Reforming the Sure Start maternity grant

Our briefing covers why the government should invest in the first 1,001 days of children's lives, and how the Sure Start maternity grant can be redesigned to provide adequate support for all children. 

International evidence suggests that sustained financial support during pregnancy and early infancy reduces rates of low birthweight, improves parental mental health and delivers lasting developmental gains, especially for the most disadvantaged families. Maternity grants were introduced in 1988 to help parents with the costs of having a newborn child. But since then its value has gradually eroded, and today the Sure Start maternity grant reaches relatively few families.

In our briefing, we make recommendations for changes that would make sure that the grant provides a solid foundation for children and families during this critical time in their lives.

Our recommendations to better support families include: 

• Increase access by extending the SSMG for all newborns in families on UC as a relatively inexpensive first step.
• Improve adequacy by increasing the grant to £2,500 for all newborns in families on UC. This would reduce child poverty by 50,000 at a cost of £600 million and improve short term health outcomes and longer-term outcomes. 
• Link social security records to birth registration data and long-term health and education outcomes. This would enable the UK to build a world-leading evidence base on the effects of its own policy choices.