Sure Start

Debate between Lord Agnew of Oulton and Baroness Shephard of Northwold

Wednesday 5th June 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

First, on funding generally, it is important to remind noble Lords of the opening comments in the IFS report executive summary, which state that we are now,

“one of the highest spenders on the under-5s in Europe”,

having lagged behind in the 1990s. So a great deal of progress has been made. We do take a holistic view, which is why we have put so much emphasis on supporting disadvantaged families with healthcare; that has enabled those families to get into work, which we know is one of the clearest ways to improve their prospects and quality of life.

The noble Lord asked about increasing the pupil premium. That will be a matter for the spending review, but we have done a lot in this area, including on the pupil premium that he mentioned. The introduction of the three year-old and four year-old offers gives 30 hours to families for the first time in history, and 340,000 children will benefit from that.

[Baroness Shephard of Northwold (Con)]

My Lords, can my noble friend the Minister comment on the need for Sure Start centres to be accessible? Clearly, if they are well targeted, they bring great help to children born in a disadvantaged area. Many of those areas are rural, however, and while it is one thing to provide accessible Sure Start help in closely populated urban areas, it is quite another to do so in rural areas, as I know my noble friend understands.

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

The noble Baroness is quite right that the provision of services in rural areas is much more difficult. Again, we have taken the education route, which is why we have looked at the provision of childcare for the two year-old offer, from which nearly 750,000 children in the country have benefited. The take-up of that offer has gone up nearly every year since its introduction; we are now at a level of 72%.