Bridget Phillipson

Labour — Houghton and Sunderland South

Speaking in the House of Commons on 7 July 2025

Debate

Giving Every Child the Best Start in Life

Contribution

It is hard to top my hon. Friend’s question and I will not begin to try to make further ’90s references. What I can say to her is that we are drawing on the best of Sure Start, learning from the evidence about what was incredibly effective. One other element I would add to her list is that Sure Start was at its best when it worked with families to understand what was most important to them—when services were co-designed with families, and when families and parents had real input into the nature of those services. I remember one development in my own community that only came about because of the role of parents: many dads told us that they wanted Saturday morning clubs so they could be involved in those services. That is the kind of change that we only get through listening to and working with parents. My hon. Friend is right that we will make sure better SEND support is delivered through the Best Start family hubs. We will also make sure that support for children around speech and language happens much more quickly than is currently the case, and that goes hand in hand with the Nuffield early language intervention that we are rolling out across primary schools.

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