Children: Development

Baroness Northover Excerpts

Tuesday 26th November 2013 Grand Committee

[Baroness Northover (LD)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lady Walmsley for securing this important debate and for introducing it, as ever, so cogently.

As the 2015 deadline for the MDGs approaches, it is very important that we seek to ensure that we build on what has already been achieved and move forward in seeking the MDGs’ replacements, having learnt from what worked in the current set and where we need to head in the future. The MDGs seek the relief of poverty internationally and they use various means to do that. As my noble friend Lady Hodgson emphasised, much has been achieved but much still needs to be done.

In the proposed new goals, there is the aim to eradicate extreme poverty and to ensure that no one is left behind, and that clearly includes children. I welcome the opportunity to explore the core issues surrounding progress on early child development globally and how those issues can best be reflected in the post-2015 development framework.

As my noble friend Lady Walmsley stated, the case for a major global effort on early childhood development is compelling. As she indicated, evidence from multiple disciplines, including neuroscience and epigenetics, and across the social sciences tells a similar story: that early childhood matters. When everyone gets a good start in life, we are more likely to see better education and health outcomes, and higher earnings with more inclusive economic and sustainable development for all.

We know that we need to emphasise child development, support for parents and education in the United Kingdom, as my noble friend Lady Tyler noted. Internationally, we are some way off our aims. Of those children who survive birth, globally it is estimated that in low and middle-income countries more than 200 million under-fives are failing to reach their true cognitive development potential and that 165 million are stunted. However, of course, millions never even reach their first birthday. Four overlapping constraints are at the root of these challenges, and noble Lords have referred to them: poverty, nutritional deficiencies, poor healthcare and inadequate learning opportunities. The noble Lord, Lord Collins, crossed over all those.

The UK Government have a long-standing tradition of engagement in development and they work hard to improve early childhood outcomes globally. The noble Lord, Lord Collins, and others have shown how desperate is the situation of many children around the world, and he rightly emphasised the significance of intergenerational poverty.

To achieve their full potential, it is essential that children have a healthy and nutritious start to life, as my noble friend Lady Hodgson and the noble Lord, Lord Collins, emphasised, and that they should be supported by mothers who are in good health themselves. DfID funding for family planning is helping to avert 2.6 million unwanted pregnancies and prevent 70,000 deaths during pregnancy, childbirth and infancy. The benefits of family planning go well beyond the health sector. Evidence shows that when families are able to choose the number of children they have, they choose to have fewer children and do more for them. They particularly choose to invest in their children’s education. As my noble friend Lady Hodgson pointed out, paternal health is critical before, during and after birth.

My noble friend also pointed out the importance of good nutrition, as did the noble Lord, Lord Collins. We recognise that good nutrition is essential, particularly in a child’s first 1,000 days—from conception to their second birthday—to ensure that they reach their full physical and cognitive potential. Noble Lords will no doubt remember the Nutrition for Growth event that we held on 8 June. That brought together partner Governments, civil society, business and science to try to address the neglect of undernutrition. DfID also supports efforts here to increase vaccine coverage and reduce avoidable child deaths, illness and disability. Between 2011 and 2015, UK funding for GAVI—formerly the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation—will help to vaccinate more than 80 million children.

It is estimated that diarrhoeal diseases are now a leading cause of child deaths in Africa and the second leading cause of child deaths globally. After pneumonia, they are the biggest killer of children under five in the world. DfID is committed to reaching 60 million people with improved water, sanitation and hygiene—WASH—by December 2015. Through partnership with UNICEF, this includes WASH in schools and WASH in health units. Globally, DfID is assisting pre-primary education through core support to UNICEF—an organisation that I know my noble friend Lady Walmsley strongly supports—the World Bank and international NGOs, such as Save the Children, and through our work directly with partner Governments. Ensuring quality early-years provision for all when education budgets are already stretched is key.

While the evidence base on the impact of early childhood development on life chances for all is strong, the capacity and resources needed to implement cost-effective, sustainable and quality programmes that reach the poorest, which is what noble Lords have been emphasising, remain a cause for concern. I hope I can reassure the noble Lord, Lord Collins, and my noble friend Lady Tyler that this is why DfID is stepping up efforts with its partners, such as the World Bank, UNICEF and the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation, to scale up programming in this area. We are working with these partners to explore ways to improve the cross-sectoral links between health, education, water and sanitation and social protection, which is key here, in the provision of services that target children from birth to eight years old. I can tell the noble Lord, Lord Collins, that innovative cross-sectoral programmes have already been developed in Zimbabwe and Bangladesh.

The UK is also currently engaged in a range of research activities to fill gaps in our knowledge of the impacts of early interventions and how they can best be delivered. For example, DfID currently supports the young lives study of childhood poverty, involving 12,000 children in Ethiopia, India, Peru and Vietnam over 15 years. We also recently commissioned a multi-disciplinary team to undertake a rigorous literature review on early childhood development and cognitive development. That report will be published soon and used to inform future research and policy direction. I hope my noble friends are pleased to hear that.

My noble friend Lady Tyler spoke of confidence and self-esteem. I think she should stay and participate in the following debate in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, which addresses such issues and which I shall also be answering. I reassure my noble friend that in the UK we recognise the importance of early years development. There is an overwhelming evidence base from the UK and around the world that shows that high-quality early education has long-lasting benefits for children. By the time that children reach the age of five, there is already a 12% achievement gap between those from lower-income households and the rest. That is unacceptable to us, as a Government who believe in opportunities for all children. The evidence shows that there are social and cognitive benefits for children who receive good quality pre-school provision between the ages of two and two and a half, compared with children who started at the age of three or more. My noble friend will know the details of the provision that the United Kingdom Government are putting in place.

My noble friend Lady Walmsley asked how the UK Government can lead on the post-2015 development settlement. She referred to my right honourable friend the Prime Minister’s role in co-chairing the high-level panel. Through that, we were able to ensure that a commitment to leave no one behind is at the heart of the final report. That is the key to all this. The report, published in May 2013, recognises the importance of early childhood development with illustrative targets on the provision of pre-primary schooling, reduced stunting and wasting among the under-fives and ending preventable infant and under-five deaths.

The high-level panel gave us an excellent starting point for the next two years of discussions on the framework to replace the MDGs. It is extremely important that we focus hard on trying to deliver something that is as comprehensive and deep-rooted as the proposals before us at the moment. We will continue to work hard and actively with others to highlight the important issues raised on early childhood development as part of the ongoing dialogue on a post-2015 development framework. I can assure my noble friend that outreach to civil society, businesses and other key stakeholders, both in the UK and internationally, will continue to be a key part of the UK Government’s work on post-2015. I am pretty sure that my honourable friend the Minister of State in DfID is having a meeting with parliamentarians in the CPA as part of that. It was during the Prime Minister’s tenure as co-chair of the high-level panel reports that those issues were brought forward.

As noble Lords have made abundantly clear, our children are our future. Noble Lords are right to focus on children and their development. I assure noble Lords that we share that view. This has been a wide-ranging debate covering life, death, war and peace among women, men, children and adults, and many other things. It is to ensure that the children of the future survive and thrive and that none are left behind that the new MDGs are needed.