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Universal child care should be provided by the government in order to create opportunity for all, former Labour minister Stephen Byers MP said last week.

Byers told the annual lecture of the Daycare Trust that child care should be a priority for ministers because it could help to tackle poverty and lack of social mobility.

He said that the availability of child care places must not be a postcode lottery. "Public provision of child care needs to be universal," he said. "This would require the government to move beyond its present highly targeted approach."

Byers added that universal child care should be free to those on low incomes but that it would be reasonable to expect more well-off parents to contribute.