Angela Rayner Has A Very Personal Reason For Wanting To Reverse Sure Start Cuts

26 September 2017, 18:48 | Updated: 26 September 2017, 19:13

The shadow education secretary has opened up to LBC about why she is determined to reverse £500m cuts in funding to children’s centres.

Angela Rayner drew on her own personal experiences as a teenage mother as she outlined Labour’s plans to bolster funding to the Sure Start centres if elected.

She said the centres, which were introduced by Labour in 1998, had been stripped of nearly half of their finances since 2012.

Ms Rayner told Iain Dale that raising her own son with the help of Sure Start was vitial in teaching her the life skills she needed.

She said: “I was able to be a good mum because I went to the Sure Start centre and they taught me that giving your children cuddles and telling them you love them, reading to them and things like that.”

The MP continued: “They were skills that I didn’t realise had a profound effect on a child’s ability to develop and Sure Start centres really do help parents to do that and to come together.

“The early years and childcare we know will make a massive difference, an important difference, not just to young people’s outcomes which will change our nation, but actually to our economy as well.”

Watch Ms Rayner's interview with LBC above.