Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of trends in the level of variation between local authorities in the provision of parent–infant relationship support as part of the Healthy Child Programme and Family Hubs.

We understand the importance of parent-infant relationships on a baby’s cognitive, emotional, and physical development. That is why we are committed to improving parent-infant relationship support.

Health visiting services provide parenting support to all families through the national Healthy Child Programme, funded through the Public Health Grant. This includes advice on parent-infant relationships as well as responsive parenting, infant behaviour, and wider support as needed. The Department is collecting the number of local authorities that provide parenting and behaviour services, with publication planned for Autumn 2026.

Through Healthy Babies, we are investing £109 million to provide enhanced parent-infant relationship support in 75 local authorities areas with high levels of deprivation. Through our management information data, we know that in March 2025, there were 520 fully or partially funded parent-infant relationship and perinatal mental health services across the funded local authorities. Further information is available at the following link:

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/69f1cebdb8ce27acfa0967ff/Family_Hubs_and_Start_for_Life_Management_Information__August_2022_to_March_2025_.pdf

We are working to expand our data collection, and, from April 2026, we have been asking all 153 local authorities to report on services delivered through the Best Start Family Hub network.

We are also investing in independent evaluation of Healthy Babies to understand which interventions and delivery elements have an impact, for whom, and in what contexts.