All of us in this House who are parents or have young children among our family and friends will know that there is an abundance of advice available on the topic of today’s debate and many of us take that advice: we talk to our babies in the womb; we play games with them before they are born; we study baby-led weaning; and we invest in stain-proof covers that never seem to extend quite far enough. But wherever on the nurturing scale we sit as mums and dads, babies thrive when they are surrounded by adults taking an active interest.
The focus of my contribution is the babies and young children who need extra help to thrive—those whose interests are at the heart of the decision by the Government to invest in family hubs in the recent Budget, as championed by my right hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Dame Andrea Leadsom). As many Members have said, it is welcome that this agenda is taking a higher profile in the context of levelling up, because we all recognise the need to build on sound foundations.
Twenty years’ experience in children’s services has taught me a lot about the strengths and weaknesses of the child support system in our country. Like our NHS, we are very good at emergency services, and studies by academics at the University of Bristol and the University of Warwick show that the UK has a world-leading child protection system. But today’s debate goes beyond protection from harm, and into how we help children to thrive and flourish—something that is a matter not just of social responsibility but, as my right hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire highlighted, of long-term economic benefit to our country.
Thriving children live lives that cost the taxpayer less and contribute more to everyone’s benefit. To that end, I am going to offer three points, which are focused on how we turn the widely-shared aspiration that we hear in the Chamber—I grew up in the village of the hon. Member for Pontypridd (Alex Davies-Jones) and am glad to hear of the progress it is making—into a change that children and their families can see and feel in their lives.
First, we need to follow the flow of money. The funding for early years, which is a key statutory responsibility for all local authorities, remains mired in bureaucratic processes that are dominated by those whose focus, for
good reasons, is elsewhere. Schools forums, which determine the distribution of the dedicated schools grant, in which much of this funding sits, are dominated by the interests of our secondary schools. A fragmented early years sector of small private, voluntary, charitable providers often struggles to be heard. There is a structure around the money that inhibits innovation and flexibility, and stands in the way of creating the joined-up local offer that my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) highlighted. Although I can see that there is a perceived political benefit to lumping that early years funding in with schools, in reality the needs of the sectors are different.