This week, I went to Monks Coppenhall Family Hub in Crewe. We arrived just before the after-school rush, during which time there’s a steady stream of kids and parents coming through the door for additional support. 

Family Hubs bring all the different networks available to parents under one roof, covering everything from SEND provisions, to mental health services, housing and health advice, and more. 

This Labour government has committed £500 million to create a Family Hub in every area to fill the hole left by the previous government’s decimation of Sure Start programmes.  

I know many families have been struggling for a while: we’re still feeling the effects of a cost-of-living crisis and wages have been stretched far too thinly to cover an increasingly expensive weekly shop. And that’s before you even get started on childcare.  

Looking round Monks Coppenhall, it’s clear to me that Family Hubs are a great place to start to provide better support to parents. Whatever their needs, they only have to go to one place. To somewhere that’s not associated with social services or overly clinical, where there’s a familiar face that invites them to come in and have their questions answered. I’ve seen how this can change the experiences of both parents and children to put them at ease. 

But we know that’s not enough. On top of having a safe environment for families to go to for support, we need to make sure that once they get there, they receive the help they need. When someone visits a Family Hub, they could benefit from any number of this government’s policies, such as: 

• An additional 30 hours of free childcare 

• An expansion of free school meals for children in families on Universal Credit 

• One of Labour’s newly funded in-school nurseries (like Haslington Primary Academy and Gainsborough Academy) 

• Recruitment of 6,700 additional mental health workers as part of Labour’s 10 Year Health Plan 

• A £25 million expansion of 200 new Youth Hubs for wraparound employment, skills and wellbeing support 

• £2 billion towards Labour’s target of 180,000 homes for social housing 

• School uniform funding caps 

And we’re not just creating dependency on public services without an end goal. We’re also giving families the tools to stand on their own two feet, with the greatest expansion of workers’ rights in a lifetime, providing them with greater job security and steadier income each month.  

Going to the Family Hub this week has made me think about an argument we often hear about the New Deal For Working People, which is that tighter regulations or financial pressures for large employers are making them flee the country. 

I personally don’t know a single person who has the luxury of making this move. I do, however, meet people on a daily basis who live within the limits of their own paycheck and make every decision for the good of their family. They don’t have the privilege of upping sticks to avoid losing a fraction of their wealth. These are the people who I am proud to be supporting under this Labour government.