Children in England are facing their own hostile environment, with government policy undermining their right to a fair start in life and support for families systematically dismantled since 2010.

First 1,000 days of life, published this week by the Commons health and social care committee, exposes the extent of the damage – and the impact it has had.

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The MPs’ report lays bare the desperate need for coordinated support for infants and their families. Under New Labour, resources were poured in to supporting children’s early years. Benefits were increased, children’s services were expanded, child poverty was targeted, the Healthy Child Programme was introduced and Sure Start centres were established across the country.

But since the economic crash in 2008 and change of government in 2010, public spending on children has fallen and child poverty has increased, as evidence from the children’s commissioner for England and the Institute for Fiscal Studies shows. According to the Sutton Trust, somewhere in the region of 1,000 Sure Start centres have closed – more than a quarter of the total. The Institute for Health Visiting told MPs that 65% of families are not formally seeing a health visitor after their baby is aged eight weeks.

Much government policy now focuses on intervening later in childhood to tackle issues such as obesity and poor mental health. Care and support in the first years of life are patchy and fragmented.

The extent to which our life chances are determined in the first months of life is terrifying. According to evidence from Barnardo’s and the Health Foundation, a child whose development falls behind during their first years is far more likely to be left even further behind as they get older than to catch up.

There are myriad ways parents can harm their children in the early years, including poor diet, smoking, alcohol and substance misuse, domestic violence, poor parenting skills and choosing not to immunise them.

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According to the children’s commissioner, almost 200,000 children under the age of one live with an adult who has experienced domestic violence or abuse, around 300,000 live with an adult who has a mental illness, and more than 100,000 live with an adult who have drug or alcohol problems. Factors such as smoking and obesity in pregnancy are strongly linked to low income, insecure employment and poor housing.

The committee’s MPs believe the answer is to take a joined-up approach to population health, looking at the homes and communities where people live, how they are supported by the NHS and social care, and how other aspects of their lives impact on their health. They plead for the government to consider the needs of vulnerable families in all its policies.

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The reality is that the needs of vulnerable families are repeatedly ignored. Cutting local services, cutting welfare funding while rolling out universal credit, and failing to take robust action against companies making money out of childhood obesity all set poor families up to fail.

It was the government’s refusal to understand that its policies are responsible for poverty which fed the palpable anger of Prof Philip Alston, United Nations special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, when he reported on the UK last year. He concluded: “For almost one in every two children to be poor in twenty-first century Britain is not just a disgrace, but a social calamity and an economic disaster, all rolled into one.”

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Despite this environment, some public services are still managing to deliver innovative support for the first years of life. In Northern Ireland, the infant mental health framework disseminates evidence to policymakers and supports the training of staff in contact with young children to assess risks, particularly around parent-infant interaction.

The Big Lottery Fund has invested a total of £215m over 10 years in Blackpool, Bradford, Lambeth, Nottingham and Southend to support Better Start projects led by the NSPCC. The aim is to tackle risk factors such as drugs, alcohol, mental illness, domestic abuse and social isolation. Work includes strengthening collaboration between councils, the NHS, the voluntary sector and police.

But it leaves the uneasy feeling that lottery funding is backfilling holes left by local government cuts. It is ameliorating the problem, not getting to the heart of it.

The UN, parliament, councils, the children’s commissioner, charities and thinktanks provide overwhelming evidence of the impact of government policy. But ministers are not listening.

• Richard Vize is a public policy commentator and analyst