Press Association
Saturday 11th February 2012
Gordon Brown has hailed plans to boost childcare - and warned that Tory cuts would hit the service.
Amid intense jockeying for position ahead of the general election, the Prime Minister used the opening of the 3,500th Sure Start centre in England to push for the "family" vote.
Measures including an expert panel to check that nursery pupils are eating healthily and a celebrity-backed website supporting the Sure Start programme were unveiled by ministers.
Labour claims the Conservatives would cut funding by £200 million, which could force one in five centres to close.
"There is an issue here: we want to expand the children's centres and other people want to get rid of them," Mr Brown said as he visited the centre in London.
Measures were also being announced to improve maternity provision in what was seen as a deliberate effort to woo female voters ahead of the election, expected on May 6.
But Mr Brown denied "patronising" women. "I hope that in no way does this seem patronising at all. It is an attempt to show we are concerned about modern families and how we can improve the quality of life and the choices that are available to mothers and fathers," he said.
"That is what you are seeing today: an improvement in the range of choices that are available with more flexible hours for nursery, with nutrition in the early years courses, with more Sure Start centres around the country."
The new food advisory panel is chaired by Dr Anthony Williams, reader in child nutrition and consultant paediatrics at St George's University of London. The campaigning website to support the Sure Start programme is backed by celebrity mothers Michelle Collins, Jo Brand and Arabella Weir.
Children's Secretary Ed Balls said protecting Sure Start had become an election issue. "We are launching a political campaign called Save Our Sure Starts because the Conservative Party has committed to cutting Sure Start and really focusing them on only disadvantaged communities," he said. "We are saying the children's centre should be for all parents in every community in the country and we want to keep investing in our children's centres."
