Sure Start: IFS Report

Debate between Tim Farron and Anne Milton

Wednesday 5th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Anne Milton]

The hon. Lady has a wealth of experience in this field. I can guarantee that our interventions will be evidence-based, which is the critical thing. She talks about cuts, but as the IFS report states, the UK is now one of the highest spenders on the under-fives in Europe, so we are spending money. What matters is making sure that we get the help to those who need it most.

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell) on raising this incredibly important issue. The Minister talks rightly about evidence-based decision making. The evidence shows that in recent years, there has been a 17% increase in the number of children being taken into care and that the reduction in funding for Sure Start centres is a contributory factor. Some 655,000 referrals to children’s services—[Interruption.] The Secretary of State is muttering from a sedentary position that that is not backed up, but the correlation is very clear for all to see. It is both tragic and expensive to reduce funding for Sure Start centres, leading to the need for much more drastic and tragic intervention later. In rural communities such as mine, parents have to travel much further to a Sure Start centre. Will the Government commit to capital funding, so that local authorities can co-locate libraries, children’s centres and Sure Start centres so that they can keep performing?

[Anne Milton]

I point out to the hon. Gentleman that correlation and causation are not the same thing. The IFS report, which we have very much welcomed, is cautious in making that distinction. The important thing is that we can build children’s Sure Start centres in his constituency, which, as he says, is very rural, but what has always mattered to me—I am a former Public Health Minister—is this: what about the families who do not go there?