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22/04/08 : Tory threat to early years childcare
There are now 3350 three- and four-year-olds across Reading who have free nursery places and the Councils has a duty to make sure there is enough childcare to meet the needs of working parents, but Lead Councillor for Education Jon Hartley has warned that all this, and children’s centres too, are under threat with an emerging national Tory agenda.
“Nursery education and affordable childcare have expanded hugely under Labour,” he says, “but yesterday, on 21 April, the Tory shadow minister for the family, Maria Miller MP, launched a report from the Policy Exchange think tank which urged scrapping the childcare component of Working Tax Credit, and childcare vouchers - both aimed at low income families - in favour of a much lower Parental Care Allowance going to all parents.
He adds: “Labour nationally and locally have worked to reduce child poverty, and unashamedly concentrated on those most in need, whose future is most as risk. This Tory plan - dressed up in the language of choice - is actually a scheme to take not just money from poorer families, including lone parents, but actually the paid childcare that gives them the opportunity to work, and give that money to the better-off. Forget David Cameron’s glibness: Maria Miller MP has shown the Tories haven’t changed their spots.”
There is also a Tory threat to the over 2900 Children’s Centres nationally, and ten in Reading, supporting families with children under five. Lead Councillor for Children’s Services Pete Ruhemann says: “Reading’s Children’s Centres are Whitley Sure Start, Blagdon, Norcot, and Southcote, which are fully functional, and St Mary's & All Saints, Katesgrove, East Reading, Dee Park, Caversham and Oxford Road - offering basic support now and with business plans and building plans coming to full fruition over the next year. Formal opening of the Centre at St Mary & All Saints in Coley Park is in fact scheduled for 2 May. These Centres are among Labour’s proudest achievements, the sign of our determination to offer the best possible start to every child, with an emphasis on families most in need.
“But,” he points out, “the Tories do not share that goal. David Cameron has already said he wants to cut Centre outreach workers who go out to families in difficulty and tell them of the support available, and divert that money to a service that will benefit people who have no family problems at all. That undermines what the whole programme is about, and I am sorry but, whatever the Tories say about inequality, they just don’t get it!”
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