Sure Start (Hansard, 16 July 2002)

§ The Prime Minister

The Chancellor announced yesterday a significant increase in the combined budget for child care, early years and Sure Start, rising to £1.5 billion in 2005–06. This includes a more than doubling of investment in child care by 2005–06, following an inter-departmental review of child care co-ordinated by the Performance and Innovation Unit.

The extra investment will support the expansion of child care places across the country, and the integration of good quality child care with early years education, family support and health services through a network of children's centres in the most disadvantaged areas.

In keeping with this new focus on integration, responsibility for early years education, child care and Sure Start will be brought within one inter-departmental unit based within the Department for Education and Skills. The Chancellor announced yesterday the PSA target for the new unit which will be shared by the Department for Education and Skills and the Department for Work and Pensions.

This new inter-departmental unit will report to a new Minister for Sure Start, early years and child care, who will be jointly appointed to the Department for Education and Skills and the Department for Work and Pensions, to ensure that our early years and child care vision delivers on both our educational and employment objectives. I have asked Baroness Ashton, who led the interdepartmental review of child care, to take on this role.

Baroness Ashton will report to a new cross-departmental ministerial group on Sure Start, early years and child care. This Group will be a sub-Committee of MISC9, the Cabinet sub-Committee on Children's Services. The focus on health has been vital to the Sure Start programmes already up and running. To ensure that this is maintained, the sub-committee will be chaired by the Minister for Public Health. The sub-committee's other members will include the Paymaster General and the Minister for Disabled People.

The Secretary of State for Education and Skills will continue to speak on these issues in Cabinet. At junior ministerial level, the Minister for Disabled People will answer questions in the House of Commons.

I believe these new arrangements will ensure that an integrated approach is taken to the development and delivery of our early years and child care vision.