There is a big push on to get the Government to pay for additional free ‘pre-school’ places when finances allow. There are two big arguments in favour of this. One is that it benefits children educationally, the other is that will help more women into the workplace.

Two new studies from the UK call both of these arguments into question. One, from the Institute for Fiscal Studies and the University of Essex found that for every six children given a free nursery place, five would have been put in the nursery anyway.

In addition, the number of mothers whose youngest child was three and who were in work, rose only three points from 53 percent to 56 percent since the introduction of the free nursery scheme under Tony Blair. And perhaps that three percent increase would have happened anyway.

The second study, from the Institute of Education and the universities of Surrey and Essex, found that the benefits of early education for young children are only small and disappear by the time the children are 11.

There was “modest” evidence of a bigger impact on children from poorer backgrounds but even that was small.

This is bad news. It was to be hoped that early education (that is, education for pre-schoolers) would have lasting and substantial benefits for children from disadvantaged backgrounds. It seems it is not the case.

There was never much of a justification for providing free child-care places to anyone who wanted them because that would favour the choice of going into the workplace over staying at home with the children.

But there was a justification for providing such places for poorer children. This will have to be looked at again as public money must always be spent to the best advantage.