In his Autumn Statement, the Chancellor announced an extra £380m a year by 2014-15. It will mean that in total up to 260,000 two-year-olds (around 40 per cent) will benefit from free early education.
I hope the extra funding shows you just how much of a priority the Government is placing on quality early education. Even as we've had to make cuts elsewhere, we've increased resources for children and families in need.
And we continually see evidence of why it's so important to invest now. The recently published Early Years Foundation Stage profile results for 2010 showed that only 44 per cent of five-year-olds eligible for free school meals achieved a good level of development, compared with 62 per cent of other children.
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