REVERSE SURE START CUTS TO RESPECT TESSA
Labour’s plea on children centres
LABOUR is calling for axed Sure Start services to be revived – as a mark of respect for Tessa Jowell.
Described by MP Yvette Cooper as the “mother of Sure Start”, the baroness – who died last week aged 70 – helped set up the service, which offers support to parents and children in disadvantaged areas, in 1998.
Now MPs are calling on the Government to honour her by reversing the brutal cuts to the service which has helped hundreds of thousands.
Funding has halved since 2010, with some centres in the most deprived areas disappearing altogether.
Labour’s Angela Eagle said: “The legacy for Tessa is for the Government to reinstate centres we’ve lost. It would make her and her family prouder than anything.”
And Shadow Education Secretary Angela Rayner said: “When I think of Tessa, I think of her role in founding Sure Start – because when I was a young mum it was the local Sure Start centre that helped me and my son. “For all that’s said and done in politics, that is the best that any of us can hope to have achieved.”
A National Audit Office report shows Sure Start funding has been cut by 50 per cent in real terms since the Tories came to power.
As many as 1,000 Sure Start centres have closed since 2009 – twice as many as the government has reported.
Other cuts to education services outside schools have been even more severe, with a reduction in spending of 66 per cent, or £855m in real terms.
The pressures on Sure Start and other education provision come as local services face significant cuts to funding from central government.
Ms Rayner added: “Parents and children are now paying the price for the Government’s cuts and neglect of early education services like Sure Start.
“We have repeatedly challenged government to tackle the crisis, but the Chancellor chose to prioritise a tax giveaway for the banks instead.”