Crucial and conservative: why it is time for a SureStart 'parent premium'

Max Wind-Cowie and Jonty Olliff-Cooper call on Michael Gove to announce a SureStart parent premium to encourage SureStart Centres to ensure all children have a fair start in life.

As the Conservative Party looms ever closer to victory, and to Government, attention is shifting to what will be for the chop when they get there.  In part this is down to reality; there’s less money and more debt now than ever before.  In part it is also due to perception – Labour’s ‘Tory cuts’ narrative may not have been an overwhelming success but it has played to what many believe they know about Conservative governments.

Either way, now is the time to start thinking about how the Conservatives should set about sorting out the public finances and, along with an array of other scare stories, it has been suggested by the Taxpayer’s Alliance and the Institute for Directors that Sure Start’s head should be on the block.

Let’s get something straight – sometimes state intervention is necessary.  That doesn’t mean ignoring the fact that some people work harder or are simply better equipped for success.  What it means is taking steps to ensure that disadvantage doesn’t become entrenched, inherited from one generation to the next, so that the children of the poor are condemned to poverty themselves.

However, as progressive conservatives we believe that the way to get to a smaller state which intervenes less in our lives overall is to intervene vigorously early on to make sure everyone has a fair start in life.  We believe that intervening early, to improve the chances of children when they are young, is not only fairer but also reduces the overall level of intervention by the state across a person’s lifetime.