Giving Every Child the Best Start in Life

Lord Sentamu Excerpts

Monday 7th July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

My noble friend is absolutely right. The best best start centres will involve local communities and parents and will emphasise, as she does, the needs and voices of parents who most need to be able to access those services. There will be a strong message to local authorities that that engagement and a co-development should be an important part of the way in which they take all this.

[Lord Sentamu (CB)]

I, too, welcome this Statement—it is a wonderful Statement. The Minister’s opening remarks give hope. I have a particular interest, as I have two grandchildren in Luton and one in Birmingham. The backdrop to Sure Start was that wonderful report that Robert Runcie published, called Faith in the City. The problems then were that residents faced social and economic decline, with poor housing on large estates, with unemployment and poverty and issues with education and policing. The call was that both church and government and everybody should be doing something about this. Sure Start was an inspired vision, and I for one want to say that, whatever anybody says, it worked. But in order that children are not failed from when they begin, are the Government going to take on those great hindrances to learning and well-being that we see particularly in the inner cities?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The noble and right reverend Lord rightly says that, although this is important progress, and we will have a broad range of partners, there are of course other issues, such as child poverty and lack of housing, which this Government are absolutely committed to addressing.