Labour’s new Family Hubs are the ‘successor’ to Sure Start. As child poverty rises, will they work?

When Angela Rayner was 16, she left school after becoming pregnant. The now deputy prime minister credits a Sure Start centre with turning her life around.

“If I hadn’t had access to the vital support of my local Sure Start centre,” she told Parliament in 2017. “I would never have had the help I – and my son – needed.”

She wasn’t alone. Launched in 1998 under Labour, Sure Start centres offered a one-stop shop for families with children under five – providing everything from parenting classes to health checks. The outcomes were clear: children in Sure Start areas reached developmental milestones faster, were hospitalised less often, and did better at school.

Over 14 years of Conservative austerity, provision was gutted. Over 1,000 centres closed, while others dramatically scaled back their services.

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In opposition, Labour described this as a “scandal“. Now, they’re launching “Sure Start’s successor”: Expanding the existing Family Hubs that will act as “one-stop shops” for early childhood services

Experts have broadly welcomed the move. But with child poverty rising, will it be enough?

“While essential, services alone are not enough to reverse the rising tide of child poverty across the UK,” said Dr Philip Goodwin, CEO of UNICEF UK. “The government must urgently end the two-child limit as part of its child poverty strategy.”

What are the new Family Hubs?

Labour made early years support a centrepiece of its 2024 manifesto. Now in government, the task is delivery.

A key part of the strategy is the rollout of up to 1,000 Family Hubs across England by 2028 – at least one in every local authority – backed by £500 million in investment.

Like Sure Start before them, the hubs will offer a range of wraparound services in a single location: parenting support, early education, breakfast clubs, speech and language therapy, mental health services and developmental health checks.

To help address workforce shortages, qualified early years teachers working in the most disadvantaged areas will receive a £4,500 tax-free bonus.

Education secretary Bridget Phillipson called the hubs “transformative,” adding: “I saw first-hand how initiatives like Sure Start helped level the playing field in my own community.”

The reception has been cautiously positive.

“Sure Start is one of the programs that has had a major impact on the longitudinal outcomes for children that were based near those centres,” said Avnee Morjaria of the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR). “In terms of investment versus outcomes, it’s one of those programs that shows a really big return over the longer term.”

UNICEF UK described the relaunch as “a very welcome and essential step toward closing the inequalities gap in early childhood.”

Alice Jones Bartoli of the National Children’s Bureau said the plan could “not only improve children’s outcomes but also ease demand for services later on in the education systefam”.

An estimated £1 spent on Sure Start generated £2 in long-term benefits, a study found earlier this year.

Morjaria believes Family Hubs could help reverse this postcode lottery. “The slashing of those programs was a massive mistake,” she said. “They could have grown from strength to strength, but it’s good to see the spirit of that lives on in Family Hubs.”

Child poverty is increasing

Still, many experts warn that services can only go so far when poverty is rising.

Today, 4.5 million children in the UK live below the poverty line. A major driver, campaigners urge, is the two-child benefit limit. Introduced in 2017, the policy restricts support for any third or subsequent child born after April of that year.

As of 2024, the policy affects 1.66 million children – nearly one in nine – pushing upwards of 37,000 children into poverty every year.

“The two-child limit is the single biggest driver of rising child poverty,” said Morjaria. “Lifting it would do more to reduce hardship than any other single policy.”

The Child Poverty Action Group has called ending the cap a “moral mission.”

Affected families lose an average of over £3,400 a year – more than any service hub can realistically offset.

“You can put in as many supportive services as you like, but poverty takes its toll,” Morjaria said. “The numbers of children in poverty and the slow erosion of confidence that causes, the worry children feel about being able to eat—it’s corrosive. This is a drop in the ocean in solving that problem.”

“Lifting the two-child benefit limit is the single biggest driver of reducing hardship and will make the most difference.”

The Institute for Fiscal Studies’ Christine Farquharson pointed out that current spending on integrated early years services remains far below its peak: “Even with an extra £150 million a year, spending today will be less than a third as high as peak spending on Sure Start… This is not yet a new Sure Start.”

Still, it’s a good initiative. Rebuilding local, accessible support services could restore trust in communities that have felt neglected for more than a decade, Morjaria added.

“The more Family Hubs draw on community organisations and the voluntary sector, the harder they are to dismantle – and the more effective they’ll be,” she said. “They do have serious potential.”

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