Budget Resolutions

Debate between Meg Hillier and Andrea Leadsom

Wednesday 27th October 2021 Commons Chamber

[Dame Andrea Leadsom]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I should know that by now.

Of course, those Ministers have gone on to fulfil a fantastic pledge for every baby. I also pay tribute to parents and carers across England for their amazing contribution and their determination to have their voices heard and to make sure that “The Best Start for Life” works for all parents and carers.

I will take a moment to explain why that period of life is vital. Essentially, human babies are unique in the animal kingdom in the extent of their underdevelopment at birth. Every other animal can fend for itself pretty well from minutes, or at least hours, after it is born. Human babies cannot do anything for themselves until they are at least one year old, and often they are two before they can really fend for themselves.

The physical and brain underdevelopment of human babies means that they adapt to the environment in which they find themselves, so the baby who is born into a secure and happy home with a loving family will grow up learning that as an instinct for life. They will be able to do well at school, make friends, learn, get a job, hold down friendships and relationships, and then be a good parent themselves. Conversely, the baby who is born into a situation where there is interparental conflict, drug or alcohol misuse, mental health problems or severe deprivation will not have the same life chances. All the research demonstrates in spades that, for those babies, life is much harder. Their instinct for life is not good and they often go on to have all sorts of problems.

[Dame Meg Hillier]

There was a Sure Start programme that did exactly what the right hon. Lady is talking about. Does she now regret that that was abolished by her Government and that she voted to abolish it?

[Dame Andrea Leadsom]

I am glad that the hon. Lady, whom I consider a friend, has given me a chance to tackle that, because the standard response is “What about Sure Start?” I have paid tribute in the House to the excellent efforts of many Sure Start centres and I worked with hon. and right hon. Members across the House on that subject, but Sure Start did not provide what most families need. Unfortunately—I can vouch for this, having led a charity that had to pay rent to provide a parent-infant mental health service within the walls of a Sure Start over 20 years ago—Sure Start did not stipulate services for families. It was all about the buildings, and therein lies the problem.

With the Government’s policy of family hubs, I hope we have something that Sure Start will build into: a welcoming place where families can go to find antenatal classes, meet health visitors, meet other parents and get support, whether for smoking cessation, mental health issues or breastfeeding advice and so on. Multidisciplinary services will be available under one roof, not just physically but virtually. One thing that we learned in lockdown was the incredible value that parents placed on being able to take part in something remotely, whether breastfeeding support or perhaps dads’ mental health support. These things can very well be provided online and remotely in the 21st-century digital age, so that if someone’s baby is crying and will not sleep in the middle of the night they can look at something online rather than waiting for Sure Start to open. Unfortunately, in many cases, a Sure Start centre might be open for only a few hours a week.

I must take the hon. Lady to task, because there are 3,000 Sure Start centres in England as we speak. My hope is that local authority areas will use that as a foundation and build on them to create the family hub model proposed by the Government.

I want to move on to other action areas in “The Best Start for Life: a Vision for the 1,001 Critical Days”. I am delighted that the Chancellor has announced funding for every local authority area to publish its own Start4Life offer. One critical thing that parents and carers said to us in the early years review was that they just did not know what they needed, let alone how to access it if they did know. If someone was pregnant for the first time, why would they know that they might need smoking cessation advice, breastfeeding and weaning advice, support to avoid oral decay and help with brushing their baby’s teeth? They might need debt advice or nursery advice and so on. When someone first finds out the hopefully, but not always, fantastic news that they are expecting a baby they do not know where to go, so the news that local authority areas can publish and offer parents a range of Start4Life services will be transformational.

The third measure for which the Chancellor is offering money is a digital version of the red book. Many of us have a plastic red book, with bits of paper falling out. We forget to take it to health visitor meetings and to immunisations, so the record is incomplete. Sadly, having spoken during the research phase of the project to many foster carers, including some fabulous people who had fostered 40 babies between them, I heard that only two of those babies had turned up with a red book. Those foster carers knew nothing about what had happened to that baby, what the baby’s birth experience was, what the situation was with the birth parents—there was no information at all. That must stop, so in the digital age, a digital version of the red book will be a game changer for every family. It will be important not just for families to see what happened—when did I wean my first baby? When do I need to meet the health visitor again?—but for early years professionals. Very often, parents say, “I have had to tell my story six times this week to six different people. Why don’t you ever talk to one another?” When there is a serious case review, all too often it is a case of “These people didn’t speak to those people” or “This team didn’t know what that team was doing”.

Joining up services in Start4Life for the period from conception to the age of two is the big win in today’s Budget in my opinion. That will be transformational for many millions of babies across England. The next steps will be the implementation—it is not done until it is done—and I want to thank many colleagues and professionals in the early years sectors, as well as many Ministers current and past, for the extraordinary coming-together of views that meant that today is the biggest win for families.

Speaker’s Statement

Debate between Meg Hillier and Andrea Leadsom

Tuesday 13th April 2021 Commons Chamber

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. I associate myself in full with the comments of the hon. Member for The Cotswolds (Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown), save the bit about the 1922 committee, which I have obviously not had the privilege—a dubious privilege, in my case—of serving on. Cheryl was, as the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney) and others have said, a member of the Public Accounts Committee. I have to confess, Mr Speaker, that I pursued her to join the Committee, and you would not have realised that she was dealing with this serious illness unless you knew. The amount of work she put in would put many other Members to shame. I really valued her intellect, her robustness and her good fun. We did sometimes disagree, but with Cheryl we always disagreed well. If we can take anything from the way she did things here, we can all learn from that hard work, that intellectual curiosity and that ability to work with people—even with those with whom she disagreed—in a gracious matter in these times.

I will miss her enormously. I cannot really believe that she has passed. It is also extraordinary to realise that only two Conservative women MPs elected prior to me are still serving in this House. Her loss is a loss for women in this place, too. I pass on my condolences to her family, her staff and her many friends.

[Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con)]

Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. There are few people in politics you can consider a real friend, but Cheryl Gillan was exactly that: a real friend to so many people in this place, and in so many ways. She shaped and influenced so many of the things that have taken up a lot of our time in recent years. She was a huge friend to this House when a number of us, cross-party, were working on the complaints procedure. Cheryl was a stalwart a member of the 1922 committee who was determined to get it right—to provide the right level of protection for those who felt they had been wronged in these Houses of Parliament, and equally to be fair to those who serve here as elected Members. She was always absolutely determined to do the right thing, and always in a kind way.

Cheryl was a great friend to my constituents in South Northamptonshire as she fought so diligently on their behalf and on behalf of her own constituents and others against HS2—but we will leave that there for now, Mr Speaker. She has been a true friend. Perhaps most of all, she was someone who loved to hug. As the Mother of the House said, Cheryl called everyone “darling”, but she also hugged frequently. We do not do enough of that either.

I completely agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Sir Bernard Jenkin) that Cheryl was harmed by the fact that she was always so keen to give, yet only lately, when she was very ill, did this House enable her to vote by proxy and take part virtually. We need to think about that. I agree with my hon. Friend that we should call it “Cheryl’s Vote”, and I hope we will make progress on it.

I send my deepest condolences to Cheryl’s family and friends.