Unfortunately, I was unable to attend UNICEF UK’s Early Moments Matter Exhibition. However, I would be interested in receiving more information from parents and carers about their experiences of having young children.

I recognise the importance of early childhood for the development of a child and their future outcomes. I am assured that the Government is working to ensure better access to public services that young children, and their parents and carers, require.

The Government has made it a key priority that every patient who needs an appointment should be able to see their GP within two weeks and that every patient who has urgent needs should be able to see their GP on the same day.  To deliver these targets, the Government is investing an additional £3.3 billion in each of 2023/24 and 2024/25 to enable rapid action to improve urgent and emergency, elective, and primary care performance to pre-pandemic levels. A plan for recovering access to primary care, including GP services was published in May, outlining measures that will make it easier for patients to contact their GP and will end the 8am rush.

At the Spring Budget, the Chancellor announced that the Government is significantly expanding the support on offer by providing 30 hours a week of free childcare for 38 weeks a year, for eligible working parents of children aged 9 months to 3 years. This will be rolled out in phases from April 2024 and is in addition to the 30 hours a week already provided for eligible working parents of 3 to 4-year-olds.

The Government will also be providing £204 million to support the hourly funding rate paid to providers to deliver existing free childcare in England in 2023-24, with a further uplift to £288 million in 2024-25. This funding will be allocated by the Department for Education through local councils. Funding rates to local authorities are being increased by an average of 32 per cent for the current 2-year-old entitlement, and by an average of 6.3 per cent for 3-and-4-year-old entitlements.

Finally, the Government recognises the effect that the pandemic has had on the mental health of children and young people. The NHS Long Term Plan increased investment in mental health services by at least £2.3 billion a year by 2023/24 so that an additional 345,000 children and young people are now able to get the necessary NHS-funded mental health support.

Mental health support teams now cover 26 per cent of pupils in schools, a year earlier than originally proposed in the Transforming Children and Young People’s Mental Health Provision Green Paper. This will increase to 399 teams, covering around 35 per cent of pupils by April 2023, with over 500 planned to be up and running by 2024. Rollout of further mental health support teams is being developed and will be confirmed in due course.