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On Thursday Barry Sheerman urged the Government to abandon plans to scrap funding for Sure Start Children's Centres.

Barry stressed that the Government's response to Sure Start Children's Centres included removing the requirement for children's centres in disadvantaged areas to provide full day care. This measure includes scrapping the requirement to employ both a Qualified Teacher and an Early Years Professional in the Sure Start Centre. Barry believes this will damage both the quality of service for young children and the availability of programs throughout the UK.

He added that Sure Start centres provide an invaluable service by helping children with a variety of the challenges they may face, including linguistic or health problems.

"The beauty of children's centres is that a child gets all that support and evaluation in one place... The fact is that providing a holistic service for a child delivers the best chance of giving that child the environment in which they can thrive."

Many of the 3,500 Sure Start Children's Centres are also new. Thus many of the centres need time to develop and adapt as they respond to the local community's demands and interests, Barry said.

"Central to today's discussion is whether we should have a service that guarantees certain things for every poor child in the country or whether we should leave it up to the randomness that comes when different councils with different majorities or no majority, which may lack funding and which may be urban, suburban or rural, are left to take those decisions.  I come from an old-fashioned school of thought, which I hope will come back into fashion, that believes in giving guarantees to every child in the country."