Early Years Intervention � Why Love Matters

Two of Britain's great social achievements of the last century were to create universal education and free healthcare for all. In the 21st century we face a social challenge at least as great - to turn around the devastation wrought on our society by the impact of poor early bonding.

From the riots of last August to our shocking teenage pregnancy rate to the appalling number of children being taken into care and the high rate of family breakdown, it's clear that something has gone badly wrong in the ability of too many to empathize, to build relationships and to form strong bonds.

Damian Hinds MP and I put it to the 2020 Group this week that the very earliest relationships in a baby's life hold the key to his or her lifelong emotional health. We tend to think of love as something that can't be accurately measured and that sits outside the realm of science. Yet there is a wealth of evidence that love, or secure attachment, is absolutely critical in the first two years of a baby's life.

Human babies are unique in the animal kingdom in the extent of their underdevelopment at birth. Physically, a baby can do nothing much for himself until he is two years old. But it is the mental underdevelopment of a baby that is the most remarkable point.......

The frontal cortex - the part of the brain that enables us to empathise and form relationships - is barely present when we are born. That part of the brain has its most critical period of growth between six and eighteen months of age, and it's healthy growth is stimulated by the loving attentions of an adult carer, normally but not always Mum.

Neuroscience proves the fundamental effect on the baby's CAPACITY as a human being of the earliest relationship. It would be nice to think that science is merely confirming what every mother knows instinctively. Tragically, this is not always so - parents sometimes need help. Post natal depression, substance addiction, domestic violence.......all can make it hard to form a secure early bond with profound consequences for that baby.

So the stakes are incredibly high: a lack of loving attention in the first two years can damage someone for life, at best they will struggle to cope with life's ups and downs, making it hard to make friends at school or keep a partner later on in life. At the more acute end, a baby that was neglected or abused by their key carer will have a predisposition to anti social and/or high risk taking behaviour. Our prisons, our homeless hostels and our psychiatric hospitals are full of the evidence of poor early attachment.

It is a cruel irony that people who didn't form a secure bond themselves as a baby will struggle to bond with their own children, creating a cycle of misery that is passed down through generations. But in all this doom and gloom, what is truly exciting is that the first two years of life also present a window of opportunity: effective early years intervention can have an extremely positive effect on the earliest relationship at a time when both Mum (due to hormonal changes) and baby have the greatest capacity for change.

This is the motive behind the Northamptonshire Parent Infant Partnership (NorPIP) which I founded and which is based in Towcester in my constituency of South Northamptonshire. Like its sister charity OXPIP in Oxfordshire, where I am a trustee and was chairman for 9 years, it offers psychotherapeutic support for parents with their babies. OXPIP has shown over twelve years the amazingly positive results that can be achieved. And of course, prevention is kinder, more effective and far cheaper than cure.

In past decades, families lived much closer together. Now they are often spread out over the country and even the world and so supportive ties are loosened. Midwives and Health Visitors often do a marvellous job, but they have heavy caseloads and typically focus on the baby's physical rather than their emotional progress. So the work of organisations like OXPIP and NorPIP is all the more vital, and I want to see a PIP operating in every part of the country through the children's centres to give every baby the best start in life. Quite apart from the benefits to families who would be so much happier, there are huge rewards to the taxpayer in terms of fewer 'problem families', fewer children in care and fewer young criminals.

I relish the prospect of a developing social impact bond market that would enable investors to put money into prevention programmes with a financial return based on identifiable outcomes such as lower levels of drug-taking, underage drinking and pregnancy and educational attainment.

The 2020 Group were, I think, convinced by Damian and me of the need for action. At a meeting next week with the Prime Minister, we will be making the case directly to him. I want to see support for the earliest relationships become as fundamental to our society as the NHS and universal education. A huge ambition, But one that would radically change Britain for the better.

Note: The views expressed in this post are those of the author, not of the 2020 Conservatives group as a collective, the Conservative Party or the Government.