Andrew Lewer
Main Page: Andrew Lewer (Conservative - Northampton South)Department Debates - View all Andrew Lewer's debates with the Department for Education
(2 years, 10 months ago)
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Andrew Lewer (Northampton South) (Con)
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Winchester (Steve Brine) for securing this important debate. Sensible contributions have already been made about the need for investment in the early years workforce, the development and retention of staff, and the impact of early years education, especially for the most disadvantaged children in our constituencies—an issue in which I have held a long-term interest since my local government days and via my mother, Mrs Sandra Lewer, who was a nursery nurse and infant teacher.
The many challenges facing early learning providers have been exacerbated by the pandemic but also, importantly, by changes in funding from central Government and local authorities and the impact that they could have on post-covid recovery. That is what I will focus my contribution on.
Last week, I met Lyndsey Barnett, the CEO of Camrose early years centre, which is based in one of the most deprived areas in my constituency of Northampton South. The centre is a maintained nursery school and day care provider. It offers a fantastic quality of service from 8 am to 6 pm, including during school holidays. That is hugely important, because it means that working parents can drop their children off before work and collect them after the working day. Camrose is a benchmark for the excellent service that can be provided across my constituency and beyond to families from low-income areas who want to do all they can to work, and it is therefore crucial to the economy’s post-covid recovery. With the proposed restructuring of funding from the local authority as a result of central Government funding changes, the centre may have to cut back the services it offers.
That centre already faces many challenges in looking after vulnerable children, but it goes well beyond the remit of just a day care provider, not only supporting and educating young children—I reflect on the comments with which my hon. Friend the Member for Winchester set the scene for the debate—but offering support to their families. It is that complete child approach, acknowledging the crucial nature of the first 1,001 days—a frequent and key concern of my constituency neighbour, my right hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Dame Andrea Leadsom)—that makes recent Government announcements about family hubs so welcome. As a county council leader from 2009 to 2013, I must say that this renewed focus seems very like the children’s centre network that I promoted at that time, although I understand that Ministers will wish to stress that this time, it is different.
As Confucius said:
“By three methods we may learn wisdom: first, by reflection, which is noblest; second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest.”