Michelle Welsh

That is exactly what it was all about. When that approach began to change—and it did change—I did not want to sit on the sidelines and complain about it; I wanted to do something. That journey eventually brought me to this place. I believe the principles behind Sure Start should never be consigned to history. We should learn from them and build on them, and whatever name we put above the door today, the fundamental principle must remain services built around the child and the family. That begins before a baby is born; it begins with maternity, and through my campaign on maternity safety, and—most importantly—through listening to families, those on the frontline, charities and organisations, I have become absolutely convinced that maternity policy cannot sit in a silo, separate from children’s policy. Safe maternity care, maternal physical health and mental health, supporting fathers and parents, and making sure that women are listened to are all early years policy. We cannot talk seriously about giving every baby the best start in life without talking about the care their mothers receive. I believe we need fundamental reform. That is why one of the most central proposals I have argued for is an independent maternity commissioner—someone whose sole focus is women, babies and families, with the independence and authority to change and challenge the system. When something goes catastrophically wrong, families should not have to become investigators, they should not have to understand every layer of the NHS, and they should not have to fight organisation after organisation simply to get the truth about what happened to the woman or the baby they love. We also need better national data, proper national standards and a culture where staff can speak up. Good midwives, obstetricians, maternity support workers and other staff who raise concerns should be listened to and protected, because a safe culture is one where people can say something is wrong before another family is harmed. There is another part of maternity reform that I believe is fundamental, which is continuity of care. I want us to be much more ambitious about what we mean by continuity. I do not believe that continuity should mean a good handover from one professional to another—I believe the same person should stay. A woman should be able to build a relationship with someone throughout their maternity journey. That relationship should not simply end because her baby has been born; every woman should leave hospital following birth with a full debrief, not simple discharge paperwork. That is part of prevention. Continuity also gives us an opportunity to address the appalling inequalities we see in maternity care. The latest MBRRACE-UK data shows that black women still face nearly three times the maternal mortality risk of white women, and women living in the most deprived areas have around twice the maternal mortality rate of women in the least deprived communities. These inequalities are unacceptable, and we cannot simply publish those statistics year after year and call it action; we have to design services that actively confront inequality and discrimination. Continuity can be part of that. If somebody actually knows the woman—knows her history and her circumstances—and is responsible for staying with her, it becomes much harder for her concerns to disappear between appointments, or for her to be forced to tell her story over and over again. All of this connects directly to the wider health and development of the baby. After maternity comes health visiting, then perhaps a family hub, early years provision, nursery and eventually school. Governments see these as separate services, separate budgets, and sometimes separate Departments; a parent sees none of that. They see their child—one child, one family, one continuous journey. That is how Governments should see them, too. A health visitor may identify a developmental concern, a mother may need breastfeeding or feeding support, or parents may notice speech and language difficulties. There may be early indications of SEND, housing conditions affecting a child’s health, financial pressure or difficulty in the parents’ relationship. A mother may be experiencing depression. None of those things exists neatly on its own. The worst possible system is one that waits until a family has deteriorated sufficiently to meet a threshold for help. We should not wait for a crisis; early intervention works. If we can support the mother earlier, we should. If we can help a family earlier, we should. If we can identify a child’s need earlier, we should. If we can prevent someone from reaching crisis, we should. That is not wasteful public spending; it is intelligent public spending, and it brings us directly to education. Education can transform a person’s life. I know that personally, as I was the first person in my family to go to university. I defeated the odds, but it does not and should not have to be that way. If we are serious about closing the achievement gap, we have to be honest about when it begins. It does not suddenly appear when a child starts secondary school. For some children, inequality begins to take hold before they ever walk through the school gates. Children arrive in reception having had very different starts in life. Every child deserves the opportunity to fulfil their potential. That should be not an aspiration reserved for the lucky few; it should be a promise that we make to every child born in this country. I know the Opposition do not think that we should talk about the 1980s, but I do, because I know what happens when hope is taken away. Growing up on a council estate in Notts in the 1980s, I lived and breathed it, and now I serve those very communities, which are still up against it. I came into public service and eventually into politics because I believe that government can put hope back. That is what Sure Start represented to me. That is what safe maternity care should represent. That is what good health services, early years support and education should represent—not charity or a favour, but opportunity: the opportunity for a mother to be safe and heard, the opportunity for a family to be supported before they reach crisis, the opportunity for a baby to be given the very best start in life, and the opportunity for every child, whatever street they are born in and whatever their parents earn, to look at their future and believe it belongs to them. Ultimately, that is the test of everything we do here—not whether we can write another strategy or create another pathway, but whether the child born tonight in the poorest household in the country has the same right to dream, to thrive and to succeed as the child born into the richest. Where someone is born should never determine their future, but what we choose to do in this House can.