Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, on what criteria she plans to allocate funding for the new Best Start Family Hubs; and whether this differs from the criteria for the Hubs and Start for Life Programme 2022.

Local authorities were pre-selected in rank order using Income Deprivation Affecting Children Indices Average Rank, ensuring a minimum of 25% of local authorities from each Office for National Statistics rural urban classification have been pre-selected for Family Hubs and Start for Life funding.

One in three disadvantaged children live in authorities which currently receive no programme funding. This is why on 7 July 2025, the government published ‘Giving every child the Best Start in Life’. This outlines our commitment to deliver a new Best Start Family Service to bring together parenting, healthcare and education support services, as well as creating and funding Best Start Family Hubs in every local authority. The department will provide a start-up grant to local authorities currently receiving no programme funding this year, before full expansion of Best Start Hubs begins from April 2026.