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Shift early years spending to support disadvantaged, says senior Labour MP

Failure to invest in early years provision for less advantaged children risks creating a ‘lost generation’, a new report by Labour MP Lucy Powell has warned.

Just 2.7 per cent of the extra £9bn funding which the Government has set aside for early years provision during this Parliament will reach the most disadvantaged children, according to a new report written by Ms Powell and published by the Social Market Foundation think tank.

The report, entitled ‘A Lost Generation: why social mobility in the early years is set to go backwards’, draws on figures provided by the House of Commons library to reveal that of the £9.1bn of new spending on childcare and early education between 2017 and 2022, just £250m is earmarked for disadvantaged children.

As a proportion of the overall early years spend, the money allocated to the Early Years Pupil Premium, the only spend which the most disadvantaged children with parents out of work will qualify for, is set to fall from four per cent in 2017-18 to 2.4 per cent by 2021-22, the report said.

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