Conception to Age 2: The First 1001 Days — House of Commons, 2015-12-17
Topic: Health
Graham William Allen (Labour, Centre-left): That is a classic case—we referred to this earlier—of the need to rely on the evidence and the science. Let us listen to people who know about these things, rather than do something because that is the way we have always done it or because it is a reflex reaction. That is why the Early Intervention Foundation is central. Best practice needs to be collected in and propagated from one place, so that anyone who visits the website or who makes a phone call can learn from the experience of all those who have gone before them I agreed with so much of what the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) said about how this will save us all not only a lot of grief, but a lot of money. I remember telling the Chancellor of the Exchequer that early intervention is the biggest deficit reduction programme he could possibly have. There are various views of the total amount that could be saved, but the Early Intervention Foundation puts the cost of late intervention at £17 billion a year. People are very quick to jump up and ask, "How much is this programme going to cost?", but they are very slow to say that what we are currently doing is incredibly costly. If someone said, "I’ve got a budget for you: it’s called the late intervention budget and it’s going to cost you £17 billion a year," there would be an uproar. People would cry, "We can’t afford that!" Of course we cannot afford it, but that is the cost of the criminal justice system having to deal with dysfunctional young people who could have had a chance earlier in life; of mental and physical ill-health; of the court system; and of educational underachievement We are wasting money, which we can ill afford, rather than spending a bit of money to start us off. It is received wisdom to talk about a stitch in time, and we often say that prevention is better than cure. In religious terms, we say, "Give me the boy and I’ll give you the man." We use such phrases in our daily lives, but somehow we cannot bring them to bear on the political choices we make It is essential to support this 1001 days campaign. It is very important to underline that helping a child or a mum-to-be is money in the bank in terms of both the child’s development and financial prudence for us as a community and a society. Brain development was mentioned earlier. Given the plasticity of the brain, it is now absolutely without doubt—the neuroscience is incontrovertible—that if we can influence the development of a child’s brain pathways during the nought-to-three phase, we will be helping them for the rest of their life. It is absolutely essential to do so We will continue to do all this work together and to have overlapping campaigns, including with Governments of all parties. I must say that that was very difficult when my party was in government. I have to be honest and repeat that we made more progress with a Conservative Prime Minister in a coalition Government than we did with two Labour Prime Ministers This is an all-party campaign, and all parties need to use the vocabulary of early intervention. One thing that I and the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green did, if I may say so, was to make such vocabulary commonplace in this House. We now talk sensibly about early intervention, rather than about "ASBOs on embryos" or "hugging a hoodie", and all the other terms of abuse bandied about, to no effect whatever, by both parties 10 years ago. We are growing, improving and getting more mature. With the example of hard science and the example of practice—the Early Intervention Foundation has been involved in 20 local areas to prove what works—we are on the verge of breaking the philosophy out of purely children’s policy into something that we should do in every policy area of government Does devolution have anything to do with this issue? Of course it does, because if we allow people in our constituencies, boroughs or councils sensitively to develop things that they know will work, we will spend public money better, even when the early intervention grant is being abolished and austerity is striking at every local authority. At such times, we need to spend money more accurately and with more precision I would argue that there may be an early intervention aspect to confronting international questions. Some fascinating work has been done on trauma by Suzanne Zeedyk and Robin Grille from the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism. What greater trauma is there for a growing child than to be involved in a civil war or appalling acts of violence? That is the very breeding ground of religious fundamentalism and terrorism Early intervention is a philosophy whose time is about to come. Let us make sure that late intervention as a philosophy is consigned to the dustbin of history. One of the best ways for us to do so is to continue to support early intervention, to back initiatives such as the Early Intervention Foundation and to give this motion on the 1001 most critical days a resounding cheer of support from both sides of the House as it is, I hope, approved unanimously.