The number of day nursery places provided by local authorities increased from 24,552 in 1974 to 28,630 in 1983, which is quite an encouraging improvement.
I hope she will extend that kind of argument towards the day nursery.
In 1994, there were 147,600 day nursery places—double the number in 1984.
What will be the net saving to the ratepayers by halving the present day nursery accommodation of 4,000 to approximately 2,000?
We must remember that parents already pay when their children go to a day nursery.
There is a high correlation between traditional nursery school provision and day nursery and pre-school playgroup provision.
It occurs to me that a day nursery is likely to be a secular place.
I regret that information on the maximum weekly charges for day nursery places made by individual authorities is not collected centrally.
