As Labour announces 3,500th children’s centre, join the campaign to protect Sure Start

By Alex Smith / @alexsmith1982

As part of a concerted campaign to highlight the Tory threat to one of this government’s flagship and most popular policies, Labour has this morning launched the Save Our Sure Start campaign.Â

Visiting the Hitherfield children’s centre in South London, Gordon Brown hailed plans to boost childcare and maternity care as the government announced a raft of new measures to improve maternity and early years care and make it more flexible.

New measures include:

* Giving parents 15 hours of free childcare for three to four-year-olds which can be taken flexibly throughout the week.

* Consulting on offering all women an assessment of health and social care needs, risks and choices by the twelfth completed week of pregnancy.

* Looking into offering a choice on the place of birth as an entitlement in the NHS Constitution Extending the Family Nurse Partnership to all young vulnerable families within the next decade.

Speaking on GMTV this morning, the PM said:

“We’re announcing the 3,500th Sure Start children’s centre. Over the last ten years, we’ve been building children’s centres in every community — opening early in the morning for helpinng kids where mothers are going to work, and giving early learning opportunities to children.”

Watch the interview:

Ed Balls and Andy Burnham were also at the children’s centre in Streatham:

And writing for LabourList on the benefits of Sure Start for all, Ed Balls said:

“Just think: we now have 3,500 of centres like that round the country — and back in 1997 there were none. Not a single one anywhere. But today, as the Prime Minister and I saw at Hitherfield Children’s Centre in Streatham, we now have this new universal service in every community. This hasn’t happen by chance. It’s happened because we’ve been prepared to back the Sure Start vision with the serious investment needed to make it a reality, right across the country.”

Labour HQ has also launched another web advertising campaign, focusing on the popular social networking site Netmums: