Like many young mothers, Jenna was unsure where to start. But that’s where her local family support service came in. Offering breastfeeding advice, a space to come together with other parents and for her son Billy to play with other babies, it reassured Jenna that she was on the right track – and crucially, that Billy was set up to achieve when he got to school.

Jenna’s service was the first of Labour’s renowned Sure Start centres in Washington, my home town in north-east England. I knew it well: before becoming an MP I ran a refuge nearby for women fleeing domestic violence. I linked up the women who used our refuge with Sure Start. It was a lifeline for those women who, despite everything, were determined to give their children the very best start in life.

But, sadly, after 14 years of Conservative government, stories like Jenna’s, and those of the many women who were offered that lifeline, are much less common. Funding was stripped out of Sure Start centres and services scrapped in rebranded family hubs. Today, 65 councils, and the children and families who live under their authority, have missed out on recent funding. Many more are lacking the childcare places that so many families in our country need.

For every Jenna, there are a host of other young mothers, and families, who missed out on crucial pillars of support, whose children have fallen behind before they have even started school.

One in three five-year-olds enters year 1 without the basic skills – like holding a pencil and writing their own name – that they need to make the most of what education has to offer them. Some haven’t reached essential milestones such as putting on a coat or going to the toilet by themselves.

For the most vulnerable children, the situation is graver. Just over half of those eligible for free school meals reach a good level of development at age five. For children in social care, it’s just over one in three. And for children with special educational needs, it’s one in five.

The gap in achievement we see between our poorest and most affluent children at 16 is baked in before they even start school, creating a vicious cycle of lost life chances that’s all too visible in the shameful number of young people not earning or learning.

It’s this government’s moral mission to bridge that gap, but to do it we must build an education system where all children can achieve and thrive, starting from day one.

That is why reforming the early years education system is my number one priority. And it’s why, just 12 months after Labour entered government, I am so proud to be setting out our strategy to give every child the best start in life.

Backed by £1.5bn over the next three years, it brings together the best of Sure Start, health services, community groups and the early years sector, with the shared goal of setting up children to succeed when they get to school.

We will create 1,000 Best Start Family Hubs, at least one in every council area, invest a record £9bn in funded childcare and early years places – and hundreds of millions to improve quality in early years settings and reception classes.

These hubs will bring disjointed support systems into one place, allowing thousands of families to access help with anything from birth registration to breastfeeding, from housing support to children’s speech and language development.

The strategy takes inspiration from around the world. I’ve been really impressed by what happens in countries I’ve visited, such as Estonia, where early education and family support are bound tightly together with stellar results. Its disadvantage gap is negligible because children get to school ready to learn. Its children outperform those from much larger, wealthier countries in international rankings. The country punches above its weight economically as a result.

At the heart of our strategy is the recognition that for our country to succeed in a fast-changing world, it is not enough for only some children to do well in education: every child must have the opportunity and the tools not just to get by, but to get on in life.

Working people have always known that education is the best way to break the link between their background and what they go on to achieve, the route to prosperity not just for individuals, but for all of society. It’s a common thread that runs through every Labour government: that we must use education to spread the freedoms that today too few enjoy, so that tomorrow they are common to us all.

It’s the essence of our politics, the socialism of extending freedom to allow working people to choose their own path to fulfilment: to get better employment, to achieve a better quality of life or even to start a family.

This strategy is a watershed moment for our government, but more importantly for every single family who needs our support. To make it a reality, we will begin unprecedented collaboration between parents, councils, nurseries, childminders, schools and government, enmeshing family support, early education and childcare so deeply that no rightwing government can ever unpick it, as the Tories did with Sure Start over 14 long years.

Our plan for change will ensure Jenna’s experience – and Billy’s future success – is shared by every family and every child in our country.

Labour will aim to embed a Sure Start-type system of help for deprived children and families so deeply and completely into the state that a future Reform or Conservative government would not be able to dismantle it, Bridget Phillipson has pledged.

Arguing that efforts to close the attainment gap between poorer and richer children was the government’s “moral mission”, the education secretary promised to build on this weekend’s announcement of a new wave of family hubs across England, an effective successor to Sure Start.

Sure Start, a network of centres offering integrated services for the under-fives and their families, launched in 1998 under the last Labour government, and was seen as one of its major successes, with one study saying it generated longer-term savings worth twice the system’s cost.

But much of Sure Start was dismantled amid massive spending cuts by the Conservatives. The new policy of family hubs will commit £500m to opening 1,000 centres from April 2026.

In an article for the Guardian, Phillipson said the centres should become part of a wider network of help for families, one that would not just be impossible to take apart, but that would become so popular that they would become an untouchable “third rail” of British politics.

The family hubs strategy was “a watershed moment” for both government and families, Phillipson wrote.

She went on: “To make it a reality we will begin unprecedented collaboration between parents, councils, nurseries, childminders, schools and government, enmeshing family support, early education, and childcare so deeply that no rightwing government can ever unpick it, as the Tories did with Sure Start over 14 long years.

“We will ensure any such assault on the system will become the new third rail of British politics.”

In a follow-up announcement to the plan for family hub centres, which are intended to be created in every council area in England by 2028, Phillipson’s department has also announced plans to pay qualified early years teachers to work in the most deprived areas, where their work could have the greatest impact.

Currently, the Department for Education says, just one in 10 nurseries have a qualified early years teacher. The incentive scheme will involve a tax-free payment of £4,500 to early years teachers who take a job in a nursery in one of the 20 most disadvantaged communities in England.

In another change, the education watchdog Ofsted will inspect any new early years providers within 18 months of opening, with subsequent inspections taking place at least once every four years, rather than the current six.

Sure Start and its successor programmes have a near-totemic role in the narrative of the modern Labour party, with Angela Rayner, its deputy leader, saying her life as a teenage mother and that of her son were turned around by her local centre, which offered her a parenting course.

In her Guardian article, Phillipson recounted working closely with the first-ever Sure Start centre in Washington, Tyne and Wear, when she ran a refuge for women fleeing domestic violence, before she entered politics.

“It was a lifeline for those women who, despite everything, were determined to give their children the very best start in life,” she wrote. “The gap in achievement we see between our poorest and most affluent children at 16 is baked in before they even start school, creating a vicious cycle of lost life chances that’s all too visible in the shameful number of young people not earning or learning.”

Speaking in interviews on Sunday morning, Phillipson said Labour was also committed to tackling child poverty, but said the fiscal cost of Downing Street’s U-turn on changes to welfare last week would make it harder to implement other policies such as potentially scrapping the two-child benefit cap.

I recently stood before hundreds of young people in California’s Central Valley; more than 60 percent were on that day becoming the first in their family to earn a bachelor’s degree.

Their very presence at University of California, Merced’s spring commencement ceremony disrupted a major narrative in our nation about who college is for — and the value of a degree.

Many of these young people arrived already balancing jobs, caregiving responsibilities and family obligations. Many were Pell Grant-eligible and came from communities that are constantly underestimated and where a higher education experience is a rarity.

These students graduated college at a critical moment in American history: a time when the value of a bachelor’s degree is being called into question, when public trust in higher education is vulnerable and when supports for first-generation college students are eroding. Yet an affordable bachelor’s degree remains the No. 1 lever for financial, professional and social mobility in this country.

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A recent Gallup poll showed that the number of Americans who have a great deal of confidence in higher education is dwindling, with a nearly equal amount responding that they have little to none. In 2015, when Gallup first asked this question, those expressing confidence outnumbered those without by nearly six to one.

There is no doubt that higher education must continue to evolve — to be more accessible, more relevant and more affordable — but the impact of a bachelor’s degree remains undeniable.

And the bigger truth is this: America’s long-term strength — its economic competitiveness, its innovation pipeline, its social fabric — depends on whether we invest in the education of the young people who reflect the future of this country.

There are many challenges for today’s workforce, from a shrinking talent pipeline to growing demands in STEM, healthcare and the public sector. These challenges can’t be solved unless we ensure that more first-generation students and those from underserved communities earn their degrees in affordable ways and leverage their strengths in ways they feel have purpose.

Those of us in education must create conditions in which students’ talent is met with opportunity and higher education institutions demonstrate that they believe in the potential of every student who comes to their campuses to learn.

UC Merced is a fantastic example of what this can look like. The youngest institution in the California University system, it was recently designated a top-tier “R1” research university. At the same time, it earned a spot on Carnegie’s list of “Opportunity Colleges and Universities,” a new classification that recognizes institutions based on the success of their students and alumni. It is one of only 21 institutions in the country to be nationally ranked for both elite research and student success and is proving that excellence and equity can — and must — go hand in hand.

In too many cases, students who make it to college campuses are asked to navigate an educational experience that wasn’t built with their lived experiences and dreams in mind. In fact, only 24 percent of first-generation college students earn a bachelor’s degree in six years, compared to nearly 59 percent of students who have a parent with a bachelor’s. This results in not just a missed opportunity for individual first-generation students — it’s a collective loss for our country.

Related: To better serve first-generation students, expand the definition