Bill providing for automatic enrolment onto Healthy Start scheme receives first reading in House of Commons

Private Members’ Bill will require Secretary of State to enrol all eligible families onto the scheme unless they chose to opt-out

A Bill that provides for automatic enrolment onto the Healthy Start scheme has received its first reading in the House of Commons.

Introducing the Private Members Bill to the House of Commons yesterday, Labour MP Emma Lewell-Buck said –

'There is a very clear need for the scheme, but, as I have been told time and again, awareness is low among the public and professionals…

In 2021, I and others raised concerns about plans to fully digitalise the scheme by 2022, so that paper applications and vouchers would no longer be accepted. Some years back, the UN rapporteur on extreme poverty investigated the growing deprivation in the UK, and warned the government: 'The British welfare state is gradually disappearing behind a webpage and an algorithm, with significant implications for those living in poverty', and that, by assuming that all claimants had the digital skills needed to complete the form, the Government had “built a digital barrier”. Sadly, they ignored his entire report and ploughed ahead. The result for Healthy Start was that more than 34,000 people who were previously in receipt of the vouchers are no longer receiving them.'

As a result, Ms Lewell-Buck asks that the government changes the scheme from an opt-in system, where claimants have to apply for support, to an opt-out one, saying that –

'Automatic enrolment is possible. The government know who is eligible and claim that they have the funds. Automatic enrolment would increase take-up, ensuring that the millions of pounds sat in the Treasury, allocated to those mothers and babies, is exactly where it should be.'

The Bill is due to have its second reading on 24 November 2023.