The government’s plan for change is clear in its determination to give every child the best start in life. Restoring the health in pregnancy grant would be a relatively low-cost, proven mechanism to do this.
Ben Cooper is Research Manager at the Fabian Society.
Later this year, the government will publish its child poverty strategy. It will be an opportunity to show how tackling child poverty will transform lives. Much of the focus will rightly be on announcements around the two-child limit, which the Fabian Society recommended should be scrapped. However, there should also be a commitment to support parents even before their child is born.
Research led by the University of Aberdeen has found that babies from low-income families are smaller from around halfway through pregnancy. They are more likely to have a low birthweight and less likely to survive the first year of life.
Being born with a low birthweight can have lifelong consequences. For example, a child born small is less likely to be ready for school, is more likely to secure lower test scores in maths and English at ages 11 and 16, and will experience poorer labour market outcomes. If the opportunity mission is to ‘break the link between a child’s background and their future success’, the child poverty strategy should tackle low birthweight.
The government can learn from a recent, proven example. The health in pregnancy grant, introduced by the last Labour government in 2009, was a lump sum of £190 paid to all pregnant women in the UK – providing they had received health advice. Effectively, it provided access to child benefit over the third trimester. The grant was designed to help afford high-quality nutrition, reduce stress in the prenatal period, and ensure mothers accessed antenatal health advice.
Before the health in pregnancy grant could become embedded into our social security system, the coalition government scrapped it in 2011. Alongside wider cuts to social security benefits, this drove up child poverty and negatively impacted the health of babies.
Despite being around for just two years, the grant had a clear impact for thousands of babies in low-income families. Research by LSE found that this had a significant positive impact on birthweight, especially for babies most at risk of being small. And the impact of the policy was larger for mothers who lived in deprived areas. However, analysis suggests it could have an even bigger impact, if it were paid earlier in the pregnancy, or if it were more generous.
Some have already recognised this potential. In her action plan against poverty, the North East Mayor Kim McGuinness committed to testing a new health in pregnancy grant for expectant mothers in the region. Unlike the original grant, this pilot will support only mothers on low-incomes or in receipt of universal credit. For a combined authority with a limited budget, this makes sense. But it risks lowering take-up by pregnant mothers and reducing the impact on babies. And it should not be up to a Mayor to fill in the gaps of our social security net.
Therefore, the government should restore the health in pregnancy grant nationally. It would be a universal benefit, available for every pregnancy and regardless of household income. Payment should require mothers to seek antenatal advice such as visiting their midwife or GP for an ante-natal check-up, as under the previous Labour government. And the new grant should be available earlier in the pregnancy – perhaps from the 12-week scan. It would be worth over £480 during pregnancy, if paid at current child benefit rates. In the Fabian Society report, First Steps, we estimate it would cost around £292m a year.
The government’s plan for change is clear in its determination to give every child the best start in life. Restoring the health in pregnancy grant would be a relatively low-cost, proven mechanism to do this. The forthcoming child poverty strategy must commit to introducing it.
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