29/11/2017 House of Lords

We will now be going live to the

House of Lords. All coverage

continues later after the daily

politics tonight.

I would like to thank Lord story,

for having this debate on this

subject and in doing so declaring an

interest over the financial year 's

trust, which is involved in the

area. I should say, unlike others

who take part in the debate, this is

not my special area at all. I feel

humble in speaking in it, but it is

something that I am very interested

in and the named there is wrong, I

am Lord Griffiths florist Fat, not

Bury Port!

-- Fforestfach. I feel strongly on

the subject, I speak as a parent,

and a grandparent and I think that

any parent thinking on this subject

would realise the challenge

involved, and the fact that we all

failed. Every child in this country

deserves the best possible start in

life. What you take from pregnancy

to the first day of school, if you

look at that period, it has a

powerful influence for the rest of

their lives. The development at this

stage matters more than any other

area is the inclusion of the social

mobility report just published.

Children from backgrounds with

reduced life chances because of

their families being more at risk,

living in disadvantaged areas or

just poorer, they have, compared to

their peers, worse development

outcomes in the early years, in

vocabulary and reading, numbers,

creativity, speech, confidence

building and so on. The attainment

gap between children from low income

families and their peers is slowly

closing with the calculation in the

report that I just mentioned is that

it will take 40 years at the present

rate to close that gap and that

means, with the rate that technology

is changing at present in equality

in our society is bound to increase.

The good news is that support and

good provision really work. And I

quote again, disadvantaged children

in the best areas, they are twice as

likely to reach a good level of

development at the age of five

compared with similar children in

the worst areas. Poor performance

isn't concentrated in any type of

area but similar practices, and

places, perform very differently,

reflecting the role and the

importance of parenting.