Sure Start Children’s Centres

Debate between Andy Burnham and Caroline Dinenage

Wednesday 27th April 2011 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Dinenage (Gosport) (Con)]

I would like to correct the right hon. Gentleman on his facts, unfortunately. Hampshire county council has pledged to protect all front-line Sure Start services and only back-office costs will be cut.

[Andy Burnham]

Well, there was a plan to close 28 children’s centres. I was led to believe that the council was considering the plan and consulting on it. I do not know when it had a change of heart. Perhaps it was because of the force of the representations of the right hon. Member for Eastleigh. We will have to find out. I am tempted to ask the Liberal Democrats to relay back to their colleague that rather than sign the petition, it might have been better for him to speak up in Cabinet to oppose the Secretary of State for Education and his cuts to the early intervention grant. Would that not have been a quicker way of resolving the matter, whether or not the local authority has had a last-minute change of heart with the local elections looming?

I do not know what to make of the behaviour of the right hon. Member for Eastleigh. Am I alone in finding his behaviour increasingly strange and Cable-esque? For the past 11 months, he has sat with his Lib Dem colleagues in Cabinet as the Tories have put various questions before them. They were asked, “How about trebling tuition fees and creating a market in higher education?” They said, “Why of course, be our guest, go and do it.” The Secretary of State for Education asked, “How about scrapping EMA?” “Please do,” said the right hon. Member for Eastleigh, “and why not decimate the careers service while you’re at it?” They were asked, “Shall we cut Sure Start?” “Please do,” said the right hon. Member for Eastleigh, “it will give me a good campaign at local level. Please get on and do it.” However, when the Tories ask, “Won’t AV mean we spend a little more on counting machines and the cost of elections?” all of a sudden, there is talk of resignation, legal challenges and Lord knows what. I struggle to understand that response from the right hon. Member for Eastleigh.

Does that synthetic rage not expose once and for all the absolute moral bankruptcy of today’s Liberal Democrats? When the interests of millions of young people were at stake in Cabinet discussions, they sat on their hands, but when their self-interest is challenged because they might not win a vote on a change to the voting system, it is time to bring down the coalition. That tells people everything they need to know about the Liberal Democrats: their politics are flaky, unprincipled and cynical, and their disloyal Ministers are preparing for life beyond the coalition.

There have been increasingly desperate statements from the Deputy Prime Minister. What has he said about Sure Start? At the Lib Dem spring conference he said:

“I cannot tell you how proud I am that not a single Liberal Democrat-led council is closing a single Sure Start children’s centre.”

Liberal Democrat Members have gone quiet. Are any of them prepared to back up that statement today? Stand up now. Does anyone hold to that statement?

--- Later in debate ---

[Caroline Dinenage (Gosport) (Con)]

I start by addressing the sunny side that we have been aiming to get to today by talking about the benefits of Sure Start. It has been fantastic for many of my constituents. At the age of 17, one of my constituents found herself pregnant with twins as a single mum. She had to deal with the challenges of that without the help of a loving family around her, and the burden of those challenges led her to self-harming. I am pleased to be able to say that she is now the proud mum of healthy, happy five-year-old twins, and she maintains that that is all down to the help and support she received from Sure Start. It led her to gain the right medical help that she needed and to gain the parental skills necessary to cope with the challenge of twins—which, let us face it, we would all struggle with. Sure Start put her on the right track and taught her how to be a responsible parent, giving her the skills required to be self-sufficient—so much so that she now acts as a mentor to young mothers in my constituency. She is a bright, shining example of why Sure Start is a good thing. The fact that people who were previously on the edge of society can come back in that way shows the great value of Sure Start.

My husband is in the military, so I know at first hand the difficulties involved in trying to bring up a family effectively as a single mum while a partner is away on duty. Two weeks after the birth of my second child, my husband was deployed overseas. Fortunately, I had a strong and supportive family around me to help, but I know that others are not so lucky. On my visits to local Sure Start centres throughout my constituency, I have met many mums with partners in the military who are living in married quarters that are miles away from their home town and from the support network of family and friends that those with young children sometimes need. All of them have emphasised the importance to them of Sure Start. It provides support for mothers to come together and gain the help and advice they need, and it provides them with a welcome opportunity to talk to someone over the age of five.

Sure Start centres provide important services for children and families and they must not be undermined. A recent independent review found that 54% of current incidents of depression in women and 58% of female suicide attempts can be attributed to adverse childhood experiences. That hammers home the great importance of the early years of our childhood to our future prospects. Research has shown that a child’s development at 22 months is an accurate indicator of educational outcomes at 26 years of age, while boys deemed to be “at risk” at the age of three have almost three times more criminal convictions in adulthood than their peers. This is why we must support children from the very start.

It is important to remember that Sure Start was initially introduced to provide a haven of support and advice for our most vulnerable families in particular, yet Ofsted reports that, under the last Government, half of Sure Start children’s centres were not reaching out to the most vulnerable. Therefore, it is crucial that these resources are protected in order to help those who are most in need of help—from the children, whose health and well-being is improved, to the young parents, who are given the support and parenting skills that may have been lacking in their own lives. I know how much they gain from this lifeline.

Sure Start was one of the few positive legacies we inherited from the previous Labour Government, and it surprises me that it is the Labour-run councils up and down the country who are seeking to save money by closing these valuable centres almost as a first resort.

[Andy Burnham]

Which ones?

[Caroline Dinenage]

I will go on to give a couple of examples.

Some of these councils are cutting valuable front-line services to save money, while protecting the pay packets of the council hierarchy. There are some bizarre—and, frankly, ridiculous—job titles, including a creative director at the county council of the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Sir Gerald Kaufman), earning £120,000 a year. Labour-run Liverpool city council is closing four Sure Start centres, and its record is a prime example of the wasteful spending that has plagued the effectiveness of our front-line services as, meanwhile, it has an astonishing 23 employees earning over £100,000 a year. Its recently retired chief executive earned more than double what the Prime Minister earns.

Labour-run Manchester city council has put question marks over its Sure Start centres, as the right hon. Gentleman outlined, despite having paid 18 employees over £100,000 a year, having cash reserves of £95 million, as my hon. Friend the Member for High Peak (Andrew Bingham) pointed out, and having the highest levels of funding per head in the area. The recent efficiency measures will provide the councils that have been reckless in their spending with an opportunity to reform their strategies and, as a result, function in a more streamlined and effective manner.

[Caroline Dinenage]

I cannot comment on the councils in the hon. Lady’s area. I can only speak about my own area, which has some of the highest levels of social deprivation in the south of England, and highlight the fact that our country would not be in this situation—spending 39 times the Sure Start budget on the deficit—if the previous Government had not left us in such a pickle.

[Andy Burnham]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Caroline Dinenage]

Much as I would love to give way to the shadow Secretary of State, he will have plenty of time to say what he wants when summing up.

Hampshire county council has been discussed a lot in the debate. There were plans to keep the number of individually managed centres at 81, but to reduce the number of management hubs to 53. There were never plans to reduce the number of centres. No Sure Start centres in Hampshire were ever planned to be cut; it was just the management of them that was considered. I can well understand why the Opposition struggle with the concept of reducing bureaucracy, management and red tape even though not doing so would be at the expense of front-line services.

Hampshire county council is making £6 million-worth of savings while protecting front-line services. It is even planning to increase the number of family support workers but outsourcing some of the IT and admin from the county council in Winchester and merging some of the management structures of the smaller centres that are closer together. No front-line Sure Start services will be cut, nor will any family support worker posts. From speaking to the mums who use the Sure Start centres, I know that the most important thing for them is that the service will continue in the same way. In fact, they have all identified that savings can be made, while front-line services can be protected. I have given them my absolute commitment that I will continue the dialogue with Hampshire county council to ensure that that is what happens to front-line services and that no mums or families suffer in any way. That is why I called on the Prime Minister in a recent Prime Minister’s Question Time to endorse proposals that protect front-line services, and that is why I criticised the mischief-making that has resulted in Sure Start being used as a political football. It is, was, and always will be, far too important for that.

Sure Start transforms lives in areas such as Gosport, and I have been inspired by the work of our local centres in dramatically improving the well-being, educational achievements and health of children.