Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the potential merits of supporting the roll-out of evidence-based parenting programmes through the Start for Life offer to all local authorities.

The government has confirmed over £500 million of funding allocated for the delivery of Best Start Family Hubs, which includes funding for parenting programmes.

Through these Hubs, all local authorities will deliver parenting evidence-based interventions (EBIs) for families with 3 to 4-year-olds from April 2026. The department will be sharing a ‘menu’ of EBIs that has been developed in collaboration with expert partners and informed by sources such as the Foundations Guidebook and Nesta’s Call for Evidence. The ‘menu’ will preference EBIs that have undergone the most rigorous evaluation, to reflect our ambition to support local authorities to invest in programmes most likely to have the greatest impact. This will ensure that parenting support is rooted in robust evidence.