So Tory-controlled Brighton and Hove City Council is consulting on scrapping the Bright Start nursery – a retrograde step that demands a big campaign to keep it (The Argus, October 11; Letters, October 16).

All three of my chiildren went to the nursery. I was council leader when it was set up and am immensely proud of what it has done for the city.

Roughly a thousand children have been through its doors. Meet any of those who have been there today and you will come across young people who are confident, articulate and have rounded social skills.

Why? Because from an early age they had the opportunity to mix with other children from a broad social mix. The wonderful thing about Bright Start is that it isn’t a nursery with kids drawn from a narrow range of backgrounds. When I took our children there they mixed with the children of lawyers, care workers, street cleaners, refuse workers, teachers, ground maintenance staff, cooks, cleaners, musicians and even the odd director of a service.

The sliding scale of charges made the nursery accessible to all grades within the council and the policy of providing private sector places widened the social mix even further.

The truth is the Tories never liked the nursery. Year after year they threatened to take its budget away and close it down. At the time Labour set it up in 1988 we were facing cuts, but we argued that if we wanted to encourage women to return to work for the council after maternity leave a nursery would help – and help it did. It gave the council the edge in recruiting top-class staff at every level.

Perhaps the Tories don’t care. They probably think that the age of austerity justifies any cut or closure. But this is a service we should be providing. This is a vindictive piece of short-sighted short termism.

Lord Bassam
Church Place, Brighton