The Best Start in Life Strategy pledges to drive up quality in early education, ensure places are available in every community and restore crumbling family services for the next generation.

Education secretary Bridget Phillipson said: ‘My driving mission is to make sure every child has the chance to succeed no matter their background – and this new strategy will help give our youngest children the very best start in life.

‘The best way of reducing inequalities is by tackling them early: that's why we're joining up family support services through our Best Start Family Hubs, driving up quality in our early years system and strengthening support for children as they enter primary school.'

The strategy includes a tax-free payment of £4,500 to attract the very best talent and keep 3,000 more early years teachers in nurseries serving the 20 most disadvantaged communities in the country.

In addition, from next April, Ofsted will inspect all new early years providers within 18 months of opening and move towards inspecting all providers at least once every four years, compared to the current six-year cycle.

Christine Farquharson, associate director at IFS, said the strategy contained a collection of ‘generally sensible but relatively small changes to family services, childcare support and the early years workforce, alongside the much bigger commitment – adopted from the previous Government's plans – to extend funded childcare hours to working families with children under age 3'.

While noting the strategy's commitment to integrating early years' services in family hubs, including health, education, childcare and additional targeted support, Farquharson said spending on integrated early years services will be less than a third as high as peak spending on Sure Start, noting family hubs are meant to serve children up to age 19, not just age 4.