Sure Start Children’s Centres

Michael Gove Excerpts

Wednesday 27th April 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Secretary of State for Education (Michael Gove)]

In this post-Easter season, there is cause for all of us to celebrate, because a number of gloomy predictions have been confounded. At the beginning of the football season, some of us might have imagined that the dominant team on Merseyside would be Everton, but in fact, thanks to Kenny Dalglish’s inspired leadership, the reds are five points ahead of the blues. The gloomy obituaries that were being written for that great team have had to be put back.

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

Who do you support?

[Michael Gove]

QPR, as it happens, but I admire Liverpool, and particularly Kenny Dalglish. [Interruption.] We are top of the league, you know.

Another gloomy prediction was made by Labour Members, but it has not come to pass—that of a double-dip recession. That was the mantra at the top of the Labour party, from the right hon. Member for Morley and Outwood (Ed Balls), the Leader of the Opposition and the Labour election co-ordinator, whatever his name is. The news today, however, is that our economy is growing once more—another gloomy prediction confounded.

We also heard a series of gloomy predictions from Labour Members about what would happen to the network of Sure Start children’s centres in this country. We were told by the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Mr Slaughter) that we would see a reduction in the number of children’s centres in Hammersmith and Fulham, but actually, as the right hon. Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham) almost acknowledged, not only are all the existing Sure Start children’s centres being protected but a new one is being built. There is an increase in the number of Sure Start children’s centres in Hammersmith and Fulham.

The right hon. Member for Leigh told us halfway through his speech that Hampshire was going to close all its children’s centres. Sadly, that slur—[Interruption.] It was a slur. That slur on Hampshire county council was very effectively rebutted by my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport (Caroline Dinenage). The council is ensuring that every single children’s centre will remain open. The right hon. Gentleman did not have the grace to acknowledge either that it was a Conservative local authority that was keeping them open or that he had got it wrong. I admire his passion, but he must get his facts right before he comes to the Dispatch Box and attempts to tarnish the good name of an effective local authority that is doing a great job for children and young people.

In a spirit of generosity, I have to say that a great many Labour local authorities are doing a good job and ensuring that Sure Start children’s centres remain open. There are also Liberal Democrat local authorities doing a good job. One of the most disappointing things about the right hon. Gentleman’s speech was his attack on the Liberal Democrats, which I felt was mean-minded and beneath him. I understand that as an election co-ordinator, with just a week to go before he shores up the Labour vote that is collapsing in Scotland and evanescent elsewhere, he has to pick what he thinks is an easy target, but he has picked the wrong target.

My right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister, with whom I do not always agree, was right when he said that Liberal Democrat authorities were keeping all their Sure Start children’s centres open. We can look at what is happening in Kingston upon Hull, where all the centres are remaining open and services are being delivered from all of them. The same is true in Kingston upon Thames. The Liberal Democrat councillors in those authorities represent a party that I would not vote for, but they are doing the job a darned sight better than the Labour councillors who used to run Hull when it was the worst local authority in the country according to the Audit Commission. It is now the most improved.

[Andy Burnham]

rose—

[Michael Gove]

Talking of room for improvement, I give way to the shadow Secretary of State.

[Andy Burnham]

Before we leave this matter, let us get to the bottom of the point about Hampshire. There was clearly a change of heart yesterday—[Interruption.] Will the Under-Secretary of State, the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton), hear me out? If there was a change of heart, the news had not reached me, and I welcome it. However, we must ask, a change of heart to what? The Sure Start budget there is going from £17 million to £11 million, a 35% cut. Is the Secretary of State applauding Hampshire for making a cut on that scale? He has just applauded the local authority and invited me to do the same. Is he saying that such a cut to Sure Start is acceptable and that the local authority should be applauded for cutting the service by more than a third?

[Michael Gove]

The right hon. Gentleman has not misled the House—he never misleads the House—but I am afraid that he has got himself in what we call in Scotland “a bit of a fankle”. He asserted that Hampshire was going to cut children’s centres, and then he was caught short by the facts. I know that he has more respect for the House than to want to put himself in a position of having inaccurate facts in front of him, so all he needs to do, as graciously as is his natural custom, is acknowledge that Hampshire is keeping its children’ centres open and congratulate it on that.

One reason why Hampshire, Hammersmith and Fulham, Kingston upon Hull, Kingston upon Thames and many other Conservative and Liberal Democrat councils, as well as Labour ones, can keep their Sure Start children’s centres open is that there is enough money. I can make that assertion because of the evidence that has been put forward by two of the people who have the best understanding of the early years. Anne Longfield OBE, chief executive of 4Children, has said that the Government are

“continuing to provide adequate funding to keep centres open and councils should resist the temptation to use this money to plug gaps elsewhere.”

Anand Shukla, the acting chief executive of the Daycare Trust, has said:

“The Government has allocated sufficient funding for the existing network of Sure Start Children’s Centres to be maintained”.

The money is there—independent witnesses say so—and well-run local authorities all over the country, represented by councillors of different parties, are maintaining that network. Therefore, every single plank of the right hon. Gentleman’s argument has collapsed beneath him, and I have been on my feet for only six minutes.

[Ms Buck]

What does the Education Secretary say to parents in my constituency, which has the seventh highest child poverty in the country, in the light of Westminster city council’s briefing? The briefing states:

“As you may have heard in the media, central government funding for Sure Start Children’s Centres nationally has been reduced, which means in Westminster we have to save 17% from our Children’s centre budget”,

meaning a saving of £715,000, including roughly £250,000 off early learning and child support, and £400,000 off outreach and family support. Children’s centres will be bricks and mortar without the staff even to ensure that services can be run safely.

[Michael Gove]

The hon. Lady is a highly energetic constituency MP—indeed, I was represented by her for a brief period, and I know how passionately she takes up such causes. However, Westminster, like many other local authorities, is succeeding not just in keeping the Sure Start children’s centre network open, but in providing an enhanced service for children and young people. The question that she and every Opposition Member must address is this: if they believe, as I do, that Sure Start is a valuable service, and that it is a good thing that the Government have set up an early intervention grant, and that we are devoting resources and intellectual energy to the early years, will they support the coalition in the steps that it is taking, or do they have an alternative plan? Do they believe that money should come from other areas of Government expenditure to spend more on any of those services? If they believe that we should spend more than we are spending, can they explain which services they would cut or which taxes they would increase? I am very happy to give way to any right hon. or hon. Member who can enlighten me on Labour’s economic policy, including the hon. Member for Hammersmith.

[Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

Let us deal with the figures. If the Secretary of State has come along simply to give incorrect figures, he does not help the debate at all. Hammersmith and Fulham was spending £3.983 million last year; this year it will spend £2.206 million. Most of the nine Sure Start centres will have their budgets cut. Some will receive £19,000 to be satellites—the £19,000 is for the upkeep of the premises, but services will be delivered on-site by another children’s centre. The Secretary of State must stand by his words if he says that that means he is keeping the centres open. However, his stance in this debate and making such assertions does him no credit. He should at least live with the consequences of his actions.

[Michael Gove]

The consequence of the Government’s actions is that we have ensured, as both Anne Longfield and Anand Shukla have pointed out, that there is enough money to maintain that network. In addition, under Conservative leadership, Hammersmith and Fulham has been singularly successful in reducing the council tax burden on its ratepayers, and in diversifying the sources of funding it receives to support education and care for children and young people. It is a superb local authority. Instead of continually talking down the service that is provided by public servants in Hammersmith and Fulham, it would be nice to hear from the hon. Gentleman some sunny, uplifting words, rather than grim predictions of disaster, which as we have just heard, turn out never to be true.

[Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend join me in congratulating Northamptonshire county council on deciding to go ahead with its plans for 50 children’s centres in the county, and on its support for my proposals to introduce a Northamptonshire parent-infant project in children’s centres, which will provide a parent-infant psychotherapy service for the families most in need who are struggling to bond with their new-born babies?

[Michael Gove]

I am delighted to congratulate Northamptonshire, where not a single children’s centre is closing. It is also the home of the innovative Pen Green children’s centre. More money is coming from central Government to help that council to develop news ways of providing support for children in their earliest years.

[Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)]

I have some sunny words for the Secretary of State. Sure Start Palfrey in my constituency was one of the first in the country to get an “outstanding” rating from Ofsted, which it gained because it did a lot of outreach work, including through a fathers’ club—84 fathers came to one session. However, there are rumours, which the Secretary of State might like to quash, that the staff will be replaced by health visitors, which moves the centre into a medical model rather than an educational model. Will he confirm that those specialist workers will not be replaced by health visitors?

[Michael Gove]

The hon. Lady makes an important point. To be fair to Labour Members, I want to emphasise that Sure Start has been a success in the past, and we hope it will be an even greater success in the future. However, one matter on which it has not been as successful in every part of the country as it should have been is in outreach, particularly to the most disadvantaged. The Government believe that health visitors, as trusted faces of the state, can be one of the most effective ways in which we can increase outreach. We also believe that local authorities that have innovative solutions that succeed in ensuring that children in hard-to-reach communities receive those services should be supported. The coalition Government believe in supporting local authorities that are innovative in their use of resources, which is why we removed the ring fence, created the early intervention grant, and allowed a greater degree of innovation to flourish at local level.

[Diana Johnson]

The 50% cut is set out clearly in Hull city council’s budget to children’s centres—it is a fact. The centres cannot provide the service that they provided before that 50% cut. They have abandoned the local authority’s early years service team, and no one is doing early years service planning in that authority. The cut means that services are not the same as they were under the previous Government. Surely the Secretary of State must recognise that.

[Michael Gove]

First, we are entering the financial year in which cuts would have been made if we had stuck to the plan of the previous Chancellor of the Exchequer, the right hon. Member for Edinburgh South West (Mr Darling). However, I have heard not a single word from the hon. Lady or anyone else about where those cuts would have been made. Secondly, she and others—I understand that she is electioneering, which is fair enough—said that children’s centres would close, but in fact they have remained open.

Thirdly—I did not want to repeat this but the hon. Lady compels me to do so—the Audit Commission said that Hull was one of worst local authorities in the country when Labour ran it, and it is now the most improved local authority. I know that those three points are uncomfortable for her to deal with as she tramps the streets of the east riding attempting to drum up Labour votes, but they are undeniably true. That is why she is shaking her head—in anger at Labour’s record.

I specifically wanted to address some of the questions on the importance of outreach raised by the hon. Member for Walsall South (Valerie Vaz). The broader question is this: what do we want to achieve in the early years? A consistent theme in constructive questions from Opposition Back-Bench Members has been that the bricks and mortar are being preserved—that concession, for which I am grateful, is in stark contrast to the scaremongering that we have heard from Opposition Front Benchers—but what is happening in Sure Start children’s centres? Are we improving the quality of service that is provided to children and young people? That is a tough challenge.

One thing that we are doing—the right hon. Member for Leigh did not refer to this—is increasing resources to ensure that early education and child care are provided not just for three and four-year-olds, which the previous Government introduced. We have already extended the number of hours of free early education and child care from 12.5 to 15 hours for all three and four-year-olds—we implemented that and increased expenditure to do it—but we are also increasing the number of hours for the most disadvantaged two-year-olds. The plan under the previous Government was for 30,000 of the most disadvantaged two-year-olds to receive 15 free hours, but we are ensuring that 130,000 do so. That is an investment of up to an additional £300 million in the early years at a time when we have to make uncomfortable budget reductions elsewhere because of the desperate economic mess that we inherited. That is a sign of our determination to do best by the early years. It would only be fitting for the right hon. Gentleman to acknowledge that.

[Henry Smith]

The state of the country’s finances that was bequeathed to us by Labour was appalling. Is it not remarkable that the amount of interest that we are paying on Labour’s deficit is 39 times the Sure Start budget?

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend is absolutely correct that the interest we are paying on our debt is 39 times the Sure Start budget under the previous Government. If we really cared about our children’s future, would we have saddled them with a debt at that level? Clearly not. I am afraid, however, that the right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues in the last Labour Cabinet were happy to spend, spend, spend without any thought to whether future generations would be saddled with an enormous debt. It is to the great credit of the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister that they were prepared to ensure that a coalition Government took the responsible steps necessary to deal with the dire economic mess, and it is to the discredit, I am afraid, of the current shadow Cabinet that not a single constructive suggestion has come forward for how to deal with the deficit. In just a few days’ time, when people think about how to cast their vote, I hope that they will reflect on which parties are acting responsibly in dealing with the national crisis, and which parties prefer posturing, irresponsibility and the emptiness of eternal opposition.

[Mr Frank Field (Birkenhead) (Lab)]

rose—

[Michael Gove]

I would like to exempt one person from that stricture, however, and it is the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field), to whom I am happy to give way.

[Mr Field]

The whole House welcomes the re-announcement by the Secretary of State that the number of poor two-year-olds who will receive nursery education will rise from 30,000 to 130,000. To ensure that it occurs, will the Government ring-fence the money?

--- Later in debate ---

[Michael Gove]

I believe that money additional to the early intervention grant has been budgeted for to cover the years 2012-13 to 2013-14, and we are currently discussing with the sector how to ensure that the money is spent most effectively. Rather than having a top-down approach to delivering support for children in the early years, we need to work in partnership, not just with local government, where there are many brilliant leaders, but with those in the voluntary and charitable sector who have a huge amount to add.

I mentioned Anand Shukla and Anne Longfield, but I am also very grateful to people such as Bernadette Duffy, who runs the Thomas Coram children’s centre, which has helped the coalition Government to move forward in developing a framework to ensure that children in the foundation years receive the support that they really need. For example, all of them have worked with us on the response to the report by the right hon. Member for Birkenhead and the interim report produced by the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen). In both reports a compelling case was made—this argument was also made eloquently in the first half of the speech by the right hon. Member for Leigh—that investment and the right interventions in the earliest years can have a dramatic effect in closing the opportunity gap that has grown up in this country.

All of us will have been struck by some of the figures released by the coalition Government and analysed by the Financial Times this week that show that social mobility in this country is still not moving in the right direction. In particular, we see evidence in some of our most deprived areas of children who have not reached an acceptable level of child development by the age of five. In those deprived areas, children who are falling behind continue to do so. I want to ensure that as much as possible we have a cross-party approach to dealing with that problem. Again I have to say that steps were taken by the Deputy Prime Minister, in the launch of his social mobility strategy, to outline exactly what we need to do to tackle these problems. All of his suggestions, particularly the emphasis on intervention at every stage in the life cycle and the prioritisation of early years, would seem to commend themselves to people of good will in every party.

[Andy Burnham]

I want to make it clear that I welcome some of the steps that the right hon. Gentleman is taking, particularly on two-year-olds, which builds on something that we were talking about. However, I want to ask him a serious question. I am listening carefully to what he is saying, and he is itemising some of the individual things that the Government are dong, but I want to know about the big picture so that I can understand his position on Sure Start. He talked about how Sure Start will develop in the future. A simple question: does he envisage Sure Start as a targeted service or a universal service?

[Michael Gove]

I envisage Sure Start as a universal service. [Interruption.] Second question? It is an interview. I almost feel like I am on “The Andrew Marr Show”—I will come to him in a moment. I believe that Sure Start is a universal service, but it is also important to recognise that there are children in greater need on whom we should target greater resources. The original Sure Start programme started out targeting areas with the greatest need, and subsequently, as it moved to phase 3, it became universal. Even within that, it is an example of what one might call “progressive universalism”. Yes, the service is there for all, and yes we recognise that disadvantages exist, even in some of our apparently wealthier communities. That is why the service should be universal. Nevertheless, we know that there are areas of real deprivation, such as the constituency that the right hon. Gentleman represents, and we need to ensure that our resources and energy are targeted in that area.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Michael Gove]

A number of hon. Members want to intervene. I am happy to give way to the hon. Member for Redcar (Ian Swales).

[Ian Swales (Redcar) (LD)]

Does the Secretary of State share my regret that last year the National Audit Office found that Sure Start centres had completely failed to address inequality in our disadvantaged communities?

[Michael Gove]

The hon. Gentleman, who represents brilliantly a constituency with real deprivation, is absolutely right. Yes, Sure Start has the potential to make a significant difference, and yes on the ground it was already making a real difference, but we need to build on that by ensuring that we have the targeted interventions that help those children in the most difficult circumstances.

[Annette Brooke (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD)]

I note that the shadow Secretary of State spent 45 minutes on quantitative issues, so I welcome the Secretary of State’s emphasis on quality. Does he agree that we should be showcasing the really good interventions and effective use of money across the country? I regret that we have cuts, but surely we must be celebrating and giving confidence to the sector.

[Michael Gove]

That is the best intervention yet. The hon. Lady is absolutely right. I and my departmental colleagues are anxious to point out that there are many committed professionals in the early years sector with a greater level of expertise in developing evidence-based interventions, all of which can help children in difficult circumstances. I have been impressed by how people have worked constructively across the sector, and I have been particularly impressed by the fact that, as the hon. Member for Nottingham North pointed out in his report on early intervention, we now have a better body of evidence that allows us to identify what works. We should celebrate the fact that some of that innovation has been operating at a local level in children’s centres run by exemplary local authorities.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Michael Gove]

I would like to make progress, because I am conscious that Members would like to speak after me. However, I took in vain the name of the right hon. Member for Edinburgh South West, so I am happy to give way to his former Parliamentary Private Secretary.

[Ann Coffey (Stockport) (Lab)]

I understand that there are proposals for developing a payment-by-results scheme for children’s centres. I think those proposals have great merit: they will ensure the proper examination of which interventions work, and will lead to better outcomes for children. What is the Secretary of State’s thinking on this, and has any progress been made on developing such a scheme?

[Michael Gove]

That is a very fair question. The answer is yes. We are examining this matter with the sector to establish which successful interventions we can encourage and incentivise to be spread more widely. Building on the point made by the hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke), I would add that some children’s centres are hugely successful at outreach. The hon. Member for Walsall South (Valerie Vaz) referred to how a children’s centre in her constituency has succeeded in tackling some hard-to-reach families. We know that some families resent and resist what they see as state intervention and coercion in their families’ lives, but actually they desperately need that support, so we must incentivise those children’s centres that are good at outreach.

There is something else that is critically important. There is sometimes an understandable confusion between the provision of child care to ensure a higher level of female participation in the work force, which is a good thing in itself, and child development. Those are allied but separate issues. I would like to see a renewed emphasis on child development. The original Sure Start proposals, which the Treasury developed, had a real focus on child development, and through the work that Dame Claire Tickell has led, we have sought to look at the existing early years foundation stage and build on what is good about it. The focus of the foundation years should be on ensuring that children arrive at school school-ready and effectively socialised. That will sometimes require interventions to support parenting and to raise the quality of staff. However, we can identify and support good practice, and indeed support many of the voluntary organisations, such as 4Children, that are already doing a fantastic job.

I want to stress that the changes we are talking about depend on having in place the staff capable of leading our children’s centres in the right direction. We have provided funding specifically to ensure that the National College for Leadership of Schools and Children’s Services can ensure that there is a trained cadre of at least 400 highly qualified individuals with a new depth of training in running children’s centres, and that we move broadly in the direction hinted at by hon. Members towards a vision of children’s centres leaders as people who enjoy the same prestige and esteem as head teachers. We should see what is happening in children’s centres as part of the seamless process of education that should start at the earliest possible age and, in my view, continue for as long as possible, in order to prepare people for the world of work and progression.

At a time when we have to make economies, I recognise that it is difficult to concentrate on some of these areas of debate, but we have made a good start in the last 12 months. The constructive approach taken by the right hon. Member for Birkenhead and the hon. Member for Nottingham North, along with those in the sector, is something on which we can all build. It is often tempting to knock local government, but I have been hugely impressed by the way in which the Association of Directors of Children’s Services, with its outgoing president Marion Davis and the incoming president Matt Dunkley, has engaged with the coalition Government to operate constructively.

I know that many hon. Members will want to use their speeches to make points in advance of the local elections—that is fair enough; it is that time of year—but I hope that in the remainder of this debate, their speeches will continue in the tone so admirably set by the hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole. We all recognise the great work done by professionals in early years. I hope that we will all give some thought in the hours that we have left to how we can build on those successes and ensure that children, who are our first care and concern, can have the best possible start in life.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Gerald Kaufman]

If the quality of the hon. Gentleman’s first intervention is anything to go by, I think that the House will be better off without a second intervention from him.

However, the problem is not simply the cuts in Manchester’s overall funding but the cuts in the early intervention grant, which helps to fund Sure Start. My right hon. Friend the Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham) said that nationally the cuts amounted to £50 per head. In Manchester, the figure is £80 per head: that is what this Government have done to the city. Manchester city council is utterly determined not to close any of our Sure Start centres, but because of what the Government have done—because of the disproportionately high cuts in the early intervention grant—the service that we have been used to in Manchester, and which the council wants to go on providing, will no longer be available.

The council is examining options, not one of which it would prefer to consider. It will have to withdraw from its current role as a provider of services and become a “commissioner of provision”. That means that it will try to provide services which are of sufficient quality and properly targeted, but because of the Government cuts it will not be able to continue to provide the service that a Labour Government enabled my constituents to take for granted as something that they would always have. When I was electioneering for the local elections—

[Michael Gove]

Ah!

[Sir Gerald Kaufman]

Oh yes. I shall say more about the local elections in a minute.

When I was electioneering for the local elections last Friday, a constituent came up to me and asked, “Why are the Government doing this to us in Manchester? We did not want this Government in Manchester, but we are stuck with them, so why are they discriminating against us?”

The best that we can do is not to close any centres and to engage in a consultation process. However, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Leigh has pointed out, on this as on so many other issues, what was said before the general election by both the parties that comprise the present Government bears no relation to what they are doing now to service after service. The present Prime Minister said:

“we back Sure Start, but we will improve it, because at the moment the people who need Sure Start the most—disadvantaged families—are not getting enough of the benefit. So we’ll contract independent organisations that have a proven track record in helping families”.

One of the huge values of Sure Start was that it was socially cohesive. It did not discriminate socially between those who were more affluent and those who were in employment, and those who were less affluent and those who were not able to get jobs—and heaven knows, those who are not able to get jobs constitute an increasingly high proportion of the people I represent. But if the Prime Minister really wanted to approach Sure Start in the right way and to help disadvantaged families more, that is being breached to an even worse extent. The statistics show that constituencies such as mine are being penalised and targeted by the Government, whereas the families who, according to the Prime Minister, do not need Sure Start as much are suffering much less from cuts.

As I said earlier, the early intervention grant in my city has been cut by £80 per child. In Surrey, Buckinghamshire and Wokingham, it has been cut by £30 per child. The Government have decided to discriminate in favour of the affluent Tory-voting south, and against deprived constituencies like mine which need Sure Start. The Prime Minister himself needs Sure Start. But it is not only the Prime Minister who deceived the country before the general election. The leader of the Liberal Democrat party said:

“My party will protect existing child care entitlements and Sure Start”,

and:

“Sure Start is a really important programme that has made a real difference to millions of parents. Difficult decisions are going to have to be made in public spending but Sure Start is one of the best things the last Government has done and I want all these centres to stay open.”

That is what the leader of the Liberal Democrats says, whose party is conniving at undermining Sure Start and taking its valued facilities away from parents in my constituency who need them.

I have mentioned the local election campaign and what people are seeing happening, and I say this: a week tomorrow we in Manchester will be able to pass our verdict on the Liberal Democrats. There is no point in our passing our verdict on the Conservatives because we do not have any of them on the council, but we will be able to pass our verdict on what they have connived at in the abolition of—[Interruption.] I see a Minister grinning at what the Government have done to the deprived people in my constituency—at what they have done on education maintenance allowance and on Sure Start, at the £100 they have deducted from the winter fuel payment, at the deprived and the poor and those who need money having it taken away from them while the bankers’ bonuses go on soaring and soaring. We will decide in Manchester, and this House has got the right to debate these issues, and we will go on debating them until we have shamed this Government out of existence.