Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how Family Hubs will identify children and parents who need support with reading; and how Family Hubs will strengthen bonds between parents and children.

The Family Hubs programme is providing over £28 million to 75 local authorities to deliver targeted, evidence-based interventions to help parents chat, play and read with their children and improve their early outcomes. A proportion of this funding can be used to set up effective systems to identify families that would benefit from help and connect them to the right support to meet their needs. To assist this work, the government published guidance in 2020 to help local areas improve speech, language and communication in the early years, including an Early Language Identification Measure and Intervention tool for use with children aged two to two and a half. This tool is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/best-start-in-speech-language-and-communication.

As part of the Family Hubs programme, the department is also investing £50 million to provide new and expectant parents with children aged under two with online and in-person support that will help them create the strong, loving bonds and healthy day-to-day relationships that babies and young children need. Specifically, the department is making universally accessible support available to all new parents who want and need it, with access to additional targeted support for families most in need.