Better Start Longitudinal Programmes Debate

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Department: Department of Health and Social Care

Better Start Longitudinal Programmes

Lord Watts Excerpts
Tuesday 10th February 2026

(4 days, 18 hours ago)

Lords Chamber
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Baroness Merron Portrait Baroness Merron (Lab)
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This will not be a top-down approach. We are ensuring that Best Start Family Hubs and Healthy Babies are in every local authority area. That is a major development, because from April it will reach more than 500,000 more children. It will also help us transition to neighbourhood health services. However, all of this will, as ever, be more successful by working together with other groups, including third-sector organisations such as BRITE Box.

Lord Watts Portrait Lord Watts (Lab)
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My Lords, does the Minister agree with me that we would have had much healthier children if the previous Government had not shut down all the Sure Start centres and caused the poverty that they did?