Responding to the prime minister's "plan for change" this morning, Paul Whiteman, general secretary of the school leaders' union, NAHT said:

“We welcome the strong focus on the early years in the Plan For Change to ensure more children are ready to start school. We hope the government will now commit to rebuilding the vital support that can make such a difference to young children and their families.

“Early support and high-quality intervention is one of the nearest things we have to a silver bullet when it comes to education policy. Cuts to support services over the previous decade have had a devastating effect and we hope the represents an important turning point so that every child is able to start school ready to learn and thrive.

“School leaders are seeing an increasing number of children arrive at school with speech and language delays. The prime minister is right that we should make that a priority and we are pleased the government has recognised it. To address this issue, we need to see investment in speech and language therapy so that every child that needs it gets the specialist support as early as possible.”