Sure Start

Baroness Walmsley Excerpts

Monday 17th October 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Walmsley]

My Lords, is my noble friend the Minister aware that last week, the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Sure Start had a seminar on Sure Start at which we heard from four different local authorities? We found that Haringey made very severe cuts and closures, whereas Cambridgeshire, Nottinghamshire and Manchester did not make any. Why does he think different local authorities are taking such different approaches, when they are all affected by the same economic constraints?

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

My noble friend makes an extremely good point. Local authorities are taking different priorities in different parts of the country, and that reflects, in some local authority areas of the sort to which I know my noble friend refers, the weight and significance that they put on the provision of Sure Start children’s centres. All local authorities—and I accept that this applies to everyone—are having to face difficult financial decisions caused by the need for the Government to make savings, caused by the financial situation that we inherited.