Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill

My Lords, we on these Benches pay tribute to the very high standards seen in local authority children’s centres. They are invariably rated as good or outstanding and many of them cater for some of the most disadvantaged children in the community. It was a concern to read yesterday that nursery schools are coming under quite such pressure through funding being spread between government and private nursery providers. There are some excellent private providers too, but it seems they are all running the risk of being underfunded and indeed, many face closure. We do not agree with the emphasis in Amendment 202. Mainstream provision by local authorities should, we feel, be a matter for each local authority to determine. They are already required to take account of other provision in their area, but this amendment seems unnecessarily to restrict their capacity to respond to local needs. On Amendment 203, the noble Baroness, Lady Verma, stated the need for health visitors and their position in children’s services, but we note the Government’s statutory guidance, which says that the intention is, ""to ensure that the best use is made of Sure Start Children’s Centres as accessible local outlets for services for families while not requiring that these services be delivered exclusively through children’s centres"." New Section 5E seems to encapsulate that and we agree with that drift. We favour diversity of provision enabling parents to make the best choices for children. Amendment 204 adds more detail to the sorts of diverse provision that might be available. We have sympathy with the inclusion of the private and voluntary sector providers, but we would hope that local authorities would already be looking to those different types of provision and so do not necessarily want to see the amendment in the Bill.