Ministers are to fund a network of “family hubs” in England as part of a £500m package to support parents and children.

The centres in 75 different areas will provide a “one stop shop” for support and advice, the government said.

The funding, to be announced by the chancellor in Wednesday’s Budget, will also go towards breastfeeding advice and mental health services.

Labour called the plans a “smokescreen” for failing to deliver for families. 

Kate Green MP, Labour’s shadow education secretary, said family hubs were “a sticking plaster for a fractured childcare and children services landscape”.

“This supposed commitment rings hollow after 11 years of Conservative cuts have forced the closure of over a thousand children’s centres, cutting off the early learning that sets children up for life,” she said.

The funding includes £200m to support 300,000 families who face complex issues that could lead to family breakdown. 

Some £82m will be given to 75 local authorities to fund the new family hubs, while another £100m will go towards mental health support for expectant parents.

And £50m will be spent on breastfeeding support – including antenatal classes and one-to-one support – to build upon best practice from areas such as Tower Hamlets in London, which has the highest breastfeeding rates at six to eight weeks in England.

The CPRE charity’s chief executive, Crispin Truman, said reforms were needed and more could have done to help boost funding for market towns and villages in Mr Sunak’s Budget.

He said the Government was employing funding models that “systematically disadvantage” rural communities and worsen the climate emergency.

He added: “By levelling up between urban and rural investment, not just North and South, we could regenerate many rural towns and villages that have been long forgotten.

“It’s just not right that government spending per person on public infrastructure is 44 per cent higher for urban areas than it is for rural areas with no major cities. We risk levelling up Northern cities to the level of London and leaving rural areas stuck in disadvantage and decline.”

Both the CLA lobby group and the NFU welcomed Mr Sunak’s announcement that business rate relief and the reduced VAT rate will both be extended.

The NFU’s president, Minette Batters, urged the Government to invest in farming to bring “huge benefits to sustainable food