Oral Answers to Questions

Ellie Reeves Excerpts

Monday 11th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to raise this issue. Indeed, on 4 December we published “Transforming Children and Young People’s Mental Health Provision: a Green Paper”. With £350 million of funding, the new measures include new mental health support teams to provide a real step change in the level of early intervention treatment available to pupils, and a clear ambition for a four-week waiting time for specialist NHS services. Of course, we will also provide new training for designated mental health senior leads in schools.

[Ellie Reeves (Lewisham West and Penge) (Lab)]

T2. The House of Commons nursery is an award-winning nursery, and its manager was recently named nursery manager of the year for looking after the children during the Westminster terror attack. Will the Minister join me in commending the staff for their work, and will he also acknowledge the pressure they and other nursery providers are put under by the inadequate funding for the 30 hours of free childcare?

[The Minister for Children and Families (Mr Robert Goodwill)]

I certainly pay tribute to nurseries up and down the country that are delivering fantastic childcare, particularly as part of the 30 hours’ free funding. I am actually getting a little tired of the Labour party criticising the scheme. It is being delivered fantastically well. Some 216,000 parents registered for the September intake, and 93% have taken those places. I look forward to another cohort of children coming in on 1 January.