Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment his Department has made of the potential impact on the roll-out of Best Start Family Hubs and wider neighbourhood health integration if local authorities without existing Start for Life funding are unable to establish core services.

Delivering integrated, joined-up health, education, and family support is at the heart of our ambition to raise the healthiest generation of children ever.

Healthy Babies, formerly Start for Life, funding is helping families during the critical 1,001 days, and as a result parents have said they are more confident in feeding their babies and have better perinatal mental health because of this support. We continue to assess how we can best support early-years service integration across the country and remain committed to working with delivery partners locally to achieve this.

Healthy Babies is one element of our broader commitment to supporting babies, children and families. From April 2026, Best Start Family Hubs will expand to every single local authority, backed by over £500 million to reach up to half a million more children and families. This funding will help all local authorities to integrate a range of statutory and non-statutory health and family services.

Best Start Family Hubs will form part of the architecture of the Neighbourhood Health Service. Through the shifts from hospital to community and treatment to prevention, we will further strengthen integration and join-up of services, helping to ensure that babies and their families can get the support they need, when and where they need it.