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1. 4 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Helen Hayes

   Infants, Parents and Carers Bill

   I was coming to that exact point. We must pay tribute to the legend that is the late Dolly Parton. We mourn her passing. Her extraordinary commitment through her Imagination Library means that children in my constituency, many other parts of the country and across the world can receive a book a month free of charge. We owe her a huge debt of gratitude for her generosity and leadership in this area. My Committee is undertaking an inquiry on the early years and will report shortly. I look forward to setting out our recommendations for the ways in which support in the first 1,001 days can be further strengthened to give every child the best possible start in life. In addition, we are working with the Work and Pensions Committee on a joint inquiry to scrutinise the Government’s child poverty strategy, because unless we tackle the scourge of child poverty, children will continue to experience the blight of disadvantage, which prevents them from fulfilling their potential. I welcome the Bill and I am pleased that the Government are supporting it. Placing early childhood services on a statutory footing will provide a better basis to ensure that these vital services are delivered consistently in every community across the country, making it much harder for a future Government to dismantle them, as previous Governments have been able to do. I welcome the requirement for an annual report to Parliament as the accountability mechanism for the new statutory duties. My Committee would welcome the opportunity to play our part in scrutinising the Government’s progress in this area. There is no more important task than giving every child the best possible start in life. It is important because every child is precious and deserving of love and security. It is important because the benefits to our society and our economy are huge. The Bill will play an important role in ensuring that we deliver for every single child, and I am proud to support it.

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2. 4 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Dr Peter Prinsley

   Infants, Parents and Carers Bill

   The Kingdon review of paediatric audiology services demonstrated terrible shortcomings in that service throughout the country. Poor hearing leads to poor language development and poor brain development and is a catastrophic start to a child’s life. Does my hon. Friend agree with me that we must do all that we can to support audiology services? She mentioned a long list of health professionals; I would like to give a shout-out to audiologists.

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3. 4 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Dr Allison Gardner

   Infants, Parents and Carers Bill

   I have spoken in this House before about Stoke’s rates of infant mortality, which consistently rank among the highest in the country. In the latest data, the infant mortality rate in Stoke-on-Trent was 7.6 deaths per 1,000 live births, almost double the national average. It is a stain on our society that in 2026 a child’s chances of reaching their first birthday can be influenced by where they are born. Infant mortality is explicitly linked to socioeconomic deprivation and is a consequence of deep-rooted inequality. Tackling our infant mortality rate is a goal that is deeply important to me, and I want to take this opportunity to tell the story of one of my constituents, Ashley Wilshaw—I will get upset—and the short life of her baby daughter, Chloe. It is upsetting, so if anybody who has experienced baby loss wants to step out, I am sure that Madam Deputy Speaker will understand. Chloe was born prematurely, just before 26 weeks, on 28 April 2011. That may sound like a long time ago, but it is not to Ashley. She was, in her mum’s words, “a settled, healthy and happy baby, a baby who knew what she wanted and fought so hard to be here.” As a premature baby, Chloe was at high risk of necrotising enterocolitis, or NEC, a serious bowel condition that can become life-threatening without quick intervention. Chloe had received blood transfusions and had been given formula milk, which are both risk factors for NEC. Chloe began to show signs that something was wrong. She became pale and quiet, her body temperature lowered, her heart rate rose to 200 beats per minute, she struggled to breathe, she began vomiting profusely and she refused feeds. Her abdomen became hard and distended, and blood appeared in her feeding tube—a clear sign of a perforated bowel, which leads to sepsis. Ashley did what any concerned parent should do—she asked questions, but she was not listened to. She was told that the blood was Gaviscon and that Chloe needed to continue being fed and medicated, causing Chloe agony. Ashley still was not listened to. When she persisted in raising concerns about Chloe, one nurse described her as an “over-the-top mother”. Chloe’s symptoms worsened. The investigations that may have identified the problem sooner were not carried out when they could have made a difference. Lactate levels were not checked. Blood gases were not carried out as appropriate. Scans focused narrowly on her lungs, and feeding continued despite signs of feed intolerance. Tragically, little Chloe died on 4 June 2011, aged just 37 days old. Leaving behind a very traumatised mum who, 15 years later, still struggles every day with her mental health to cope with the memory of the unnecessary pain and death of her precious baby girl.

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4. 4 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Dr Allison Gardner

   Infants, Parents and Carers Bill

   I wholeheartedly agree. I have never experienced it myself, but I live in awe of how women keep managing to go, day to day, having had that experience. After fighting for answers, Ashley finally achieved an independent review, which identified missed opportunities to detect and treat Chloe’s NEC earlier, alongside multiple instances of sub-optimal care. That review came after four earlier investigations, fought for by Ashley, that, by the trust’s own admission, had not been conducted to the required standard. Finally, the Royal Stoke hospital has accepted the independent review and its conclusions in full. It has apologised to Chloe’s family and acknowledged that Chloe most likely would have survived had those opportunities to detect and treat her NEC not been missed. This is devastating, because at the heart of this case is a mother who knew that something was wrong; a mother who should have been listened to, and a baby girl fighting to live. I must state that the Royal Stoke has made considerable improvements to its maternity services in recent years. At the time of Chloe’s short life, the maternity service was rated as requiring improvement, with safety rated as inadequate. However, after much work, self-reflection, culture change and process improvements, the service is now rated good. I had the honour of visiting and seeing the work of the amazing midwives. I commend the hospital for turning things around.

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5. 4 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Dr Allison Gardner

   Infants, Parents and Carers Bill

   My hon. Friend was with me on that visit, and I am sure he remembers how impressive it was. Importantly, one of the areas highlighted in that service improvement was communication with families and the way that feedback and concerns are now heard and acted upon. Listening to parents is not an optional extra; it is part of delivering safe and effective care. I ask only now, 15 years after Chloe died, that the hospital finally forward the agreed settlement to Ashley. She wants to provide a caravan holiday home by the sea for parents who have experienced the loss of a child, to allow them time to grieve and rest from the trauma. That brings me back to why the Bill matters. It calls for better support, guidance and information for parents and carers. In providing that support, we must recognise that parents know their children best. They know what is normal for their baby. They notice when something is changing. They may not always have the medical vocabulary to explain exactly what is wrong, but their observations are valuable. Their concerns should be acknowledged and considered and, where appropriate, incorporated into the clinical picture. Chloe’s case shows why that matters. Ashley saw that something was wrong; she raised concerns, she asked questions and she should have been listened to. Even while contending with the grief of losing her daughter, Ashley has sought to ensure that another family does not experience what hers did, and to ensure that Chloe’s legacy lives on. Ashley has developed recommendations for dealing with NEC, which show exactly what better support and guidance are needed—practical recommendations grounded in her lived experience. I ask the Minister to meet Chloe’s mother Ashley Wilshaw and me to discuss the recommendations and the lessons that can be learned from Chloe’s case. In the interests of time, I will not go through them now. I will never forget little Chloe Wilshaw or her brave mum Ashley. I hope Ashley has received some comfort from today. She has been listened to. I thank the Bill’s sponsor, the right hon. Member for New Forest West (Sir Desmond Swayne), for bringing this crucial Bill to the House, and my hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Gateshead South (Mrs Hodgson). I am honoured to support the Bill. With it, we may create a brighter future for all our children.

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6. 4 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·David Smith

   Infants, Parents and Carers Bill

   Will the Minister give way?

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7. 4 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Dame Meg Hillier

   Infants, Parents and Carers Bill

   Some Sure Start places in London were created before Sure Start was formally created, and having seen my children go through it, I saw its direct benefits. Sure Start was structured around hubs, and there was a desire to go out and visit people at home—indeed, many of us visit people in their homes. As the right hon. Gentleman says, Ministers will interpret this measure, but there is something about a home visit by professionals that reveals a great deal about the challenges that children face, whether before going to nursery or afterwards, and whether by a health visitor or a midwife. From his research in developing the Bill, does he have anything to say about the importance of that?

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8. 4 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Dame Meg Hillier

   Infants, Parents and Carers Bill

   My hon. Friend and I have had similar experiences of the system. For me, one of the important things was that it did not stigmatise going to seek advice, whether it be about child psychology or speech and language. Does my hon. Friend agree that when Ministers start working on how to flesh out this Bill and put it into practice, it is really key that it must be universal?

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9. 4 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Dame Meg Hillier

   Infants, Parents and Carers Bill

   My hon. Friend referred to the former Member for Nottingham North, Graham Allen. He not only had the idea, but implemented it through the Nottingham strategic partnership, which he chaired from 2005. He turned it into something that started pre-pregnancy, in order to tackle the high number of teenage pregnancies. He lived this, and set a real blueprint for what Government can do—I look to the Minister—when they take forward the Bill, which we hope will pass today.

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10. 4 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Dame Diana Johnson

    Infants, Parents and Carers Bill

    I am grateful for the opportunity to speak on behalf of the Government in support of the Bill. I congratulate the right hon. Member for New Forest West (Sir Desmond Swayne) on securing first place in the private Member’s Bill ballot, and on bringing this important Bill before the House. In the 21 years that I have been in this place, I have never even got close to getting a private Member’s Bill, but I heard from the right hon. Gentleman that he had had to wait 30 years to get his, so there is hope for us all. It has certainly been worth the wait. The Bill reflects both careful thought, and a determination to ensure that babies, parents and carers receive the sustained attention that they deserve. I also recognise the valuable work of the 1001 Critical Days Foundation, and in particular Dame Andrea Leadsom’s long-standing commitment to that agenda. I served in Parliament with Dame Andrea, and I know that over many years she has helped to build understanding across Parliament, and beyond, of why pregnancy and the first two years of life matter so profoundly. Her leadership has kept babies and their families at the heart of the national conversation. I also commend the work of the CEO of the foundation, Will Quince, who previously served in this House and was a Health Minister, and of course I thank my distinguished colleague, the right hon. Lord Blunkett for all his work in this area. I want to refer to the late Baroness Tessa Jowell, who has been mentioned many times during this debate, and her pioneering work around Sure Start, which I will say a little more about later in my speech. I also thank Graham Allen, the former MP for Nottingham North, for all his work in this area. I am grateful to all the organisations, professionals, parents and carers whose advocacy and experience have shaped this debate. I acknowledge the many excellent contributions we have heard today, but I will start with the outstanding speech made by my hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Gateshead South (Mrs Hodgson), who until this summer was an excellent Minister in the Department of Health and Social Care. In the 21 years that she has been a Member of Parliament, she has fought long and hard for the rights of babies and children, be that by promoting school food or free school meals or special educational needs, or in this case through all the work she has done to ensure Government support for the Bill. As she said, “Back our babies, back the Bill.” She has been campaigning on these issues for so long—indeed, as the right hon. Member for New Forest West said, “since God was a boy”. In my view it is “since God was a girl”, but I thank my hon. Friend for all the work she has done. We have had important and wide-ranging contributions from Members across the House covering many issues, and I will highlight a few. My hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes), the Chair of the Education Committee, gave us the excellent phrase that is outside Sheringham nursery and children’s centre: “Building brains here”. I think that is very powerful. We heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Ribble Valley (Maya Ellis) that raising children is a public good and we all have an interest in it. The hon. Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson) spoke about the important role of charities and the voluntary sector, of Home Start, and of the Extra Mile charity in her constituency. The hon. Member for North East Hampshire (Alex Brewer) talked about medical misogyny and domestic abuse, which are really important issues, and my hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood Forest (Michelle Welsh) talked passionately about her frontline experience of early intervention at Sure Start and, absolutely, the power of sitting down with a cup of tea and having someone to talk to. I also pay tribute to her role as the Government’s national maternity adviser, and her wise counsel in that role.

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11. 4 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Dame Diana Johnson

    Infants, Parents and Carers Bill

    I will carry on, because I want to say something about other hon. Members. My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow East (John Grady) spoke as a recovering lawyer and talked about safeguarding issues. I found his scrutiny of the Bill’s clauses interesting and important, and we will obviously reflect on that. I wish the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Bobby Dean) well as a new parent—I think he is the newest parent in the House, so all the very best with that. He talked about maximising the potential of every child. My hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Tracy Gilbert) talked about surrogacy and made passionate comments about the surrogacy laws, particularly in respect of international surrogacy. My hon. Friend the Member for Croydon East (Natasha Irons) gave her personal reflections and talked about her community. The hon. Member for Chichester (Jess Brown-Fuller) talked with great skill and knowledge drawn from experience in her role on the APPG, and talked about the importance of support for mums. I add my best wishes to those of my hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Laura Kyrke-Smith) to Hallie on her first birthday. We heard about health inequalities. My hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham and Sale West (Mr Rand) talked about how investing in babies will provide the fairer, stronger and more prosperous country that we all want to see. My hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield (Steve Yemm) talked from the perspective of being a grandfather. My hon. Friend the Member for Tipton and Wednesbury (Antonia Bance) talked about temporary accommodation. My hon. Friend the Member for Lowestoft (Jess Asato) quoted one of my favourite Larkin poems—Philip Larkin was the librarian at the University of Hull for many years, and as a Hull MP, I know that poem very well—and talked about the importance of getting safeguarding right. My hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent South (Dr Gardner) spoke passionately on behalf of her constituent, Ashley, and baby Chloe. I am very happy to meet my hon. Friend and Ashley, and I am pleased to hear about the improvements that have been made at the Royal Stoke hospital. My hon. Friend the Member for Newport West and Islwyn (Ruth Jones) brought her experience and knowledge as an NHS professional to the debate.

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12. 4 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Dame Diana Johnson

    Infants, Parents and Carers Bill

    I know that my hon. Friend has a great deal of experience in this area. My door is always open to Members of Parliament to discuss issues within my portfolio, so yes, of course I would be happy to meet those Members. I want to say a little bit about the importance of the first 1,001 days. The Government have set out an ambition to raise the healthiest generation of children ever, and to give every child the best start in life. If we are to achieve that, we must begin at the very beginning. The 1,001 days from pregnancy to a child’s second birthday are a unique window of opportunity. During that short period, babies’ brains, bodies and relationships develop at extraordinary speed. The experiences they have and the care and support around them help to lay foundations for physical health, emotional wellbeing, communication and learning. I have seen that myself in recent weeks with the birth of my great-niece, Isabelle Diane. A baby does not develop in isolation: their world is shaped by the adults who care for them. Supporting a baby therefore means supporting the whole family, helping parents and carers to build confidence, protecting their mental health, strengthening the parent-infant relationship and providing practical help with feeding and child development.

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13. 4 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Dame Diana Johnson

    Infants, Parents and Carers Bill

    I will carry on. That support must be accessible and compassionate. Parenthood can be joyful, but it can also be exhausting and isolating. Some families face the additional pressure of poverty, insecure housing, poor mental health or limited support networks. Early help cannot remove every challenge, but it can prevent difficulties from escalating and reduce inequalities before they become entrenched. That is why the child poverty strategy is also so important, alongside all that this Government are doing. Early intervention is not only the right thing to do for babies and families now; it is an investment in the future. When parents and carers receive the right help at the right time, children have a strong platform from which to grow, learn and thrive, and there is less need for costly crisis intervention later on. I want to say a few things about Sure Start. We all know that well-designed support can make a lasting difference. Sure Start, launched in 1998 under the previous Labour Government, brought health, early learning, childcare, parenting and wider family support together for families with children under five. At its best, it offered a trusted local front door, with professionals working around the needs of the child and the family, rather than expecting families to navigate a maze of separate services. The long-term evidence of the success of Sure Start is compelling. Research by the Institute for Fiscal Studies found that children with greater access to it experienced fewer hospital admissions later in childhood and adolescence, better educational outcomes, improved mental health and lower levels of school absence. That was felt even more profoundly by children growing up in disadvantaged communities. Very importantly, there is also a strong economic case. The central estimate is that Sure Start’s long-term financial benefits were about twice its up-front cost. That matters, because it shows that early support is not simply a desirable addition to public services, but can improve lives, reduce pressure on health and education services, and provide value for the taxpayer. The lesson is not that every aspect of the past should be reproduced unchanged. It is that trusted local provision, early help, joined-up services and a clear focus on families can make a measurable difference. Those principles run through the Government’s approach today. Through the Best Start family hubs and the healthy babies programme, we are building a more joined-up, prevention-focused system of support. As part of the wider best start in life agenda, Best Start family hubs are designed to give families a clear route to the help and support that they need, making it easier for them to find information, advice and practical help, from pregnancy through to childhood. They bring together health, early education and wider family services, and connect parents and carers with support with parenting, relationships, child development, special educational needs and disabilities and financial wellbeing, and with community support. Since April 2026, all 153 upper-tier local authorities in England have been delivering the programme. The healthy babies programme sits at the heart of the Best Start family hubs, providing focused help from conception to the age of two, particularly with infant feeding, perinatal mental health and parent-infant relationships. Those services support parents and carers to nurture their babies and promote healthy physical, social and emotional development. The Government are investing £200 million in healthy babies over three years as part of our wider £900 million package for Best Start family hubs and healthy babies. The healthy babies funding is helping 75 local authorities with high levels of deprivation to strengthen those services. The support is practical and preventive, and includes one-to-one and peer support with infant feeding, help with mild to moderate perinatal mental health difficulties, and evidence-based work to strengthen the relationship between parent and baby. The support also helps local areas to publish clear information and involve parents and carers directly in designing and improving services. Importantly, this is not a one-size-fits-all model. Local areas are responding to the needs of their own communities. Effective support is about not simply making services available, but ensuring that parents, carers and expectant families feel confident seeking help and can access it when they need it. It means building on the strengths already present in communities, creating opportunities for families to support one another, and developing trusting relationships so that no family feel that they must face challenges on their own. Through the 10-year health plan, we are committed to expanding healthy babies nationally over the coming decade. We want to create a visible local offer, rooted in neighbourhoods and designed around families. So why is the Bill needed? The Government are taking action to support babies and their families, but history shows us that effective early years support can be vulnerable when it depends mainly on time-limited programmes, non-statutory guidance or broad general duties. Priorities and funding arrangements change, and services that families value can lose visibility or become fragmented. As one of those who was around during the time when we had to fight to try to keep Sure Start in place, and who heard the warnings about how short-sighted it was to cut and dismantle the service, I know that the battle is really hard, so the Bill is very welcome. The Bill provides a focused and proportionate response. Its central purpose is to ensure that the needs of babies, parents and carers are systematically understood, reflected in relevant decisions and made visible to Parliament. Pregnancy and the first two years should not be treated as a passing policy priority; they should receive sustained attention over time. The Bill does not create a new individual entitlement to a fixed list of services, and it does not prescribe a single model of what these services should look like. Instead, it creates a durable national framework, so that decisions on infant support services are informed by evidence, assessed need and the lived experience of families. As we have heard, the Bill establishes five linked duties. First, the Secretary of State must make regulations specifying the publicly funded infant support services and relevant functions to which the framework applies. Secondly, the Secretary of State must assess the expected level of need for those specified services. Thirdly, in preparing that assessment, the Secretary of State must take reasonable steps to seek the views of parents, carers and those expecting to become parents or carers and must take those views into account. Fourthly, the Secretary of State must exercise the specified functions with a view to ensuring appropriate provision. Finally, the Secretary of State must report annually to Parliament on the level of provision and the contribution that those services make to positive outcomes. The Government support the Bill because it aligns with our priorities. It advances our ambition to raise the healthiest generation of children ever and reinforces the work that is under way through the healthy babies programme and Best Start family hubs. For those reasons, the Government are supporting the Bill this afternoon.

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14. 4 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Dame Diana Johnson

    Social Care and Mental Health Services: Hornsey and Friern Barnet

    I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Friern Barnet (Catherine West) on securing this important debate. I have spoken to the Minister for Social Care, who is happy to meet my hon. Friend to discuss her concerns, including her concerns around standards of care in particular. We can arrange for that to happen. This debate is important because when we talk about social care and mental health services, it can be easy to talk in terms of systems, services, assessments and waiting lists, but behind every one of those words is a real person—someone who may be struggling to get through the day without the right support. It could be a family member who has reached breaking point in trying to care for someone that they love. Those are the people we must keep at the heart of the changes that we are making to our NHS and social care system. My hon. Friend has taken a sustained interest in these issues in Hornsey and Friern Barnet, particularly the pressures facing adult social care and mental health services, the importance of community provision and the importance of ensuring that people can access the right support at the right time. Let me be clear: it is unacceptable that anyone is left without the mental health care that they need, particularly when they are in crisis. Let me turn to the local picture in my hon. Friend’s constituency. There is clearly a variation in mental health need across north London. The prevalence of severe mental health illness is particularly high in Haringey, where an estimated 1.44% of residents are living with a severe mental illness—compared with 1.16% nationally—making it among the highest rates in England. Residents of Hornsey and Friern Barnet draw on mental health and social care services at some of the most difficult points in their lives. As my hon. Friend knows, the constituency is served by both Barnet and Haringey councils. There is a different picture in each area. Barnet was assessed by the Care Quality Commission as “good” in January ’25. Haringey was rated as “requires improvement” in February ’25, with the CQC highlighting concerns surrounding mental health discharge processes, communication and timeliness around hospital discharge, partnership working, and a shortage of move-on accommodation for people with mental health needs. I appreciate how important these issues are for people who are already facing considerable challenges, and how frustrating it is when services do not work together effectively. The Department has therefore supported Haringey through its improvement offer, and I am pleased that the council has engaged constructively with that process. In May, Haringey requested to be de-escalated from the Department’s formal reporting process, which was accepted. The council provided a voluntary update on its progress in August, and expressed confidence in its improvement trajectory. While that is encouraging, I want to be clear that de-escalation does not change the CQC rating, which remains at “requires improvement” until the CQC completes a further assessment. The CQC issued a notice of assessment on 3 August and we will now await the outcome. I hope that will provide a clear picture of the progress being made and, most importantly, help to ensure that people receive the safe, timely and joined-up support that they deserve. I want to say a few words about the national picture for mental health. I think we all acknowledge that the challenge is significant, but our ambition is significant too. The 10-year health plan sets out our ambition to reform the NHS, and we are already taking important steps to improve mental health services, including reforming the Mental Health Act 1983 to support better and more personalised care, and recruiting thousands more mental health staff. We are also making £473 million of capital funding available over the next four years, including community-based mental health centres and mental health emergency departments. That includes £343 million to establish 100 community-based mental health centres and 59 mental health emergency departments across England, building on the six centres already operating in Birmingham, York, Copeland, Tower Hamlets, Lewisham and Sheffield. One community-based mental health centre will be established in most places in England. That typically coincides with a borough in London. Mental health emergency departments will cover approximately 50% of type-1 A&E departments by ’29-30, and I am pleased to report that there is already a unit at Highgate mental health centre on Dartmouth Park Hill, which has been operational since 2024, but of course we recognise that we must go further. That is why we are developing a new mental health strategy for England, which will set out how we can transform mental health care so that people receive support earlier, face shorter waits, and are helped to stay active and participate in education, work, family and community life. On delayed discharge and in-patient capacity, my hon. Friend described how discharge delays can leave people with no choice but to remain in mental health in-patient settings for longer than is appropriate. The Government recognise the importance of ensuring that people can leave hospital as soon as they are ready, with the appropriate support in place, such as rehabilitation services. That provision requires effective joint working across health and social care services, which is why the better care fund has committed over £9 billion in ’26-27 to integrated care boards and local authorities. That pooled funding is intended to support services that help people to retain or recover their independence, and to prevent avoidable admissions. Funding recipients are expected to agree local goals for preventing avoidable admissions and reducing delayed discharge, and to work together to develop effective services. Let me address the point about social care, housing and community support at discharge that my hon. Friend made so eloquently. For some people, particularly those with more complex needs, being clinically fit to leave hospital is not the only condition required for a safe and successful discharge; the right social care, housing and community support must also be available to enable them to live well in the place they call home. In particular, autistic people and people with a learning disability can lack suitable supported housing options in their community, which can contribute to people remaining in mental health hospitals past the point of need. The Government are taking action to increase the availability of appropriate housing and support, including through the £39 billion social and affordable homes programme that my hon. Friend referred to, through which we want new supported housing supply across a diverse range of housing types, including for people with learning disabilities and autistic people. NHS England is also investing £13 million in 2026-27 through its housing capital programme, to support areas to develop housing for autistic people and people with learning disabilities outside mental health hospital settings, alongside additional funding to support the development of crisis accommodation. Supporting timely discharge incudes ensuring that suitable arrangements are in place. It is essential that people leave mental health in-patient settings safely, with appropriate support in the community and with their needs properly considered. Revised statutory guidance on discharge from mental health in-patient settings was published in 2024 under the National Health Service Act 2006. The guidance sets out how health and care systems can work effectively together to support discharge from hospital and ensure that the right support is in place in the community. It also includes best practice on involving patients and carers in discharge planning, as well as providing clarity on how health and care partners should work together effectively, including in relation to shared responsibilities and arrangements for funding section 117 aftercare. Section 117 of the Mental Health Act 1983 places a duty on the NHS and local authorities to provide aftercare once they have left hospital to certain patients who have been detained under the Act. That aftercare should provide people with the support they need to live successfully and safely in the community, while reducing the risk of deterioration in their mental health and the need for further hospital admissions. Depending on an individual’s needs, aftercare can include accommodation, day services and other health and social care support. We know, however, that there can be a lack of clarity over which organisation is responsible for providing and funding aftercare and in which locality, which can lead to further delays in providing support to vulnerable people. The Government’s recent reforms to the Mental Health Act clarify which local authority is responsible for arranging an individual’s aftercare, by applying the existing social care rules on ordinary residents to people receiving aftercare under the Act. That should provide greater clarity and consistency for local authorities and ICBs, supporting more effective joint planning and better aligned aftercare services. I now turn to longer term adult social care reform and the Casey commission, which my hon. Friend referred to. We need to think ambitiously about the future of social care. At its best, social care is transformational. It can give people the support they need to live independently, maintain relationships, contribute to their communities and live the lives that they want. That is at the heart of the Government’s vision for a national care service: a system that is more person-centred, integrated with health services and preventive. The Prime Minister has been clear that he wants rapid progress towards that vision, working in partnership with the adult care sector. The Independent Commission on Adult Social Care, led by Baroness Casey, remains central to the Government’s ambitions to reform the sector. Baroness Casey’s Big Conversation on Care, launched on 29 July, gives people across England the opportunity to tell us what they want and expect from a future care service. This conversation will feed into the commission’s recommendations for the funding of adult social care, which will now be made in the summer of ’27. In the meantime, we will continue to put in place the building blocks of the national care service through improving support for the workforce and unpaid carers, and providing more than £4.6 billion of additional funding for adult social care in 2028-29, compared with 2025-26. I thank my hon. Friend again for raising these important issues and for shining a light on the experience of people who rely on mental health and social care services in her constituency. They are encouraging signs of progress locally, particularly Haringey’s engagement with the improvement process, but clearly there is more to do. The Government are determined to support local partners to make these improvements, while addressing the long-term challenges facing social care. Ultimately, this is about making sure that no one is left waiting unnecessarily for care and giving every person confidence that the services around them will work together when they need them most. Question put and agreed to.

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15. 4 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Chris Kane

    Infants, Parents and Carers Bill

    The right hon. Gentleman mentioned Opposition Members, but does he mean that both the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats were involved in that?

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16. 4 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Chris Kane

    Infants, Parents and Carers Bill

    I commend my hon. Friend and her Committee for the excellent “Reading for Pleasure” report. There is an irony that I am recommending the report—it is 130 pages—to everyone that I can. It said that reading for pleasure can include all sorts of things, such as manga books—my son likes those—and comic books. Reading for pleasure does not have to mean a novel, as we might think. Simply exposing children to the concept of reading and the choice to read is important. I certainly picked that up in the report, and it resonated with me. If Members have not read it, I commend it to them as very much worth reading.

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17. 4 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Chris Kane

    Infants, Parents and Carers Bill

    I thank my hon. Friend for her compelling speech and for sharing so much about her own story. On the Public Accounts Committee, of which I am a member, we often get a sense that all this great operational learning is going on in communities, but it does not always turn into strategic learning back in Parliament. The Bill talks about a report of the year, but if the report comes back and no one reads it, we cannot learn how to do better. Does my hon. Friend agree that learning the great lessons that are going on in our communities is important for us, and that we should not lose sight of that in the Bill? We should learn at our level from the lessons going on in communities, to help what we do here.

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18. 4 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Catherine West

    Social Care and Mental Health Services: Hornsey and Friern Barnet

    It is a real privilege to be awarded an Adjournment debate to discuss the profile of social care in decompressing the strain on mental health services in Hornsey and Friern Barnet. I begin the debate by emphasising how many improvements we have seen in society over the past 20 years when it comes to the position of people who suffer from poor mental health. I do not want this debate to be a counsel of despair. Rather, I want it to be an opportunity to push forward the work that Baroness Casey from the other House is doing, and to be positive about what can be achieved with the opportunity we have—with people seeing mental health services as part of a normal health condition—and how we can support people to have long and happy lives and live with a condition, and to support families and so on. I know that Members across the House will have constituents who get in contact time and again because they have fallen through the cracks of our porous health and care system. Navigating the endlessly complicated care pathways, from primary NHS care to social care, community support and housing, is not easy. The exponential growth in mental health referrals, coupled with the enormous pressures on local authorities to provide social care and social housing against increasingly constrained budgets, has created a perfect storm. That is being felt across the country, but most acutely in my community, where people are too often failed in their time of greatest need. Too many people are being left without the care, support and stability they desperately need to recover. A previous Labour Prime Minister emphasised that his priorities were “education, education, education,” but when it comes to mental health and social care, we need to talk about “early intervention, early intervention, early intervention”. The North London foundation trust, which covers Barnet, Camden, Enfield, Haringey and Islington, says that the financial challenges facing local authorities are really straining their ability to work together, as they are forced to consider more radical reductions in adult social care services. In particular, the reduction in investment in preventive and early intervention services is having a catastrophic effect, but local trusts are finding it hard enough to fund their basic statutory responsibilities. The lack of suitable housing and step-down care is also having a direct impact on in-patient services and contributing to much longer hospital stays. That is the system I will be focusing on today. The trust says that of the five local authorities it covers, Haringey is the most affected by the lack of suitable and affordable housing, and therefore has the largest number of delayed discharges. From January to July 2026, a total of 846 occupied bed days were unavailable to other patients desperate for care due to Haringey residents being unable to be discharged from mental health in-patient wards despite being clinically ready for discharge. In July alone, the trust had an average of 10 in-patients on their wards who were clinically ready to leave but could not be discharged due to lack of suitable housing provision or social care support, and 8% to 12% of the total adult in-patient bed base was unavailable to other patients who needed one. Healthwatch Haringey has highlighted the recurring barriers to gaining access to timely, co-ordinated and person-centred mental health support, such as lack of continuity between services, fragmented care pathways and inconsistent communication between providers. When services do not work together effectively, people experience poorer outcomes and are more likely to reach crisis point. This is precisely the cycle that we need to break. We need to protect organisations like Healthwatch and others that amplify voices so that we can understand the data behind monitoring service quality and amplifying patients’ voices. Someone who is clinically well enough to leave hospital can become trapped at the most expensive stage of the care pathway, unable to continue their recovery in the community. At the same time, someone desperate, experiencing an acute mental health crisis, may be unable to gain access to a hospital bed. This is not an effective use of public money; that public money could be spent on quality of care, which is desperately important for the families who are suffering due to issues around the particular care that their loved-ones have received. In March 2024, mental health trusts in England recorded 49,677 delayed discharge days—the highest level since national reporting began. Analysis of NHS data identified Barnet, Enfield and Haringey mental health NHS trust among the trusts with the highest levels of delayed discharge nationally. These figures demonstrate exactly the point I am making today: mental health cannot be treated in isolation from housing and social care. In order to fix one, we must fix all three. Disability Action Haringey, which does excellent work supporting disabled people to maintain their independence and freedom, has highlighted the combination of difficulties in accessing suitable housing, delays in obtaining social care, the financial hardship that so many suffer, social isolation and the challenges of navigating multiple services simultaneously. People experience poor housing or insufficient care, their mental health deteriorates, and they reach crisis point, requiring hospital treatment. We must break that cycle. In my constituency, the Safe Haven crisis hub provides a vital service, helping people to de-escalate during a mental health crisis and providing an alternative to accident and emergency. I know that this is the kind of example that Baroness Casey will be looking at. She is very welcome to come and visit Mind in Haringey, which hosts this particular crisis hub, because it shows the best practice. Staff there have seen people reaching out to their services with increasingly complex needs, often requiring co-ordinated support across health, housing, social care and the voluntary and community sector. That is why collaborative care and cross-body communication are so critical. We also have a rapidly ageing population across Haringey and Barnet, which will inevitably place additional pressure on social care. Haringey council’s older people’s needs assessment reported that Haringey had around 27,700 residents aged 65 and over in 2022, and that figure is projected to rise by approximately 40%. The pressure on our social care system is therefore going to grow, as we all know, and we need to ensure that the system is ready for it. The evidence is clear: mental health services cannot be considered in isolation from social care. Investment in social care is not separate from investment in mental health services—it is investment in mental health. Investment in supported housing is not separate from relieving pressure on the NHS, but part of relieving that pressure. Investment in community-based support is not simply about providing an alternative hospital, but about helping people to recover, maintain their independence and avoid reaching crisis point in the first place. I strongly welcome the Government’s commitment to address these enormous challenges, and was particularly excited to hear the Prime Minister talking about tackling social care in advance of 2028, which was when Baroness Casey was going to report back. I also welcome the Government’s wider action to improve mental health care through the NHS 10-year plan, and would like to ask for a meeting to discuss standards of care in the mental health service. I also invite Baroness Casey or the Minister to Mind in Haringey to see an excellent way in which the statutory and voluntary sectors work together. The Government’s actions meant that, earlier this year, we successfully reached the target of recruiting 8,500 mental health workers. That is a crucial step towards providing better and earlier care, closer to people’s homes. I welcome the £343 million to open 159 NHS mental health centres across England, which will give people access to specialist support away from A&E. These problems are not just about cash, but about the system being proactive and improving workforce morale so that we can improve outcomes for patients. Investment in housing is crucial, but the £39 billion earmarked for social and affordable housing has the potential to be transformative. Yesterday, we heard the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government lay out her vision for tackling rough sleeping, which is an element in the mental health jigsaw puzzle. If we want people to maintain their independence, they need appropriate homes and community support. If we want to prevent people from reaching crisis point, we need to address the circumstances that contribute to stress, worry and deteriorating mental health. Social care reform has been pushed down the road too many times, but now is the moment for it to come forward. We must invest further upstream to improve people’s lives, free up NHS capacity, reduce unnecessary hospital stays, support recovery and create a health and care system that is preventive rather than reactive. People living in Hornsey and Friern Barnet and communities across the country should be able to live safely, recover with dignity and get the right support. In pulling together my words, I thank the wonderful mental health staff at the North London NHS foundation trust, which sadly lost members during covid, because they were so close to patients—I feel that it has still perhaps not got back to where it was pre-covid. We need to support that workforce. I also thank Mind in Haringey, Safe Haven, Disability Action Haringey, Healthwatch Haringey, Haringey council, Barnet council and all the elected Members who care deeply about the future of social care in the UK.

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19. 4 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Antonia Bance

    Infants, Parents and Carers Bill

    I thank the right hon. Member for New Forest West (Sir Desmond Swayne), who I think has just stepped out for a moment, and all my hon. Friends who have worked on this matter for so long, not least my hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Gateshead South (Mrs Hodgson). I rise today to speak particularly on behalf of a group of babies who are particularly vulnerable and sometimes forgotten: babies who live with their families in temporary accommodation. There are 177,500 children living in temporary accommodation at the moment—a record level. We all wish that level to be brought down, and yesterday I listened to a statement from my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Housing, who set out plans as to how exactly we will do that. But for the moment, those 177,500 children remain in temporary accommodation, often in single rooms with shared facilities, living with damp and mould, and with no space to play, crawl or learn. They are often moved repeatedly, and are in a situation where their families lose touch with support networks; services struggle to keep in touch, as those families are far from their GPs, their health visitors and the hospital where their babies were born—multiple bus journeys away from the schools, early years settings and SEND specialists who were previously supporting them.

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20. 4 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Antonia Bance

    Infants, Parents and Carers Bill

    I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. What a fantastic idea from our brilliant new Mayor of Greater Manchester—one that I will raise with our fantastic Mayor of the West Midlands to see if we can do something similar. I frequently argue with my Sandwell council to ensure that bus passes are provided to families in temporary accommodation. For some families, though, life in temporary accommodation can be even more devastating. Our friends at the all-party parliamentary group for households in temporary accommodation set out evidence showing that 104 children died in temporary accommodation between 2019 and 2025, and 75 of those were under the age of one. The Lullaby Trust, which does work on sudden infant death syndrome, sets out that temporary accommodation provides the ideal environment for unsafe sleeping. Often, these children are placed with their families in single rooms without cots; in 2023, 4,100 babies under one were placed in temporary accommodation by councils that provided no safer sleep advice to those families, and 903 babies were placed by councils in rooms without cots. This is personal. Babies in the 10% most deprived areas of the country are twice as likely to die as those in the 10% least deprived areas. My constituency is the 38th most deprived out of the 543 constituencies across England. I am always bound, when I say stats like that about Tipton, Wednesbury and Coseley, to say: we are proud, we are resilient, we care about our kids and we want the best for them. But, as our Prime Minister has set out, 40 years of deindustrialisation and 15 years of austerity has put us at the bottom of all the wrong lists, and it is our job to reverse that. Two hundred and twenty-two families are in temporary accommodation in my borough of Sandwell, with more in the bit of Dudley that I represent—that is 554 children. I am sure that other hon. Members will agree with me that there are some constituents who contact us who we worry about—and we worry about them constantly. We all have our lists. I know my families in temporary accommodation. Every one of them gets a call from my office every two weeks to find out where they are up to. Every one of them has been asked by my office, as soon as I know that they are in TA, “Do you have a cot for your little one?” Please ask families you come into contact with in temporary accommodation if they have cots, and please do your level best to find them a cot if they do not have one, because temporary accommodation is not safe for babies, and we should all be aware of that. I think of the families I have met. I met Katie in central Wednesbury, pushing her two sons through town, on the first day that I was a candidate. I do not think my agent thought that one of his jobs was going to be childcare for small children, but it was because I needed to speak to Katie. She talked to me about how the council had placed her two bus rides away in Walsall, and she was trying to keep her autistic son in his nursery setting, by hook or by crook, on two buses. Then, quietly, she rolled up her sleeve and showed me the insect bites from the infestation in the temporary accommodation that she was living in. She told me that she was ashamed to show me. The shame is not hers; the shame is all of ours that that was where she was living. It was not for long—we got her out—but there are still families in those situations. I think of Sarah—these are not their real names, by the way—trying desperately to cook, with three children, in a shared kitchen. How do you cook with three little ones around your feet? You cannot leave them in the single room that is your only private space. Steve, fighting for his family, called me at 20 past 6 about a month ago. He left a message: “Antonia, maybe you can help. We’re going to sleep in my car tonight—me, my missus and two kids.” They did not sleep in their car. I will not let people sleep in their car and my council, thankfully, will not let people sleep in their car, but I worry about our families in temporary accommodation. That is why I am here to speak on the babies Bill. Although the babies Bill cannot solve the housing crisis that we face for children in this country, it can ensure that babies caught up in that housing crisis are not forgotten. It will mean support for infants and parents put on a stronger statutory footing; a stronger assessment of need; and accessibility of services that families receive. It will help to make sure that our most vulnerable babies are identified earlier and supported better, especially our babies forgotten in hotel rooms, two bus rides away from where they usually live. The Bill will build on a measure introduced by my right hon. Friend the Member for Houghton and Sunderland South (Bridget Phillipson) in the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026 that councils must notify schools, GPs and health visitors when a child is placed in temporary accommodation. That means that better access to health visitors, stronger perinatal mental health support and earlier intervention to stop escalation will be more likely to happen for children in temporary accommodation. It means a better chance to thrive for some of our children, despite the challenges that their families face. I have to end by paying to tribute to my three family hubs—my Tipton family hub, my Wednesbury family hub and my Coseley family hub—because behind every statistic is a child and a family left devastated. We remember every one of the 76 babies who died in temporary accommodation between 2019 and 2025. They should not have died; they should have been safe. The Bill will protect services for all children, especially the most vulnerable, like our babies in temporary accommodation, and I am proud to support it today.

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21. 4 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Amanda Martin

    Infants, Parents and Carers Bill

    My hon. Friend is making some valid points about Sure Start, which I was able to use for two of my children; the service had disappeared by the time I had my third child. When we talk about involving all parents, does she agree that we need to make sure that fathers are involved? In the parental leave work that is going on, we have to ensure that self-employed fathers are not left out due to a lack of access to paternity leave. That would make it really difficult for them to attend these places that we are introducing and would cause stigma.

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22. 4 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Amanda Martin

    Infants, Parents and Carers Bill

    From the work that I have been doing, it is evident that 90% of parental leave is taken by the top 50% of earners in this country. That means that this is part of the class system; we are not allowing those lower-paid workers to take time with their babies. It is not that they do not want to be a good dad; they are literally priced out of being able to be a good dad.

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23. 4 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Amanda Martin

    Infants, Parents and Carers Bill

    I thank my hon. Friend for referring to the Labour Government’s initiation of Sure Start. Our Prime Minister, who was shadow Education Secretary, actually kept Sure Start going in Manchester while he was mayor. Even before coming to this place as Prime Minister, he continued to see the value of Sure Start in our early years education.

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24. 4 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Amanda Martin

    Infants, Parents and Carers Bill

    My hon. Friend is exactly right. Those places were a place for a cuppa, as we would say—somewhere to go along to without judgment. As someone who had been a teacher but had not had my own children, when I had my second child and did not know that I had post-natal depression, it was in the Sure Start centre that it was picked up, because somebody knew I was not being me; they were able to pick up on that. It was a really good working relationship with our midwives and local GPs, but also with the network of friends that you came to trust, whether you were talking about baby’s poo or about the fact that you did not feel yourself.

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25. 4 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Amanda Martin

    Infants, Parents and Carers Bill

    The hon. Member rightly highlights the fantastic work of kinship carers. One area that often goes unrecognised is siblings who take on their younger brothers and sisters. They may have experienced care themselves, and we have to make sure, when they hit adulthood, that the service wraps around them and provides them the opportunity to be successful in their life while caring for their brothers and sisters.

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26. 4 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Amanda Hack

    Infants, Parents and Carers Bill

    Breastfeeding is one of the reasons that this Bill is so important, because breastfeeding is about what happens before birth as well as in the first two years. When we look at the data, the trigger point for people not taking breastfeeding forward is about 16 hours after birth, so if they are given support before they have their baby, and they know where they can go straightaway, that will give them the confidence to breastfeed for longer. Does the hon. Lady agree that we have to make sure that this Bill covers both pre and post labour?

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27. 4 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Amanda Hack

    Infants, Parents and Carers Bill

    I thank my hon. Friend for giving way in such an emotional debate. Does she agree that looking after mothers before, during and after having a baby is vital, particularly when birth trauma or, sadly, baby loss is suffered?

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28. 4 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Adam Thompson

    Northern Ireland Troubles (Criminal Investigations etc) Bill

    I thank the hon. and gallant Member for Spelthorne (Lincoln Jopp) for the wonderful way in which he has introduced the Bill today and given us the opportunity to have this conversation. Like many hon. Members, I approach this debate with some significant degree of hesitation because of the weight of the issues we are discussing—the legacy of the troubles is one of those issues where every right hon. and hon. Member must begin with a significant degree of caution. We are discussing events that scarred communities, took thousands of lives, and left behind serious grief. There are families who still do not know the full circumstances of how their loved ones were killed. There are—

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29. 4 Sep 2026·Parliament·Labour·Adam Jogee

    Infants, Parents and Carers Bill

    My hon. Friend and constituency neighbour just acknowledged the massive improvements at the Royal Stoke hospital, and I join her in doing so because the impact on both my constituents and hers has been huge.

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30. 4 Sep 2026·Parliament·Lib Dem·Munira Wilson

    Infants, Parents and Carers Bill

    I begin by paying tribute to the right hon. Member for New Forest West (Sir Desmond Swayne) for breaking with his decades-long tradition of eschewing private Member’s Bills and engaging with this process. I congratulate him on coming top of the ballot and was very amused by his response when he won that lottery—one that many of us in this House would love to win. I congratulate him on his choice of Bill, and the work that he has done with the 1001 Critical Days Foundation—with Andrea Leadsom, Will Quince and others—to enshrine in law the support that babies, parents and carers should receive, as well as ensuring that there is proper accountability in place to make sure that that support is forthcoming. Many Members have talked about their parenting experiences. I was just thinking how I remember my first being born, and today she has just started year 8 of school aged 12. I cannot even begin to imagine how quickly she has grown up, and I remember those sleepless nights. I think about those tiny babies: vulnerable, defenceless, voiceless—except for when they are screaming for food at 3 am—yet so often overlooked in policymaking and service planning, something that the NSPCC has described in its briefing as the “baby blind spot”. We have so many other services and provision for older children enshrined in law, but not for our youngest and most vulnerable citizens. As others have already said, we know that a person’s quality of life and outcomes are profoundly shaped by those early months and years. People have talked about the rapid brain development; the first 1,001 days lay the foundations for a child’s development, including attachment, emotional regulation, language and lifelong physical and mental health. As we have heard, babies are entirely reliant on the adults around them to protect and nurture them. Again, that is why I was shocked to read in the NSPCC briefing that 61% of child deaths happen in babies under the age of one. That is profoundly shocking. It underscores the importance of the support that we provide to parents and carers, ensuring that people are going into people’s homes to see what is going on, as the Chair of the Treasury Committee, the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Dame Meg Hillier), has said. We have talked about the first 1,001 days being crucial, but that actually starts at conception, going through pregnancy and birth and into a child’s early years—we have to ensure that support is there before those difficulties become crises. Yet at the moment, help and support for parents and carers remains really quite patchy across the country. The healthy babies programme is extremely welcome, bringing together infant feeding, perinatal mental health and parent-infant relationship support alongside wider health and family services, but at the moment it covers only 75 local authorities in England. It is quite right and sensible that the Government have targeted the areas of greatest disadvantage first with the roll-out of that programme, but we do need that support quickly right across the country. I represent an affluent constituency, but we do have pockets of real deprivation within the constituency, and pockets of deprivation within a much more affluent area tend to be overlooked even more. Also, let us face it: whatever someone’s sociodemographic situation, new parents need support. Yes, some of that support can be bought, but being signposted to a trusted place in those early days and weeks is absolutely critical. We have talked about people going into the homes of new parents and babies to provide support. The number of health visitors has fallen by 40% over the past decade, and in some areas practitioners are responsible for more than 1,000 children, far exceeding the recommended caseload of 250 children per practitioner. Research by the NSPCC has found that more than half of parents of young children do not feel confident about the support that was available to them in their local area. There are issues with both accessibility, which we have talked about, and which is variable across the country, and awareness—although 66% of parents had heard of family hubs, only 16% had actually used one. I want to pay tribute to the many voluntary sector organisations that often step into the gaps in national and local government service provision and support that are left around the country. I have seen this in my constituency with charities such as Home-Start, which supports new parents and children, and specifically with the charity The Extra Mile, which was set up by the Hampton Methodist church in Hampton. It takes in donations of all sorts of baby equipment and clothes. It gets many referrals from GPs, midwives, health visitors and social services and is constantly giving so much out to families in need, not just in my constituency, but well beyond it. I also want to give a shout-out to Reach family hub in Feltham, which is not in my constituency but just down the road, in an area of deprivation. Thanks to the inspirational work of a headteacher at Reach academy, Reach has worked with health services and the local authority to provide a family hub with charitable support very close to the school, meaning that the academy is engaging with parents-to-be right from conception through to when their children go to school at Reach, up to 16, and then on to Reach college, up to the age of 18. The academy has identified that that early support is absolutely crucial for the most disadvantaged families. It goes without saying that babies cannot speak for themselves, advocate for their needs or demand better services. I think that that is one of the reasons they are so overlooked. It should not fall to exhausted parents and carers to have to fight tooth and nail for the essential services they need to protect and nurture their children. It is our duty as elected representatives and policymakers to ensure that parents and carers have access to the support that they need, when they need it, so that every child has the best start in life. As the hon. Member for Portsmouth North (Amanda Martin) said, however, this needs to be coupled with a serious review, which I know the Government are undertaking, and I hope they will make their proposals soon for better maternity, paternity and shared parental leave arrangements. I include leave for kinship carers in that. Many in this House will know that I and other Members from across the parties have been working on this issue for a long time. We want families to have genuine choice and flexibility in how they look after their children, and all the evidence shows that having a parent, whoever it is—it does not have to be the mother; it often is, but in my children’s case, often my husband was with them, while I was out at work—more present at home helps with attachment and emotional development. Government policy over the years has been heavily skewed towards trying to get parents back into the workplace as soon as possible. That is excellent for those families who want that, but we need to provide genuine choice, so providing more support for parents who want to spend more time at home should be a Government priority.

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31. 4 Sep 2026·Parliament·Lib Dem·Munira Wilson

    Infants, Parents and Carers Bill

    I could not agree more. Statutory paternity leave, statutory maternity leave and shared parental leave pay is less than half the minimum wage. That is not affordable for parents who want to stay at home, whether they are a mum or a dad, and we as a society really need to look at this seriously. If we believe in investing in our children, we have to start here. There have been a number of attacks on the coalition today, which I am happy to take on the chin, but in government it was the Liberal Democrats who fought hard to introduce shared parental leave. It still pains me to this day that take-up is so low because it is not affordable. Big employers that want to be competitive in the marketplace are providing really good and enhanced benefits in the form of shared parental leave, which attracts people—particularly dads—who want to spend more time with their family. The businesses realise that it is good for them, because they get more women coming back to the workplace sooner so that dads can then spend more time at home. They also get more engaged and more productive employees. I really hope that the Government’s review of parental leave arrangements will result in a better offer on the table for parents in all sorts of families—not only those with birth children, but kinship carers, too. This Bill is excellent. It is quite high level, but finally putting a legal duty on the Secretary of State to report annually on the provision of infant support services and their contribution to securing positive outcomes puts the wellbeing of babies and their parents firmly on the agenda. It should also keep them on the agenda and protect babies and parents, whoever is in Government, although I note that some Members who think they ought to be in Government are off at their conference. The measure of a nation is how it treats its weakest citizens. If we truly care about the future of our country, we must start by caring and investing in babies and children. I am delighted to support this Bill.

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32. 4 Sep 2026·Parliament·Lib Dem·Munira Wilson

    Infants, Parents and Carers Bill

    I know that the hon. Lady is passionate and committed to this issue; we have worked together in this place on many issues relating to babies and children. She quoted Nick Clegg, who, of course, was Deputy Prime Minister when the cuts to Sure Start were made. On behalf of the Liberal Democrats, may I say that our former colleagues—none of us were in this place at the time—did fight the Tories every single day? There were some unpalatable choices being made. However, I am sure she will acknowledge that the Liberal Democrats in that Government introduced universal infant free school meals, which I know she strongly supports, and the pupil premium for the most disadvantaged children. I was a school governor in a school with very disadvantaged children, and that transformed the interventions we could make. We also protected school budgets. Will she acknowledge at least that?

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33. 4 Sep 2026·Parliament·Lib Dem·Jess Brown-Fuller

    Infants, Parents and Carers Bill

    I refer Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests as the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on infant feeding and inequalities, and I also sit on the advisory board for the 1001 Critical Days Foundation. I thank the right hon. Member for New Forest West (Sir Desmond Swayne) for bringing the Bill to the House and giving us all an opportunity to wax lyrical about babies. We get fewer emails from babies than other constituents we represent, which is why it is so important that the Members who have chosen to be here are taking the opportunity to speak up for the voiceless. Let me take this opportunity to welcome a new baby into my family. I have a new nephew—my first nephew. His name is Raven and he was born eight days ago; he was born with a thick shock of jet black hair, so he clearly knew what his name was going to be. He is wonderful and we all love him dearly already, including my two children, who are delighted to have a cousin to steer down the wrong path. As the 1001 Critical Days Foundation has made clear through its campaigning and work on the Bill, a baby’s development until the age of two is vital. Failing to provide adequate support for parents and babies at this time can leave individuals and families chasing their tails in the future, trying to make up for issues that occurred during this crucial period. Investment in infants’ health and care pays dividends for society, improving health and educational outcomes, and reducing inequality. It is for that reason that I absolutely support what the Bill is trying to achieve: putting support in the early years on a statutory footing and ensuring a health check of early years support by the Secretary of State at regular intervals. As the Chair of the Education Committee said, there is an old adage: “It takes a village.” But if a new parent cannot access services in their local area, how are they meant to find their village? I was lucky when I had my children—the first one nearly 12 years ago—to find my village. I attended a weekly breastfeeding support group called Milk, where we could talk freely and openly about the challenges, understand why our babies’ poo was a funny colour, and get advice about combination feeding, introducing solids or returning to work. At that group, we also learnt about developmental leaps, which I do not remember a midwife or a health visitor ever telling me about when my child was born. I could not understand why I put to bed a lovely calm child, and then a demon woke up and was so hard to soothe for three or four days. When I went to that group, the parents who were a month or two ahead of me said, “Are you sure they are not having a developmental leap? It could be that they are learning new things, and that is why they are struggling to sleep, or they are unregulated, or their pattern has moved around.” It was so helpful. There was an area for the older children to play. We all enjoyed a cup of tea, something that was also mentioned by the hon. Member for Sherwood Forest (Michelle Welsh). We weighed our babies, and we talked about the various methods we all adopted to remember what side we last fed our baby on. The women I met at that group are still my friends today, and they have made my life as a mother better, more supported and brighter. We also went to a baby movers group every Friday morning, where we shook our beanbags, threw scarves over our children and sang songs that still randomly appear in my head when I cannot sleep at 11 o’clock at night.

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34. 4 Sep 2026·Parliament·Lib Dem·Jess Brown-Fuller

    Infants, Parents and Carers Bill

    I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, and for supporting that Adjournment debate. Every community should have a Jodie; mine was a Julie, and she was constantly chasing funding to keep Milk alive. When my daughter was born, five years after my son, that Milk group, which I had relied on so heavily, was now being run out of a broom cupboard. It was by appointment only, and parents could not take their older children along. The whole thing had just crumbled, so I feared for those coming after me who would not be able to find their village. Six months after my daughter was born, the pandemic hit. Her 12-month health visitor review was done on Zoom, and my daughter was not even in the room with me. The baby movers classes that I had loved so much with my son ceased to exist, so I ended up running them on Facebook Live—I would message everybody at 10 o’clock and say, “I’m going to go live in half an hour, and we’re all going to shake our beanbag together in our own lounges.” The local children and family centre in Chichester never reopened in the same way after the pandemic, and the children and family centre in Selsey—a coastal community in my constituency—is now permanently closed. The clearest example of the effectiveness of early support and intervention, as cited by many hon. Members across the House today, was Sure Start. Last May, that service was described in a study by the Institute for Fiscal Studies as having had an “overwhelmingly positive” effect, with the benefit estimated to be over £2 in societal value for every £1 spent. However, when budgets were tightened during austerity, it was services such as Sure Start that were cut to the bone. The provisions in this Bill are so important because they add statutory foundations, assessments and accountability to protect infant support services for the future. This Bill should allow Parliament to recognise the importance of services such as feeding support, to ensure that provision is maintained and services are improved. The impact is stark, especially when it comes to infant feeding. Through the work of the APPG for infant feeding and inequalities, I had the privilege of hosting the World Breastfeeding Trends Initiative in Parliament last year for the launch of its 2024 report, which was looking at breastfeeding in the UK against metrics measuring other countries. The key takeaway from that report is that the UK has some of the lowest breastfeeding rates in the world. Importantly, however, the data also shows that the majority of mothers do set out to breastfeed; despite this, by six to eight weeks, around 70% of babies in the UK receive some formula, and by six months, only 1% of babies are exclusively breastfed. The majority of mothers who stopped breastfeeding early wanted to breastfeed for longer, but did not receive the help they needed to resolve the problems they were facing. In my constituency of Chichester, most of the support—as cited by the hon. Member for Exmouth and Exeter East (David Reed)—is run on a voluntary basis. There is now a brilliant support group that runs out of the Graylingwell chapel, and it is run by retired midwives who give up their time and run the group for free. I know what a lifeline that has been for so many mothers, but at the point when those midwives choose not to do that any more, the service will disappear, because it is not on a statutory footing. Many of the midwives in my local maternity unit at St Richard’s run support groups in their spare time on their days off.

    Hansard source
35. 4 Sep 2026·Parliament·Lib Dem·Jess Brown-Fuller

    Infants, Parents and Carers Bill

    I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention. It is very much my opinion that mothers should all have the right to choose how we want to feed our babies, and that choice should be based on information. If parents are not given the information they need before making those choices, they do not have a choice—it has been taken away from them.

    Hansard source
36. 4 Sep 2026·Parliament·Lib Dem·Jess Brown-Fuller

    Infants, Parents and Carers Bill

    The hon. Lady is right. Just as every pregnancy is different, every breastfeeding journey is also different. We do not want to put mothers in a position where all they have is Google at their fingertips at 2 o’clock in the morning, when the baby is devastated and will not feed, and they are worried that they are dehydrated. The National Breastfeeding Helpline, a 24/7 service funded by the Department of Health and Social Care, is an important resource and a lifeline for so many mothers—33,000 mothers call every month. It is also helpful to have peer support. If someone is in a room with other mothers who are saying, “I experience mastitis,” or “I experience thrush, and this is what I did to get past it. Keep going and come back next week and see if things are better,” that support can mean so much to a mother who feels like they are on their own in that journey.

    Hansard source
37. 4 Sep 2026·Parliament·Lib Dem·Jess Brown-Fuller

    Infants, Parents and Carers Bill

    I thank the hon. Lady for her contribution. She raises an important point, namely that infant feeding is not taught generically across medical professions. For example, a lot of mothers may present at their GP surgery if they are having challenges, but their GP is probably not the best placed person to inform them on how they can best be supported on their infant feeding journey, whatever that looks like. Advice from specialists, such as midwives and most health visitors, means that people are being supported, asking the right questions and getting the right answers. Breastfeeding strengthens babies’ immune systems and significantly reduces the risk of infections, obesity, asthma and long-term conditions such as type-2 diabetes. I pay tribute to Her Grace the Duchess of Richmond for convening a Goodwood health summit to specifically look at the infant gut microbiome, and at how important it is in those formative days of pregnancy and the first few critical weeks of life, and for her continued advocacy in that space. For mothers, breastfeeding lowers the risk of breast and ovarian cancers, cardiovascular disease, and supports post-natal mental health. Providing support for breastfeeding mothers can pay for itself further down the line by improving the health of babies and mothers. Currently the UK has no national infant feeding strategy, timebound action plan, multisectoral infant feeding committee, or overall national co-ordinator. There is little-to-no mention of infant feeding in health professional training, and no co-ordinated strategy for infant feeding in emergency situations. I hope that the Bill will provide the foundation for such support to return to levels that we have seen in the past, and address gaps that have always existed. Babies and their parents deserve better, and I look forward to supporting the Bill through its passage through the House, including in Committee.

    Hansard source
38. 4 Sep 2026·Parliament·Lib Dem·Jess Brown-Fuller

    Infants, Parents and Carers Bill

    I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising an important point: the formula industry is a commercial industry. Breast milk, by its very nature, is free and therefore does not have the backing of large-scale corporations that advertise it widely. Does he agree, then, that the Government should heed the Competition and Markets Authority’s report into the formula milk industry and take on its recommendations, including price controls for formula milk?

    Hansard source
39. 4 Sep 2026·Parliament·Lib Dem·Ian Roome

    Infants, Parents and Carers Bill

    My local maternity unit in North Devon is closed, causing heartache for many mothers living in a rural area. Some have to turn around midway to hospital to get to the accident and emergency department at North Devon district hospital. The shortage of obstetrics and gynaecology consultants is a national problem. We are okay for midwives, but not for obs and gynae. Does the hon. Gentleman think that that creates inequality between urban and rural areas, and does he think the Government need to address that?

    Hansard source
40. 4 Sep 2026·Parliament·Lib Dem·Bobby Dean

    Infants, Parents and Carers Bill

    I thank the right hon. Member for New Forest West (Sir Desmond Swayne) for bringing the Bill to the House—at first perhaps reluctantly, but I think now enthusiastically. Madam Deputy Speaker, you may be forgiven for thinking that we are from slightly different backgrounds, but I am here to make the case that we are from exactly the same background: we both started out life in nappies, weeing and crying out for our mothers. We both started out with approximately the same level of potential, with a hundred billion neurons in our brain waiting to be fused together as they tried to understand the world. This is what I think the Bill is about: maximising the potential of every single baby. I am arguably—I am not sure; people might want to intervene—Parliament’s newest parent. I am 141 days into the life of my first child, so I have had a front row seat for this amazing show. Getting to see the development of my baby over the summer has been phenomenal: her first smile, her first belly laugh, working out how to roll over from her back on to her front, and initially completely ignoring the dog and now wanting to tug its ears every time it goes past. It has been amazing watching every single one of those interactions and how her brain is developing and building an understanding of the world. I would be lying if I did not say that it was also a bit of worry. It is a worry because we are now hyper-aware of how critical these moments are; how each one of these interactions are setting out a pathway for the rest of her life. The first 1,001 days movement has been explaining to us how critical these early moments are for children’s long-run physical and emotional development—how, in each one of those early moments, we are shaping the development of their brains and directing the potential of the rest of their lives. Knowing that, of course, makes it unforgivable that so much provision for children and babies has been cut back over the past decade or so—as if it was some sort of luxury that is unaffordable now that we have other priorities, such as cutting the grass verges in our local areas. The Bill seeks to draw a line in the sand and say, “Never again.” It speaks up for babies, and will make it a statutory requirement for the state to demonstrate how it is meeting babies’ needs. It is a critical step forward in society’s recognition of how our brains develop and how we create opportunity for the next generation. As others have said, the Bill sets the floor, not the ceiling. We therefore look to the Government to build on the foundations that the Bill sets, and ensure that the principles, on which we all agree today, are built into a practical reality. The healthy babies programme is currently available in only 75 local authority areas, and it excludes places such as mine. The Government made a commitment in their 10-year plan to ensure that it is universal, and I urge them to accelerate that and deliver it as quickly as possible. There is not much specificity about what services are required, and it would be great if the Government came forward as soon as possible to bring clarity. I have my own request for a service that it will be essential to deliver to babies and parents in the coming years. Health visitors already talk to mothers about nutrition, safe sleep, and bonding between babies and parents, but we need to add another dimension: screentime. It is already Government advice that under-twos should not have solo screentime, but that is extremely poorly understood. Routine screen use is now normal for babies under two, and one in 10 are exposed to more than four hours of screentime per day. Instead of learning through social interaction, they are being induced into dopamine dazes, which affect their sleep, meal times and emotional regulation. The damage being done is so great that it should be an essential requirement to educate parents about this from day one.

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