Sure Start Children’s Centres

Neil Carmichael Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for allowing me to follow that very lengthy and detailed speech by the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman).

This debate needs to cover several points, some of which were referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr Stuart), the Chairman of the Education Committee. For example, unfortunately we have a huge number of NEETs in our country. That is a measure of the failure to deal with children in early years education in a proper and satisfactory way. Until we got into government, there was a failure to deal with the widening inequality gap—a damning indictment—and we have to tackle that.

I want to say a few words about resources. This debate is, to some extent, influenced by the fact that we are in a period of reductions in public expenditure, so it is worth noting that we spend almost 40 times as much paying interest on this country’s debt as we do on the subject that we are talking about. That puts our funding difficulties into perspective.

Of course, we have Sure Start facilities in my constituency—for example, Treetops in Dursley, which is first class. It is very important to ensure that Sure Start really does what the label says. The right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field) is right that it is a very good brand, and it does say something that is really encouraging—a sure start. However, we must be completely certain that that is exactly what happens. My hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom) was right to talk about the importance of evaluation and ensuring that Sure Start works in every different area.

[Bill Esterson]

I want to give an example from personal experience. My own family were lucky enough to have access to a children’s centre some years ago when my son was three years old, and we certainly benefited as a family, but this is more about the other families who were from more disadvantaged backgrounds than ours. They clearly stated that in terms of opportunities and development, the differences between the younger children who had access to children’s centres and their older siblings were very noticeable within the same families, let alone on the same estates between different families. That evidence was very strong, and I could see it at first hand.

--- Later in debate ---

[Neil Carmichael]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. I would say that that is the experience of Sure Start in one situation, but we need to be sure that all Sure Starts deliver high standards for all the children who attend.

I want to make two general points about Sure Start. First, there is the issue of localism, which has cropped up several times. The real need is to ensure that we shape our services for the needs that we find on the ground where we see the problems. It is therefore right that local authorities have more influence in allocating and shaping provision. This is the converse of the previous Government’s approach, which was always top down, telling everybody what it was important to do and ensuring they did it, but not taking into account people’s needs, especially local circumstances. That obsession with top-down control often means that people end up worrying too much about the structure and too little about those within it and the children needing to benefit from it.

Secondly, we are no longer ring-fencing funding. That is right, because it is important to have local accountability for the provision of services and to enable local authorities to make the decisions that they want to make. The way in which the Government are now funding Sure Start is the better way to ensure that these facilities can be more flexible and adaptable. I make the case for localism on those terms.

[Mr Graham Stuart]

I would like to pull together the point that my hon. Friend has just made and the point about evaluation. Does he agree that if we are to have a more localist approach, national Government need to ensure that evaluation takes place so that we have the data to see whether local authorities are making a difference to the school-readiness of children when they turn up? If we spend all this money and it does not make any difference, as the Durham studies have shown in too many cases involving poorer children, then we are spending money to no positive result.

[Neil Carmichael]

My hon. Friend is right. We need to be sure that we deliver the outcomes that we want. If we are obsessed with process, structures and all the rest, and not with outcomes and delivery, we are letting down the very children we aspire to help.

The Education Committee went on a trip to Finland, where there were some interesting points to note, one of which was schools’ involvement in more than just teaching the children. Schools always had social care provision and, in effect, district nurse provision, and there was proper, regular consultation between those providers and the teachers if there was a problem. That is well worth thinking about. It is important to consider other ways of doing things than simply the prescribed way from central Government. As I have often said, it is sensible to look at other systems, not necessarily to copy them completely, because that cannot be done effectively—there are too many obstructions such as different cultures and priorities—but to pick up ideas that can be transferred. I urge people to keep an open mind about that kind of arrangement.

Before we got to Finland, we were in Germany. There, too, I learned something, which was that the Germans have a different approach to NEETs, and they did not seem to have nearly as great a problem as we have had. They were taking relatively proactive measures to encourage young people to become involved in society at an early stage and to give them signposted ways into further education and employment. That is something that we could pick up on. There is a lot more detail that we could discuss about those trips that would be useful to the debate, but I mention those two examples.

The right hon. Member for Birkenhead was entirely right, and very moving, when he spoke about family structures where parents were sometimes unable to provide decent parenting for their children, and wondered whether he could have survived in certain circumstances. We must recognise that this is a very serious issue. We cannot, as a society, be happy when such comments can be made and readily accepted without question. We must concentrate on improving parenting—not in the case of all parents, obviously, but those with the biggest challenges and problems.

I met a lady in my constituency who is in charge of the Nationwide Community Learning Partnership, which focuses on providing strong and effective programmes for improving parenting. I urge the Minister to think very carefully about such programmes, which offer a way forward. That organisation is of a very high standard. It is based in the county of Gloucestershire but has functions across the country. I think that, allied to Sure Start activities, helping people in need of parenting skills is a way forward. I invite the Minister to meet the Nationwide Community Learning Partnership, because I think that it would bring something of value to the discussion.

We need to be more flexible and open-minded on this issue. We need to recognise that Sure Start has a strong role to play. It is sensible to have a localist and flexible approach to providing such support.

In this debate, it is worth remembering the role that the pupil premium will have in helping children. I do not think that it has yet been amplified, but I believe that it is an important way of getting financial support to the right place at the right time. The schools I have visited in my constituency that will receive a large amount of pupil premium recognise its value.

The Government’s decision to provide funding for two and three-year-olds is a big step in the right direction. As hon. Members have said, one can tell when children who need that support have received it and when they have not. To solve the problems of children in this category, it is logical that we must help them when it really matters, and it really matters at that young age.

This is an important debate. We have to be sure of the quality of the services that we provide. We need better evaluation and a wiser way of interpreting the data. We must capture the needs of local people and children in a much more intelligent way. To a large extent, that means trusting local authorities to do just that. It is right to have this debate at this time. There are a lot of challenges and we should not rest until the headline figures that I referred to at the beginning of my remarks come down much faster than they have done thus far.