Maintained Nursery Schools — House of Commons, 2019-01-31
Topic: Education
Karen Elizabeth Lee (Labour, Centre-left): I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell) on securing this important debate and her committed work on such a vital issue. It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Heywood and Middleton (Liz McInnes) I am a proud advocate for nursery schools in Lincoln. I have been contacted by two maintained nurseries in Lincoln, St Giles and Kingsdown, about the precarious position of their funding after April 2020. Currently, nursery schools are unable to plan and budget for the future, and headteachers and families are deeply concerned. A couple of weeks ago, I met the headteacher of St Giles. She had previously written to me, with the support of the parents, the staff and the surrounding local community, to express their fears about the supplementary funding settlement post 2020. We talked for an hour and a half, and I could really see her concern—she is very worried about what they might lose. This problem is not restricted to Lincoln, as Members on both sides of the House have raised concerns regarding nurseries in their own constituencies Let us not overlook the immediate threat. Nurseries are already struggling to set budgets, as even before the end of supplementary funding, 64% expect to be in budget deficit. This is very worrying, as last year the LGA found that 61% of local authorities with maintained nursery schools fear that their schools will close if funding is not protected after 2020, with 52% saying that a loss of funding would reduce the support available for children with SEND Maintained nursery schools genuinely advance social mobility—that has been said again and again. The evidence is overwhelming. We know that 64% of maintained nurseries are in the 30% most deprived areas. The two in Lincoln are both in areas of marked social deprivation—Birchwood and St Giles. Regardless of one’s upbringing, we all deserve a good education, and their admission process prioritises children who are in greatest need. In a society with so much inequality, we must protect services that support vulnerable people and give them the opportunity to excel in later education. The Government have even accepted that maintained nurseries cost more, as they provide a range of early years provision Any planned cuts to funding of maintained nurseries presents an extremely short-term view of educational funding, and it is a false economy. A report by a group of seven maintained nurseries in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, where I am from, estimates that the cost to public sector services of those nurseries closing would be £216,000 to health and wellbeing services, £278,000 to special educational needs and disability services, £256,000 to social care safeguarding services and £480,000 to supplementing extended entitlement services The benefits of these nurseries are clear. Maintained nursery schools provide vital support to our local communities, yet the Government failed to address nurseries’ financial insecurity in the last Budget, and the forecasted review in autumn 2019 is far too late. An issue that requires urgency is seemingly being responded to with complacency—and I do not include the Minister in that statement. I promised nurseries, teaching staff and parents in my constituency that I would be their voice in Parliament. They are not expecting anything out of the ordinary, but they do expect and deserve a sustainable financial future for maintained nursery schools, which will protect jobs and the opportunities of children in their communities Will the Minister explain to the House how he expects nursery schools to offer places in the spring of 2019 or the following school year when they know full well that no funding arrangement has been decided upon? I, too, understand that the Minister is sympathetic to the plight of our nurseries—his commitment is not doubted for a minute—but with the risk of closures on the horizon, how can the Government expect nurseries to continue in good faith without a forward-looking, secure financial plan?