Support for Children and Families: Covid-19

Julie Marson Excerpts

Tuesday 20th October 2020 Westminster Hall

[Julie Marson (Hertford and Stortford) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Christopher, and to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Miriam Cates). I also add my congratulations to my hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Danny Kruger) for having secured this debate, because, in large part, children and families are why I entered politics in the first place.

It was my very first day in court: I was out of the classroom, training as a magistrate. I was sitting in the court observing proceedings for the first time with my mentor when a young boy came into the dock. He was 18, making his first appearance in an adult court, but he was grey and tiny, smaller than my 10-year-old son at the time. I remarked on that to my mentor and she said, “Oh yes, I know him. He’s a regular in the youth courts. I’ve known him for years. The reason he is small is that he has been malnourished since he was a child. The reason he is pallid is that he has been fed drugs since he was a child. Because his parents are addicts, he’s been an addict for many years.” That was my introduction to a world I had not had a lot of exposure to before.

I referred to that boy in my maiden speech:

“the boy whose name I do not remember, but whose face I cannot forget.”—[Official Report, 24 February 2020; Vol. 672, c. 96.]

He was an inspiration to me. I saw right in front of me that for some people the mantras of opportunity, aspiration and hard work, the conservative values that I hold dear and which helped my family and me to journey from workhouse to Westminster in three generations, meant little. What did they mean to him or his family?

The virus has taught us many things, but it has also thrown into sharp relief those inequalities and those problems in our society. Communities like mine in Hertford and Stortford have rallied round to help and support each other hugely. I pay tribute to Hertfordshire County Council and East Herts District Council for what they have done to support all families over this period. I also pay tribute to the universal credit system, the jobcentres and the staff in Hertford Jobcentre Plus, because they have been amazing.

I could say a lot more about what the Government have done to support families of all types during this pandemic, but the economic crisis will outlive the health crisis and there will be more that we need to do. However, I will focus again on that boy in court, because he is the one that I go back to, and how families like his will cope. They do not cope in the good times, let alone the bad.

I refer to the work of my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce). Perhaps now is the ideal time to redouble our efforts on family hubs, to provide a place where we can give that intensive, holistic support to families such as that boy’s. We do not have a family hub in my constituency or near it, but I welcome the Department for Education’s support for a major shift in the development of family hubs. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Devizes for initiating this debate.