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Estimates day on Wednesday, 2 March 2011, in the House of Commons, led by Graham Stuart. The answering member was Baroness Teather.

Sure Start Children's Centres

Supplementary estimates 2010-11. Second estimates day (part one). Motion that, for the year ending with 31 March 2011, for expenditure by the Department for Education- (1) further resources, not exceeding £240,806,000, be authorised for use as set out in Spring Supplementary Estimates 2010–11, HC 790, (2) a further sum, not exceeding £66,354,000, be granted to Her Majesty out of the Consolidated Fund to meet the costs as so set out, and (3) limits as so set out be set on appropriations in aid. Question deferred. Resolved.

Secondary information

Type
Parliamentary proceeding
Reference
524 c313-64 
Session
2010-12
Department
Department for Education
Procedure
Supply estimates
Chamber / Committee
House of Commons chamber
Related items
Supplementary Estimates 2010-11
Wednesday, 2 March 2011
Parliamentary proceedings
House of Commons
Estimates
Thursday, 17 February 2011
Parliamentary proceedings
House of Commons
Show all related items (5)
Proceeding contributions
Tracey Crouch | 524 c327 (Link to this contribution) The hon. Gentleman is making a case for a franchised system like McDonald's or any other burger chai...
Barry Sheerman | 524 c327-8 (Link to this contribution) I take the hon. Lady's point. We can disagree on that. Let me get down to what worries me. Our repo...
Show all contributions (163)
Barry Sheerman | 524 c327 (Link to this contribution) Sorry, I disagree. It is a call for greater management. When an idea is rolled out and franchised, i...
Barry Sheerman | 524 c328-9 (Link to this contribution) Indeed. I hope my own local authority will change its mind under pressure from those who use the exc...
Stephen Lloyd | 524 c329 (Link to this contribution) That is an important and well-made point, but does the hon. Gentleman not agree that the additional ...
Bill Esterson | 524 c328 (Link to this contribution) Sefton council proposed reducing the number of children's centres from 19 to seven, but I am pleased...
Barry Sheerman | 524 c330-1 (Link to this contribution) Not for the moment. Many of the responses to the Committee's report have made much play of the big ...
Barry Sheerman | 524 c329-30 (Link to this contribution) I am pleased that the hon. Gentleman made that intervention, because I was moving on to the funding ...
Lord Field of Birkenhead | 524 c322-3 (Link to this contribution) The hon. Lady talks about the importance of localism, but one of the report's recommendations is tha...
Andrea Leadsom | 524 c323-4 (Link to this contribution) The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. As I said at the outset, I wish to make a plea for bet...
Stephen Lloyd | 524 c324 (Link to this contribution) I concur with much of what my hon. Friend and other hon. Members on both sides have said about Sure ...
Andrea Leadsom | 524 c324 (Link to this contribution) I thank my hon. Friend for that timely remark. I was going to resist the temptation to talk about ea...
Bill Esterson | 524 c324 (Link to this contribution) The hon. Lady makes a very good point about the brain development of young children, which is made v...
Andrea Leadsom | 524 c325 (Link to this contribution) Yes, I thank the hon. Gentleman for his comments. I am a firm believer in localism. My experience of...
Ben Gummer | 524 c325 (Link to this contribution) I completely agree with my hon. Friend. I have been spending a lot of time in primary schools in my ...
Andrea Leadsom | 524 c325 (Link to this contribution) That is exactly right. County councils and directors of children's services are very aware of the po...
Barry Sheerman | 524 c325-7 (Link to this contribution) It is a pleasure to follow the excellent speech of the hon. Member for South Northamptonshire (Andre...
Barry Sheerman | 524 c332 (Link to this contribution) That is good information, but if I take the two responses together I find that the requirement is su...
Baroness Teather | 524 c332 (Link to this contribution) Yes, I fear that the hon. Gentleman probably has not read all the document. Part of the problem is ...
Barry Sheerman | 524 c331-2 (Link to this contribution) No, Clackmannanshire. One inquiry swept the Minister away to the world of synthetic phonics, and he...
Baroness Teather | 524 c332 (Link to this contribution) We are not taking that requirement away; we are taking away the requirement for both professionals.
Barry Sheerman | 524 c332 (Link to this contribution) I am sorry, but it is unkind of Ministers to suggest that I have not read the document. From a close...
Baroness Teather | 524 c332 (Link to this contribution) I shall pick up on those wider points when the hon. Gentleman sits down and I make my speech. I just...
Graham Stuart | 524 c314-5 (Link to this contribution) The hon. Gentleman is, of course, right, and if I suggested otherwise I did not mean to. I meant to ...
Barry Sheerman | 524 c314 (Link to this contribution) May I ask the hon. Gentleman to think again about what he has said? According to evidence given to t...
Graham Stuart | 524 c315 (Link to this contribution) I am happy to congratulate my hon. Friend's council on adopting what it considers to be the most eff...
Rehman Chishti | 524 c315 (Link to this contribution) Will my hon. Friend congratulate authorities such as Medway, which has 19 Sure Start centres—seven o...
Graham Stuart | 524 c315-6 (Link to this contribution) The hon. Gentleman is right to pose this question about the right response, and we need a clearer st...
Andy Slaughter | 524 c315 (Link to this contribution) In the last Parliament, the hon. Gentleman and I served together on the Select Committee and I respe...
Graham Stuart | 524 c314 (Link to this contribution) I will happily give way to my predecessor as Chair of the Select Committee.
Barry Sheerman | 524 c314 (Link to this contribution) Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Graham Stuart | 524 c313-4 (Link to this contribution) Thank you, Mr Speaker. It is a pleasure to take part in a debate which will, I hope, rise above sema...
Speaker | 524 c313 (Link to this contribution) The debate will be initiated, or led—opened: I will use a neutral term—by the Chair of the Select Co...
Andrea Leadsom | 524 c322 (Link to this contribution) It is a huge pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field). I feel at least as ...
Bill Esterson | 524 c321 (Link to this contribution) My right hon. Friend is making an incredibly important point about the lack of stigma attached to Su...
Lord Field of Birkenhead | 524 c319-21 (Link to this contribution) I wish to make three short points in this debate, so that my colleagues can get in. I am sure that m...
Lord Field of Birkenhead | 524 c321-2 (Link to this contribution) I agree with that. As my hon. Friend says, this is partly about the brand image and about people thi...
Barry Sheerman | 524 c319 (Link to this contribution) Will the hon. Gentleman give way just on that point?
Barry Sheerman | 524 c319 (Link to this contribution) I intervene only because the hon. Gentleman, who is a good friend of mine, mentioned Finland and has...
Graham Stuart | 524 c318 (Link to this contribution) I am minded to follow your advice, Mr Speaker—
Barry Sheerman | 524 c318 (Link to this contribution) Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Graham Stuart | 524 c318 (Link to this contribution) I am grateful to you, Mr Speaker, for that gentle and quite proper intervention—and those who wish t...
Speaker | 524 c318 (Link to this contribution) Order. Just before the Chairman of the Select Committee responds to that intervention, I want to mak...
Graham Stuart | 524 c317-8 (Link to this contribution) It is certainly a time to fiddle with it. There is ample room for improvement, but it would be a sha...
Nicholas Dakin | 524 c317 (Link to this contribution) The hon. Gentleman is making a powerful case. One of the Select Committee conclusions is:"““Children...
Graham Stuart | 524 c316-7 (Link to this contribution) I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention. She makes a fair point, but service delivery is the key ...
Sharon Hodgson | 524 c316 (Link to this contribution) I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. I too served on the Select Committee with him in...
Graham Stuart | 524 c316 (Link to this contribution) Perhaps the hon. Lady, who is her party's Front-Bench representative, will explain the Labour party'...
Stephen Twigg | 524 c335-6 (Link to this contribution) I am delighted to have the opportunity to contribute to this debate. I give my apologies in advance ...
Graham Stuart | 524 c336-7 (Link to this contribution) I believe it was the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field) who had the courage to say that if ...
Graham Stuart | 524 c334 (Link to this contribution) I would like to pull together the point that my hon. Friend just made and the point about evaluation...
Neil Carmichael | 524 c334-5 (Link to this contribution) My hon. Friend is right. We need to be sure that we deliver the outcomes that we want. If we are obs...
Speaker | 524 c332 (Link to this contribution) Order. That is a good point. We do not want a discussion just between the Minister and the hon. Gent...
Neil Carmichael | 524 c334 (Link to this contribution) I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. I would say that that is the experience of Sure St...
Bill Esterson | 524 c333 (Link to this contribution) I want to give an example from personal experience. My own family were lucky enough to have access t...
Neil Carmichael | 524 c333 (Link to this contribution) Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for allowing me to follow that very lengthy and detailed speech by ...
Barry Sheerman | 524 c332-3 (Link to this contribution) I would never be so churlish as to suggest that the hon. Lady has not read the document. Ten years ...
Lord Gove | 524 c359 (Link to this contribution) The hon. Lady was kind enough to mention earlier that by her own calculation ring-fencing Sure Start...
Sharon Hodgson | 524 c359 (Link to this contribution) It is Ministers who are crossing their fingers and hoping for the best, not me. By making that comme...
Bill Esterson | 524 c359 (Link to this contribution) Surely the point is more about what the Government should be advising local councils to do. Will the...
Sharon Hodgson | 524 c356-8 (Link to this contribution) I thank the Chair of the Education Committee for securing this timely debate. We served together on ...
Graham Stuart | 524 c358 (Link to this contribution) I am grateful to the hon. Lady, all the more so after her kind words. It is early days and, as I sai...
Sharon Hodgson | 524 c358 (Link to this contribution) I would support a return to the ring fence, if not for the whole early intervention grant, then spec...
Lord Gove | 524 c358 (Link to this contribution) The hon. Lady says that she would ring-fence funding for Sure Start but has not made it clear that s...
Sharon Hodgson | 524 c358-9 (Link to this contribution) As I am sure the Secretary of State is aware, I am not shadow Chancellor; my right hon. Friend the M...
Steve Rotheram | 524 c353 (Link to this contribution) My hon. Friend is of course right, and Colm Reilly was not the only one to say that. The Secretary o...
Steve Rotheram | 524 c353-4 (Link to this contribution) As we have heard, the Government and certain Members just do not get any of this, but actually, Live...
Bill Esterson | 524 c353 (Link to this contribution) I add my own congratulations to Liverpool city council for the way in which it has tackled the almos...
Baroness Berger | 524 c353 (Link to this contribution) Did my hon. Friend see the report on BBC news only the other evening in which an independent efficie...
Speaker | 524 c353 (Link to this contribution) Order. We will have less noise from the Back Benches, unless it is an intervention. I have two peopl...
Steve Rotheram | 524 c354 (Link to this contribution) What a bizarre argument. Saying that an area such as Liverpool, which is among the most deprived, is...
Graham Stuart | 524 c354 (Link to this contribution) The evidence that we need to change the system of accountability is available, both from the Nationa...
Steve Rotheram | 524 c355 (Link to this contribution) My hon. Friend is absolutely right to make that point. Secondly, the Committee urged the Government...
Barry Sheerman | 524 c355 (Link to this contribution) May I help my hon. Friend, because he has just taken an intervention from the Chairman of the curren...
Steve Rotheram | 524 c352 (Link to this contribution) You just don't get it, do you? I do not know what the settlement is in your area. [Interruption.] We...
Claire O'Neill | 524 c352 (Link to this contribution) First, may I apologise for joining the debate late? I was attending a Justice Committee meeting. I ...
Steve Rotheram | 524 c352 (Link to this contribution) No, not just yet. It is glaringly obvious that the Government do not understand the holistic nature...
Graham Stuart | 524 c352 (Link to this contribution) Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Steve Rotheram | 524 c353 (Link to this contribution) I thank my hon. Friend and fellow Liverpool Member of Parliament for the points he makes. I should p...
Stephen Twigg | 524 c352-3 (Link to this contribution) As my hon. Friend has said, Liverpool is the authority with the greatest need. Does he agree that Li...
Steve Rotheram | 524 c352 (Link to this contribution) I apologise, Mr Deputy Speaker. To address the hon. Lady's point, Liverpool is the most deprived are...
Speaker | 524 c352 (Link to this contribution) Order. Members must address each other through the Chair.
Andy Slaughter | 524 c350 (Link to this contribution) The whole situation is clearly a nonsense. The belated process of consultation closed on Monday 28 F...
Speaker | 524 c350 (Link to this contribution) Order. We need much shorter interventions, as there are more Members wishing to participate in the d...
Andy Slaughter | 524 c350 (Link to this contribution) No, I will not give way to the Secretary of State, at least not at the moment. If he wishes to parti...
Lord Gove | 524 c350 (Link to this contribution) Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Lord Gove | 524 c350 (Link to this contribution) I was only trying to be helpful.
Steve Rotheram | 524 c351-2 (Link to this contribution) I am delighted to follow my hon. Friends the Members for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger) and f...
Andy Slaughter | 524 c351 (Link to this contribution) I think that I should sometimes say what I feel in these debates. As I was saying, the Wendell Park...
Sharon Hodgson | 524 c347-8 (Link to this contribution) Before my hon. Friend moves on, I would like to get some clarity on the assertion, which we keep hea...
Andy Slaughter | 524 c347 (Link to this contribution) I am grateful for that. The Minister has said in previous debates that she has concerns about what i...
Baroness Teather | 524 c347 (Link to this contribution) I sincerely apologise for not listening to the hon. Gentleman—I was trying to hear when this debate ...
Andy Slaughter | 524 c348 (Link to this contribution) If the hon. Gentleman bears with me, I am sure that he will get the point that I am coming to, but, ...
Gordon Birtwistle | 524 c348 (Link to this contribution) Will the hon. Gentleman expand on this 45% cut? It has been said that the cut adds up to 15% over th...
Sharon Hodgson | 524 c349-50 (Link to this contribution) I read that same paragraph in a copy of a letter from the hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole...
Andy Slaughter | 524 c348-9 (Link to this contribution) I am grateful to my hon. Friend, but I shall now try to make some progress. On or about 27 December...
Karl Turner | 524 c348 (Link to this contribution) It seems that the temptation for Government Members is to say that councils are making decisions for...
Baroness Berger | 524 c345-6 (Link to this contribution) I look forward to the Secretary of State's forthcoming visit to Liverpool. From my many corresponde...
Graham Stuart | 524 c346 (Link to this contribution) The hon. Lady was just asked how she would like the deficit impacts to be dealt with on a local auth...
Baroness Berger | 524 c346 (Link to this contribution) I will come to what needs to happen in the final part of my speech. To go back to my previous point...
Andy Slaughter | 524 c346-7 (Link to this contribution) I have raised the cuts in Sure Start provision in my constituency with the Minister on a number of o...
Baroness Berger | 524 c344-5 (Link to this contribution) Let me get back to my point about back-office costs. How much can be saved in back-office costs from...
Lord Gove | 524 c345 (Link to this contribution) I should like first to take this opportunity to apologise for the delay in the answer to the hon. La...
Baroness Berger | 524 c345 (Link to this contribution) I thank the Secretary of State for his intervention. The cabinet lead for education in Liverpool, Co...
Lord Gove | 524 c345 (Link to this contribution) I am sorry to intervene again, and I am grateful to the hon. Lady for allowing me to do so. I am loo...
Baroness Berger | 524 c344 (Link to this contribution) The grants to children, which are not allocated to schools, are being cut by 35% in Liverpool by the...
Karl Turner | 524 c344 (Link to this contribution) By the Government, not the council. It is no good Conservative Members shaking their heads.
Baroness Berger | 524 c344 (Link to this contribution) No, I will not give way to the hon. Lady, who has only just joined the debate. I have been here for ...
Matt Hancock | 524 c344 (Link to this contribution) I am puzzled; I hope I will not be shocked. I know that Liverpool council's total spending power is ...
Baroness Berger | 524 c343-4 (Link to this contribution) To close a building in a community can rob it of a useful resource, but to close a children's centre...
Andrea Leadsom | 524 c343 (Link to this contribution) I thank my hon. Friend for giving way again. On qualifications, in the charity with which I am invol...
Matt Hancock | 524 c343 (Link to this contribution) I agree wholeheartedly. There is a consensus—I am glad that there is—about the need to focus resour...
Matt Hancock | 524 c343 (Link to this contribution) Of course qualifications are meaningful, but does the hon. Gentleman claim that no person without th...
Matt Hancock | 524 c344 (Link to this contribution) Is it run by the Labour party? Is it true that that council is cutting children's services by so muc...
Matt Hancock | 524 c341 (Link to this contribution) There is of course a statutory amount of Sure Start provision that must be in place, as I am sure th...
Andy Slaughter | 524 c341 (Link to this contribution) The theory sounds fine, but the practice is different. I am trying not to be party political, but le...
Matt Hancock | 524 c341 (Link to this contribution) That is why it is important to have a specified national minimum level of provision, and then allow ...
Andrea Leadsom | 524 c341 (Link to this contribution) Does my hon. Friend agree that if we had too centralised a system, we would lose the excellent work ...
Matt Hancock | 524 c342 (Link to this contribution) I listened with great interest to my hon. Friend's passionate argument earlier, which made exactly t...
Barry Sheerman | 524 c342 (Link to this contribution) The hon. Gentleman made a good point. As soon as I realised that he was a member of the Public Accou...
Barry Sheerman | 524 c342-3 (Link to this contribution) Is the hon. Gentleman saying that it is okay for unqualified people to provide the professionalism i...
Matt Hancock | 524 c342 (Link to this contribution) It is important to have highly qualified people, but again, I would not make that mandatory for a ce...
Stephen Twigg | 524 c337 (Link to this contribution) I welcome that element of what the Government have done. On its own, it would represent something of...
Tracey Crouch | 524 c337 (Link to this contribution) In the light of what the hon. Gentleman has just said, will he join me in congratulating Tory-led Me...
Stephen Twigg | 524 c338-9 (Link to this contribution) My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I am not familiar with the details of what has happened in Medwa...
Matt Hancock | 524 c339-40 (Link to this contribution) I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in the debate today, and I am following a large number of...
Stephen Twigg | 524 c337 (Link to this contribution) It is very welcome to hear of any authority that has managed to keep all its centres open despite th...
Sharon Hodgson | 524 c338 (Link to this contribution) My hon. Friend the Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck) talked about the services that the centres...
Andy Slaughter | 524 c340 (Link to this contribution) I will try to keep this non-party political, but since the hon. Gentleman makes that point, I will a...
Matt Hancock | 524 c340 (Link to this contribution) Absolutely. My own county council, Suffolk, did not do very well in the distribution of the local au...
Baroness Berger | 524 c340 (Link to this contribution) Can the hon. Gentleman tell the House what percentage cuts those councils are receiving compared wit...
Baroness Teather | 524 c363 (Link to this contribution) I absolutely agree. The point is that local authorities ought to have the freedom to decide whether ...
Barry Sheerman | 524 c363 (Link to this contribution) On a related point, a thread that runs through all the reports of the previous Select Committee is t...
Baroness Teather | 524 c363-4 (Link to this contribution) I am not sure that I understand the hon. Gentleman's point. We are in the process of co-producing a ...
Baroness Teather | 524 c362 (Link to this contribution) I do not want to spell out exactly which bits of the EIG go to what, because I want local authoritie...
Bill Esterson | 524 c362 (Link to this contribution) I say to the Minister that I do get excited about protecting services on which families in my consti...
Baroness Teather | 524 c362 (Link to this contribution) I will give way in a moment; let me answer one point at a time. The hon. Gentleman should not get to...
Matt Hancock | 524 c363 (Link to this contribution) Does the Minister accept that in my area of Suffolk the removal of the ring fence has allowed the co...
Baroness Teather | 524 c363 (Link to this contribution) I will not reconsider the decision on ring-fencing because I believe that it is the correct decision...
Graham Stuart | 524 c362 (Link to this contribution) The Minister said that the budget will be protected in cash terms, including the funding from the De...
Baroness Teather | 524 c362 (Link to this contribution) I give way first to the Chair of the Select Committee and then to the hon. Gentleman.
Baroness Teather | 524 c362 (Link to this contribution) I am afraid that I cannot answer the hon. Lady's question at the moment. Children's centres are a p...
Baroness Teather | 524 c360-1 (Link to this contribution) I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr Stuart), the whole Select Committe...
Sharon Hodgson | 524 c360 (Link to this contribution) I did give way a number of times to Government Front Benchers. Not only that, but many areas with t...
Sharon Hodgson | 524 c359-60 (Link to this contribution) That is a key point, and I am sure that the Minister will refer to it in her closing remarks. The M...
Speaker | 524 c350 (Link to this contribution) Order. I think that we had better continue with the debate.
Bill Esterson | 524 c355 (Link to this contribution) I received a letter from the chair of the governors at the St William of York Catholic primary schoo...
Steve Rotheram | 524 c355-6 (Link to this contribution) Of course evidence, anecdotal or otherwise, is always a useful tool. The Government's response to t...
Andy Slaughter | 524 c348 (Link to this contribution) Indeed, and with a 13% cut in the first year for my area. However, if my hon. Friend does not mind, ...
Graham Stuart | 524 c319 (Link to this contribution) I believe that that measure was originally introduced by the mayor of Rotterdam, who picked the 27 t...
Karen Buck | 524 c318 (Link to this contribution) The hon. Gentleman is making a very powerful case, as always. On local authorities and incentives, I...
Andrea Leadsom | 524 c327 (Link to this contribution) Surely that is an argument for localism in the case of children's centres.
Subjects
Finance Children, Schools and Families Committee Sure Start programme Education Committee Children's centres
Link
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