Language for Life Programme

16. What steps her Department is taking to accelerate the roll-out of the Language for Life programme for nursery and pre-school age children.

Early language skills are vital for children to thrive. That is why we carried out landmark early education reforms, investing up to £180 million in training, qualifications and support and providing a range of evidence-based interventions, from home learning to working with local health services.

There is growing evidence of how important it is to provide support for speech and language development in nurseries and for preschool-aged children. Programmes such as Language for Life, which is supported by St John’s Foundation in Bath, underpin the work that schools are doing. To demonstrate how well they are doing it, the percentage of children needing additional language support in schools that participated reduced from 84% to 29%. I am sure the Minister will want to congratulate the schools and St John’s Foundation on the work they are doing, but will the Government prioritise speech and language programmes such as Language for Life?

What the hon. Lady sets out sounds very encouraging and I look forward to hearing more about the Language for Life programme. We have been very pleased with the findings of the Government-funded Nuffield Early Language Intervention, which is different, but has also focused on language development. The NELI has been found to help children to make four months’ additional development in their oral language skills, and disadvantaged children to make seven months’ additional progress.

Will the Minister give us an update on this month’s delivery of the first phase of the free childcare entitlement, and may I urge him to ensure that we deliver phase 2 on time in September?

I am delighted to tell my right hon. Friend and the House that the first phase of the roll-out went very well indeed. Some 200,000 children are now benefiting from the first stage of the roll-out, which Labour Members doubted could happen—we have shown again that we have a plan while they have absolutely none.