Oral Answers to Questions

Tom Hayes Excerpts

Tuesday 20th October 2026 Commons Chamber

[Rosie Wrighting (Kettering) (Lab)]

3. What steps she is taking to improve maternity and neonatal care.

[Tom Hayes (Bournemouth East) (Lab)]

19. What proportion of Best Start family hubs provide Healthy Babies support.

[The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Yvette Cooper)]

The Government are determined to give every child the best start in life. We will appoint an independent maternity and neonatal commissioner and publish an action plan covering every area identified for improvement from pregnancy to post-natal care. We will also go further, rolling out Sure Start health services for parents and babies into every family centre across the country, reaching up to 1,000 family hubs over the next two years.

[Yvette Cooper]

I will happily meet my hon. Friend to talk about maternity services. I pay tribute to her as well, because she has been a tireless campaigner for improving maternity services and, in particular, bereavement suites for families at the most sensitive times. I also pay tribute to all the families in her constituency who have been involved in those campaigns. Work is under way for a new maternity and neonatal facility in Kettering general, which will include a bereavement suite. We want to work with the hospital and the community on that.

[Tom Hayes]

A new report by the Centre for Young Lives advocates putting health at the heart of every childhood, including putting Best Starts, Healthy Babies and remaining children’s centres on a statutory footing. Given that health services have structural advantages in providing capital management and getting new services up and running, what greater role can health services play in integrating services at Sure Start level?

[Yvette Cooper]

I welcome my hon. Friend’s question. Having been responsible for the roll-out of the original Sure Start programme, I am still angry with Conservative Members who supported the closures of Sure Starts across the country. We are now restoring health services and the Healthy Babies programme to family hubs across the country, because health interventions from the work of midwives and health visitors and work on post-natal depression is crucial to the start of a child’s life. I hope that this time round we will have cross-party consensus as we expand those services.