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Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Elton, gave a good account of how valuable the contribution of a children’s centre can be. He might find helpful the proposed new Section 5A(4) in Clause 191, which sets out the purposes of a children’s centre. Should any noble Lord wish to visit a children’s centre between now and Report, I am sure that we can arrange for such a visit to take place. This will enable noble Lords to see the kind of work that goes on in children’s centres, although I am sure that many already will have done so. As to Amendment 280, I agree that many children’s centres already work with local providers, offering learning activities to improve parents’ employability and running family literacy, language and numeracy programmes. For example, the London Borough of Merton is developing a purpose-built intergenerational centre, bringing together a wide range of partners from the public and third sectors. This will be built around a planned children’s centre and is due to open operationally in 2010. The building is located close to two schools and is to offer a base to sustain and develop intergenerational projects. In addition to a day nursery and meeting and interactive areas, there will be a kitchen for joint food preparation activities. I remember debating a few years ago how young people were losing the ability to cook and how difficult that was, so that is a great idea. There will also be space for horticultural activities and, if that were not enough, an adventure playground as well. I am off to Merton. In Oldham, the lifelong learning service used family learning impact funding to develop its work with parents living in local refuges. The courses are delivered mainly in children’s centres—another example of children’s centres being the hub of the community—in particularly deprived areas of Oldham. There is so much going on; I do not want to leave anyone out, but we have over 3,000 children’s centres around the country now. On Amendment 280C, the Childcare Act 2006 already places duties on relevant partners—including, the noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, will be interested to know, the primary care trust—to work together with the local authority to provide better integrated services relevant to young children, parents or prospective parents. That will, of course, include health visiting. Clause 191, the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, will be pleased to hear, will require partners to consider whether those services that include health visiting and community mental health services should be provided through a children’s centre. We are developing statutory guidance, as noble Lords will not be surprised to hear, for local authorities and primary care trusts on how to consider which services to deliver through children’s centres, because they are such a wonderful opportunity. In both cases, we think that it is right to leave it to local partners to determine where to locate these services so that they best meet the needs of local children and their families, but one cannot imagine a better candidate than the children’s centre. On Amendment 2,081—sorry, on Amendment 281; please let us not have Amendment 2,081. I do not think that I could deal with that.