Family Hubs

Debate between David Simpson and Fiona Bruce

Tuesday 24th July 2018 Westminster Hall

[Fiona Bruce]

One of the ways—I shall elaborate on this—is to ensure that the centres are grassroots-built, that they engage with the local community and that they involve not just the statutory services but voluntary community groups. Each family hub will therefore be different and tailored to the needs of the local community, much more than Sure Start services were.

Anne Longfield says that

“in expanding the range of support we offer to vulnerable children and their families, we can support many more children in a more efficient and effective way. This is about an approach that works with children and their families, to develop resilience, confidence and independence”.

She says that it is imperative that Government initiatives

“focus on expanding the provision of lower-level services which support children and families, making them routine to access”.

She says that some may simply need a “helping hand” but that

“for others it will be specialist support for them and their families.”

Family hubs can offer that range.

The broader need that Anne Longfield highlights explains why exclusively focusing on the Sure Start children’s centre nought-to-five model is no longer tenable. It is vital, if we are to give children the best start in life, that services are broader. However, we also need to address the massive challenges our country faces due to family instability. That is why family hubs are needed. Such challenges include children’s mental health issues and educational and employment under-attainment, as well as a range of other challenges that can be lifelong, including addiction, housing pressures, pressure on GP surgeries, loneliness in old age and many others.

Although family hubs are as yet few in number, they are already beginning to have a real impact. I understand that the early intervention provision on the Isle of Wight means that fewer children are being put on child protection plans. At Middlewich High School in my constituency, when students have special educational needs or disability or mental health challenges, the whole family is supported. After just a few years, the evidence shows the positive impact of family hubs on the emotional health and wellbeing of students. There has even been an improvement in GCSE results.

I will describe one family hub in detail to evidence the range of support that hubs can provide, but before I do so, I will set out my key asks of the Government. National Government, from the Prime Minister down and across ministerial briefs, must really get behind this initiative. They must champion family hubs in policy, promote best practice and provide a transformation fund to help to accelerate the development of family hubs across the country.

I will describe just one example from a number of family hubs, represented at a recent roundtable to showcase good practice that was held at 10 Downing Street. Family hubs are all different because they are created by and tailored to the local communities in which they sit. Chelmsford family hub opened in March and is located in Chelmsford library. The refurbishment was paid for by a £145,000 grant from the Arts Council and £171,000 from Chelmsford’s infrastructure levy fund. In its first two days of opening, more than 80 families received support from the Essex Child and Adult Wellbeing Service and library staff.

The Essex Child and Adult Wellbeing Service focuses on ensuring every child has the best possible start in life and on providing community services that are accessible and high quality, and that meet the identified needs of children, young people and families.

[David Simpson (Upper Bann) (DUP)]

I am very interested in what the hon. Lady is saying. In my constituency, some church community organisations have a wrap-around service, like a family hub, that provides not only education, but clothing, food and breakfast in the morning, and deals with young people who have issues. Is that the sort of thing she is talking about?

[Fiona Bruce]

Absolutely. A family hub could well be placed in a church environment. Indeed, a wonderful church community in my constituency—New Life church—provides a host of services for all ages, including a very effective job club.

Family hubs are at the heart of the services in Essex. The majority of services are delivered and co-ordinated from hubs. There is one in each district and, like the one at Chelmsford library, they are open for 50 hours a week. The hubs’ approach to family care is to look at a family’s strengths and then to work with the family, across all its services, aligning resources and focusing on prevention, early intervention and evidence-based practice. Working with families is so important.

At Chelmsford library, library staff, health and family support workers, and volunteers from other support agencies have come together to create a one-stop shop for free family services, including antenatal contact, parenting support, school readiness, school nursing, family health, substance misuse support, contraception advice, nutrition support, mental health support, smoking cessation, dental care, and SEN and disability support for young people up to 25. They work with an array of family support services, such as Citizens Advice, safer spaces, adult community learning and home start. Volunteers are proactively encouraged to play a role through peer support and by developing grassroots community groups to help to strengthen and build resilience in local communities.

Key features of that successful approach include a true integration of joined-up services and community engagement, the whole-family approach I mentioned and a flexible service that meets individual needs—the right type of support by the right person at the right time. Myriad outcomes are aspired to, including children and young people feeling safer; families being helped to improve parenting and children’s behaviour; better emotional wellbeing of mothers and children in the perinatal period and beyond; good lifestyle choices; more resilient families who can respond well to crises and cope with shocks; young people having strong attachment to at least one adult; and people being connected to and involved in their local community.

So many families are increasingly without the support structures we took for granted only a generation ago, and often live far away from relatives. The impact of family hubs cannot be overestimated. As Javed Khan, chief executive officer of Barnardo’s, said at our No. 10 roundtable, they should be

“at the heart of the domestic policy agenda”.

Family hubs could play a crucial role in fighting the “burning injustices” highlighted by the Prime Minister. Mr Khan also said:

“Our frontline experience strongly supports the proposition that early help for families is absolutely essential to build resilience and prevent more serious problems occurring later on. That’s why, in our 10 year strategy, our first of three aims is to create Stronger Families, alongside Safer Childhoods and Positive Futures. Amongst our 1000+ services, we have some great examples of Family Hubs. We all know that rising demand on safeguarding services and the care system, combined with tightened budgets, leave many local authorities without the means to invest in early support. Yet help for families is vital if we are going to break the cycle and step in when children are at serious risk of harm.”

Other family hubs, such as Woodland Academy Trust’s, help with job and career opportunities. That hub has introduced a character toolkit for children and young people and has established a number of local projects in conjunction with local faith groups. As the hon. Member for Upper Bann (David Simpson) mentioned, they can provide very strong community support. Westminster City Council plans to develop three hubs in collaboration with partner organisations, such as child and adolescent mental health services. I look forward to the launch of the family hub partnership in Westminster this November. We hope that there will be a ministerial presence there—ideally, the Secretary of State for Education.

The key aims of the Westminster hubs are just too many to mention, but they include identifying families with complex needs as early as possible, no matter which service they come into contact with; preventing family breakdown; preventing children from going into care and from entering the criminal justice system; helping parents to gain employment; providing access to first-line mental health support to reduce referrals to higher level, more costly interventions; and improving outcomes for children and young people across a range of health and wellbeing indicators. I hope that those descriptions bring home the tremendous potential that family hubs could have if they were sited in local communities right across our country.

The aspiration to support the creation of family hubs nationwide is one of the policy asks in the Manifesto to Strengthen Families, launched last September, which has the support of some 60 Conservative Back-Bench MPs, many other MPs and a large number of peers. I pay tribute to Dr Samantha Callan, whom I mentioned earlier, who has done so much work on how practical policies could be developed by Government to help to strengthen families. She is part of the team that worked on this manifesto, together with Lord Farmer—our representative in the Lords—and our executive director, David Burrowes and myself.

Key policy 6 of the manifesto states that the Government should

“encourage every local authority to work with voluntary and private sector partners to deliver Family Hubs… local ‘one stop shops’ offering families with children and young people, aged 0-19, early help to overcome difficulties and build stronger relationships…the Government should put in place a transformation fund and national task force to encourage Local Authorities to move towards this Family Hub model…that will particularly help children in need.”

The manifesto also states:

“Alongside physical Family Hubs, the Government should work with the Family Hub Movement to develop a virtual Family Hub offering online support and guidance that mirrors the depth and quality of NHS.gov and links families to local provision.”

I want to emphasise, however, that vocal and practical leadership is required from central Government significantly to accelerate the creation of family hubs and their roll-out across the country. We need Ministers and the Prime Minister to champion family hubs. We need this to be a key component of our domestic policy going forward. Backing that up with a transformation fund of £100 million over four years could provide a rocket boost by highlighting good practice and helping senior local authority staff across the country to reconfigure existing services to make them more holistic and co-ordinated. Focus should be on early intervention and prevention, as well as community self-help and developing missing services such as relationship support, which is too rarely available in the community.

Leadership from national Government to strengthen family life in our country is absolutely critical. The fiscal cost of addressing family breakdown, quite apart from the often lifelong pain and suffering of millions, has been estimated and oft-quoted in the House at around £50 billion, but that is a vast underestimate. The cost in terms of lost life potential and lost productivity is much more.

So much of that cost is borne, and so many of the related challenges are addressed, by a wide range of Departments: Education, Health, Justice, Work and Pensions, the Cabinet Office, Housing, Communities and Local Government, and even Defence. That is why our manifesto policy 1 asks for a Cabinet Minister to be appointed with responsibility for families. In the same way that one Cabinet Minister holds the equalities brief, another Secretary of State with a cross-Government brief, or one of the larger Departments such as DWP or Housing, Communities and Local Government, could bear named responsibility for families.

That Secretary of State would require an equivalent body to the Government Equalities Office—a dedicated budget and civil service team to prioritise and co-ordinate family policies across Government. That would also help to avoid the duplication of work that is becoming apparent across Departments and pots of money being allocated to address such challenges. There is serious risk that much good work across Government will not meet its objectives as effectively as it could because of the lack of integration and co-ordination across Departments, as well as the risk of duplication of manpower and money. That could be avoided if a Cabinet-level Minister responsible for families co-ordinated all that good work and more.

I mentioned that good work is being done across Government to strengthen families. Over the past year, our team that has worked on the Manifesto to Strengthen Families has been encouraged by the positive response to the manifesto not only from many Back-Bench colleagues, but from Ministers. We are delighted that the Ministry of Justice has fully adopted and is implementing Lord Farmer’s review on strengthening prisoners’ family ties, which reflects policy 18 of the manifesto.

We were also delighted by the announcement by Health Ministers of £6 million to help the children of alcoholics—a need referred to in policy 4 of the manifesto. Similarly, the budget of more than £90 million allocated to addressing the mental health crisis faced by young people was welcome, which we also referred to in our manifesto. However, our team has told the Schools Minister that if that funding is to be effectively used, it is critical that young people’s families are involved wherever possible to help to address their mental health needs. Engaging families and early intervention are absolutely essential to avoid the continued mental health challenges among young people in this and future generations.

Only last week, we welcomed the announcement by the Secretary of State for Education of greater emphasis on relationships education in the newly proposed relationships and sex education curriculum guidance. It includes that pupils learn about the characteristics of healthy relationships and the

“nature and importance of marriage for family life and bringing up children”—

an emphasis reflected in policy 3 and elsewhere in our manifesto.

We also welcome the statements by Ministers in both Houses on the manifesto policy suggestions, including family hubs. My hon. Friend the Member for Nuneaton (Mr Jones), when he was Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, said:

“I welcome the development of family hubs and we know that many areas are already moving towards this model of support for children and families.”—[Official Report, 30 October 2017; Vol. 630, c. 564.]

Earlier this month, the Under-Secretary of State for the School System, Lord Agnew, affirmed family hubs, saying of them and other strategies that the Government want

“to ensure that these innovations are recognised and shared, and we want to spread these successful approaches.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 12 July 2018; Vol. 792, c. 959.]

Spreading the successful approach of the family hubs that are already up and running is important—indeed, it is urgent—hence the need for national Government support.

I have some short practical requests, which are examples of how the Government could support and help to promote family hubs. I understand capital clawback would need to be waived if the change of use of a former children’s centre were part of a local authority’s service redesign. Will the Government look at that? There should be a requirement for parents who are not in work but benefit from free childcare to spend at least one of those childcare sessions with their children in the hub to boost their own parenting confidence. Ofsted’s single inspection framework could specify that early help for families must show regard to the need for support for couples as well as parenting support, and DFE could signal its support for a major gear shift in the development of family hubs by adopting “hub language” and encouraging local authorities to redesign family support along the co-ordinated lines of family hubs.

The good news is that positive outcomes can be achieved quickly, as I outlined. The health and wellbeing work and engagement with families in Middlewich, where such outcomes are already being seen, has been led by an inspiring headteacher, Keith Simpson, who was appointed just six years ago. I read in this week’s edition of the local newspaper that he will be moving on. He has become deeply appreciated and respected in the Middlewich community, and has shown through his local leadership what a positive difference engaging with the whole family can make. I am sure I speak on behalf of the whole town when I say we wish him well with his move to Neston. Middlewich’s loss will be very much Neston’s gain, and he will leave a long-lasting legacy in many lives, particularly young ones.

Imagine the huge difference—the transformative impact —that could be made nationwide in just a few years by having a family hub in every community. Their positive, perhaps lifelong, impacts on individuals would ripple out into the community. Even the Chancellor has signalled his support for the concept, recognising the increased national productivity that may result.

The Under-Secretary of State for Education, who will respond to the debate, said recently that the Government have committed £8.5 million for councils to peer review one another to see what actually works in terms of outcomes for children. Will he confirm that that will include reviewing the effectiveness of family hubs? I know from a private meeting between him and our Manifesto for Strengthening Families team that he understands so much of what I have spoken about, so will he become a vocal champion for family hubs, press his Secretary of State to be so too, and in turn press the Prime Minister to take up the policy asks I outlined? It is not an exaggeration to say that this could be transformative for our nation.

Persecution of Christians (Middle East)

Debate between David Simpson and Fiona Bruce

Tuesday 5th November 2013 Westminster Hall

[Fiona Bruce]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for mentioning two of the numerous countries where Christians are suffering. I hope that the debate will highlight many more.

The recently produced evidence-based and measured report by Aid to the Church in Need, which is available in full at www.acnuk.org/persecution, shows that Christians in the middle east are subject to widespread and intense acts of violence motivated at least in part by religious hatred, and that violence and intimidation are now much more serious than in preceding years, and certainly since ACN’s last report in 2011.

The report catalogues a preponderance of anti-Christian violence, including attacks on Christian homes, churches and businesses, and the kidnapping of Christians for reasons connected with their faith; court cases, including those involving blasphemy allegations; key political developments affecting religious freedom, including new or amended constitutions, travel permits for clergy, Government statements, policies causing Christians difficulties; planning regulations, which similarly cause difficulties for church building projects; and Government attitudes towards Christian engagement in political debate and voting rights. Many social changes have resulted in restrictions and limitations on Christians’ access to employment, education and health care, and there is pressure to change religion on pain of death.

[David Simpson (Upper Bann) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing this important debate. Many years ago, Christians in this country were burned at the stake because of their belief and their faith. It is estimated that 130 countries around the world persecute Christians. Every hour, a Christian is tortured and murdered somewhere in the world. Surely, in this day and age, something more can be done to protect people and their faith.

[Fiona Bruce]

I absolutely agree. We should be crying out with the same abhorrence and horror that we feel about the terrible atrocities towards Jews on Kristallnacht and on other occasions in Germany during the second world war.

Analysing 30 countries, the ACN report indicated that in only four had the situation for Christians improved, and in three of those the improvement was only marginal. In six, there was no change, but that was only because the situation was so bad already. Persecution in the middle east region was the greatest concern of all.

Induced Abortion

Debate between David Simpson and Fiona Bruce

Wednesday 31st October 2012 Westminster Hall

[Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)]

It is a privilege to speak in this debate. I am the vice-chair of the all-party pro-life group. My colleague, the hon. Member for Heywood and Middleton (Jim Dobbin), would have been present but was detained on constituency business.

I hope that my contribution will be received with the respect and compassion with which I give it, for pregnant women and the unborn child. There is growing support for a reduction in the upper limit for abortion for a number of reasons, including improved survival of very premature babies since the Abortion Act 1967, as well as advances in ultrasound imaging, foetal sentience and practice in much of Europe. In 2011 2,729 abortions took place after 20 weeks, with the majority taking place for what are called social reasons.

The fact is that medical advances have been made and survival rates have improved. Indeed, I understand that in America the world’s most premature baby has survived: Amillia Taylor, who was born at 21 weeks. Is not the fact that science has moved on a sufficient argument for looking again at the number of weeks? Such scientific capabilities were never envisaged in 1967, and stories of babies born alive after failed abortions are also not uncommon.

It is interesting to note that many people criticised the Secretary of State for Health, the right hon. Member for South West Surrey (Mr Hunt), for suggesting that a 12-week abortion time limit should be considered. Yet his views are not controversial. In the European Union, 12 weeks is the average time limit.

What about the effect on the medical profession? It is becoming increasingly difficult and discomfiting for doctors in one part of a hospital to fight to save premature babies, but in another part to abort them at the same stage, as highlighted by Max Pemberton recently in The Daily Telegraph. The discomfort felt by doctors and nurses can be further understood when the reality of abortion in private clinics is made clear. I want to pay tribute to the gracious and principled stand against abortion made by Lord Alton in both Houses over many years. Indeed, a quarter of a century ago he described what happened when a child is aborted at a late stage:

“Because this is a long-drawn-out business”—

and there is a chance that the child will be born alive—

“the method of late abortion used in private clinics is primarily dilatation and evacuation. By this method, the cervix is dilated and the baby’s body removed piece by piece. To facilitate its extraction from the womb, the skull is crushed, the spine snapped and the body removed piece by piece. An attendant nurse then has the job of reassembling the body to ensure that nothing has been left behind”.—[Official Report, 22 January 1988; Vol. 125, c. 1232-33.]

[David Simpson (Upper Bann) (DUP)]

The hon. Lady is describing the removal of a baby. Today in the debate we have heard Members referring to babies as foetuses, but they are human beings and the smokescreen needs to come down. Does she agree? The hon. Member for Mid Bedfordshire (Nadine Dorries), who introduced the debate, said that at 24 weeks a needle is put into the heart of the baby and it is killed. If that happened to any individual in the Chamber, it would be murder.

[Fiona Bruce]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his contribution. I want to ask the Minister to clarify whether the procedure as described 24 years ago by David Alton is the same today. If so, may we have an inquiry into the foetal pain suffered during such a process, which cannot be imagined? Can some research be carried out? The procedure for late-term abortion is traumatic not only for the child but for the woman, physically and psychologically, so could such research also consider the effect on the woman? Moreover, will the Minister consider the impact on women of repeat abortions? Can something not be done in the “caring, compassionate” way mentioned by the hon. Member for East Londonderry (Mr Campbell) to help women who are facing repeat abortions, so that we can help them to avoid that in future?

The 24-week limit is in fact not a limit at all for certain unborn children. As mentioned, abortion is legal in this country up to and even including birth on the ground of disability. I am delighted that here in Britain we are doing more than ever to help those with disabilities, but we have a paradox. A child diagnosed with a disability can be aborted up to and even during birth, but the minute that the child is born a whole panoply of rights and medical and social support comes into play for that child, and quite rightly so. The child is born with rights protected by the Disability Discrimination Act 1995. The law is therefore at odds. The Disability Rights Commission states that a law that permits abortions at any time up to birth for disability alone

“reinforces negative stereotypes of disability; and there is substantial support for the view that to permit terminations”

for such a reason is something that needs to be reviewed. I ask the Minister to look into that law, given equality and diversity legislation. My son has a club foot, which is a disability that under the present law of the land permits abortion up to birth, but it is an entirely correctable defect.

Will the Minister clarify what action has been taken following the revelations earlier this year of abortions being carried out on gender grounds? Finally, what action was taken following the police inquiry and the breach of abortion laws whereby HSA1 forms were pre-signed by one doctor at up to 14 NHS trusts? The life of both mother and child are equally valuable and deserve equal respect accordingly. I hope that I have expressed that today.