Educational parenting programmes are an integral part of parenting policy. The use of parenting programmes in England as an element of UK government parenting policy since the late 1990s has attracted the critical attention of academics in education, social policy and other related fields. This paper puts parenting 'support' and, specifically, the use of educational parenting programmes in England, in the wider global and regional context. It examines the drivers of that policy choice, the international and European framework within which parenting policy and programmes sit, and makes comparisons with other countries in Europe and Asia. In addition, it uses evidence derived from research conducted into key initiatives and programmes in England from the 1990s to 2015, along with international data related to evidence-based parenting programmes, to examine the validity of the critique of parenting support in England over the last two decades. In doing so, the paper presents the first comprehensive challenge to critical scholars' interpretation of parenting support policies in England.