Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, if he will introduce a Minister for the first 1001 Days to lead joint work with the Department for Education on that issue.

As Minister with responsibility for children’s health in the Department of Health and Social Care. I and my officials work closely with colleagues in the Department for Education on a range of projects and workstreams aimed at improving early year’s health. For example, the Department of Health and Social Care and Public Health England are working closely with the Department for Education to take forward actions to address the speech, language and communication needs of young children. This is to help close the development and word gap at age five between more and less advantaged children, as outlined by the then Secretary of State for Education (Justine Greening MP) when she launched the Social Mobility Action Plan in December 2017.