I thank the noble Lords for their response to and broad welcome of the Statement. I assure the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, that I did not feel uncomfortable at all. It took me back, I have to say, but nevertheless the challenge and contrast that my Right Honourable Friend the Secretary of State set out in her Statement in the other place was wholly fair.

On the funding of family hubs, the difference that this Government are making is a trebling of investment in those hubs over his spending review period. While currently only 88 local authorities have access to the funding to support a hub, that trebling of investment will ensure that all local authorities will be able to develop the best start family hubs. As I suggested in the Statement, we will develop that further through the digital offer, giving parents access to the information that they—I agree with the noble Baroness here—most certainly need from the very earliest stages, not only of their children being alive but in pregnancy, to be able to support them.

Although there is a focus in this Statement on the very early ages, because that is the right place to start to make a difference, children’s hubs will continue to respond to children from nought to 19. I think the noble Baroness identified some areas in which we would expect that support to continue.

Noble Lords asked about funding of the early years entitlement and its delivery. To be clear, in delivering the 30 hours entitlement from this September, this Government will provide over £8 billion, as well as delivering a 45% uplift in the early years pupil premium and providing £75 million for the early years expansion grant to help providers meet their local demand. We have responded to concerns around funding in the way we have increased investment.

The phrase “pledge without a plan” related to the early years entitlement. While the noble Baroness is right that it was announced by the previous Government, it did not have funding allocated to it to enable it to be delivered. It is the hard work of the sector and the investment this Government have been willing to put into it, as I have just outlined, which means we stand a chance of being able to meet that entitlement this September. However, noble Lords are right that, without sufficient recruitment, we cannot deliver that.

That is why, as I outlined in the Statement and is outlined in the strategy, we will invest in the recruitment of early years workers through the £4,500 financial incentive for early years workers in the most disadvantaged areas. Across the system, we will have improved training for early years workers through a focus on professionalism, with the development of a register to recognise the professional status of those who work with our youngest children. Those will be important ways to welcome and attract more people into the sector, along with our “Do Something Big” recruitment campaign and the emphasis we are putting on supporting better practice in a range of areas for early years practitioners.

Both the noble Baroness and the noble Lord, Lord Storey, rightly raised the issue of early years SEND provision. We know the crucial importance of children’s earliest years: they can make a really important difference to their development, health and life chances, as well as to identifying any special educational needs a child might have at an early stage. That is why we are further funding training for up to 1,000 early years special educational needs co-ordinators in 2025-26, which will be targeted at settings in the most disadvantaged areas. Last year, we launched free online child development training to support early years educators working with children with individual needs and development differences. We are continuing to fund voluntary and community sector partners that support family hubs’ delivery of services for home learning and early years special educational needs and disabilities. This includes funding awarded to the early years SEND partnership for the 2025-26 financial year.

The noble Baroness also asked about the concern around the continuation of education, health and care plans. In this Chamber, we often talk about the parlous state of this country’s special educational needs and disabilities system, the struggle parents face to get the support they need for their children, the length of time it takes to get education, health and care plans, and the lack of trust parents now have in that system. We are determined to rectify all those things.

To clarify, there will always be a legal right to the additional support that children with SEND need, and we will protect it, but this Government are prepared to grasp the nettle and reform a broken system that noble Lords opposite presided over and have themselves described as a lose-lose-lose system. We will ensure that every child in this country gets the opportunity to achieve, thrive at school and get on in life, and we will do that by bringing forward earlier identification and inclusion of all children, while safeguarding the support that those with special educational needs and disabilities need.

On the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Storey, about the tragic case of Gigi, I very much commend her parents for their campaign. Last week they had the opportunity to meet with my Honourable Friend the Minister for Early Education, Stephen Morgan. As the noble Lord said, the improvements in Ofsted’s inspection of early years provision are important here, with a commitment to inspecting an early years setting within 18 months of it being registered, and a reduction in the length of time between inspections from six years to four years. We will see better inspection, and therefore better accountability, and with the investment this Government are putting in, better results as well.