AS a member of the Standing Committee which studied the Nursery and Grant Maintained Schools Bill in detail, Greg Pope MP is aware of the inaccuracy of his statement about the nursery education voucher scheme (LET, April 30).

It is not true that £20 million will be spent on administering the scheme. The vast majority of the £20 million referred to will be used to create, for the first time, an education inspection regime for institutions in the private and voluntary sectors.

Increased inspection costs would be incurred whatever payment mechanism was used to expand nursery education.

The agency appointed to administer the scheme is to be selected by competitive tender, keeping the cost of issuing and redeeming nursery vouchers to an absolute minimum.

The voucher scheme will not undermine existing good quality provision in the maintained sector.

The funding mechanism we propose for the voucher scheme has been specifically designed to ensure that if local education authorities are providing education for four-year-olds which meets parents' and children's needs, then they will not lose any funding.

ROBIN SQUIRE MP, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Education and Employment, London.

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