Sure Start (Hansard, 14 May 2002)

§ Yvette Cooper

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Skills and I have today invited the following districts in England to set up 85 new sure start programmes:

Ashfield
Barking and Dagenham
Barnet
Barnsley
Bath and North East Somerset
Birmingham¹
Blackburn with Darwen
Blyth Valley
Bradford
Breckland
Broxtowe
Burnley
Camden
Canterbury
Charnwood
Coventry
Derwentside
Doncaster
Dudley
Greenwich
Hackney
Halton
Hammersmith and Fulham
Haringey
Hull
Ipswich
Islington
Kirklees
Knowsley
Lambeth
Leeds
Leicester
Lewes
Lewisham
Lincoln
Liverpool¹
Manchester¹

540W

Mansfield
Middlesbrough
Newcastle
Newham
North East Lincolnshire
North Lincolnshire
North Norfolk
Norwich
Nottingham
Oldham
Pendle
Penwith
Peterborough
Portsmouth
Preston
Rochdale
Salford
Sandwell
Sedgefield
Selby
Sheffield
Shrewsbury and Atcham
South Kesteven
South Tyneside
Southwark
St. Helens
Stockton on Tees
Stoke on Trent
Sunderland
Sutton
Tameside
Teesdale
Telford and Wrekin
Tower Hamlets
Vale Royal
Wakefield
Walsall
Waltham Forest
Wandsworth
Warrington
Warwick
Westminster
Wirral
Wolverhampton
Wycombe.

¹ Denotes districts which have been invited to develop two programmes in the sixth wave.

We have placed a copy of the guidance for this sixth wave of programmes in the Libraries.

These new programmes are an addition to the 437 programmes which are already delivering services to young children and their families in disadvantaged areas or currently developing their plans. This announcement brings the total number of sure start programmes announced so far to 522. They will become operational from summer 2003 when we will be well on schedule to meeting the public service agreement target of 500 programmes operating by 2004, reaching one third of all 541W poor children aged under four and their families in England. This will be a significant contribution to the Government's aim of eradicating child poverty by 2020.