manifesto for families launched last week.
The party is also calling for a beefing up of the role of the Children's Commissioner in England to make it 'rights-based', wholly independent of Government and having the same powers as his counterparts in the rest of the UK.
Sandra Gidley, the party's spokeswoman on Women and Older People, said, 'We would offer new mothers the option of receiving a maternity income guarantee equivalent to the minimum wage of 170 a week for the six months after the birth of their first child.'
Free part-time early education for three- and four-year-olds would be extended to four hours a day for 38 weeks, with greater flexibility for parents in how they use it. Class sizes at Key Stage 1 would be cut from 30 pupils to 20 by employing an extra 20,000 teachers to ensure that all five- to seven-year-olds 'receive more individual attention for their educational and social development'. This would be funded by abolishing the Government's 'misguided' Child Trust Fund.
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