I beg to move,

That leave be given to bring in a Bill to require the Secretary of State to impose certain requirements on the Export Credits Guarantee Department, including the publication of an audit of all sums owed to the Department, an annual impact assessment and a real-time disclosure policy on all supported projects; to prohibit the support of certain activities by the Department; to provide that debt cancellation by the Department cannot be defined as official development assistance; to prohibit companies from receiving support from the Department for a period of at least five years following a relevant conviction of corruption; to introduce a duty of care provision which must be followed in the Department’s operations to provide access to justice for those affected by supported projects; and for connected purposes.

We are in the midst of an economic crisis caused in part by a lack of transparency and regulation in a system that thrived on excessive risk-taking for short-term profit without regard for the wider implications or the impact on people’s lives. It is now, I hope, widely acknowledged that private enterprise is bound by the same moral codes that bind us all and that activity in all areas of the economy should be both sustainable and accountable. We have obligations to one another and that is true for business as much as it is true for individuals. That is why I seek to introduce this Bill today: to shine a spotlight on a Government Department that uses taxpayers’ money to fund business activities overseas some of which are neither sustainable nor accountable and that have, in the past, caused significant damage to people and the environment.

The Export Credits Guarantee Department falls under the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and acts as the UK’s export credits agency. It uses Government money to support private exporters in winning contracts overseas in countries where alternative support is not readily available to those businesses. It spends a huge amount of taxpayers’ money—in 2009-10, it issued guarantees of more than £2 billion—yet it operates entirely in a moral vacuum. Campaigners have unearthed countless astonishing examples of projects that cause significant damage to people and the environment, such as the sale of weapons to General Suharto in Indonesia that were then used to suppress his own people; a power station in India, which was significantly overpriced and now lies dormant because the electricity that it generated was too expensive for the Government to buy; and a hydroelectric dam in Lesotho that was overseen by a chief executive who was later jailed for 18 years for taking £3 million-worth of bribes.

It is worth dwelling on one more example: the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline in the Caucasus. From the very beginning, non-governmental organisations voiced significant concerns about the project. Its design, they said, violated World Bank and European safeguards on human rights and the environment on more than 170 occasions, yet the ECGD went on to ensure the construction of the pipeline by the BP-led BTC consortium, providing credit totalling £150 million. Part of the deal was a series of “host Government agreements” with the countries involved. Those agreements take precedence over all national laws, except the constitution, and prohibit improvements to human rights or environmental regulation through new laws if they might affect profits. In effect, the deal puts profits above people, sometimes with the most appalling consequences.

As Amnesty International has pointed out, the deal created a “rights-free corridor” and during its construction much of the route was militarised. In all three countries, local people and international investigators were harassed, detained and arrested and there were allegations of torture. The UK Government have since conceded that the consortium broke international rules governing human rights, but it surely cannot be right that we are facilitating such activities not only without ensuring that human rights can be upheld but while human rights are actively being prevented from being upheld.

Those actions potentially put the UK in breach of international law and are certainly at odds with our human rights obligations, but for recipient countries the implications are much worse. If the deal falls through the exporter is paid anyway and, in the short term, the UK taxpayer foots the bill, but in some cases the ECGD goes on to re-designate that fee as a debt owed by the recipient country. An astonishing 95% of developing country debt owed to the UK has been generated by ECGD-backed operations. Those countries could have spent that money on developing their own economies, but instead they are forced to pay for a service that often does little for their people. Sometimes they are paying for damage inflicted on their people and their country.

I have a personal interest in this matter. Before I entered the House, I had the privilege of working with a group of remarkable children who had suffered appalling abuse and poverty overseas. I feel incredibly strongly that as a country we should be doing everything in our power to prevent the harm that is done to them, yet instead, in some cases, we are underwriting it.

The situation appears to be getting worse. The standards the ECGD applies are, in the words of the Jubilee Debt Campaign, “weak and getting weaker.” In 2010, the previous Government removed mandatory screening of child and forced labour for ECGD-backed projects. Between 2009 and 2010, the ECGD backed £21 million-worth of unscreened projects. In comparison, the OECD recently pointed out that all the UK’s major competitors and the vast majority of export credits agencies screen all the projects that they fund. The UK should be leading the way on this most important of issues, but instead we are trailing further and further behind.

Most of what we know about the ECGD comes from campaigners because it is neither transparent nor accountable. There is no legal requirement on it to publish a list of the projects that it supports and it does not reveal which outstanding debts relate to which projects. Indeed, requests for such information have been repeatedly declined. The ECGD has no duty of care at all to people who are affected and there is no grievance mechanism for those who are affected. Lender responsibility is disregarded and all the repercussions are borne by importers, even if there has been no, or limited, benefit to those countries. That is precisely the opposite of social responsibility.

My Bill would require the ECGD to adopt a list of prohibited activities and proactively to publish information on the projects it supports, including impact assessments, consultation and the monitoring and evaluation of projects. It would also prevent companies that have been convicted of corruption from receiving support from the ECGD for five years after the date of conviction. I want to make it clear that I am not attempting to stifle support for British business, which needs and deserves support from the Government now more than ever, but we should be supporting sustainable trade that is of long-term benefit, that safeguards human rights, that protects the environment and that at the very least does not exacerbate poverty.

Currently, the ECGD supports a handful of large companies that operate in just a few sectors. In the past year, for which we have figures, virtually all its support went to one company alone, Airbus, which hardly represents the diversity of the British economy, and that does absolutely nothing for the small and medium-sized businesses that we are all so keen to support. The ECGD could instead support and promote new, green industries and make productive investment that would generate jobs and prosperity. Renewable energy, public transport projects and low or zero-carbon industries should all be considered for support. Instead, we support proportionally more carbon-intensive industries than any other EU country. A credit line of £50 million, which was rightly ring-fenced for renewable energy in 2003, has not been touched to date.

Reform of the ECGD is backed by Members from the Conservative, Labour, Liberal Democrat, Green and Scottish National parties. Indeed, the right hon. Member for Twickenham (Vince Cable), who is now the Secretary of State with responsibility for the relevant Department, proposed reform of the ECGD just two years ago. There is clear consensus that the most urgent task facing the Government is the recovery of the economy but that can and must be achieved through sustainable and productive investment. We should be promoting the best of British business to the rest of the world and we should be leading the way in our commitment to human rights and the environment.

Question put and agreed to.

Ordered,

That Lisa Nandy, Zac Goldsmith, Roger Williams, Caroline Lucas, Tony Cunningham, Anas Sarwar, Dr Eilidh Whiteford, Sheila Gilmore, Bob Russell, Dr Julian Huppert, Teresa Pearce and Yasmin Qureshi present the Bill.

Lisa Nandy accordingly presented the Bill.

Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 11 November, and to be printed (Bill 182).

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I seek your guidance on a matter relating to ministerial accountability to Members of the House. I recently sent a letter, at the request of a constituent, to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whose office then notified me that it was being forwarded to the Department for Education for reply. Today, I received a reply from the Department—from the permanent secretary. This is the second time I have received such a letter. The matter about which I wrote was politically controversial, so the permanent secretary has, whether he wished it or not, been drawn into party political controversy by expounding and defending Government policy. This clearly is not satisfactory, Mr Speaker, and I shall be grateful for your guidance on how we should deal with such a situation and prevent its recurrence.

The right hon. Gentleman has been in the House for 40 years—I think he is in his 41st year of service in the House—so he will know that how Ministers respond to questions is principally a matter for them. However, I certainly think the point that he has raised warrants a ministerial response. For my own part, I will stick my neck out and observe that when a Member of Parliament tables a question, the Member of Parliament wants a reply from a Minister, not from an official. It might even be thought a little unwise to respond to the right hon. Gentleman, of all people, in the way that was done, but I am sure the Secretary of State will have something to say about the matter.

Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. I am grateful for this opportunity, as I am determined at all times to ensure that my Department responds promptly and fully to questions from colleagues across the House, and the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Sir Gerald Kaufman) is a particularly assiduous correspondent on behalf of his constituents. I have had the opportunity in the past to reply personally.

On some occasions it is appropriate when responding to parliamentary questions and to correspondence to enlist the support of those who do such a good job in the civil service and in arm’s length bodies. It is always a matter for ministerial discretion, but if any Member of the House is unhappy with any reply that they have received, I would be delighted if they would write again to me. In almost every case where a parliamentary question has been answered or parliamentary correspondence has been received, there has been a note from a Minister stressing that if the reply and the information contained therein is unsatisfactory, Ministers would of course be delighted, as I am at any time, to provide further information.

I am also delighted and grateful to you, Mr Speaker, to be able to say that the backlog of correspondence that we inherited has now, thanks to the generous and energetic work of officials in the Department, been cleared. I hope that in the future I will be able to answer all questions from all parts of the House as promptly as Members deserve.

I am grateful to the Secretary of State. That closes the matter on the subject of questions and correspondence. I invariably receive personal replies in the form of letters from the Secretary of State, and I have come to look forward to them with eager anticipation.

I beg to move,

That this House believes that improving the life chances of children and young people from all backgrounds should be central to Government policy; recognises that the Sure Start network of 3,600 Children’s Centres, introduced by the previous administration, is crucial in delivering high quality early education and early intervention for children, as well as support, advice and specialist services for parents and carers; notes that the funding to local authorities for the Early Intervention Grant in 2011-12 represents a real terms cut of 22.4 per cent. nationally, compared to the 2010-11 allocations before in-year cuts to area based grants; recognises that, in the context of this cut to early intervention funding, the large, front-loaded cuts to other local authority funding streams, and the removal of the ring-fence around Sure Start funding, Sure Start Children’s Centres will inevitably be put at risk; notes that before the General Election the Prime Minister promised to protect and strengthen Sure Start; and therefore calls on the Government to protect the Sure Start network of Children’s Centres by thinking again about their deep cuts to Sure Start funding, to monitor the evidence and, if local authorities are choosing to disinvest in Sure Start centres, to commit to reinstating the ring-fence for Sure Start funding to ensure that vital and valued services are not lost.

How tempting it might be to continue the discussion that just took place. The record of the Department in answering parliamentary questions and letters is pretty lamentable: 90% of named day PQs are not answered on time. That gives a glimpse of the chaos that reigns in the Secretary of State’s Department. But I note your ruling, Mr Speaker, that the matter is closed for now, so we will turn to Sure Start.

It is not always the case that policies debated and voted on in the House become universally accepted as a good thing in the country at large, but occasionally, between us, we get it right. Every now and again an idea comes along that is right for its time, addresses a real need, makes life better for many people and slowly becomes part of our national fabric. It acquires a broad appeal across the Benches of the House and its longevity becomes secured. Sure Start, it seems, is in that rare category of policies.

Last year, a survey by the Institute for Government considered the most successful policies of the past 30 years. Sure Start was judged to be the fifth most successful, beaten only by the national minimum wage, devolution, privatisation and the Northern Ireland peace process. Such a commendation for a flagship policy of the last Labour Government gives rise to a deep sense of pride among Labour Members today, but we are realists too. We know that other Labour achievements, such as the national health service, the Open university and the national minimum wage, will endure only if we convince all parts of the House that they are right.

It did not go unnoticed just over a year ago when the then Leader of the Opposition, now the Prime Minister, gave this pre-election manifesto statement to the National Childbirth Trust:

“We are strongly committed to Sure Start Children’s Centres and will strengthen this service”—

a clear promise to parents when the Prime Minister sought their votes. We have called this debate today to hold him and his Government to account for it.

This is not our first recent opportunity to discuss Sure Start. Seven weeks ago, the House had an excellent debate about the subject, but back then councils were still setting budgets and making choices. Today, we are in a much better position to make sense of the emerging picture on the ground, and we can judge the oft-repeated claim from the Secretary of State and his Ministers that they have given councils enough funding to keep all Sure Start centres open and, in the words of the Secretary of State at the most recent Education questions in an answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger), that they have given them

“sufficient to guarantee every child a high-quality place.”—[Official Report, 21 March 2011; Vol. 525, c. 697.]

Today, we can test the claim made by Ministers from the Dispatch Box that councils have enough money to do both. Does the claim hold water?

Is the right hon. Gentleman not pleased to know that in Harlow all the Sure Start centres remain open and are as strong as ever? Given that councils throughout the country have £10 billion in reserves, should they not use some of that money to strengthen their Sure Start centres?

I certainly say, “Good old Harlow”. The hon. Gentleman sits on a very fine inheritance from Labour in that constituency, and I trust that he will look after it well. Indeed, he follows a very distinguished former Member.

I hope that the right hon. Gentleman does not consider Kent to be a bastion of Labour support, but all the children’s centres in the county are being kept open.

We will judge a week on Thursday whether Kent can return much Labour support, and we look forward to that judgment, but again I pay tribute to those local authorities that in difficult circumstances are doing their best to keep the Sure Start infrastructure intact. They deserve credit for that, because they are making some difficult decisions, and later I will go through some local authorities and list those examples that the House will be interested to hear.

Westminster council is also seeking not to lock the doors of its 12 children’s centres, but it is achieving that by implementing an 18% cut in funding through reduced outreach services and reduced services for child development, and by ensuring that smaller centres no longer provide any help for families seeking employment. How does that fit with the Government’s objective of getting mothers back into employment?

My hon. Friend makes an important point, and I look over her local authority’s border into Hammersmith and Fulham, where even more worrying steps are being taken, steps that my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith (Mr Slaughter) has skilfully exposed. I will come to those issues later, because there is a real issue about whether, in keeping open a centre, the service to parents in local authorities throughout the country is being destroyed. That is the key issue for the House to consider.

Let me, however, give the Government credit where credit is due—most unlike me, but here we go: they have certainly talked a good game on early intervention. To show just how committed they were to the issue, they commissioned not one but two distinguished Opposition Members to advise them on it, and the Field review—I am pleased to see my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field) in his place—and the Allen report found common ground.

First, each report sets out a persuasive case for investing public resources heavily in the early years of a child’s life. They argue that doing so will help us to tackle the root causes of poverty and to build true social mobility in Britain. Only that will challenge a society where, in the words of my right hon. Friend,

“at the age of three but certainly by five, the die of life is set for most children.”—[Official Report, 2 March 2011; Vol. 524, c. 320.]

We all must seek to work together to challenge such a world.

Secondly, their recommendations are based on the assumption that the existing 3,600 Sure Start children’s centres throughout the country, one to serve every community, should be the essential infrastructure—indeed, the delivery system—if the vision of high quality early intervention is to become a reality. That is the key question that we need to consider today.

The departmental Select Committee in the previous Parliament found that Sure Start had begun to make an appreciable difference to children’s lives. It stated:

“Parents in Sure Start areas relative to those in non-Sure Start areas reported using more child and family-related services…and their children were socially more competent. These results seem to show that programmes are becoming more effective over time, particularly in their work with the most disadvantaged, and that children are feeling the benefit of longer exposure to the programmes.”

That is a ringing endorsement.

In essence, Sure Start built into the early years universal comprehensive education. Its strength is that it brings together parents, of all backgrounds, who may not have known each other before. Instead of providing only state support, Sure Start, by bringing those people together, helped them to create self-sustaining support networks in the community, through one parent working with another, and in that way it gave all young parents the extra support that they need. That is a fundamental strength of Sure Start, and it must not be lost.

My right hon. Friend will be pleased to know that Labour-controlled Tameside council has committed to keeping open all its children’s centres, despite a tough financial settlement, but did not the Conservative spokesperson on children and families let the cat out of the bag on the front page of the Tameside Advertiser this week, when she said that Sure Start should not be a universal provision serving every community?

That absolutely does let the cat out of the bag, and I am about to go through some examples of Conservative spokespeople in local government who do not seem to have read the Prime Minister’s words before the election last year.

I congratulate Tameside council, however, because it has dealt with a disproportionately larger cut to its early intervention grant than other authorities in Greater Manchester—Trafford, to name but one, which Government Front Benchers routinely mention. In Tameside, for every young person aged under 20 years old there has been a £70 per child cut in the early intervention grant.

The council is working in those circumstances to keep the network of Sure Start centres open, and that is why I congratulate Tameside, and I hope my hon. Friend will take my congratulations back to his friends. Owing to all the benefits that I have described, it is not surprising that the Field review concludes:

“Local Authorities should aim to make Children’s Centres a hub of the local community”.

My right hon. Friend describes them as a “targeted universal service”.

Two authoritative reports delivered to the Government advocate the importance of children’s centres, but now we get to the heart of the matter. We will soon discover whether the Government really wanted to hear the views of my esteemed friends on that crucial subject, or whether they were brought in for presentational reasons—as a piece of theatre to send a desirable political message.

To be fair to the Prime Minister, I remember well how about a year ago, during the election campaign, some Labour Members doubted the sincerity of his commitments to Sure Start. I looked back to what he said, however, because I remembered it from the television debates, and on 5 May 2010, on the very eve of the general election, readers of The Independent sent in questions to the then Leader of the Opposition. A questioner asked:

“As a parent who relies heavily on Sure Start centres for the educational and social needs of my child, I would like to know whether these centres will continue to receive funding.”

The Prime Minister replied:

“Yes, we back Sure Start. It’s a disgrace that Gordon Brown has been trying to frighten people about this. He’s the Prime Minister of this country but he’s been scaring people about something that really matters.”

That is what the Prime Minister said last May. In some ways, his anger was reassuring because it looked as if the Government-to-be were genuinely committed. I wonder how the Prime Minister feels today, given that it has turned out that those things that, as he said, “really matter” are under serious threat.

Evidence is emerging of widespread disinvestment by local authorities in Sure Start children’s centres. That seriously challenges the deliverability of the vision set out by my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead.

I am happy to join the cavalcade of other Conservative authorities that have already been mentioned; in West Sussex, no Sure Start centres are closing. Indeed, there is a greater desire to improve the services for early years. Surely that is at odds with what the right hon. Gentleman is saying.

It is a mixed picture. We will get to the bottom of the true picture on the ground as we get into the debate today. If Conservative local authorities are not just keeping the centres open, but protecting the services within them, I will of course recognise that that is what we want and what the Government said they would do. If that is the case, then good. But other Conservative-controlled authorities are not doing that. My question back to the hon. Gentleman is: what are he and his Front-Bench colleagues saying to Conservative authorities that are disinvesting from Sure Start and siphoning the money out? I look forward to an equally fulsome answer on that question.

If the Government accept the vision in the review that they commissioned my right hon. Friend to produce, I put it to the House that it must urgently consider what is happening on the ground and ask the Government to change course to preserve the network of children’s centres and services. As I will show today, children’s centres are closing right here, right now. Highly trained staff are being made redundant. Some children’s centres are keeping the lights on, but no more. That is the reality on the ground that the Prime Minister must urgently confront.

I draw my right hon. Friend’s attention to what is going on in Sefton. The council faces 30% cuts in its budget and it has had to review all 19 of its Sure Start centres. A Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition has made that decision, which emphasises my right hon. Friend’s point about the cuts being made by Conservative-run or led authorities. Families in Sefton are clear that they need the entire network. It is essential for people from all the different parts of the community that the network should be maintained. People from different parts of the community need different elements of the service.

My hon. Friend points out that coalition councils are not acting to protect Sure Start. He has come to an important point. The Government will have to decide. When the Prime Minister made promises last May, was he promising to keep Sure Start as a universal service? If he was, he really has to act. If, however, he had decided to let it become a targeted service—available in some communities and not in others, available to some parents and not others—he needs to be honest about that. He needs to say that and it needs to be clear that that is the Government’s policy.

The Government built a clear expectation among parents that they were preserving Sure Start as a universal comprehensive service that would give all children the best start in life. Indeed, at the last Education questions, the Secretary of State said that he would guarantee all children a high-quality place. The Government will have to live up to that promise.

If today the Prime Minister believes as strongly in Sure Start as he appeared to on the eve of polling day, he must act to save it. He must stop the disinvestment in Sure Start by councils and reinstate the Sure Start ring-fence in the next financial year, as our motion suggests, to protect a service that is still very much in the early years itself.

Will the shadow Secretary of State also congratulate Medway, an authority that is retaining its 19 Sure Start centres? It is going beyond that and showing the Government’s commitment to helping and supporting the young ones in their early years. I have a letter from the Department for Education dated 13 March 2011. It says that the Government are giving an additional £275,000 to Medway to increase provision to two-year-olds, three-year-olds and four-year-olds. That shows the commitment from local councils and the Government.

I am not in a position to judge the decisions of Medway council. What I can say to the hon. Gentleman is that the cuts introduced by the coalition since the last election have led to a £40-per-child cut in the early-intervention grant in Medway. If the council is making the best of a bad lot, I say good luck to it; I hope that the hon. Gentleman will encourage other councils to do the same.

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

I have given way to the hon. Gentleman once. I will now make some progress.

There is a dissonance between commitments given from the Dispatch Box by the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State and the actions of councils on the ground, which are dealing with the reality—the hand of cards—that the Government have given them. How did we get to this position? First, let me examine the issue of national funding to support Sure Start. In his statement to the House on the spending review, the Chancellor said that he had found

“more resources for our schools and for the early years education of our children.”—[Official Report, 20 October 2010; Vol. 516, c. 964.]

On that day, we said that that was a highly questionable statement. But ever since, the Secretary of State and his Ministers have stuck loyally to the line that the Government have given councils enough money to maintain children’s centres and services—that is, until the debate led by my hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) a couple of weeks ago on estimates day. I do not know what possessed him, but the Secretary of State intervened on a point being made by my hon. Friend and for the first time broke the discipline that Government Front Benchers had been observing so carefully. He said:

“The hon. Lady was kind enough to mention earlier that by her own calculation ring-fencing Sure Start within the current early intervention grant envelope would mean that other services would have to go. How will she protect those other services? Will she raise taxes, cut spending elsewhere or, as she said earlier, simply cross her fingers and hope for the best?”—[Official Report, 2 March 2011; Vol. 524, c. 359.]

That is a revealing statement, for implicit in the Secretary of State’s words is the admission that the Government have not given councils enough money in the early intervention grant for everything that they need to pay for to sustain both Sure Start and other crucial services, such as short breaks for disabled children, teenage pregnancy services and the children’s social care work force.

The Secretary of State could not have been clearer—we cannot have both: ring-fence Sure Start, and face cuts to some of those essential services for children. At least we saw a degree of honesty from the Secretary of State, but his problem is that his statement directly contradicted the Prime Minister’s a few weeks earlier; that is not a good career move for a man in his fragile position.

In February, at Prime Minister’s questions, the Prime Minister claimed the polar opposite of what the Secretary of State said. He said:

“On Sure Start, the budget is going from £2.212 million to £2.297 million. That budget is going up. That is what is happening.”—[Official Report, 9 February 2011; Vol. 523, c. 293.]

To be fair to the Secretary of State—and I do not often say this—on this occasion he has a much better grip on the detail than his boss. The £2.212 million referred to by the Prime Minister is the early intervention grant for 2011-12. The Prime Minister conveniently took 2011-12 to be his baseline year—and yes, between 2011-12 and 2012-13 the contribution goes up in cash terms. However, not for the first time at the Dispatch Box, he was playing fast and loose with the figures. The only way to show what has happened to Sure Start and early intervention since the change of Government is to compare 2011-12 with the financial year that has just ended—that is, 2010-11. A departmental ministerial statement dated 13 December 2010 said that in 2011-12 the amount to be allocated through the early intervention grant

“is 10.9% lower than the aggregated 2010-11 funding through the predecessor grants.”—[Official Report, 13 December 2010; Vol. 520, c. 67WS.]

The Prime Minister said that the budget was going up; the Department explicitly says that the budget is going down. That is not acceptable. In fact, it is worse than that because the Department’s calculation leaves out in-year early cuts after the general election to the area-based grant that many local authorities, particularly in more deprived areas, used to receive.

New research from the Library gives us the full picture. Its figures show that the equivalent EIG at the start of 2010-11 was £2.794 million, meaning that this year’s £2.212 million represents a real-terms cut of 22.4%.

The implication of what the right hon. Gentleman is saying is that under a continued Labour Government the cash settlement for all these services would have remained the same, yet in the Labour manifesto there was no promise to ring-fence the Sure Start grant, the Department for Education or the Department for Communities and Local Government. Given that the previous Chancellor intended to make savings across Departments, where does the right hon. Gentleman believe that this money would have come from?

Sure Start was ring-fenced—that was the policy of our Government. The Labour manifesto talks of strengthening early intervention. I am holding the Prime Minister to account for what he said when he was seeking the votes of people in this country. He said, in terms, that he would strengthen Sure Start, so I am saying that we should look at the evidence on the ground. Is Sure Start strengthening or weakening? When I read the hon. Gentleman some of the evidence, I hope that he will make an honest judgment on whether the service is getting better or is under threat.

The research from the Library tells us that in England the average cut in the EIG between 2010-11 and 2011-12 is £50 for every child in this country. Altogether that is absolute proof that the PM, who is undoubtedly a good talker—a PR man—is dangerously cavalier with the facts at the Dispatch Box, as Oxford university recently found to its cost. He said at the election that he would protect Sure Start, but in fact he has cut it, in real terms, by about a quarter. This takes us to the crux of the matter. The Government have not had the guts to be honest about the cuts that they are making to Sure Start. Instead, they have cut the budget, removed the ring fence, and offloaded the problem and the responsibility on to local authorities up and down the country, some of which face invidious choices in cutting essential services for children—child safeguarding and other important services. That is a terrible position for local authorities to be in, be they Conservative, Liberal, Labour or in coalition. Some other councils are cutting way beyond what would have been the ring fence. They are cutting into funds that were given by the Government for the purposes of Sure Start, siphoning them off and spending them elsewhere.

The right hon. Gentleman talked about cavalier language. At the last election, Harriet Harman, the Member for—

Order. May I remind Members that they should not name other Members? The reference should be to the constituency represented; I think that the hon. Gentleman was about to get on to that.

Thank you, Mr Speaker, for correcting me.

At the time, the lady of whom I spoke came to Ipswich and told my constituents that children’s centres would be cut in Ipswich. Since the election, every single centre has stayed open and two more have been added. The right hon. Gentleman is a decent man. Will he apologise on her behalf for having misled people, because I have tried to get her to apologise and she has refused to answer my letters?

I will happily look at what is happening on the ground in Ipswich. However, there is an important difference that I point out to the hon. Gentleman. It is possible to keep a children’s centre’s lights on and keep a receptionist and a cleaner, but what is going on inside? Is he satisfied that an appropriate level of service is being provided to support the parents of Ipswich? That is the judgment that he has to make. It is not just a case of whether he can come to the House and say that Ipswich is keeping the lights on—it needs to do more than that. Indeed, his own Government have funded it to do more than that. Suffolk, which is the local authority concerned, has had a huge cut of £40 per child in its area. He has to ask his Front Benchers whether that is acceptable for his constituents.

Let me go around the towns and point out what is happening on the ground. Derby, home to a Tory-Liberal coalition, seems like a good place to start. Surely there, if anywhere, people would implement coalition policy to the letter, would they not? Well, perhaps not, because we find that in Derby six children’s centres are threatened with closure. In a BBC news report on 10 March, Kelly Jennings, daughter of the Tory leader of the council, Harvey Jennings, said:

“I voted for the Conservatives because I thought there was going to be more help for the NHS. Now they are cutting that off and locally they are cutting off the Sure Start centres which single parents like myself rely on.”

We have been very pleased to welcome Kelly into the Labour party because she sees that in these tough times only Labour will be the voice of people and stand up for the services on which people depend. [Interruption.] Conservative Members laugh, so let us look at some Tory authorities. We have heard wonderful praise for many local authorities today; let us look at a few others. Are they working hard, like other authorities, to implement the Prime Minister’s clear pre-election pledges?

In Hammersmith and Fulham, we saw the first use of an interesting tactic that my hon. Friend the Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck) mentioned earlier. Many of its 16 children’s centres were under threat of closure. My hon. Friend went to the council meeting to see it discuss the issue. Then we heard the news that six would become hubs and 10 would remain as spokes. Only when we dig a little deeper do we find that nine of those so-called spokes will receive £25,000 a year. What is that enough to pay for—a receptionist, a caretaker, a bottle of bleach? Is there much more that it would pay for? I do not know, but it could not be very much. At the last Education questions, my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson) recalled the hospital without patients in “Yes Minister”. This coalition may be remembered for a more modern equivalent —a children’s centre without any children in it. That could be the Secretary of State’s legacy. I do not know about hubs and spokes, but there are certainly plenty of mirrors and smoke when it comes to presenting the facts about Sure Start.

I hope that my right hon. Friend might have an opportunity to look at what else is happening in Hull, controlled by the Liberal Democrats, which has seen a 32% cut in the children’s budget across the board and a 50% cut in the money going to children’s centres. Of the 20 children’s centres that we had under the Labour Government, 13 have effectively been mothballed by the Liberal Democrats and will have very few services.

I am glad that my hon. Friend raises that important point. As she says, the budget for Sure Start in Hull has been cut by 50% from £9 million to £4.5 million. During a previous Opposition day debate on the education maintenance allowance, the Secretary of State stood at the Dispatch Box and advocated that people should vote Liberal Democrat, particularly in Hull, pointing to some excellent provision that was available. I wonder whether we will hear that again or whether he will revise that advice to the electorate in advance of next Thursday. A 50% cut—can that be what the Prime Minister had in mind when he said he would strengthen Sure Start? This is the decimation of services on the ground.

Let us talk about some more Tory authorities before we get on to the Liberal Democrats. Tory-controlled Barnet is removing funding from eight of its 21 children’s centres, making £6.4 million of savings. Tory-controlled Bromley is closing 13 of its 16 centres. How can there be a service for the whole borough when just three centres are left? Are Ministers really saying that every parent in Bromley can access those centres and their services? I doubt that very much.

In Hampshire, 28 of the 81 children centres are set for closure. However, we should not worry because help is at hand. The right hon. Member for Eastleigh (Chris Huhne) has signed a petition against the changes. Thank God for that!

I would like to correct the right hon. Gentleman on his facts, unfortunately. Hampshire county council has pledged to protect all front-line Sure Start services and only back-office costs will be cut.

Well, there was a plan to close 28 children’s centres. I was led to believe that the council was considering the plan and consulting on it. I do not know when it had a change of heart. Perhaps it was because of the force of the representations of the right hon. Member for Eastleigh. We will have to find out. I am tempted to ask the Liberal Democrats to relay back to their colleague that rather than sign the petition, it might have been better for him to speak up in Cabinet to oppose the Secretary of State for Education and his cuts to the early intervention grant. Would that not have been a quicker way of resolving the matter, whether or not the local authority has had a last-minute change of heart with the local elections looming?

I do not know what to make of the behaviour of the right hon. Member for Eastleigh. Am I alone in finding his behaviour increasingly strange and Cable-esque? For the past 11 months, he has sat with his Lib Dem colleagues in Cabinet as the Tories have put various questions before them. They were asked, “How about trebling tuition fees and creating a market in higher education?” They said, “Why of course, be our guest, go and do it.” The Secretary of State for Education asked, “How about scrapping EMA?” “Please do,” said the right hon. Member for Eastleigh, “and why not decimate the careers service while you’re at it?” They were asked, “Shall we cut Sure Start?” “Please do,” said the right hon. Member for Eastleigh, “it will give me a good campaign at local level. Please get on and do it.” However, when the Tories ask, “Won’t AV mean we spend a little more on counting machines and the cost of elections?” all of a sudden, there is talk of resignation, legal challenges and Lord knows what. I struggle to understand that response from the right hon. Member for Eastleigh.

Does that synthetic rage not expose once and for all the absolute moral bankruptcy of today’s Liberal Democrats? When the interests of millions of young people were at stake in Cabinet discussions, they sat on their hands, but when their self-interest is challenged because they might not win a vote on a change to the voting system, it is time to bring down the coalition. That tells people everything they need to know about the Liberal Democrats: their politics are flaky, unprincipled and cynical, and their disloyal Ministers are preparing for life beyond the coalition.

There have been increasingly desperate statements from the Deputy Prime Minister. What has he said about Sure Start? At the Lib Dem spring conference he said:

“I cannot tell you how proud I am that not a single Liberal Democrat-led council is closing a single Sure Start children’s centre.”

Liberal Democrat Members have gone quiet. Are any of them prepared to back up that statement today? Stand up now. Does anyone hold to that statement?

indicated assent.

You do. So the Liberal Democrats all think that that is a correct representation and stand by it.

Let us consider Kingston upon Hull, where there is a 50% cut in the Sure Start budget. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for North Cornwall (Dan Rogerson) says that that is not true. Perhaps somebody has more up-to-date information and will beg to differ. Kingston upon Thames is another interesting and revealing example. Channel 4 FactCheck picked up the suggestion from the Deputy Prime Minister that the Lib Dems were not closing any centres and Cathy Newman went to Kingston upon Thames to look at whether any centres were being closed. Indeed, one was being closed in Hook. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for North Cornwall says that it is not a Sure Start centre. Well, when Cathy Newman went there, she found a plaque on the door that read, “children’s centre”. How can it not be a children’s centre, I ask the hon. Gentleman? I am struggling with this defence.

I acknowledge that Labour councils, too, are taking difficult decisions. We have heard coalition Ministers target Liverpool and Manchester. Liverpool is losing £90 per young person and Manchester £80. Both are working to keep service reductions to a minimum. Hampshire, by contrast, is losing just £30 per child and plans to close 28 centres. How does that work?

I am grateful for what my right hon. Friend said about Liverpool. Will he join me in congratulating Labour-led Liverpool city council, which has not closed any children’s centres and is desperately trying to keep them all open? I hope to intervene on the Secretary of State to ask for his support for that.

I do congratulate Labour-led Liverpool city council and its leader, Joe Anderson. Sure Start is clearly close to his heart, as he said when he set the budget. I am delighted that it is working to keep all its centres open.

Perhaps our calling this debate has led some people at local level to have a change of heart. Perhaps it has led to some U-turns at local level, of the kind we have become familiar with from the Government. The hon. Member for Gosport (Caroline Dinenage) mentioned Hampshire. [Laughter.] The Under-Secretary of State for Education, the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) laughs, but only yesterday, Hampshire decided that its centres would remain open, but that the budget would be cut from £17 million to £11 million. [Interruption.] I do not read the Hampshire local press every day. Does the Under-Secretary? The council had a plan to close—

Order. I will say two things. First, it is not necessary for the Under-Secretary to behave like a child to demonstrate his empathy for children. That is not a requirement of the job. Secondly, although I am very much enjoying the right hon. Gentleman’s geographical tour of the United Kingdom and always relish his exchanges with the Secretary of State, I am conscious that Back-Bench Members also wish to contribute. I am sure that those on the Front Benches will take account of that and apply a certain self-denying ordinance.

I agree, Mr Speaker, and will bring my remarks to a close.

Liverpool is doing well, despite facing difficult budget cuts of £90 per child. Hampshire is losing just £30 per child and is in a mess at local level, as is clear. These are the real politically motivated cuts. Hampshire is cutting its budget from £17 million to £11 million—a council in a more affluent area siphoning funds out of Sure Start and away from children who are facing the biggest challenges.

The evidence is racking up. Sure Start is being starved and is shrinking. Coalition policy is turning a much-loved, universal service into a patchy postcode lottery, which breaks the Prime Minister’s promise to parents. The ministerial team are making a mess of this successful policy in precisely same way as they mangled EMA and school sport partnerships. The Government say that they accept the Field and Allen recommendations, but the rhetoric does not match the reality. Early intervention services are under intense pressure as councils wrestle with impossible choices. Later this week, Labour will publish a survey of 70 directors of children’s services, which reveals a worrying picture of the quality and coverage of child safeguarding services in the current climate. It is becoming increasingly clear that Sure Start will not survive if the removal of the ring fence continues.

The motion makes the reasonable request for the Government to consider the emerging evidence and change course. We were right about school sport and we were right about EMA. If the Government care about the promises they have made, it is time for another U-turn and the reinstatement of the ring fence. I hope that they will listen, but somehow I doubt that they will. The decisions to shrink Sure Start fit entirely with the direction of Government education policy: at every stage of the education journey, they are making life harder for those who face the biggest challenges. They are breaking the promises that they made. We have heard what is happening to pre-school education, despite the fact that the programme for international student assessment has shown that all the best school systems in the world are based on the most extensive pre-school provision.

On four-to-16 education, the Chancellor stood at the Dispatch Box on the day of the spending review and promised more resources for schools, and said that the pupil premium would be “truly additional”. Heads know how hollow those words were, as they have to use a static or falling budget to buy back central support services previously provided for free by the local authority. Most schools are facing 80% cuts in their buildings budgets, as the Secretary of State showers extra money on his free schools.

On 16-to-19 education, the Prime Minister made a personal promise to young people at a further education college to keep the education maintenance allowance, but the Government scrapped it. Even the OECD has recently called on the Government to reinstate it. The effect of scrapping it will be that education and the route to a better life will now be closed off to many young people.

On higher education, holier-than-thou promises from the Government that £9,000 fees would be the exception rather than the norm have proved utterly false, as we will debate later today. Universities such as Cambridge are left to say what the Government will not—that state school pupils will start to drop off and find it harder to gain access.

What is the combined effect of all those misguided education policies? I can almost hear the sound of falling aspiration in my constituency and in former industrial areas where so much was done to lift expectation, and I can tell the Secretary of State that it terrifies me. The Government are breaking their promises to parents and young people, and the effect will be to reinforce disadvantage at every stage of the education journey. Families with a little extra money will probably be able to insulate themselves from the worst of the changes, but the combined effect on the children who have least will be that the odds are stacked even further against them by an old elite, slamming the door in their face and kicking away the ladder.

What about when young people try to move from education into today’s more competitive workplace? The Deputy Prime Minister made a feeble promise to open up work experience and internships, and days later the Prime Minister laughed in his face and reassured his old network that it would be business as usual.

The coalition’s true colours are slowly being revealed, and what we see is the same old ruthless Tories. Promises were made to soften their image—“We will look after the NHS.” “EMA will stay.” “Sure Start will be strengthened”—but they have all been cynically abandoned after less than a year in office. The Government are acting as though they got a mandate last May. They did not, but we have a Liberal Democrat party that is letting them behave as though they did. Last May, the Liberal Democrats sacrificed everything and sold the shop for a referendum on the voting system, a change that they want in their own electoral interests. Now we see how viciously they are prepared to fight to secure that self-interest, while we remember how meekly they sold down the river millions of young people whose votes put them in Parliament.

Children and young people deserve a lot better than this. Labour will stand up for young people and give them all a fair start in life, and we will be their voice in tough times. I commend the motion to the House.

In this post-Easter season, there is cause for all of us to celebrate, because a number of gloomy predictions have been confounded. At the beginning of the football season, some of us might have imagined that the dominant team on Merseyside would be Everton, but in fact, thanks to Kenny Dalglish’s inspired leadership, the reds are five points ahead of the blues. The gloomy obituaries that were being written for that great team have had to be put back.

Who do you support?

QPR, as it happens, but I admire Liverpool, and particularly Kenny Dalglish. [Interruption.] We are top of the league, you know.

Another gloomy prediction was made by Labour Members, but it has not come to pass—that of a double-dip recession. That was the mantra at the top of the Labour party, from the right hon. Member for Morley and Outwood (Ed Balls), the Leader of the Opposition and the Labour election co-ordinator, whatever his name is. The news today, however, is that our economy is growing once more—another gloomy prediction confounded.

We also heard a series of gloomy predictions from Labour Members about what would happen to the network of Sure Start children’s centres in this country. We were told by the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Mr Slaughter) that we would see a reduction in the number of children’s centres in Hammersmith and Fulham, but actually, as the right hon. Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham) almost acknowledged, not only are all the existing Sure Start children’s centres being protected but a new one is being built. There is an increase in the number of Sure Start children’s centres in Hammersmith and Fulham.

The right hon. Member for Leigh told us halfway through his speech that Hampshire was going to close all its children’s centres. Sadly, that slur—[Interruption.] It was a slur. That slur on Hampshire county council was very effectively rebutted by my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport (Caroline Dinenage). The council is ensuring that every single children’s centre will remain open. The right hon. Gentleman did not have the grace to acknowledge either that it was a Conservative local authority that was keeping them open or that he had got it wrong. I admire his passion, but he must get his facts right before he comes to the Dispatch Box and attempts to tarnish the good name of an effective local authority that is doing a great job for children and young people.

In a spirit of generosity, I have to say that a great many Labour local authorities are doing a good job and ensuring that Sure Start children’s centres remain open. There are also Liberal Democrat local authorities doing a good job. One of the most disappointing things about the right hon. Gentleman’s speech was his attack on the Liberal Democrats, which I felt was mean-minded and beneath him. I understand that as an election co-ordinator, with just a week to go before he shores up the Labour vote that is collapsing in Scotland and evanescent elsewhere, he has to pick what he thinks is an easy target, but he has picked the wrong target.

My right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister, with whom I do not always agree, was right when he said that Liberal Democrat authorities were keeping all their Sure Start children’s centres open. We can look at what is happening in Kingston upon Hull, where all the centres are remaining open and services are being delivered from all of them. The same is true in Kingston upon Thames. The Liberal Democrat councillors in those authorities represent a party that I would not vote for, but they are doing the job a darned sight better than the Labour councillors who used to run Hull when it was the worst local authority in the country according to the Audit Commission. It is now the most improved.

rose—

Talking of room for improvement, I give way to the shadow Secretary of State.

Before we leave this matter, let us get to the bottom of the point about Hampshire. There was clearly a change of heart yesterday—[Interruption.] Will the Under-Secretary of State, the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton), hear me out? If there was a change of heart, the news had not reached me, and I welcome it. However, we must ask, a change of heart to what? The Sure Start budget there is going from £17 million to £11 million, a 35% cut. Is the Secretary of State applauding Hampshire for making a cut on that scale? He has just applauded the local authority and invited me to do the same. Is he saying that such a cut to Sure Start is acceptable and that the local authority should be applauded for cutting the service by more than a third?

The right hon. Gentleman has not misled the House—he never misleads the House—but I am afraid that he has got himself in what we call in Scotland “a bit of a fankle”. He asserted that Hampshire was going to cut children’s centres, and then he was caught short by the facts. I know that he has more respect for the House than to want to put himself in a position of having inaccurate facts in front of him, so all he needs to do, as graciously as is his natural custom, is acknowledge that Hampshire is keeping its children’ centres open and congratulate it on that.

One reason why Hampshire, Hammersmith and Fulham, Kingston upon Hull, Kingston upon Thames and many other Conservative and Liberal Democrat councils, as well as Labour ones, can keep their Sure Start children’s centres open is that there is enough money. I can make that assertion because of the evidence that has been put forward by two of the people who have the best understanding of the early years. Anne Longfield OBE, chief executive of 4Children, has said that the Government are

“continuing to provide adequate funding to keep centres open and councils should resist the temptation to use this money to plug gaps elsewhere.”

Anand Shukla, the acting chief executive of the Daycare Trust, has said:

“The Government has allocated sufficient funding for the existing network of Sure Start Children’s Centres to be maintained”.

The money is there—independent witnesses say so—and well-run local authorities all over the country, represented by councillors of different parties, are maintaining that network. Therefore, every single plank of the right hon. Gentleman’s argument has collapsed beneath him, and I have been on my feet for only six minutes.

What does the Education Secretary say to parents in my constituency, which has the seventh highest child poverty in the country, in the light of Westminster city council’s briefing? The briefing states:

“As you may have heard in the media, central government funding for Sure Start Children’s Centres nationally has been reduced, which means in Westminster we have to save 17% from our Children’s centre budget”,

meaning a saving of £715,000, including roughly £250,000 off early learning and child support, and £400,000 off outreach and family support. Children’s centres will be bricks and mortar without the staff even to ensure that services can be run safely.

The hon. Lady is a highly energetic constituency MP—indeed, I was represented by her for a brief period, and I know how passionately she takes up such causes. However, Westminster, like many other local authorities, is succeeding not just in keeping the Sure Start children’s centre network open, but in providing an enhanced service for children and young people. The question that she and every Opposition Member must address is this: if they believe, as I do, that Sure Start is a valuable service, and that it is a good thing that the Government have set up an early intervention grant, and that we are devoting resources and intellectual energy to the early years, will they support the coalition in the steps that it is taking, or do they have an alternative plan? Do they believe that money should come from other areas of Government expenditure to spend more on any of those services? If they believe that we should spend more than we are spending, can they explain which services they would cut or which taxes they would increase? I am very happy to give way to any right hon. or hon. Member who can enlighten me on Labour’s economic policy, including the hon. Member for Hammersmith.

Let us deal with the figures. If the Secretary of State has come along simply to give incorrect figures, he does not help the debate at all. Hammersmith and Fulham was spending £3.983 million last year; this year it will spend £2.206 million. Most of the nine Sure Start centres will have their budgets cut. Some will receive £19,000 to be satellites—the £19,000 is for the upkeep of the premises, but services will be delivered on-site by another children’s centre. The Secretary of State must stand by his words if he says that that means he is keeping the centres open. However, his stance in this debate and making such assertions does him no credit. He should at least live with the consequences of his actions.

The consequence of the Government’s actions is that we have ensured, as both Anne Longfield and Anand Shukla have pointed out, that there is enough money to maintain that network. In addition, under Conservative leadership, Hammersmith and Fulham has been singularly successful in reducing the council tax burden on its ratepayers, and in diversifying the sources of funding it receives to support education and care for children and young people. It is a superb local authority. Instead of continually talking down the service that is provided by public servants in Hammersmith and Fulham, it would be nice to hear from the hon. Gentleman some sunny, uplifting words, rather than grim predictions of disaster, which as we have just heard, turn out never to be true.

Will my right hon. Friend join me in congratulating Northamptonshire county council on deciding to go ahead with its plans for 50 children’s centres in the county, and on its support for my proposals to introduce a Northamptonshire parent-infant project in children’s centres, which will provide a parent-infant psychotherapy service for the families most in need who are struggling to bond with their new-born babies?

I am delighted to congratulate Northamptonshire, where not a single children’s centre is closing. It is also the home of the innovative Pen Green children’s centre. More money is coming from central Government to help that council to develop news ways of providing support for children in their earliest years.

I have some sunny words for the Secretary of State. Sure Start Palfrey in my constituency was one of the first in the country to get an “outstanding” rating from Ofsted, which it gained because it did a lot of outreach work, including through a fathers’ club—84 fathers came to one session. However, there are rumours, which the Secretary of State might like to quash, that the staff will be replaced by health visitors, which moves the centre into a medical model rather than an educational model. Will he confirm that those specialist workers will not be replaced by health visitors?

The hon. Lady makes an important point. To be fair to Labour Members, I want to emphasise that Sure Start has been a success in the past, and we hope it will be an even greater success in the future. However, one matter on which it has not been as successful in every part of the country as it should have been is in outreach, particularly to the most disadvantaged. The Government believe that health visitors, as trusted faces of the state, can be one of the most effective ways in which we can increase outreach. We also believe that local authorities that have innovative solutions that succeed in ensuring that children in hard-to-reach communities receive those services should be supported. The coalition Government believe in supporting local authorities that are innovative in their use of resources, which is why we removed the ring fence, created the early intervention grant, and allowed a greater degree of innovation to flourish at local level.

The 50% cut is set out clearly in Hull city council’s budget to children’s centres—it is a fact. The centres cannot provide the service that they provided before that 50% cut. They have abandoned the local authority’s early years service team, and no one is doing early years service planning in that authority. The cut means that services are not the same as they were under the previous Government. Surely the Secretary of State must recognise that.