Munira Wilson

I welcome this opportunity to talk about giving every child the best start in life. I suspect there are not many people in this Chamber who would disagree that every child, no matter their background or needs, deserves the very best start in life. It is our duty as elected representatives and policymakers to ensure that parents and carers have access to the help and support they need to ensure that every child gets that best start in life. The Best Start family hubs announced last week are very welcome and present a great opportunity for the Government to address the growing inequalities across our education system that were left behind by the previous Government. If resourced properly, the Best Start family hubs expansion could help to achieve many of the things that we on the Liberal Democrat Benches have been calling for, including: the early identification of special educational needs and disabilities; contact time with mental health practitioners; and access to nutritional advice. However, the Government’s ambitious aims must be matched with effective delivery. Children and families cannot afford for the Government to get this wrong, after many years under the Conservatives when early years provision really started to disintegrate. The strategy states that “high-quality early education and childcare boosts children’s life chances and enables parents to work”. I warmly welcome plans to invest in training and qualifications to raise the skill levels of the early years workforce, but I am afraid that the Government’s rhetoric does not quite meet the reality on the ground. The funding promised by the Conservative Government for their 30 hours childcare proposals fell far short of what it actually costs to deliver that provision, and I am afraid that Labour’s current proposals are also insufficient for nurseries. Labour’s ill-advised national insurance hike has not only hampered economic growth, but put hundreds of charitable and private nurseries at risk of collapse. Indeed, the Early Years Alliance reports that nearly one third of providers are at risk of permanent closure in the next year, and that four in 10 would reduce the number of funded places for three and four-year-olds. When coupled with damaging new guidance to local authorities on funding agreements, the Government risk expanding the childcare deserts left behind by the Conservative Government. What is the point of expanding early years entitlements for children if parents are not able to access them because providers are simply unable to fulfil them? With the expansion of childcare provision, keeping our children safe is paramount. I welcome confirmation last week that the frequency of Ofsted inspections of early years settings will increase and that work is being done to develop an effective approach to group inspections. However, as the Minister knows from some of our conversations, if we are to prevent tragedies, such as the case of baby Gigi Meehan in Cheadle and the recent shocking case in my own constituency that last month saw a nursery worker convicted of 21 counts of child cruelty at Twickenham Green nursery, Ministers must go further and they must go faster. The early years foundation framework urgently needs to be strengthened, and better guidance needs to be put in place for how we keep babies in particular safe in early years settings. That is particularly important as we see the expansion of childcare provision for the under-twos. I hope we will see clearer guidance on safe sleep practice, but also on the use of CCTV, which proved critical in the cases I cited, and on the regular review of that CCTV footage. The strategy points to a “golden thread of evidence-informed practice”, so I hope the Minister tell us whether she will work with health authorities and expert charities to co-ordinate national safe sleep standards for use in early years settings. We must ensure that that goes hand in hand with multi-agency safeguarding training. Giving children the best start in the early years also means giving parents genuine choice on whether to spend more time at home or go back to work full time. I am immensely proud that it was the Liberal Democrats in Government who introduced shared parental leave—yet, years later, take-up remains far too low because of low rates of statutory maternity and paternity pay, and shared parental leave pay. I am aware that the Government have started their review into parental leave and pay, which I warmly welcome. The Liberal Democrats have long called for statutory maternity and shared parental pay to be doubled to £350 a week, and for fathers to be entitled to a month of paternity leave, as well as a “use it or lose it” month of shared parental leave, because we know just how valuable the first months of a child’s life are and the importance of the involvement of both parents. I hope the Minister and his colleagues in the Department for Business and Trade will heed our calls. I also want to press him again on the strong economic and moral case for granting statutory paid leave for kinship carers, so many of whom are forced out of work when they take on caring responsibilities to provide a safe and stable home for children. We must acknowledge that despite all efforts, some children simply will not get the best start in life due to unimaginable trauma, which can mean that the only safe course of action is to separate them from their birth parents. It therefore falls to us collectively as corporate parents to ensure those children get the very best second chance at life. Family hubs must be more than signposting services; they should offer trusted relationships and trauma-informed practice embedded within staff training and service design as part of the Government’s commitment to rebuilding trust with families. Continuing on that theme, the adoption and special guardianship support fund, as many Members will know, provides funding for vital therapy to help the most vulnerable children to process their trauma. These sessions are not easy, with some children taking months to even step through the door, but it is vital that these children are given the space, time and support to relearn how to trust adults. Slashing the funding for each child from £5,000 to £3,000 means that many will stop their therapy sessions just as they get through the door and start to make progress. Not only is this incredibly frustrating for the adoptive parents and special guardians; it sadly compounds the child’s tragic belief that all adults do is let them down. Both the Minister who opened the debate and the Minister for Children and Families, who is sitting next to him on the Front Bench, know that I am determined to see the full £5,000 grant funding restored for every eligible child. I press the Minister again to go to the Treasury and demand the additional funds to meet the growth in demand for those grants so that the next generation can believe that there are adults, and even Governments, worth trusting. I have pointed out previously that halving the Department’s advertising and consultancy budget would enable the ASGSF to grow by 50% from £50 million to £75 million to meet that additional demand. Short of that, I urge the Minister not to leave parents, carers and children in limbo again by waiting until the last minute to announce whether the fund will continue next year. Instead, I hope that Ministers will commit to announcing the future of the fund by September, now that we have had the spending review, so that families and providers can plan and have certainty for the future. Finally, parents and carers have for far too long been subjected to an adversarial special educational needs system where they have had to fight tooth and nail to secure their children’s right to learn. A good education helps children to discover who they are and what they are good at, but sadly far too many have been denied the help they need. As the Chair of the Education Committee has pointed out, the rumours that have been swirling have left many families up and down the country deeply concerned. We met a number of those families in Parliament yesterday, and I know that the inboxes of Members across the House have been filled with worried emails on this matter. It is clear the system is broken and needs reform, but any change must have children at its heart, not a Treasury drive for savings by removing rights in a vacuum. I am glad to see that inclusive practice for children with SEND will be embedded in early years teaching; early identification is crucial in ensuring that children can get the help they need when they need it. However, it remains to be seen just what that help will be. The Government have failed continuously to communicate with those directly affected by their decisions, but they have the chance today to tell parents whether education, health and care plans will be removed from any child. I reiterate what my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Ed Davey) said to the Prime Minister last week, and what my right hon. Friend and I said in the letter we sent to the Education Secretary and the Prime Minister, in which we set out the Liberal Democrats’ five principles for SEND reform. We are very happy to work constructively with the Government on that reform, because we know that all these children—whether they have special needs and whatever their background—deserve the very best start in life.