Support for Infants and Parents etc (Information) Bill [HL]

Baroness Finlay of Llandaff Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 6th September 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)]

My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, for having brought this measure back to the House and indeed for all the work that he has done in looking at the investment in new life for the next generation.

Clause 5 is particularly helpful by defining what an infant is and being clear that the first 1,001 days of life are particularly important. Of course, there is the time before the child is born as well, before that clock starts ticking, which is very important. As the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, has said, this builds on communities. We live in an increasingly fragmented society, and many women are pregnant a very long way away from any relatives or even friends. They may find themselves in a community that they do not know well, and those community attachments and links can be established if there is somewhere to go.

Another important point, which I will cover as I go through, is that this will take some of the burden away from the NHS. The panicking parent who does not know what to do phones 111 and gives a bizarre description of what is going on and then ends up in an emergency department. That is not an appropriate place for a panicking young mum, particularly one with feeding difficulties.

I am most grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Miller of Chilthorne Domer, for covering breastfeeding, so I will not repeat the very important points that she has made. Many women think that they will try breastfeeding, they start and then they give up. There are huge pressures to give up, as if it is somehow better or more fashionable to use formula when, actually, the convenience of breastfeeding, particularly in the long term or if you are travelling and going places, is really never advocated.

Mothers are not told what they are doing well; they keep on being given advice as to what they should do differently. Certainly, for myself, the most helpful thing when I was breastfeeding was my mother-in-law saying, “You are doing really well, dear.” That was very reinforcing, because I was worried about what I was doing. A friend of mine just said, “Why don’t you put the baby in a different position, on a cushion under your arm, and you’ll be more comfortable.” Those were really simple things, but the thing about that peer support is that it needs to be available out of hours, at nights and weekends—somebody you can contact.

Concern has been expressed—I am grateful to the NSPCC for its briefing—about messaging and the problem with the digital divide. As the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, said, people have mobile phones and we are very used to getting advertising messages on the mobile, or messages about NHS appointments, so once a woman is known to be pregnant, some of the messaging can just go in short messages by mobile phone, with who to contact, where to contact them and where to go locally. This should not involve any great expenditure.

On hubs, the work done so far has already evaluated very well. On investment, the Sure Start programme has shown that individual educational outcomes, especially for disadvantaged and racially minoritised children, have seen a huge benefit. Those eligible for free school meals who grew up near a Sure Start centre outperformed their peers by three grades at GCSE, so this is a really long-term investment in society and in the future for these children.

Worryingly, a recent survey of over 1,000 expectant mums by the Parent-Infant Foundation found that 73% of women surveyed said the information and advice they had about bonding with their baby was not given throughout their pregnancy, and that 71% would have liked much more support to help them bond with their baby. Yet this is a crucial time. We know that perinatal mental illness is a real scourge: 27% of new mums end up with some mental health problem. That is a huge number, and we know that suicide is the leading cause of maternal deaths. We cannot ignore that distress and the need to do something about it in our communities.

There is also evidence that one in 10 fathers experience depression during the time of pregnancy or after a birth, and we know that that is a time of high risk of domestic abuse as well, both towards the mother and the new baby, and any other children in the family. There is evidence that the attachment, which can be enhanced by good support, of mums and dads to the unborn baby also has an effect on siblings and the emotional relationship between siblings. There is a real need to make sure that support is available right the way through so that, by strengthening our communities, this does become an investment for society.

I turn to financial investments. Insecure attachment to mothers costs one-third more than cases where children have secure attachments, and that amounts to an average difference of about £3,500 a year. The cost difference for insecure attachment to fathers is even more substantial, running at about £12,700 a year. Insecure attachment is fundamentally linked to an increase in antisocial behaviour, conduct disorders, violent offending, drug misuse, teenage parenthood and reliance on state benefits. The estimated cost in adulthood for typical conduct disorder cases in the UK is £260,000 per person—more than a quarter of a million pounds per person. This makes financial sense, quite apart from the emotional and societal impact.

I should declare that I chair the Commission on Alcohol Harms, and it would be remiss of me not to remind your Lordships that the UK is estimated to have the fourth highest rate of alcohol use during pregnancy in the world, with an estimated 41% using alcohol during pregnancy. All the evidence around foetal alcohol syndrome and all the harms that go along with alcohol intake is really powerful, but the messages are not getting through to the parents, and they are not accessing the support they need to tackle alcohol and drug abuse during early pregnancy. Research from the Alcohol Health Alliance UK indicates that one-third of people are unaware that it is safest not to drink while pregnant.

I hope that the Bill progresses and that we do not try to over-amend it, which might result in it not progressing. There may be some imperfections—we can always want something slightly better somewhere—but this is a really important initiative and we need to support it as it goes through, because all the evidence is that these programmes work for the child, for the parents, for the siblings and for the future of our society.