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Sure Start Children's Centres

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in the debate today, and I am following a large number of Members who have spoken with great authority and understanding. I have listened with interest to the debate, but one thing seems to be missing. It is the big picture. The biggest impact of the money spent on children's education, in terms of our ability to improve cognitive skills, is seen in the earlier years. There is now consensus not only in the academic literature but across the House that we need to target resources in that area, because that is where they have the biggest impact on child brain development. However, when we consider how the money is spent in the UK and across the world, we see that the inverse of that is happening. Excellent research has shown that the money going into post-16 education in the UK is 1.5 times the amount per head that is spent at primary level. The differential is even greater for the pre-school and under-twos provision that we have been discussing today. We all recognise this historic anomaly, but the question is: what can we do about it in the context of the extremely tight public spending limits that are necessary, given the scale of the deficit? That is not an easy proposition. The analysis is easy, and the evidence all points the same way, but it is extremely difficult to achieve the practical and political ability to make that change, so that that money will go to children at the age at which it has the most impact. I shall give two examples. The Government have made two proposals that will save money, because the evidence showed that the money being used did not have as much impact as it could have done elsewhere. They are politically difficult proposals. First, the Government have asked students to pay more of their tuition fees, and secondly, they are restructuring the EMA. At the moment 90% of those who receive it would have stayed in school anyway, so now the impact will be much greater. Those are both extremely politically sensitive changes, yet they are having exactly the impact that Members of all parties have called for. In an era of rising budgets it may be easy to put more and more focus on increasing spending at the lower end of the age distribution. In an era of very tight finances, however, it is difficult to redistribute and retarget money from the older end, especially post-16, where the evidence shows that the impact on cognitive ability is the smallest, to under-fives, for whom the evidence shows it is biggest. However, this Government are doing it. Members of all parties ought to recognise how difficult it is to make that change in the context of the very tight public finances. That supports the strength of the Government's position, which I applaud, of keeping the early intervention grant flat in cash terms in the forthcoming period. Protecting money for early intervention, in the context of the current spending conditions, is an achievement for which the Minister ought to be applauded. We then come to the argument about how that money is spent and where the cuts are falling. I did a bit of research and found 27 councils across the country that are managing to keep all their Sure Start centres open despite the difficult public finances. Of those, 24 are run by the Conservative party and three are Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalitions.