be vaccinated. Just under one fifth of those going into hospital in the last week have had both jabs, about a fifth have had one jab and the majority have not had any. The majority are under the age of 50 and have not yet had the opportunity to have both jabs. I think there is a material difference when it comes to the state’s responsibility to offer the vaccine to all adults. The duty that we have when somebody has not been offered the vaccine is greater than the duty we have when we have offered a vaccine but somebody has chosen not to take it up. There is a material difference between those two situations that I think my right hon. Friend was getting at.

[Dame Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con)]

May I just take what our right hon. Friend the Member for North Somerset (Dr Fox) said one step further? If I choose not to have, say, a yellow fever jab when I am going to a place that suffers yellow fever, the Government of the United Kingdom take no interest whatever in my illness status. When my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State says that he has less of a duty, surely what he means is that he has no duty at all. It is for people to take up the vaccine.

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[Dame Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con)]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker.

Is it not wonderful to see so many colleagues in the Chamber having a proper debate? It is really interesting to hear what colleagues have to say. I have to add my own deep concern about any restrictions on people’s liberty. Frankly, if we were not already in step 3 of lockdown, I cannot imagine that with the current data, anyone in this place would today vote for four weeks of restrictions on businesses, on weddings, on church congregations and, yes, on young people’s end of school year celebrations. Nevertheless, I am going to disappoint some colleagues in this place by saying that I will, with a very heavy heart, support the Government, trusting that the Government are determined—as we have been assured by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health—that, if possible, those restrictions will be lifted after two weeks and not four. I urge them to do that.

I want to use these short remarks to raise a few specific questions on behalf of my constituency and others. First, many businesses in the hospitality sector are open but unable to make a profit because of the social distancing rules. Can those rules be relaxed a bit in these last few weeks? Surely we can do that.

Secondly, many employers in hospitality and other sectors are now desperately trying to recruit staff through jobcentres, yet I am told by businesses in my patch that many people are not responding to offers of interviews. I do not know whether colleagues are also finding that, but businesses in my area are concerned that the long period of enforced lockdown and enforced inactivity is leading to an issue of motivation. Sometimes it is just easier to stay at home rather than getting back out there again. What are we going to do? Many colleagues have talked about the success of frightening people into staying home. Surely we are going to need something to help people feel motivated and want to get back out there to work, to get our economy going again and to help themselves to recover from this difficult period.

Thirdly, my constituency is home to Silverstone and the British grand prix, which is due to take place from 16 to 19 July. Can my hon. Friend the Minister assure me that this iconic, world-famous event—surely, one of the best of British—can go ahead with a capacity crowd, albeit subject to covid testing?

Fourthly, I am pleased that the Government have listened to wedding businesses and the many couples who are looking to tie the knot, and have agreed to let weddings of any size go ahead, subject to social distancing. As colleagues have said and as my hon. Friend the Minister will appreciate, for many couples, if they can hug but not dance, if they cannot have a band and they have to socially distance, that will not be the kind of big day they wanted for themselves and their families. Will he reconsider that?

Finally, my hon. Friend will realise that school and university students are now faced, for the second year in a row, with no end-of-year celebrations. No parents’ days, no prize-givings—in other words, none of the rites of passage that mean so much to so many people. Can we look at that again in these last few weeks? It has been such a long haul. As I have said, I will reluctantly support the Government, but I do urge the Front Benchers to show more flexibility during these final few weeks so that some of the joys of summer can light up people’s lives once again.

Covid-19

Andrea Leadsom Excerpts

Monday 22nd February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Edward Argar]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend. What we have sought to do here is to set out a road map that is measured and cautious but provides, as much as we can, that degree of certainty to allow people to plan for the future. We do not want to set out expectations that are unlikely to be met, and therefore this plan is based on those “at the earliest” dates. If I may, I will make a bit of progress, and then, if we have time—I am conscious of the time—he may wish to return to that point.

We know how tough lockdown has been on people—on individuals, on families and on businesses—and naturally we are beginning—

[Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con)]

rose—

[Edward Argar]

If I may just finish this point, then I will of course turn to my right hon. Friend. We are beginning with the things that people want to change most, the most important things being to see children return to classrooms, and to be able to begin to see our friends and family again.

[Andrea Leadsom]

Does my hon. Friend see, as he is hearing from our hon. Friends here in the Chamber, that setting out the very earliest dates assumes there is no harm caused by the continued lockdown but, in reality, if we remain locked down when we do not need to, every single day, that is causing harm to people?

[Edward Argar]

My right hon. Friend makes an important point. Often in this Chamber we look at the impact in terms of hospitalisations, infection rates and deaths from covid, but—absolutely rightly—we also look at the impacts more broadly, and she highlights that it is not just deaths or illnesses directly attributable to covid that have an impact on people’s lives, health and wellbeing. However, I come back to the point that the programme and the dates we have set out are reasonable, pragmatic and supported by what we believe reflects the roll-out of the vaccine to the different groups, and they give the public a degree of predictability that has not been there before. I share what I surmise is her view: I would not wish these restrictions to stay in place a day longer than absolutely necessary—I hope I do not misattribute a view to her there. What the Prime Minister set out earlier today achieves that, and does it in a very measured and sensible way that reduces significantly any risk of our seeing things slide backwards.

I am conscious of time. As the Prime Minister has set out before the House, all schools and colleges will return to face-to-face education on 8 March—

--- Later in debate ---

[Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con)]

I have a great deal of sympathy with what my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest West (Sir Desmond Swayne) just said. I applaud the Government and everybody who has been involved in this incredible vaccine roll-out programme. It really is world leading and is going to make a huge difference in tackling the coronavirus. However, I urge colleagues in Government to think very broadly about this pandemic.

I want to give three examples from my constituency caseload. First, businesses have been supported, as have jobs, but the reality is that businesses cannot survive for much longer. I am thinking of the mental health of business owners, their personal savings, their families, the people that they have had to get rid of because they cannot keep them on furlough any longer—this cannot continue. There are huge costs not only in terms of the financial implications, but of their balance sheets—the constant roll-over of bank interest rates and so on, which has long-term implications for their prospects as a business.

Secondly, schoolchildren have already fallen so far behind. I had a constituency roundtable with headteachers, who were saying to me that it is always the same children. The ones who have great parents at home, getting them to keep working in spite of it all, will manage. It is those who do not have either the devices at home or the parental input who are really going to suffer and struggle, and not just this year or this month, but for years to come. It is existentially threatening to their lives.

The third point I want to make is about dementia sufferers. Someone very close to me has dementia and it has really destroyed their life. When it comes to people with dementia, we try to give them social input. We try to give them something to look forward to and try to keep them stimulated, and we are just not doing that. We are talking about one person to hold their hand—that is just not good enough. We have to think outside the box and look at what more we can do to help people to catch up right across all our country, all our nation.

I want to finish with an absolute plea to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, to make sure this place comes back, because I am hearing from hon. Friends and hon. colleagues across the Chamber about the vital need to keep scrutinising the Government, particularly as we come out of lockdown. We cannot be date-driven; we have to be data-driven. We need to keep talking about the harm that is being caused by the lockdown so that we get the balance right between saving people’s lives from covid and saving their lives from other things that are not covid but are related to covid.

Public Health

Andrea Leadsom Excerpts

Wednesday 6th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con) [V]]

I want to make a few short points about the impact of covid on babies and young people, but first can I thank my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for his excellent support for the early years review that I am chairing, which will soon announce its recommendations? My review has heard from many families what a tough time they have had in lockdown. Many struggle at the best of times with a new baby. Add to that being in lockdown with other children who also need attention, and even the simplest of tasks can feel like a massive challenge.

First, I sincerely urge my right hon. Friend to send an instruction to all our superb perinatal workers—from health visitors to mental health and breastfeeding advisers —to keep providing the support and advice that new parents need, not just for reasons of safeguarding but for the many who are really struggling to cope right now.

Secondly, I heartily commend the Under-Secretary of State for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Vicky Ford), and others in Government for their determination to keep early years settings open at this time. It is not just to help parents work from home, but, crucially, so that infants and young children do not lose out on their future development through this lockdown.

Finally, I am really concerned, as so many colleagues are, about any loss of schooling for our young people. While, like many, I applaud the BBC for introducing an element of curriculum-based teaching, I would urge my right hon. Friends the Secretaries of State for Health and Social Care, for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport and for Education to join forces, and press the BBC to fulfil its role as our public service broadcaster and to take on the job of committing to teaching the whole curriculum.

It is great that the Beeb will deliver reading, writing and maths to primary school children, but at secondary school the challenges are different. Students are studying a variety of subjects at different points, so the BBC should build a pick and mix package of lessons for students to choose what they need, and then teachers, who have done such a superb job under such difficult circumstances, could use those resources as a core to build from. Exercise, nutrition and even support for mental health could form a part of each day’s televised curriculum, giving a bit of a boost to young people.

Our national broadcaster benefits from £157 a year from each licence. This is a chance to provide public service broadcasting at its finest, and it could remove at a stroke the twin challenges of a lack of reliable broadband and a lack of laptop access. Nothing can replace a strong family, good schooling and sound teaching, but our babies and our children and young people deserve the very best that we can provide.

Healthcare Support Services: Conception to Age Two

Andrea Leadsom Excerpts

Tuesday 15th December 2020 Westminster Hall

[Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered provision of healthcare support services in the period between conception and age two.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Christopher. Today’s debate takes place against the backdrop of such a disruptive and damaging year. This year, as ever, it is the very youngest, the very oldest and the most vulnerable in our society who suffer when times are tough. It is timely that we are having the debate today, as the early years healthy development review, which my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister asked me to chair, is now gathering together its phase 1 recommendations.

Personally, I am grateful for the chance to highlight what has been my real passion in politics for more than 20 years. The first chapter in my early years story begins with OXPIP—the Oxford Parent-Infant Project—a charity in Oxford providing psychotherapeutic support for families struggling to cope with their new baby. I got involved as a banker, writing a business plan and successfully applying for a substantial lottery grant. I very soon found myself chairing the charity, and that was when I learned the vital importance of the period from conception to the age of two.

I was introduced to OXPIP by my mum, who was a midwife and a trauma therapist and had seen at first hand how so many new parents have unspoken and appalling birth experiences or traumas in their personal lives that leave them unable to focus on their baby and that precious early bond. Having had my own brief experience of post-natal depression in 1995, with my first born, I could empathise with how hopeless and helpless someone can feel as a new mum. Even with a loving partner and family around, those first few weeks can be frightening, sleep-deprived and, in many ways, overwhelming. Statistics show that up to one in seven women has that sort of experience after having a baby, so it really is an invisible epidemic.

Therefore, when I became the parliamentary candidate for South Northamptonshire in 2006, my family moved to the constituency and I set up NorPIP, the Northamptonshire Parent Infant Partnership, which is the Northamptonshire sister charity to OXPIP. I then established PIP UK, Parent Infant Partnership UK, a national charity that would lobby for better support in the early years and oversee a programme of building new PIPs around the country. I chaired PIP UK until I became a Minister in 2014 and had to leave the role overnight, whereupon my very old friend, my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton), picked up that work. I want today to pay tribute to him for all that he has done for the PIP movement and on the first 1,001 critical days.

During my early years as a Back Bencher, from 2010, I became chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on Sure Start Children’s Centres and set up the APPG for conception to age two—first 1,001 days. With cross-party support from colleagues such as Lord Field and the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas), I launched the first “The 1001 Critical Days” manifesto in 2013.

Under the leadership of my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham, PIP UK has become the Parent-Infant Foundation and the “The 1001 Critical Days” manifesto has become a movement with the support of more than 160 charities and professional organisations. There is no doubt that there is overwhelming support from the early years sector for significant Government action, and the opportunity for that is now, as we build back better. This has personal backing from the Prime Minister himself.

How do the first 1,001 days shape a baby’s lifelong potential? From conception to the age of two, a secure and loving relationship between baby and carer literally shapes the way the baby’s brain develops. It is where the building blocks for lifelong physical and emotional health are laid out and, like a sponge, the developing brain will soak up the sense that the world is a good place and that problems can be solved. Humans are unique in the animal kingdom in the extent of their underdevelopment at birth. What other animal cannot walk until it is a year old and cannot fend for itself in any other way until it is at least two years old? The physical underdevelopment is only a small part of the story. The human brain is only partially formed when we are born, with billions of undifferentiated neurons, and parts of the brain that are yet to exist. At birth and in the precious months that follow, a baby has no cognitive skills; it can only cry, sleep or look around. Its neural connections are stimulated by the loving attention of its carer and the world around it, which makes those things so important for the baby’s future development and secure attachment.

Those people who have children will all remember walking up and down the landing in the middle of the night with baby in their arms, saying, “Go to sleep, go to sleep”. We wind them, we change them and we feed them, all of which comes naturally to most parents. The baby whose basic needs are met learns that the world is a good place and they retain that instinct throughout their life. The baby who develops secure attachment will grow up able to cope with life’s ups and downs. They will develop speech skills and they will be able to pay attention in school, make friends, hold down a job and then go on to become a good enough parent themselves.

On the other hand, a baby who is ignored, neglected or abused will find life much harder, and in the most extreme cases of abuse there will be a severe impact on the developing brain. A baby cannot regulate his or her own feelings. If their needs are not being met, they will cry, and that cry will get more and more persistent. If no help comes, that baby will eventually take refuge in sleep.

We know that a baby left to scream continually for days and weeks on end will experience raised levels of the stress hormone cortisol. We also know that excessive amounts of that hormone can damage the baby’s immune system, with lifelong implications for their physical and emotional health. Such damage can happen in the womb itself and there is strong evidence to suggest that high-risk behaviours evidenced in adults have a link to a high tolerance to raised stress levels that started in the earliest years.

We know that a pregnant woman who suffers from stress produces more cortisol, and the more stressed the mother, the more the foetus is exposed to higher levels of that chemical. This exposure can lead to modifications in gene expressions while the child’s brain is still developing. A baby’s brain development has deep implications for society, and we know that a human being without a properly developed social brain will find it difficult to empathise with others and to regulate his or her emotions, which will make it harder to cope with life’s stresses, as well as with building and keeping relationships in later life.

We have seen the lack of human connection at its most extreme, particularly in the case of the Romanian orphans under Ceauescu’s regime. Their minimal physical and emotional contact left them profoundly and permanently damaged. Sadly, we know that long-term violence, self-harm, poor mental health and substance misuse have roots stemming back to the earliest experiences in childhood.

What we do with a baby from conception to the age of two is about building the human and emotional capacity of that infant, and what we do after the age of two will be about trying to reverse damage that has already been done. In the words of the Royal Foundation, the early years are the most important time of life to set out the building blocks for a human being’s future development and success, and I truly applaud the Duchess of Cambridge for her passion to ensure that every baby gets the best start in life.

It is utterly indisputable that the first 1,001 days is the most crucial period of human development, and I want to set out where we are now. Between 2018 and 2019, I chaired an inter-ministerial group on the early years, under the premiership of my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May). That group made some key recommendations, the main one being that the Government should set out and identify a vision for the critical first 1,001 days.

Our current Prime Minister has always been a supporter of greater help for new families. During many Cabinet meetings and conversations over several years, his commitment has always been clear, so I was delighted earlier this year when he asked me to chair the early years healthy development review on behalf of the Government. The review has three advisory groups—parliamentary, practitioners and academics—using the knowledge, experience and passion of colleagues across both Houses and across the early years sector. Lockdown has prevented any physical visits, so instead our group has taken part in a series of virtual visits, meeting parents, health professionals and service providers in Camden, Devon, Stoke, Leeds, Essex, Newcastle and other places. We had a series of deep dives looking into and hearing from professionals and stakeholders on everything from breastfeeding to parenting apps to parental mental health. We have engaged with parents and carers through a questionnaire that has gathered over 3,500 responses. A personal favourite has been the Mumsnet thread that I have logged into every week to chat with new mums.

We are now at the point of bringing together the review’s recommendations with a view to communicating them at the end of January. I do not want to spoil that by talking about them now, but I want to raise a few key learning points today, because, I am sorry to say, during the lockdown there has been much suffering that has come to the review’s attention. We have heard troubling stories of isolation with partners unable to be at health checks and even unable to stay with mum and baby after the delivery. Parents have experienced limited face time with health visitors and disastrously there has been a rise in cases of domestic violence.

Half a million babies were born during the first lockdown alone, with 1,800 babies born every day in England. Far too many have entered a world of isolation and limited social contact. There have been few cuddles with granny and grandad, much less support for mums and dads, and barely any time spent with other babies. If a baby’s potential for good life-long health and wellbeing is derived from their earliest experiences, surely we need to make sure that every new family is now getting the best possible support. That is why it is vital that once the vaccine is rolled out and we start to get our lives back to a sense of normality, we improve and increase the care given to new families who have had such a tough year.

Despite the troubling stories, there are some silver linings. We should not lose sight of them. I would particularly like to highlight the use of digital and remote support. Many parents have said that during lockdown they really valued being able to text or have a Zoom call with their GP or health visitor on a much faster timescale than an in-person appointment. Some mums told the review that they preferred remote breast-feeding support to a physical group setting. Those who have taken advantage of mental health therapies online have felt it has been a positive step forward. This rapid adaptation to change has pushed open the door for the possibilities of technology in backing up good face-to-face support for new parents.

Another silver lining is the better joining up of services. From family centre workers to health visitors, from midwives to mental health therapists, professionals have found getting together on a Zoom call to discuss how better to support a family has been a vast improvement to their working practice and one that they do not want to lose.

Although the pandemic is not yet over and therefore until the vaccine has been rolled out sufficiently there will still be the need to remember hands, face, space, I call on the Minister to think about what more can be done for those 1,800 babies born every day. One in seven women and up to one in 10 new dads suffer post-natal depression. That was even before lockdown. We can only begin to imagine how many more families are struggling today. I urge the Minister to consider allowing new families at least two other supporting family members to bubble with them, or two other individuals if they are a lone parent. I also encourage her to make sure that health visitors and early years health services remain available and accessible face-to-face for everybody.

The strength of feeling of those here today, of sector stakeholders and, importantly, of parents, gives me the confidence that we can create real change in the early years and make sure that every baby gets the best start in life. For me it has been a long journey—more than 20 years—to reach this point, and I thank colleagues in both Houses who have committed themselves to this agenda. I also want to thank the hundreds of thousands of people across this country who, through their professional careers or through volunteering, are supporting the next generation day in, day out.

Finally, I want to end my remarks with a thought from Nelson Mandela, who is a bit of a hero of mine. He said,

“Our children are our greatest treasure. They are our future.”

The actions that we take in the present will help to shape not only the future of the youngest in society, but the outcomes of generations to come.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andrea Leadsom]

The extent of cross-party support is apparent in today’s debate, and it is going to be essential. I will pick up on a couple of points.

The hon. Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss) talked about the vital importance of infant feeding. She is exactly right: it will be a big feature of our recommendations. My hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) spoke particularly about the crucial importance of health visitors. I join him in paying tribute to Cheryll Adams, who has done a brilliant job. He also talked, as did my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce), about the importance of leadership. That will be one of the recommendations that we will look at carefully in our report.

The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), whom I have worked with many times, talked about his own grandchildren—how lovely to hear about them. He also talked about how it takes a village to raise a child, and I absolutely agree. My hon. Friend the Member for Congleton was right to talk about family hubs. They are the absolutely proper place for better support in the early years. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth (Cherilyn Mackrory) for her bravery in talking about her own story. She has been a critical member of the parliamentary advisory group. I thank all colleagues for a very helpful and useful discussion to inform the review.

Motion lapsed (Standing Order No. 10(6)).

Oral Answers to Questions

Andrea Leadsom Excerpts

Tuesday 17th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con)]

What steps his Department is taking to support the healthcare needs of newborn babies and their families during the autumn 2020 covid-19 lockdown.

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

What steps he is taking to support the healthcare needs of babies and families during the covid-19 outbreak.

[The Minister for Patient Safety, Mental Health and Suicide Prevention (Ms Nadine Dorries)]

The indirect impact of covid-19 has been significant for pregnant women and their young families. Support for families is a priority, and it means short-term and long-term harms can be prevented. Health visiting teams have continued to support and prioritise high-need families. We have also gone to great lengths to ensure that informal support networks that have been there in the past to support mothers and younger babies can remain and provide the support they were unable to give during the first wave.

[Andrea Leadsom]

I know that my hon. Friend is well aware of the desire of new families to return to face-to-face services as soon as is possible, but does she agree that the amazing work of so many in the early years sector to deliver online and digital services at this incredibly difficult time must not be lost? When we return to face-to-face services, we also therefore need to capture all the amazing learning on digital and make sure we can amplify support for new families in that way.

[Ms Dorries]

I absolutely agree with my right hon. Friend on that. First, may I pay tribute to her for the work she has undertaken throughout her career with families, parents and young babies, and on early years, particularly the first years of a child’s life? I am sure Members on both sides of the House are hugely anticipating and excited about receiving her review on early years and young families. She is right to say that using digital technologies has enhanced so many areas during the first lockdown and throughout our time with covid, not only in mental health, but with young families and children. In a way, it has been a catalyst whereby we have embraced technology in all areas across health service delivery. We are making sure that we continue to do that and we do not lose the moment.

Covid-19

Andrea Leadsom Excerpts

Wednesday 11th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con)]

I want to start with a quote from the incomparable C. S. Lewis, who said:

“The duty of planning tomorrow’s work is today’s duty”.

That is what I want to talk about—our duty to get several steps ahead of this virus so that we are on the front foot in the future. There is no doubt that this pandemic has tested every aspect of government. Right around the world, leaders have had to react fast to the extreme challenges that have faced them.

I know how annoying it is when former Cabinet Ministers poke at Front-Bench colleagues, so I make my remarks today with full appreciation of how hard this is; it is much easier to give advice than to actually make it happen. I simply want to ask my hon. Friend the Minister to give the House an update on whether the Government are now fighting fit, whether we are now outpacing the virus, and whether we can now get several steps ahead and think about the future beyond the pandemic.

First, with the fantastic news of the possibility of a vaccine, can my hon. Friend tell us how the Government have combined the efforts of public and private sectors, to make sure that every aspect of the vaccine programme is scalable from day one across the UK? Secondly, the evidence of the testing programme in Liverpool shows yet again how fantastic our armed forces are at dealing with complex logistics, so can my hon. Friend confirm that their expertise will be used in every part of the country? Thirdly, can my hon. Friend confirm that all preparations are in place to distribute the first wave of vaccines, to determine precisely who will receive them and in what order of priority?

All those steps are vital in giving us an advantage on the path to a post-covid future. Only then can we really set our sights on our ambition for economic success as an independent, sovereign United Kingdom. With that in mind, first, can my hon. Friend provide reassurance that the Government are looking ahead at the potential for the UK to lead the world in tackling global climate change? That is not only the right thing to do but, for this generation, it provides massive potential for new jobs and growth, and will help us to build our global free-trade relationships as we seek to lead the world in decarbonisation.

Secondly, can my hon. Friend tell me how the Government are using the experience of lockdown to better understand how embracing flexible work as standard in all employment could enable the workforce of the future to enjoy a far better work-life balance and improve the quality of life for many people? Thirdly, can she confirm that the Government are looking at what more can be done for small and medium-sized enterprises, which are the lifeblood of our economy and the future job builders? Many business owners have seen their livelihoods destroyed by this unforgiving pandemic, and they will struggle to get back on their feet. We need a strategy to give entrepreneurs help and support, as well as confidence, to restart.

The pandemic has forced us to focus anew on those in society who need our help, including people who have suffered greatly. First, how do we ensure that never again will schoolchildren have to face teacher-assessed grades, with all the potential professional implications that that has for their lives? How will we make sure that younger children catch up so that we do not have a cohort who always struggle with literacy and numeracy? Secondly, how do the Government plan to help school leavers and university students who feel hopeless about their future job prospects? The Chancellor’s kickstart scheme is a great short-term fix, but it does not offer training or a long-term future path that many young people crave. Thirdly, what more can Government do for the most vulnerable in our society who have suffered serious harm and loneliness this year, including those who suffer from things such as Alzheimer’s or those with new babies who have been left isolated, with potential long-term harm for their families?

I believe that we have a bright future post the pandemic, but we must use the time that we have now to get ahead with our planning for the future. I began with a quote from C. S. Lewis, and I will close with another one:

“There are far, far better things ahead than any we leave behind.” 

Let us make that true.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Order. After Nadia Whittome, who may speak for five minutes, we move to a time limit of up to four minutes.

Covid-19 Update

Andrea Leadsom Excerpts

Tuesday 10th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

Yes, absolutely; this is a UK programme and I have been working closely with my Northern Ireland counterpart, Robin Swann, who is doing a brilliant job in Northern Ireland, to make sure that we get this roll-out as effective as possible right across the whole United Kingdom.

[Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con)]

Mr Deputy Speaker, happy birthday.

I know that my right hon. Friend is as concerned as I am about the impact of lockdown, particularly the first lockdown, on new families with new babies—particularly as seen in the excellent Parent-Infant Foundation report “Babies in Lockdown” and the awful news from Ofsted that some babies have been harmed more than you would expect during that period of time, potentially as a result of poor mental health and so on. So can my right hon. Friend tell us what exactly he is doing to ensure that, during the current lockdown, new families are being provided with the level of support, from partners and statutory services, that they need to help them through?

[Matt Hancock]

My right hon. Friend is right to raise that issue, and we all know how close it is to her heart. In the first lockdown, many NHS services were suspended, partly because of the uncertainty that we have just been talking about. We know far more about the virus and how to manage it the second time round, and our goal is that all NHS services stay open. That has not proved possible in the areas of the country where there is the highest prevalence, but all maternity services and services around perinatal health ought to stay open everywhere. We have had to delay some non-cancer, non-urgent treatment, but crucially, the best thing to do for this agenda that she champions is to try to keep the virus under control and try to suppress the virus as much as possible.

Covid-19

Andrea Leadsom Excerpts

Monday 2nd November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con)]

The prospect of another lockdown is truly awful. Constituents are writing to me totally distraught at not being able to visit their families or facing the collapse of their business, and even those who are about to have a baby are wondering how on earth they are going to manage. If the Government have properly assessed the harm to all our citizens—to the nation’s mental and economic health—and still concluded that covid is a bigger threat than all the unemployment, all the lost dreams, all the health issues going undiagnosed, and all the loneliness and depression, then this time let us do it smarter and with compassion.

I want to make a few brief points. First, we learned in the first lockdown that general support for businesses is a good thing, but now we also know that some in certain key business sectors have been all but destroyed by the lockdown, such as hospitality businesses, weddings and events organisers, exhibitions, merchandising companies, and festival events organisers—in fact, anyone who depends on large gatherings. So while Whitehall Departments have distributed welcome support across the economy, we now need more targeted support for those businesses that can be saved in the longer term and, frankly, a tough conversation where they cannot.

Secondly, we need to support businesses to adapt to the new reality. We saw in the first lockdown the brilliance of some: a gin distiller turning its trade to manufacturing hand sanitisers; a dry cleaner becoming a face mask manufacturer; and many tradespeople developing perspex screens for tills. So what are the Government going to do to help businesses adapt and find a way through this?

Thirdly, we now know that some businesses that could carry on may be tempted, because Government support is so broad-ranging, to down tools, furlough staff and wait until better times emerge. The taxpayer should support businesses to get through this, but not those choosing to sit out the lockdown, leaving staff at home worrying when they could be out working. So, overall, my first plea to the Government is to target support for business during this new lockdown in a smart way.

My second plea to the Government is to implement the lockdown in a compassionate way. In the first lockdown we all took the science at face value; we were glued to the daily updates and followed the advice on what we could and could not do. I believe that this time around, however, there is likely to be a genuine issue with compliance. Many of our citizens are struggling financially, while some are struggling emotionally or worrying about their loved ones, and others are simply feeling, “I’m not likely to die of covid and I’m not willing to give up my freedom for the sake of a few who might die.” To be clear, I am not condoning non-compliance in any way; I am giving a snapshot of what I am seeing in my email inbox.

The conclusion I draw from the views of my constituents is that it is essential this time that the Government do not just tell people what to do, but explain to them why this is important. The new restrictions must make sense to an ordinary sensible adult and should be defensible and explicable, yes, by an ordinary sensible MP. Outdoor swimming pools, village football, tennis and golf—do they really present a danger of spreading covid? As my constituent pointed out to me at the weekend, “When I play golf, I spend the whole time on my own in the bushes, looking for my ball.” If those outdoor pursuits, which provide such a lifeline, must stop, those whose liberties are being denied need to understand precisely why.