Alex Brewer MP: speeches

Speeches

• 4 Sept 2026 · Infants, Parents and Carers Bill · Hansard source

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  The first 1,001 days of a baby’s life are the single greatest opportunity we have to reduce inequality, improve health and educational outcomes, and thereby improve the life chances of future generations. The “1001 Critical Days” report came out in 2013 as a truly cross-party manifesto, and I believe it has been relaunched at least twice since then. I took a great interest in it when I worked in the domestic abuse sector a decade ago, because I saw at first hand the devastating impact that trauma can have on babies and young children. I wholeheartedly welcome the statutory protection for babies that the right hon. Member for New Forest West (Sir Desmond Swayne) is bringing before the House in this Bill. Reassuring words also need action, however, and sadly the actions of the party that he represents have moved in exactly the opposite direction. That has let families down year after year, with under-investment in all those areas that support our children. There has been a lot of talk of Sure Start and children’s centres, and Action for Children found that in just three years between 2015 and 2018, the average spend per child of children’s centres, and the number of children using them, fell by around one fifth, with the most deprived areas hit hardest. It is not just Sure Start; in North East Hampshire we used to have a drop-in health clinic—somewhere parents could weigh their babies, meet others, and build connections with other members of the local community. It made a real difference, but it stopped operating after the pandemic. Hampshire has 18 and a half constituencies, almost 70,000 children under five, and so far only one Best Start family hub. Today the nearest Best Start hub for the 5,000 children in my constituency is on the other side of Hampshire, and there is nowhere within my community offering a one-stop shop for early years support. When services are closed, others are stretched to breaking point. Families have nowhere local to turn to, and we miss a window of opportunity to invest in a child. That child might arrive at school without the basic skills they need; they might arrive at the GP surgery with avoidable health risks. They are more likely to need further help that is harder and more expensive to provide. Before becoming an MP, I ran a charity supporting children and young people with Down syndrome, working with families from the moment their child was born, and indeed sometimes before. My charity, and countless others, stepped in to provide the services that councils were cutting. I saw at first hand what early intervention does for a child’s health, skills and confidence, and what its absence costs. We saw the impact on families of speech and language therapy, occupational therapy, and other interventions that are life-changing, especially if provided in those early years. We also saw the impact of a lack of those services. Although we are of course focusing on babies, we must remember that the first 1,001 critical days are from conception, nine months of which is pregnancy. The Bill is not just about babies; it is also about mothers. Inquiries by the Women and Equalities Committee into medical misogyny, women’s reproductive health conditions, miscarriage and bereavement leave, paternity and shared parental leave, and female genital mutilation all found that women are routinely let down across those areas of health, maternity care and scientific research. Sadly, I expect that that surprises nobody, but the impact is felt by everyone, including men and boys, because if the mother’s concerns are ignored, it can result in her son’s health conditions worsening. A father who has little to no parental leave has less chance to bond with his children, to the detriment of both. Investing in the first days, weeks and years of a child’s life is the right thing to do not only for people but for the economy. Early intervention could generate an estimated £45.5 billion for our economy every year, and for every £1 invested up to £200 comes back in long-term benefits. Previous Conservative Governments have systematically eroded the services needed to provide the best start in life. I saw that at the coalface when supporting victims of domestic abuse and their children to flee dangerous and violent partners. They needed the support of a children’s centre, but also of social services and the health service. They needed public transport and a safe and secure roof over their head. They needed reliable maternity services, reliable nursery places, and a reliable legal system. Often they got none of those things, and watching the systematic removal of support for the country’s most vulnerable people was the exact reason for my journey into politics. We have an opportunity to repair and build. We have the evidence, we have the numbers, and we clearly have cross-party support. We have a country full of children with huge potential who need our support. We cannot afford not to invest in their future, so I heartily welcome the Bill as a first step, and call on the Government not to toddle but to take great strides in providing the essential cross-departmental support for parents, carers and children that is so clearly needed.

• 16 Jul 2026 · National Planning Policy Framework · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Sir Desmond. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Wells and Mendip Hills (Tessa Munt) for securing this debate. It is clearly essential to build homes. One reason why I am sitting in this place is my work to support victims of domestic abuse. For those, often with children, who are on a six-month stay in a refuge while fleeing the most dreadful violence, a secure home is the first step towards a new, safe future. However, the Government have introduced no targets for council or social housing, despite the Liberal Democrats making many calls for them to do so. The dreadful shortage left as the legacy of successive Conservative Governments is, at the very least, not being remedied by this Labour Government. That problem needs fixing, and the NPPF changes not only do not address it, but open up a raft of other problems. The Conservative Administrations that previously ran Hart district council and Basingstoke and Deane borough council failed to produce local plans. That left those areas subject to speculative development granted on appeal, resulting in the building of large housing estates on the edges of our towns and villages, with no accompanying infrastructure. To make the best of a bad situation, the Liberal Democrats on Hart district council introduced a local plan, which, crucially, meant that houses were built sustainably on brownfield land. When the Lib Dems took joint control of Basingstoke and Deane borough council, a local plan was prioritised and progressed. However, this Government’s new housing targets have rendered those new plans all but redundant. Those council areas are now easy targets for entirely inappropriate housing developments. When the balance tips in favour of appeal, it is not the people but the developers who benefit. In Basingstoke and Deane, planning permission for around 6,000 new homes has already been granted. In Hart, the major developer working on the biggest housing project has slowed down building: instead of building and selling 200 houses at a time, it is now building 50 to protect its profits. The new houses are no more affordable—in fact, properties in North East Hampshire are some of the most expensive outside London—but under the Government’s housing policies, developers are being allowed to land-bank: to push through application after application, despite the lack of infrastructure, and to hold on to land for years or decades as it increases in value. Applications come in for a raft of inappropriate places, and all the while, there is no statutory consultee for our most important resource. Water is out biggest concern, and it is absent from the Government’s plans. South East Water, which supplies fresh water to most of North East Hampshire, produced a five-year plan in autumn 2024 that is largely a work of fiction, citing a new pipeline that would supply new and existing homes that would come online in spring 2025. Nobody believed that that could be completed in six months, but Ofwat has no powers to compel South East Water to publish a plan that is in any way based in reality. The consequences of this regulatory and legislative failure sit with local people and the environment. Failure to supply local fresh water has obvious consequences, but the environment also suffers. We have heard already about how the Environment Agency has cancelled the supply of water in Greywell, yet South East Water continues to abstract from the site.