Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if he will publish details of (a) how the £300 million Start for Life funding, announced in the Spending Review 2021, will be distributed between Departments and (b) the allocation of that funding over the three years of the Spending Review period.

The £300 million investment announced by my right hon. Friend, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, will transform services for parents, carers, babies and children in half of council areas across England.

This package of support will provide funding for: the creation of a network of family hubs (£82 million), selected local authorities to co-design their Start for Life offer with parents and carers and publish it in an accessible format (£10 million), infant and perinatal mental health support (£100 million), breastfeeding support (£50 million) and parenting programmes (£50 million) in 75 areas. Trials of innovative workforce models for health visitors will also be funded in a smaller number of council areas to test approaches to improve the support available to new parents.

The Budget set out the 2024-25 financial year profile as follows: £18 million to create a network of family hubs to improve access to services for families; £20 million for parenting support; and £66 million for the Start for Life offer for families, including breastfeeding advice and parent-infant mental health support. The Budget is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/autumn-budget-and-spending-review-2021-documents. Further information on funding profiles will be published in due course.

The Department for Education and Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) will work together to deliver this. The Department for Education will oversee the family hubs and parenting programmes, with DHSC overseeing the other components of the package.

We will set out more detail in due course on how this funding will be allocated.