1Our inquiry
1.Sir Michael Marmot’s review of health inequalities in 2010, the cross-party 1001 Critical Days Manifesto in 2013 and the Building Better Britons report by All-Party Parliamentary Group for Conception to Age 2 in 2015 all make a compelling case for more attention to be paid to the first 1000 days of a child’s life, from conception to age 2.1 Support for children, parents and families during this critical period improves the health, development and life chances of future generations and benefits society. Our inquiry has focused on examining how current policy and practice supports children, parents and families during this period of a child’s life, with a view to making recommendations that may assist the Government and other bodies, nationally and locally.
2.Since we launched our inquiry, we have been pleased to see the Government’s Prevention Vision include within it an aspiration to give every child the best start in life, which builds on one of the key recommendations from Sir Michael Marmot’s review.2 The Vision’s aspiration for the early years will be supported by the work of the Early Years and Family Support Ministerial Group, which was announced shortly after our inquiry launched.3 We welcome both the Government’s vision for prevention and the ministerial review. Our intention is to take oral evidence from Government, including representatives from the ministerial review, later this year.
3.We received almost 90 written submissions from our call to evidence from a broad range of parties with an interest in the first 1000 days. We also held an online forum on Mumsnet in which we heard directly from parents about their experiences of pregnancy and early parenthood, as well as the services they used during this time. We are hugely grateful to all those who took the time and effort to write to us. These submissions have provided a body of evidence which have formed the basis of our inquiry and helped inform our oral evidence sessions. We have used quotations from individual parents to illustrate the points we make throughout the report: those quotations can be found in boxes alongside the text of the report.
4.We held 3 oral evidence sessions as part of this inquiry during November and December 2018. In November, we visited the Blackpool Better Start project, run by the NSPCC and funded by the Big Lottery Fund, and held focus groups with representatives from councils, clinical commissioning groups and charities from across the country.
5.Our inquiry has focused on the importance of intervening early in childhood to improve people’s lives—their physical and mental health, their development and growth and their life chances—and the potential benefits of doing so for society. A safe, healthy start in life is important as an end in itself. Some children, for example those with a terminal illness, may through illness or disability not reach adulthood, or even school. For all others, their early years shape the rest of their lives. As we will show, children struggle to catch up when their health and development falls behind their peers during this period. The effects of adversity (neglect and abuse) during this time of a child’s life can remain with them throughout their lives, causing repeated harm to themselves and sometimes harm to others. The cycle of adversity often continues between generations. By intervening successfully in this period to give every child the best start in life the Government can help make society fairer and more prosperous.
1 Professor Sir Michael Marmot, Fair Society, Healthy Lives. The Marmot Review, 2010 APPG for Conception to Age 2 – The First 1001 Days, Building Great Britons, 2015, A cross-party manifesto, The 1001 Critical Days: the importance of the conception to age 2 period, November 2015
2 Department of Health and Social Care, Prevention is better than cure: Our vision to help you live well for longer, November 2018
3 Office of the Leader of the House of Commons, Cabinet Office and Rt Hon. Andrea Leadsom MP, Leader of the commons to chair ministerial group on family support from conception to the age of two, 27 July 2018
Published: 26 February 2019