§ 5. Ms Karen Buck (Regent's Park and Kensington, North)What measures he is taking to increase access to affordable child care in London. [152553]
§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education and Employment (Ms Margaret Hodge)The national child care strategy has created 83,000 new child care places in London in less than four years. That is more new places in London alone than the 74,000 places that the previous Government created throughout Britain in 18 years. We have also funded 31,052 new free nursery places in London. Together with the tripling of the child care budget, an extra £155 million from the new opportunities fund, £200 million for 900 neighbourhood nurseries, start-up grants for child minders, free nursery education for all three and four-year-olds, changes in child care tax credit, that means that, by 2004, we will have greatly increased access to affordable child care in London.
§ Ms BuckI thank my hon. Friend for her reply. May I take this opportunity to congratulate everyone involved in St. George's school, which, as the House will know, is the school where headmaster Philip Lawrence was tragically murdered six years ago. It has just received a clean bill of health from Ofsted, which is a tremendous credit to the acting head teacher, Lady Stubbs, all the staff, the parents, the governors and the education authority.
1177 Is my hon. Friend aware that the Conservative-controlled royal borough of Chelsea and Kensington recently received £1.5 million through the early years development partnership for nursery education, and the joint highest local government settlement—6.5 per cent.—in the country? Does she share my astonishment that the council is proceeding with the closure of Ladbroke nursery, which is attended by a number of my constituents' children? Does she agree that the council should review its decision and take advantage of the Government's support? That would ensure that the local authority makes provision for all the parents using the nursery who need child care in Kensington and Chelsea.
§ Ms HodgeI join my hon. Friend in congratulating Marie Stubbs and her staff on the work that they have done at the school. May I also congratulate my hon. Friend on the work that she has done on supporting the national child care strategy in her constituency?
Plenty of new resources are available to increase the number of child care places in every area in the country. There is an especially generous settlement for Kensington and Chelsea, so there is no excuse whatsoever for closing nurseries and losing child care places. I endorse entirely my hon. Friend's comments on the council's action.
§ Mr. John Bercow (Buckingham)The saccharine self-congratulation of the hon. Lady and her soothing bromides this morning simply will not do. Is she unaware that, according to figures published in April 2000 by her Department, the proportion of children in nursery classes with 31 to 35 pupils has risen by one fifth since the Government took office? Is she aware that, under her watch, more than 1,500 pre-school playgroups have closed? If she is not aware of those things, will she become aware—and, furthermore, abandon the forced cattle-truck mentality that has besmirched the Government's performance, and create a level playing field with genuine competition and free choice for parents?
§ Ms HodgeI am delighted to have the opportunity to engage with the hon. Gentleman. I know that those in the Press Gallery find it difficult to accept some of the words that we use, and I do not want to say "mendacious toe-rag", so I shall use the term "economical with the truth". We replaced the unhealthy competition that led to a decrease in the number of places available in playgroups with a planned partnership between all sectors to increase the number of places in every part of the country.
As the hon. Gentleman is probably aware, following declines in the number of places available in playgroups over time, we have finally turned the corner. This year there are almost 6,000 more places. Across the country, we have created new places for more than 500,000 children, and we are in line to create free nursery education places for all three and four-year-olds in class sizes of one to 15.