Working cross-party to hold the government accountable and also to contribute to its decisions, we listen to evidence from experts and report our findings to the government, recommending actions to improve real life situations.
Committees usually select topics for inquiries as developments demand. But sometimes there is a need to re-visit a subject in the light of a new context. That’s why we are today launching a new inquiry on the first 1,000 days of life, to renew political focus on early childhood development, in light of the current government making “breaking down barriers to opportunity” one of its six core missions and committing to “set every child up for the best start in life”.
In our new inquiry, we want to look at what’s changed since a previous health and social care committee published its report on the first 1,000 days, in 2019.
That report was unequivocal in emphasising what readers of CYP Now will know - the importance of the first thousand days of a child’s life in laying the foundations for the child’s healthy development and future wellbeing, and the serious negative outcomes that can result from adverse experiences during this stage in a child’s life, negative outcomes that sometimes blight a child’s life for years. It’s not only the individual child who loses out; society is also deprived of what those children could have contributed as adults, had they had healthy starts in life that enabled them to reach their full potential and flourish in happy and healthy lives.
So, we can all accept that it is to everyone’s benefit to ensure that the groundwork for a healthy and happy childhood is firmly in place. That is our starting point. What we want to dig into in this inquiry is how this ideal is reflected in the situation on the ground.
Has progress been made in improving outcomes for infants and children since 2019? Have the ambitions to improve outcomes through integrated early years support via family hubs been realised and what has been the effect of the introduction of integrated care systems? What are the challenges and the barriers to bringing about improved outcomes and where should the government be prioritising its funding?
In addition to this, an important area of our scrutiny will be the inequalities that exist in infant health outcomes for less well-served groups, including ethnic minorities, families living in deprivation and children with disabilities. We’ll be looking at how far the principle of ‘proportionate universalism’, proposed in the 2019 report, has been effectively implemented so as to target services to those most in need of them.
As we start holding evidence sessions in the coming months, we intend to call in key figures who have been influential in shaping government policy on early years, as well as midwives and early years practitioners, along with academics researching early childhood health inequalities, and witnesses from local authorities and advocacy groups.
Ahead of our evidence sessions, we are today issuing a call for written submissions to inform our inquiry and we want to hear from practitioners from a wide range of sectors. This will guide the inquiry, as we work towards recommending the key priorities for the government to focus on in developing its early years policy. If you have something to share, as an individual or an organisation, we want to hear from you!
Our inquiry’s ultimate aim is to champion the needs of infants and parents and ensure that the government is equipped with persuasive evidence to enable it to implement effective policies so that all children can have the best start in life.
