Parents to get cash to improve children's health and education

Parents who have children under the age of five are to get a £200 one-off payment from the government in an attempt to encourage better health and education. Prime Minister Gordon Brown will lay out plans to adopt a scheme under which the worst-off households are offered "contracts out of poverty" to boost their quality of life. The grant will be given to families that are failing to take up services offered by the Sure Start scheme, such as health jabs, help with children's reading and parenting. Beginning on a trial basis in ten deprived areas next year, the government hopes to take the scheme nationwide in the future.

Speaking to the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust in London today (June 24th), the Prime Minister will say the project forms part of his ambition "to see a Britain that is upwardly mobile once again".

"I believe that, if we make the right choices, this could herald a new era of rising social mobility in Britain," he will say, according to Sky News.

Other measures previously unveiled by Mr Brown include a £10 million programme for working mothers in London that will help pay for childcare, transport and other costs that would otherwise prevent their return to work.