Another view:Labour's nursery ideas

The Independent does the Tory party a great deal more justice than it deserves by using the announcement of vouchers in its editorial on Saturday to argue that the Tories are coming up with fresh ideas. The editorial even claimed that "it can surely be only a matter of time before the (Labour) front bench ... eats its words and advocates an adapted form of vouchers."

The vouchers proposal is not an innovative idea, it has been knocking around for a long time. The reason the Labour Party rejected the idea is because we want to get on with ensuring enough places of high quality, in a variety of settings, to meet the needs of modern families. We want to use scarce public sector money in the most effective way, and make sure that every penny counts.

Up and down the country Labour local authorities have been pioneering innovative ways that link child care and education in partnership with the voluntary and private sector, so that children get the very best start, and parents are better able to organise family patterns.

Take North Tyneside, where they have transformed their children's services. They have not been afraid of working in partnership with the private and voluntary sector to produce a range of child care and educational opportunities. They have produced a service that supports parents through the decisions which help their working life; they have improved the opportunities for the poorest families; and they have developed an expertise respected by employers. The company that North Tyneside established has won contracts nationwide. They have used decreasing Government grants to secure money and support from employers, and this has led to a much improved pattern of provision, in which parents can have confidence.

Is the voucher scheme for four-year- olds the best we can offer children and their families? There have been lots of innovative ideas around. Labour has looked at them all and we know what works. Why choose a bureaucratic route? Only 45 per cent of three-year-olds currently receive any educational provision, against 91 per cent of four-year-olds.

Why has the Government chosen a route that ignores the needs of three- year- olds, let alone younger children?

I know that officials and ministers have been impressed by what is happening in North Tyneside, in Manchester, in Leeds, in Kirklees and in many other areas where local authorities have taken a lead, not neccessarily in providing all places themselves but in pulling together a strategy involving private, public and voluntary. The models are there. They work. What stopped the Government was dogma. A generation of parents and children will pay for that. The Tory party is not coming up with fresh ideas; just recycling badly thought-out old ones.

The writer is a Treasury front bench spokeswoman for Labour, and author of the party's Early Years policy.