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Jacqui Smith: There is a slight irony in the Opposition arguing for parental choice while suggesting that there are press gangs of reception class teachers wandering around towns, grabbing unsuspecting children into their classes. Conservative Members cannot argue both for parental choice and that there should not be broad provision. I accept the--
Mr. Brady: Will the hon. Lady give way?
Jacqui Smith: No; I shall make progress.
I accept that there needs to be a choice--which the nursery voucher scheme certainly did not deliver. To deliver that choice, all the providers--public and private--must work together.
The Government undoubtedly set a tough task in the preparation of early years development plans. I accept that providers that had become used to competing have not always found it easy to work together. Before planning, one needs to know what provision already exists. The new system introduced tight time scales. The Government--in my view, rightly--put the responsibility on the early years development partnerships to consider not just provision but special educational needs, equal opportunities, training and quality assurance.
Locally, at the start of the process, people expressed some concerns to me, but they took on the challenge. In Worcestershire, they have already delivered a free place for every four-year-old and they are working to fulfil the Government's target of providing free, good-quality early education places to 66 per cent. of three-year-olds by April 2002.
The development partnership and the local education authority have appointed an early years development officer. They have formed mentor-teacher teams to support good practice in a full range of settings, in recognition of the need for quality provision and the challenges of developing learning opportunities for younger children.
There has been some concern about the learning experiences of young children, especially in reception classes. The very fact that we are holding this debate recognises the huge expansion in early years provision that has already taken place and the proposed even bigger expansion in it. It is a luxury that we did not have under the previous Government, because at the time not many
children benefited from that type of education, so we did not need to discuss it. Nevertheless, it is important, and I know from first-hand experience that some excellent work has gone on in reception classes with young four-year-olds.
Much of the debate has centred on a false distinction drawn between formal education and other nursery education. Being in a primary school does not necessarily or automatically imply a style of learning, just as being in a nursery or playgroup does not. What matters is what teachers and other staff actually do with the children.
Now that the system is developing, there is an important job to do. Unlike the hon. Member for Meriden, I believe that it is important to clarify desirable learning outcomes, not because we want to regiment children or stipulate that all children must have achieved a certain standard, or because we want to declare them to be failures, but because it is increasingly important, in such a developing area, that we consider good practice, not just for four and five-year-olds but for three-year-olds. Is the hon. Member arguing that we should have no clarity about what we are trying to achieve with children of those ages in primary or nursery education? I believe that that is precisely the provision which we should be developing. I also recognise, as mentioned by the hon. Member, that there are important new training needs for staff working in early years. The Government also accept that. In the longer term, we must ensure that there is evaluation of, and research on, what works for younger children.
I would welcome the formation of a distinct phase of early education, with different approaches to the way in which we teach children and with an emphasis on training teachers and other staff about those approaches. The Government's development of early years education provides us with a very good opportunity for doing so.
The process in Worcestershire continues. Targets must be met, and I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will comment on the county's progress, especially bearing in mind the very low point from which it started, following the experience of the 1980s.
I am pleased that we are starting to consider child care, too, and I am sure that other hon. Members will discuss that issue. Services for young children and their families obviously need to be developed holistically. I welcome the fact that Worcestershire has a multi-disciplinary audit team, which is studying current provision in order to develop it. In a county such as Worcestershire, where there are urban and rural communities, there is a range of questions to be asked about access to child care and early years education.
The development partnership has already been extended in Worcestershire, and it is working with local groups such as the Redditch Playcare Partnership--a group of providers, users and agencies involved in providing playcare. I know that that local group has welcomed the opportunity to make an input to the consultation undertaken by the early years development partnership and the local education authority.
Just as it is necessary to develop a coherent approach to the provision of early years education, we now need to link education, child care, play and other services dealing with young children. I was slightly concerned by what the hon. Member for Meriden said about institutionalising
children. I agree that education and child care are governed by some different objectives, but it does not help us to develop a coherent approach to all a child's needs if we condemn some of the good work in child care provision as institutionalising children. We need to monitor quality, but that is not helped by condemning existing provision.
On that basis, I especially welcome the Government's commitment to the sure start programme, and to early excellence centres. Clearly, in its widest sense, education does not start at school or nursery or playgroup, and it is affected by more than educational provision. That is why it is so important that we provide parents with support, and that we bring together agencies to work holistically.
Mr. David Drew (Stroud):
One of the key issues is not the choice between providers but the choice within the week, so that children can go to different providers to get a rich variety of different provision.
Jacqui Smith:
I agree with my hon. Friend.
I know that the Redditch Playcare Partnership is especially keen to contribute to developing initiatives on sure start and early excellence centres, and I hope that the Minister will consider Redditch in future programmes.
Mr. Don Foster (Bath):
I congratulate the hon. Member for Meriden (Mrs. Spelman) on securing the debate. I also congratulate her on devoting much of her contribution to the vital importance of ensuring that all provision is of high quality. I am especially delighted to be able to contribute to the debate because I am president of the National Campaign for Nursery Education--many of whose members will visit the palace today. I hope that as many hon. Members as possible will take the opportunity to speak to members of that organisation from their constituencies.
One of the very welcome aspects of the debate has been the fact that hon. Members on both sides of the Chamber have shown a clear recognition of the strong emphasis that needs to be placed on high-quality early years education. I believe that all hon. Members in the Chamber recognise the real educational and social benefit to children that will result from such provision. We know from research that children who benefit from such provision are likely to obtain better jobs in later life, are less likely to make demands on social security systems and are much less likely to be involved in juvenile crime. We also know that such provision provides the opportunity for the early identification of special educational needs and the opportunity to start tackling them as quickly as possible.
As has been said, perhaps equally important is the way in which early years education provides an early opportunity for the vital involvement of parents in the educative process. Evidence suggests that if we can involve them early in the process, they are likely to remain involved at all stages of schooling.
Given the importance that we all place on high-quality early years education, I welcome the progress that is being made. I welcome also, of course, the abolition of the bureaucratic nightmare of nursery vouchers. I have never heard a better condemnation of it than that of the hon. Member for Meriden, who said:
"how successful that was not."
The hon. Lady was right: it was not a successful system.
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