Mr Sheerman
No, Clackmannanshire.
One inquiry swept the Minister away to the world of synthetic phonics, and he has been there ever since, but in fact much research shows that a qualified teacher or an early years professional in an early years setting makes a substantial difference to outcomes, and this Government are taking that away.
The Minister of State, Department for Education (Sarah Teather)
We are not taking that requirement away; we are taking away the requirement for both professionals.
Mr Sheerman
That is good information, but if I take the two responses together I find that the requirement is substantially weakened.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Tim Loughton)
He hasn’t read it.
Sarah Teather
Yes, I fear that the hon. Gentleman probably has not read all the document.
Part of the problem is that in some areas—[Interruption.] If the hon. Gentleman lets me finish, then he can shout at me. In some areas, we find that there is no need for full day care, and if there is no need, we end up subsidising full day-care places, which is not sensible. We should put that money into the evidence-based programmes that make the difference, to which the hon. Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom) referred. That is where the money must go, and that is why we have taken away the requirement for full day care. There is no requirement for both professionals, but there will need to be one.
Mr Sheerman
I am sorry, but it is unkind of Ministers to suggest that I have not read the document. From a close reading of it, I have explained how those two paragraphs do not make sense. Taking away the commitments to 10 hours a day and to 48 weeks a year substantially weakens the overall offer.
Now that I have managed to get the Minister to the Dispatch Box, I wonder whether she will also tell us a little about the future mutualisation of children’s centres. The Select Committee said that it was in favour of variety and more community-responsive children’s centres. We certainly were not against diversity in the shape and nature of children’s centres throughout the country, but throwing into the response to our report something about the possibility of mutualisation, without really developing it, left us all rather puzzled. Can she enlighten us on mutualisation?
Sarah Teather
I shall pick up on those wider points when the hon. Gentleman sits down and I make my speech. I just wanted to make that clarification, but I am conscious that other Members want to speak and I am just prolonging his speech.
Luciana Berger
Let me get back to my point about back-office costs. How much can be saved in back-office costs from a Sure Start centre that has a part-time co-ordinator and one receptionist? I asked that question because of the heartbreak and concern that this matter is causing parents and grandparents in my constituency, and I want to share the strength of their feelings with the House. I have received many letters and e-mails in recent days, as I am sure other right hon. and hon. Members have. These are the voices of the communities who do not feel that they are “all in this together”, and the voices of parents who feel that they have been singled out for attack.
Wendy told me:
“I was devastated to hear that my local children’s Sure Start centre at Woolton and Childwall is in the pipeline for closure. As a new mum I have found the centre to be extremely supportive and a vital service for the community. The staff have always been brilliant and extremely informative. It is also a great opportunity to meet other parents.”
Kate said:
“Sure Start have responded well to the local needs. They recognised the presence of a number of families with twins locally, and promptly provided specific twin baby classes and a multiple birth support group. It is hard to express how important these groups are. As a family with twins, you are excluded from some other activities (e.g. swimming) and simply struggle to take your babies to anything that is not well set up to cope with twins. And yet, as a mother at home with multiples, your need to get out and stimulate the kids is even greater. Our local Sure Start centre is a haven for us!”
Helen wrote:
“The children’s centres are important in our communities and help to give our children the best possible start in life”;
and Emma wrote:
“the staff at Church and Mossley Hill Sure Start are some of the most skilled and committed I have ever met (and I have more than 10 years’ experience working in education). Church and Mossley Hill Sure Start is an over-subscribed, thriving hub of support for parents and babies in south Liverpool…Church & Mossley Hill Sure Start has already built up strong and lasting links in the short time that it has been running.”
My inbox and letter bag have been swamped by many more messages like those.
The Secretary of State for Education (Michael Gove)
I should like first to take this opportunity to apologise for the delay in the answer to the hon. Lady’s named day question; I will investigate that on her behalf.
The hon. Lady is making a powerful case, and I join her in praising the hard work and dedication of the staff whom she has rightly praised. However, as she will be aware, funding for Sure Start children’s centres is distributed through the early intervention grant, which is calculated on a formula basis to take account of rural sparseness, need and—particularly—deprivation, according to working tax credit data. Obviously, we want to ensure that that formula is improved if necessary. Does she have practical suggestions for how the early intervention grant should change to ensure that the communities most in need receive what they deserve?
Luciana Berger
I thank the Secretary of State for his intervention. The cabinet lead for education in Liverpool, Councillor Jane Corbett, about whom I shall say more, has spent many an hour with local education practitioners, members of the community and Sure Start staff to talk to them about what can be done. I would welcome the opportunity to join representatives from Liverpool to meet the Secretary of State to discuss that.
Michael Gove
I am sorry to intervene again, and I am grateful to the hon. Lady for allowing me to do so. I am looking forward to visiting Liverpool on 28 March, and I am sure that I can extend the itinerary that the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg) is shaping for me so that I have time to talk to the people concerned.
Luciana Berger
I look forward to the Secretary of State’s forthcoming visit to Liverpool.
From many pieces of correspondence with families in my constituency, I have learned that they cannot understand why, when they play by the rules—many are in work and paying their taxes—their most prized and precious asset is the among the first to come under the axe. Councillor Jane Corbett, whom I mentioned—she is Liverpool council’s education and children’s services cabinet member—spoke for so many in our community when she said:
“The Government is showing complete contempt for the youngest children in Liverpool by putting forward these politically motivated cuts. I cannot believe the lack of concern for children and families in Liverpool.”
Liverpool people have a strong sense of fairness. They know that the Government are not treating them fairly, and they will not forget it. If the Government want a big society, they need not look much further than the Sure Start centres at Childwall and Woolton, and at Church and Mossley Hill.
Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)
I have raised the cuts in Sure Start provision in my constituency with the Minister on a number of occasions, but I make no apology for raising the matter again today. She will accept that this is serious and that I am very concerned. They are the most substantial cuts in public services so far in Hammersmith—from what I have heard today, there are some horrific stories from around the country—and the cuts in my constituency are the largest proportionately anywhere, in that nine of 15 centres will close.
When the Minister responds to the debate, I want her to answer this question, which I have put to the Chair of the Education Committee and others. What is the proper role of the Government in local authorities that do not do what the Government say they should do? Given all the talk of localism, and the fact that the Government are happy to intervene when they think that councils are not clearing snow quickly enough or emptying bins often enough—[Interruption.] I am directing my comments to the Minister, who I hoped would listen to them, but apparently she will not—[Interruption.] I will pause, if you do not mind, Madam Deputy Speaker, until the Minister pays attention, given that I am asking her a direct and specific question. She persists in talking to her colleagues and not listening, which is somewhat discourteous. I am talking about the majority of services for the under-fives in my constituency being cut by her Government, so she could at least have the courtesy to listen to my comments.
Sarah Teather
I sincerely apologise for not listening to the hon. Gentleman—I was trying to hear when this debate was going to wind up and when I would begin my speech—but he now has my full concentration.
Mr Slaughter
I am grateful for that. The Minister has said in previous debates that she has concerns about what is happening in Hammersmith. Her view—she has expressed it both in answer to parliamentary questions and in debate—is that there is sufficient money in the early intervention grant to preserve the network of Sure Start centres. I am sure she will repeat that view today, in spite of a cut of about 13% coming from central Government—certainly my Conservative council has said that the cut in Sure Start funding through the early intervention grant is 12.9%.
Given that we are talking about what are already pretty lean organisations, as my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger) said, we could argue about whether even a 13% cut can sustain the current professional network. However, the Minister has set out her stall on that, so I will address the issue locally, because even on the basis of the cut of about 45% that we are facing—a cut that has been revised slightly downwards—the preservation of Sure Start in Hammersmith is demonstrably unsustainable.
Without going into too much detail, there are one or two points from my local examples that bear analysis, because similar things may be happening elsewhere in the country.
Mr Slaughter
The whole situation is clearly nonsense. The belated process of consultation closed on Monday 28 February, but the budget for the year was decided at the budget council meeting on 23 February. Nobody is fooled by this, and I suspect that the divisional court will also not be fooled by it when it comes to look at the decision-making process over Sure Start in Hammersmith and Fulham.
There is a fourth reason for the last-minute change of heart, whereby no money suddenly became £19,000. Another paragraph of the later report said:
“We understand that there is no expectation of claw back of capital spend on children’s centres”—
that is, by the Department for Education—
“unless the buildings are no longer used for the services for under fives and their families. We are confident that the proposal outlined above will satisfy DfE requirements.”
So one of the officers said that if the grant was withdrawn as intended and as decided, the Minister of State would come round, not to see what wonderful work had been done but to take back the buildings that had subsequently closed.
Two centres are closing in the ward where I live, in a substantial area of deprivation. About a minute’s walk from my home is Wendell Park children’s centre. A number of parents whose children attend the centre were at the seminar held this morning by the shadow Secretary of State for Education, my right hon. Friend the Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham), and I met them afterwards. They are campaigning to keep their centre open, and they are under no illusion—
Mr Slaughter
No, I will not give way to the Secretary of State, at least not at the moment. If he wishes to participate in debates such as this, perhaps he should be present from the beginning. Given that when I have tried to raise this and other education issues in my constituency with him over the past few weeks his replies have been flippant and have not addressed those issues, I am in no particular hurry to hear his views on this subject. I may give way to him if I have time at the end.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. I think that we had better continue with the debate.
Mrs Hodgson
I would support a return to the ring fence, if not for the whole early intervention grant, then specifically for the Sure Start element within it. [Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman wanted my opinion and I have given it. The proposals are also contrary to the considered views of the Select Committee, which he now chairs, of my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead and of my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen).
The Minister of State seems to be continually distracted and keeps missing important points I am making. She has already had to ask the Secretary of State about my comment on the hon. Member for Corby, and I would not like her to miss anything else I say.
As I said, my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead and my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North, whose opinions the Minister actively sought, have both championed the prioritisation of early intervention schemes such as children’s centres.
Michael Gove
The hon. Lady says that she would ring-fence funding for Sure Start but has not made it clear that she would increase the early intervention grant. The right hon. Member for Morley and Outwood (Ed Balls) has recently proposed a tax cut by not going ahead with the VAT increase on fuel. If she would ring-fence Sure Start and cut taxes on fuel at the same time, where would the money come from to support the other important services that she was generous enough to list earlier?
Mrs Hodgson
As I am sure the Secretary of State is aware, I am not shadow Chancellor; my right hon. Friend the Member for Morley and Outwood (Ed Balls) is. I will not be tempted to go outside my remit—[Interruption.] All I have said is that I would ring-fence the Sure Start element within the early intervention budget, as the leader of the Opposition said today. We have heard the Secretary of State say so many times that he has given councils enough money to maintain their current network of children’s centres—that comes from a direct quote—so if they have enough money within the early intervention grant, why should we be afraid to ring-fence the Sure Start element in it? It is not a spending commitment.
Michael Gove
The hon. Lady was kind enough to mention earlier that by her own calculation ring-fencing Sure Start within the current early intervention grant envelope would mean that other services would have to go. How will she protect those other services? Will she raise taxes, cut spending elsewhere or, as she said earlier, simply cross her fingers and hope for the best?
Mrs Hodgson
It is Ministers who are crossing their fingers and hoping for the best, not me. By making that comment, the Secretary of State has admitted that the early intervention grant is not big enough for the sum of its parts and that all 22 funding streams that feed into it cannot all be met. He has made that admission on the Floor of the House, and I am sure that Opposition colleagues are grateful for it.
Mrs Hodgson
That is a key point, and I am sure that the Minister will refer to it in her closing remarks.
The Minister has said on several occasions that she wants children’s centres to be paid by results. That does not necessarily seem a bad thing, until it is considered that, nine times out of 10, improving results will need up-front funds, or at least guaranteed budgets. I completely accept that we need to ensure the best value for taxpayers’ money and that outcomes are what matter, but if payment by results means holding significant chunks of money back from budgets, centres will have to concentrate more on managing their funding, which detracts from the quality of service they can provide with reduced funds.
I hope that the Minister will be able to tell us something about payment by results. In the letter to the hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke), which I referred to earlier, the Minister said that she would do so in early 2011. Now, when I look at a calendar, I see that it is definitely early 2011. It is actually March 2011, so I look forward to hearing about payment by results.
The Minister will no doubt tell us that that funding is targeted at those who need it most, but Library research shows the opposite. The brunt of the cuts to the early intervention grants seem to be borne by local authorities with the greatest number of children living in poverty, as my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Steve Rotheram) just said with regard to Liverpool city council. Local authorities such as Knowsley, Sefton, Wirral and Sunderland, which covers my constituency, are all in the top 10 for cumulative cuts, while authorities such as Cambridgeshire, Richmond upon Thames and Hampshire—all sounding leafy and suburban—are among those that come off best. Can the Minister explain the difference between her words and actions?
There is so much more that I would like to say, but I want to hear from the Minister. To echo the former chief executive of the Daycare Trust, in speaking to the Select Committee, Sure Start
“has been not just a step in the right direction but thousands of steps”.
Every closure, every child whose provision deteriorates, every parent who misses out on the help to improve their parenting, and every early years professional forced to abandon the sector because the jobs have disappeared represents another step backwards from the creation of a society in which every child has the best possible start in life.
I should like to believe that the Minister and her colleagues think the same, but in so many other areas the warm words that we heard before the election, from the Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister and others, and since have not matched the actions of this Tory-led Government. Promises to protect Sure Start have been broken—plain and simple broken promises. Cash-starved councils are being forced to make unpalatable decisions that look set to deprive many thousands of families of the services that they value highly and, in many cases, rely upon, because of a decision that the Minister and her colleagues have made.
The Lord Commissioner of Her Majesty's Treasury (James Duddridge)
Two minutes over.
Mrs Hodgson
I did give way a number of times to Government Front Benchers.
Not only that, but many areas with the greatest need are seeing the biggest cuts. The rhetoric does not match the reality, so the Minister needs to make a decision: she should either be honest about her failure to protect children’s centres or take action to make good her words.
The Minister of State, Department for Education (Sarah Teather)
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr Stuart), the whole Select Committee and, indeed, the previous Chair of the Select Committee, the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman), for the important report that we are debating today, and for giving the House the opportunity to discuss the future of Sure Start children’s centres.
The report has been timely and helpful as the Government develop their approach to early years. The debate has on the whole been very good and constructive, with focused speeches about the future direction of policy, but the report demonstrates the extent of the all-party support for children’s centres as vital hubs of excellence in delivering integrated services to families, particularly those who most need support and advice. I have listened with interest to Members, and I shall try to address as many issues and concerns as I possibly can, as well as picking up on the key areas of our response to the Select Committee report. I am mindful, however, that I now have very little time left in which to speak.
The start of the debate was particularly important, because the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field) reminded us why we are debating the matter. Early years are the foundation for life. High-quality early intervention has the potential to turn around life chances, and poor experiences in early years, such as those to which the hon. Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom) referred, can actually change the physical nature of the brain. The failure to develop relationships of attachment can affect a child for ever, not just in the first few years of life. That is precisely why the Government have prioritised spending in this area, as the hon. Member for West Suffolk (Matthew Hancock) discussed.
I was struck by the comments of the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) about the importance of Sure Start in providing other support for families, not just for children. Let me be clear about this from the start. The coalition Government see Sure Start as vital to their work on social mobility: it is a key priority. Sure Start has proved itself to be a programme that has the capacity to be life-changing, and we want to build on its success. The Chair of the Select Committee said that he hoped we were not going to rip everything up. That is exactly what we are not doing. We are building on the good aspects of Sure Start, but, as the right hon. Member for Birkenhead said, trying to develop it to ensure that we focus, particularly with more evidence-based programmes, on the families and children who need our support most. We believe that the best way to do this is through greater local decision making and accountability, more involvement of organisations that have proven expertise in service delivery, and, specifically, more use of evidence-based programmes.
Our response to the Committee’s report clearly states that, in our view, the main purpose of children’s centres is to ensure that families get help when they need it and to tackle issues early to prevent costly problems from emerging later. We want children’s centres to provide the foundation for stronger early joined-up working offering universal services for all families and targeted services focused on the neediest of those families.
Several hon. Members spoke about the need for evaluations, so let me pick up on a few of those points. The Government have commissioned an evaluation of Sure Start children’s centres in England that runs until 2016 alongside the national evaluation of Sure Start, which is evaluating a wide range of children’s centres. A report on the cost-effectiveness of the earlier Sure Start local programmes will be published later this year. I hope that that will be very useful information, for which the Chair of the Select Committee, in particular, asked.
The introduction of payment by results will incentivise better local evaluation of the impact of centres on children’s outcomes. In response to the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Steve Rotheram) and the Opposition spokesperson, I point out that when we begin trialling payment by results, some additional money will be going in to help us to do that. We will then learn from those trials to find the most effective way to roll out payment by results in future to ensure that we can incentivise children’s outcomes.
Sarah Teather
I am afraid that I cannot answer the hon. Lady’s question at the moment.
Children’s centres are a priority for us, so we have ensured that there is enough money in the system to maintain the network of Sure Start children’s centres through the early intervention grant, or EIG. The spending review announced that funding for Sure Start children’s centres would be maintained in cash terms, including new investment from the Department of Health for 4,200 health visitors to work alongside outreach and family support workers. I understand that many in the sector are concerned about the removal of ring-fencing. However, this is not about a lack of priority for the sector; on the contrary, it is a recognition of its growing strength and maturity.
The removal of the ring fence is not taking place in a vacuum. Across the piece, this Government are removing ring fences in many areas because we believe that the right way to make decisions is to trust people on the ground to decide how best to prioritise funding. In that way, we get much better decision making.
Sarah Teather
I give way first to the Chair of the Select Committee and then to the hon. Gentleman.
Sarah Teather
I do not want to spell out exactly which bits of the EIG go to what, because I want local authorities to make decisions on the ground about the best ways to do that. As the hon. Gentleman says, the money for health visitors comes from the Department of Health. I will write to him to provide some information about that, because I do not have it here with me. However, I do not want to—
Sarah Teather
I will give way in a moment; let me answer one point at a time. The hon. Gentleman should not get too excited.
I do not want to spell out the details, particularly because when finances are tight there is an even bigger onus on us to ensure that we provide flexibility for local decision making. I do not think that we will get better decisions if I try to drive all this from Whitehall. We will get better decisions if local authorities can look at their provision and work out how they can best rationalise it based on local need.
Bill Esterson
I say to the Minister that I do get excited about protecting services on which families in my constituency depend. She made the point about local decision making, but there is a difference between making decisions on how to deliver the detail of services and deciding whether to deliver those services. That is the crucial issue in relation to ring-fencing. I call on her again to reconsider the decision on ring-fencing so that councils have to deliver services, even if they can decide how to deliver them.
Sarah Teather
I will not reconsider the decision on ring-fencing because I believe that it is the correct decision. As I was trying to say before I took the interventions, this is not taking place in a vacuum. Payment by results will ensure that we focus much more on outcomes. As the hon. Member for West Suffolk powerfully put it, the problem with ring-fencing is that it focuses on inputs. I do not think that it is inputs that generate outcomes. We have to try to drive behaviour to focus on the outcomes.
Matthew Hancock
Does the Minister accept that in my area of Suffolk the removal of the ring fence has allowed the council to work up much more innovative solutions and to integrate different services? It can provide better solutions by bringing the delivery of services closer together, as the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field) said, and get better value for money. I therefore strongly applaud the Minister’s decision not to put the ring fence back in place.
Sarah Teather
I absolutely agree. The point is that local authorities ought to have the freedom to decide whether they want to integrate these services with their youth provision. I want them to make better use of what are often fantastic assets, which are not always fully utilised. If we provide flexibility for local authorities, they will have the opportunity to do that.
Mr Sheerman
On a related point, a thread that runs through all the reports of the previous Select Committee is the importance of the professional qualification for early years professionals, and of paying and training those professionals well. There is some unhappiness at the moment because it seems that the early years qualification will be brushed aside. Will the Minister reassure us that that is not the case?
Sarah Teather
I am not sure that I understand the hon. Gentleman’s point. We are in the process of co-producing a policy statement with the Department of Health and the sector on the vision for early years and on how we will drive forward a number of changes. In particular, it will deal with quality, which I spoke about this morning at the 4Children conference. The questions include whether the existing qualifications are fit for purpose, whether we should change them and whether we should ensure that there is a greater focus on child development. We are considering those matters at the moment and we will publish the policy statement later this year. Quality is key, which is why we have asked the National College for Leadership of Schools and Children’s Services to focus on the quality of leadership in children’s centres. Children’s centres have the potential to drive forward quality, not just in their centre, but in much of the early years provision in their area. They have a great deal of potential.
I only have about four minutes left, which will make it difficult to respond to all the questions that have come up. I want to deal with one point that was raised by Labour Members, and in particular by the hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger). She made a number of allegations about cuts being made in proportion to need. I simply dispute her point. In fact, we used the previous Government’s funding formula to allocate most of the money in the EIG. As she will be aware, the formula
“is based on the under 5 population, weighted to reflect deprivation (based on Working Tax Credits data), rurality and the Education area cost adjustment.
Also,
“Some of the EIG has been allocated according to a youth formula. This is based on population numbers, educational attainment at Key Stage 2 and 3 and GCSE, numbers of young people not in education, employment or training…and the Education area cost adjustment.”
It simply is not fair to say that we have chosen to target cuts at areas with the greatest need—that is quite offensive. I appreciate that some hon. Members have made speeches today in order to defend councils of their own political colour, which I can understand. I also acknowledge that things are extremely difficult for many councils at the moment. I am not saying that it is easy to run a council, any more than it is easy to run the country at the moment, given the parlous state of our finances.
Many local authorities are making sensible decisions—to cluster Sure Start children’s centres and to merge back-office functions, for example. They are looking innovatively at how they can bring services together to make the best use of the assets available. We have heard from a number of hon. Members whose local authorities are managing to prioritise not only children’s centre buildings but the services that are being provided in them, to ensure that they always focus on children’s outcomes, which is absolutely vital.
The hon. Member for Hammersmith (Mr Slaughter) asked some specific questions about what the Government are doing. I have made it clear to local authorities that this issue is a priority—so much so that they have been complaining that I have placed a moral ring fence around children’s centres. We have made it clear in the guidance that local authorities have a duty to consult properly, and we have drawn their attention to the fact that, if they are using an asset for a purpose for which it is not funded, the Department is obliged to consider whether to claw back some of the money involved. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman is using all those arguments in his discussions with his local council.
I was hoping to say a little about the vision for Sure Start children’s centres but, unfortunately, everyone else has spoken for so long that I have only about a minute left. Flexibility is key, and targeting the neediest families is an absolute priority for the Government, as is focusing on evidence-based programmes and making use of the reports produced for us by the right hon. Member for Birkenhead and the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen). We also want services to be brought together much more effectively, which is why we are working so closely with the Department of Health on our vision for children’s centres. I am pleased that we shall have so many more health visitors on track. Many of them will be placed in Sure Start children’s centres, and all of them will have strong links with their local centres. That is vital. Evidence shows that if health services are closely involved, the neediest families can be reached.
I was hoping to go on to speak about mutuals and the voluntary sector, but it is now 4.32, and I have to sit down. If hon. Members would like to hear more from me in future, they might want to restrain their speeches just a little. This has been an extremely useful debate, however, and I want to thank all hon. Members for their contributions.
Question deferred (Standing Order No. 54(4).