Princess Kate skips key meeting on pioneering early childhood project with no explanation

Princess Kate missed a Royal Foundation Centre for Early Childhood meeting today at Kensington Palace to discuss further projects, with no explanation given for her absence.

A photo of the sit-down meeting was shared on the Royal Foundation's X page, with the caption: "It was fantastic to host Chief Executives of some of the UK’s biggest businesses at Kensington Palace as we reconvened The Royal Foundation Business Taskforce for Early Childhood."

While the picture showed several important executives sat around the table, Princess Kate was not among them, nor were any other representatives from the Royal Family.

The companies represented at the meeting include NatWest, Unilever, Aviva, Deloitte, IKEA, the Co-op and Iceland, with further tweets explaining: "A huge amount of work has been going on behind the scenes with the taskforce members and there are some really exciting projects being developed.

"There is such ambition and determination from this group to lead the charge in driving transformative change and creating a healthier, happier society by increasing the focus on #earlychildhood. We are looking forward to sharing more in the coming months."

The Royal Foundation was set up Kate and her husband Prince William as their primary charitable organisation, with its Centre for Early Childhood being launched by the Princess in June 2021.

Both the Prince and Princess have their own specialist areas of interest, with William primarily working on tackling the illegal wildlife trade, improving mental health resources, supporting the emergency services community and fighting climate change through his Earthshot Prize.

Kate meanwhile is focusing on support for young families, those facing addiction and other mental health problems and is currently leading the way in promoting the importance of early years learning and development in society.

In January 2023 Kate launched Shaping Us, a five to ten year project to encourage the UK population to give greater priority to the social and emotional wellbeing of young children.

During her speech at the pre-launch event at BAFTA the Princess called the campaign her "life's work", as she works to highlight how the first five years of a child's life helps to determine how happy and healthy they will be throughout the rest of their life.

She said: "The campaign is fundamentally about shining a spotlight on the critical importance of early childhood and how it shapes the adults we become.

"During this time we lay the foundations and building blocks for life. And it is when we learn to understand ourselves, understand others and understand the world in which we live."

She continued: "All of society has a role to play in this, even if you are not directly involved in a child's life, because we are all responsible for building a more compassionate world in which our children can grow, learn and live.

"In these difficult times, it is more important than ever to help support parents and caregivers provide loving safe and secure homes for their babies and young children to survive."