Children and Families: Early Years Interventions

Baroness Prosser Excerpts

Thursday 27th February 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Prosser (Lab)]

My Lords, I, too, thank the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Gloucester for her splendid introduction to this debate. I did not disagree with a single thing she said. I also did not disagree with the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Mawson.

Prior to working in the trade union movement, I worked in community development and I agree that the involvement of local people, with their experience and knowledge, is hugely important in the proper delivery of services in local communities. However, these two matters are not mutually exclusive. Local people, no matter how well intentioned, experienced and knowledgeable, cannot deliver a service out of thin air. It needs financial support and clear policy guidelines and commitment from central government for those two interventions to work together.

Other noble Lords commented on the closure of Sure Start centres. I will repeat the point, despite it having been made several times already, because the more we say it, the more people out there may take notice. More than 500 Sure Start centres have closed since the coalition Government came in in 2010. The programme had been established by the Labour Government and was just finding its feet. Closing the centres was a completely ridiculous decision and a waste of both money and the experience and knowledge that were being built up. Some 66% of the finance for Sure Start has been taken away but the Government have the audacity to say that they support early years intervention.

I will give the House a small example I saw a couple of weeks ago that made me think that a local Sure Start centre would have been a really good thing. I got on the bus to start my journey to the House. A mother had a baby in a pram and a little boy, probably about three years old, sitting next to her. She was not one of those mothers who never says a word to her children—of which there are many—but she never said a single positive thing to that little boy. She told him to shut up. She told him to stop fidgeting. The final straw, in my opinion, that nearly made me leap up, was when she told him to stop laughing.

That poor little fellow was getting no encouragement, no language development and no assistance to know how to behave. I thought that a Sure Start centre would help that family. However, the Treasury in its wisdom has its books at the ready, adds up its figures and, like the computer, says no. The result is a family with no help, where the children will be incapable, as they grow up, of developing their full potential or being able to make a good contribution to the state. It is penny-wise and pound-foolish.

The second example that has been brought to my attention is the effect upon children of homelessness. Personally, I do not know anybody who has become homeless. I count myself as grateful for that because there are so many homeless people. Shelter tells us that, every eight minutes, a child in this country becomes homeless. We may as well be living in a third-world, undeveloped area when we think about those kinds of statistics. This particular family includes five children: an older teenager, an 11 year-old, a seven year-old and two year-old twins. The father lost his job, and the private landlord decided that he would not have a family on benefits living in his rented accommodation, so out they had to go.

They approached their local authority, Redbridge London Borough Council, and were rehoused in a room in a hotel miles from anywhere. There is no bus to go to the shops, so the mother and the twins are stuck in the one hotel room. The father takes the two other children to school on the school bus. The school bus turns up at 7 am. It takes the best part of two hours to get to the dropping-off point. Actually, he can take only one child to school, so, when I said he takes the two children, I made a mistake—I beg noble Lords’ pardon. He takes one child to school. By the time they get to the dropping-off point, there is insufficient time for him to take the two children to two different schools. The seven year-old was going to junior school; but the 11 year-old is now at senior school. It has been decided by the family that, as the 11 year-old is in more senior education, she is the one who has to be taken to school. So the seven year-old is now not at school.

Is that a good start in life? Any early years intervention that the seven year-old may have benefited from when she was smaller will soon be gone. The two year-old twins are getting no stimulation as they are stuck in the hotel room miles from anywhere. Do we think this policy is going to help the young people of this country? If austerity carries on for much longer, we may find what John Maynard Keynes always said: the more you have austerity, the poorer everybody gets and the more we go down and down. I beg this Government to reconsider their austerity programme. If we are to have young people able to grow up properly and contribute to our society and to this country, we have to invest in them. That means money.