Giving Every Baby the Best Start in Life

Debate between Andrea Leadsom and Sharon Hodgson

Tuesday 9th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[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.

Early Years Family Support

Debate between Andrea Leadsom and Sharon Hodgson

Tuesday 16th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Leadsom]

I am grateful for your guidance, Mr Deputy Speaker.

Those who go on to become abusers in 20 years’ time will all too often be vulnerable babies who are themselves being abused today. The question that really matters is how we even start to tackle this issue.

Having had my own brief experience of post-natal depression, I can certainly attest to how difficult it can be to cope as a new parent. Colleagues might have heard me speak before about my own memory of sitting in my kitchen with a crying baby, in the middle of winter, with snow on the ground outside, looked at through dirty windows, feeling totally unable to call a window cleaner or even just to make a cup of tea. That feeling of helplessness and hopelessness is a vivid memory—and it is now 23 years on.

This is not my sob story, though: I was lucky enough to have a great husband, a strong network of support and a job to go back to, which snapped me out of it, but, thinking back, it could have been so much worse. Many parents who are struggling to cope are dealing with that reality each and every day. I really do understand how debilitating depression is and how unexpected and horrible the feelings are.

It was when my mum, herself a trained midwife and therapist, asked me to go along and help with a charity she was working with—the Oxford Parent Infant Project —that I realised just how vital secure attachment in those first years really is. After 10 years as chairman and a trustee of OXPIP, I went on to set up NorPIP, the Northamptonshire Parent Infant Partnership, into which my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Victoria Prentis) was dragged—although not kicking and screaming; she was delighted. I then set up PIPUK, the fabulous national charity that is setting up PIPs throughout the country to provide specialised parent-infant relationship support, including parent-infant psychotherapy, to families and their babies. PIPUK’s aim is not only to address the immediate problems in the relationship between the baby and their parent, but to support a more positive and secure attachment for the long term.

I brought my passion for early years with me to Westminster when I was elected in 2010. I have since met so many brilliant people in the world of infant and maternal mental health, some of whom are present in the Chamber today, and many more of whom are following proceedings on TV. So many people have generously given their time and expertise. In 2011, with support from colleagues from every political party currently represented in Parliament, I launched “The 1001 Critical Days” manifesto, which called for a rethink of how we approach early years intervention at a policy level.

I particularly recognise the early commitment of the right hon. Members for North Norfolk and for Birkenhead (Frank Field), and of the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas), in getting the work off the ground. I pay special tribute to the hon. Member for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell) for her dedication to the “The 1001 Critical Days” campaign. She and I promised each other years ago that we would remain committed to achieving real and long-lasting positive change. I am delighted that she is present. We can definitely achieve much through cross-party collaboration for the greater good, and this work is the perfect example of it.

“The 1001 Critical Days” campaign has received the support of more than 100 different organisations, including the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, Barnardo’s, Best Beginnings, the Royal College of Midwives, the Royal College of General Practitioners and the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists. There are just too many esteemed charities, royal colleges and foundations for me to list here. I also had the pleasure of working closely with Dame Tessa Jowell on her interest in bringing early years support into the UNICEF millennium development goals.

With cross-party colleagues, we set up the all-party group for conception to age two. I wish to mention the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson), with whom I very much enjoyed working on the all-party parliamentary Sure Start group.

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

I am very grateful to the right hon. Lady for giving way. I just wanted to commend her on her work at OXPIP and PIPUK, which she mentioned a moment or so ago; I visited myself to see the work being done. It is really quite outstanding to see what can be achieved. I also thank her for mentioning a number of us, as she has done so generously.

[Andrea Leadsom]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady. It has been a great experience. When I became City Minister, I was so sorry to learn that I had to drop all trusteeships and the all-party groups overnight. I cannot thank my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) enough—I have known him for the many years since we were at university together—for picking up the ball and continuing to drive these important issues forward to this day with his amazing dedication, focus and care.

Let me fast-forward through my more recent roles as Energy Minister, Environment Secretary and Leader of the House. On the face of it, there was little scope for me to continue the push on early years, but with the continued collaboration between the right hon. and hon. Members whom I have mentioned and many others, the excellent work has continued, culminating in the Prime Minister herself committing to support the early years agenda and asking me to set up the IMG in the summer of 2018.

The IMG itself comprised my hon. Friends the Members for Louth and Horncastle (Victoria Atkins), for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson), for Richmond (Yorks) (Rishi Sunak), for Stratford-on-Avon (Nadhim Zahawi) and for Thurrock (Jackie Doyle-Price). I pay real tribute to all of them for their hard work on the group, as well as to the dedicated civil servants who supported us. Our remit was to consider the individual, the family and the wider societal risk factors that affect child development in the conception-to-age-two period and the long-term impacts, as well as the issues with central and local government’s approach.

The Prime Minister had asked the IMG to make recommendations to the relevant Secretaries of State that would support local areas in improving the co-ordination of early years services and in spending their current funding more effectively and more efficiently. I am so grateful to the Prime Minister for her continued support for, and interest in, the IMG, which my ministerial colleagues and I felt demonstrated the high priority being placed on that work.

I was delighted to be told that the Cabinet Secretary, Sir Mark Sedwill, has already prepared a cross-Whitehall civil service team to take our recommendations forward once signed off by the various Departments. We met as a ministerial group several times and undertook a great many visits to learn from examples of best practice right around the country. We visited Manchester children’s centres, the Lambeth Early Action Partnership, a parent-baby drop-in group in Peterborough and an outreach group in Devon. We held roundtables with charities and families, including parents within the civil service. We had consultations on Mumsnet and spoke to so many passionate and dedicated people working within the sector who want to make a clear difference for parents and babies. It was a wonderful and thoroughly rewarding experience. Out of those visits, meetings and consultations, we quickly began to identify a number of common issues that clearly need attention.

First and foremost is the postcode lottery across the country of the availability of perinatal mental health and specialised parent-infant relationship support, particularly around parent-infant psychotherapy services. In some areas, the provision is fantastic, but in others it is almost entirely non-existent. We heard from parents and professionals wanting health visitors to provide greater levels of support to new parents and their babies, particularly where parents are struggling to form a secure bond, with better levels of breastfeeding support and post-partum care. We also had detailed evidence of the need for greater support for dads, greater support for same-sex parents, better availability for couple counselling and for targeted services for new parents, such as debt and housing advice.

One particular issue that we identified was the need for greater support for non-English-speaking parents. The incredible work of children’s centres was highlighted everywhere we visited, and there is no doubt that parents and professionals want to see family-centred spaces such as these protected. There is a great amount of need out there, and it is clear that we have the opportunity to bring about a huge step change in how we deliver early years family support right across the country, if we seize on the recommendations of the inter-ministerial group.

What did we recommend? First and most importantly, getting the 1,001 critical days right can put children on course for good social, economic and physical outcomes later in life. Getting it wrong creates inequalities and significant costs later for Government and society. Secondly, better focus on both universal and targeted services needs to be a priority in this period.

I will not go into all the key recommendations because Mr Deputy Speaker is looking impatient, but I will mention some of them. First, using the wealth of research and evidence taken by the IMG, Departments should work together to create a clear and cohesive Government vision for the 1,001 critical days. That should be published in the autumn after the spending review. Local authorities should be invited to set out their own service models that work for their local communities, and should be properly measured on that.

Business of the House

Debate between Andrea Leadsom and Sharon Hodgson

Monday 16th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Leadsom]

I would be delighted to change the business of the House every few minutes, but the patience of the Chamber might wear a bit thin. My hon. Friend makes a very important point, and without giving too much away, Mr Speaker, you will be getting another application for a Standing Order No. 24 debate, which may have a bearing on tomorrow’s business.

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

Does the right hon. Lady agree that, although coming to this House and answering questions for three and a quarter hours is commendable, it is actually the Prime Minister’s job in a moment such as this, and that the job of this House is to debate important matters, and this is a very, very important matter? Answering a series of questions is not the same as having a full, frank and detailed debate.

[Andrea Leadsom]

I am very fond of the hon. Lady, but that was quite an ungenerous response to a three-and-a-quarter-hour marathon. Let us be clear: in a statement, there is a personal reply to every single question, which does not happen in a debate, so that was actually commendable of the Prime Minister.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Andrea Leadsom and Sharon Hodgson

Thursday 14th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Leadsom]

I completely agree that prepayment meter customers get a rough deal, with a far smaller choice of tariffs and suppliers than customers who pay by other methods. That is why we are supporting recommendations by the Competition and Markets Authority to make it easier for prepayment meter customers to switch supplier, and to introduce a safeguard tariff cap for those customers until competition in that segment of the market significantly improves.

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

May I too wish the hon. Lady well in the reshuffle? We worked closely together on early intervention policy, and I know how committed she is to that.

My constituent Margaret Graham recently attended my surgery. She was at her wits’ end over protracted dealings with her energy supplier, npower, which has continually failed her since it made a huge error resulting in a very large overpayment. Since my intervention it has apologised and offered £150 in compensation, but this has been going on since 2013. Can the Minister assure me and the House that energy companies will treat their customers fairly and with respect, and does she agree that they should be held fully to account for their failings?

[Andrea Leadsom]

I completely agree with the hon. Lady—she is exactly right. Energy suppliers must behave properly towards their customers. There are too many complaints and not a good enough service, and that has to change.