The Government has pledged to spend an extra £25m to identify and tackle learning difficulties in young children to ensure they get the right help and the best possible start to their education.

Education and Employment Secretary, David Blunkett, announced the new funding this week and launched a Government-sponsored working group to develop practical guidance on how to identify special educational needs in children under two years of age.

The package will include £11m to train specialists workers to work with every registered early years and childcare setting by 2004.

Another £11m will fund services to help young children with special educational needs and £3m will be used to set up a regional network of special educational needs experts to work with local authorities.

Speaking in the House of Commons at the second reading of the Special Educational Needs and Disability Bill, Mr Blunkett said: "All children have a right to a high quality education.

"If a child has a special educational need that isn't identified and tackled early, they can fall behind other children and lose out.

"We cannot allow this to happen and we must maximise the life chances of all our children."

Mr Blunkett also announced this week an extra £400m of funding to recruit and train more teaching assistants for 2002-3 and 2003-4 for schools in England.