Personally Speaking: Building the foundations, from first steps to college

My Personally Speaking column in The Sentinel (9 April 2026)

I hope you had a good and peace­ful Easter break with your friends, fam­ily, and loved ones, and took the oppor­tun­ity to rest and reflect before the busy spring period begins.

As we return to our routines this week, April marks a sig­ni­fic­ant turn­ing point for our com­munity.

We are see­ing the res­ults of our efforts to invest in the next gen­er­a­tion, from their very first days through to the skills they need for the work­place.

Many par­ents in our area look back with fond­ness, and often a sense of deep grat­it­ude, for the sup­port Sure Start ser­vices provided in those cru­cial early years.

I know from speak­ing to people on the door­step that for many, those centres were a life­line. It was hear­ing those stor­ies, and see­ing the dif­fi­culties local fam­il­ies face today, that led me to cam­paign for bet­ter early years sup­port and ded­ic­ated fam­ily and com­munity ser­vices in our area.

Last Octo­ber, fol­low­ing the Gov­ern­ment’s announce­ment of more than £260,000 in fund­ing for Fam­ily Hubs, I wrote to the then leader of Stafford­shire County Coun­cil to wel­come the invest­ment and to seek clar­ity on exactly how that money would be used to sup­port fam­il­ies here in Newcastle-under-Lyme.

I have con­tin­ued to press the county coun­cil for trans­par­ency, recently writ­ing to the new leader to ensure that a phys­ical base in our com­munity was made a real­ity.

To under­stand why this new invest­ment is so vital, we have to look at the his­tory of these ser­vices over the last dec­ade-or-so.

When the Con­ser­vat­ives came to power in 2010, they took a giant ham­mer to these much-needed and import­ant ser­vices. By the time they left gov­ern­ment in 2024, one in four fam­il­ies with chil­dren under five couldn’t access local chil­dren’s centres – a fig­ure that rose to one in three for lower income fam­il­ies.

Thou­sands of par­ents were left to nav­ig­ate the immense chal­lenges of par­ent­hood alone.

That is why I am so pleased to have received offi­cial con­firm­a­tion from min­is­ters that our local Fam­ily Hub on Cemetery Road in Knut­ton is form­ally becom­ing a ‘Best Start’ Fam­ily Hub.

This hub will be a one-stop-shop, provid­ing four essen­tial pil­lars of sup­port.

This includes pre­vent­at­ive and uni­ver­sal health ser­vices with a ded­ic­ated focus on the health of our babies, along­side sup­port­ive par­ent­ing advice and ‘stay and play’ ses­sions.

The hub will also offer tailored help with chil­dren’s learn­ing at home, as well as early sup­port for chil­dren with addi­tional needs through a spe­cial­ist Best Start Inclu­sion Prac­ti­tioner backed by £210 mil­lion nation­ally.

I am par­tic­u­larly pleased to see the back­ing for Inclu­sion Prac­ti­tion­ers.

Last month, I was proud to wel­come the Edu­ca­tion Min­is­ter, Geor­gia Gould MP, to The Peter Pan Centre in New­castle.

Speak­ing with par­ents there rein­forced why early, expert inter­ven­tion for chil­dren with Spe­cial Edu­ca­tional Needs and Dis­ab­il­it­ies (SEND) is so vital.

It ensures no child is left behind before they’ve even star­ted school.

Sup­port for our young people shouldn’t stop at the school gates or in those early years. To truly break down bar­ri­ers to oppor­tun­ity, we must ensure our col­leges are fit for the future too.

We must ensure that the path for our young people into the wider world is well laid and sup­port­ive of their ambi­tions.

We are lucky to have such a strong col­lege here in Newcastle-under-Lyme.

I saw the value it adds to our area first-hand at the recent launch of the Drayton Beau­mont Academy – an ini­ti­at­ive that is already open­ing up prac­tical, dir­ect routes into high-skilled careers for local stu­dents.

This new fund­ing is about ensur­ing more of those stu­dents have access to the high-qual­ity facil­it­ies that match their ambi­tion, provid­ing the best pos­sible envir­on­ment for our young people to focus and suc­ceed.

I am incred­ibly proud of the pro­gress we are mak­ing together to bring back the ded­ic­ated ser­vices that local par­ents remem­ber so fondly.

The leg­acy of Sure Start shouldn’t be something we just look back on with long­ing; it should be reflec­ted in the qual­ity ser­vices avail­able to fam­il­ies across New­castle-under-Lyme today.

Rebuild­ing these found­a­tions is a long jour­ney, but by focus­ing on every stage of life – from first steps sup­por­ted by Best Start, to the skills gained at our col­leges – we ensure that a child’s post­code doesn’t determ­ine their poten­tial.