Katie Jamieson and Oliver meet the education secretary Estelle Morris

When you look at a nursery, you are often missing one of the most important parts of the equation - the parents who are able to go to work or study because affordable childcare is available.

Allowing parents to work, particularly for lone-parents, means access to employment, which in turns means a step away away from the benefits trap and the whole cast list of social ills that come with low income living.

It is not the kind of macho politics that is going to muscle its way into the headlines, but nursery education makes a big impact on the lives of many families.

On a visit to a nursery in Greenwich, south London, the Education Secretary, Estelle Morris, heard at first hand how much of a difference nurseries can make.

Oliver and Omari are in the same class at the nursery, the Robert Owen Early Years Centre.

Children are able to stay at the nursery between 8am and 6pm

And by attending the nursery, this allows their mothers, Katie Jamieson and Ebony Thomas, to stay in education.

"Childcare is the single most important thing if you want to get people back into work or to university," says Ms Jamieson, a 21 year old who is now studying for a geography degree at University College London.

"As a single parent, without affordable childcare I wouldn't be able to go to university," she said, pointing out how easily the impact of childcare can be under-estimated.

Not only will this benefit her life, she says, but the effect will be felt by her son, Oliver. If she is better qualified, she will be more able to get a good job, which in turn will bring advantages for her son.

Head teacher Judy Stevenson has places for 300 children

While there is much talk about the difficulty of breaking cycles of deprivation, this is probably an example of where it actually happens.

Omari's mother, Ebony Thomas, is also quite straightforward in her assessment of childcare, saying that if she did not have a place here, she would not be about to begin university in the autumn.

By being able to leave Omari at the nursery, which is means-tested so she does not have to pay, she has been able to study for A-levels, which she hopes will lead to a psychology course at the University of Westminster.

"There should be many more nurseries available which can give people such as me an opportunity," she said.

"It's allowed me to work towards my future. And people underestimate its significance."

But she emphasised that these needed to be financially and geographically accessible - if fees are too high, then parents will not be able to pay and employment and education are non-starters.

Ebony Thomas hopes to begin a psychology degree in the autumn

Estelle Morris, meeting the women and their children, said the government was committed to expanding childcare provision - saying that it "had done more in four years than previous governments had in 40".

But she accepted that there was still a long way to go. For many families in deprived areas there was still "a huge gap, people don't have the choices in childcare".

"I know we're nowhere near the end of what we need to achieve," she said.

And she accepted that for too long there had been an insufficient recognition of the impact childcare could have on families.

Katie Jamieson says the importance of childcare is often underestimated

This government has so far committed itself to providing a free part-time childcare place for all three year olds by 2004 - by which time it has promised to create an extra 1.6 million places.

But numbers of childcare places are always clouded (and often disputed) because of the patchwork-quilt complexities of pre-school provision, which covers nurseries, playgroups and childminders.

The government says it has created places for an extra 700,000 children since 1997, but the accountancy is far from simple because a single child might be in a nursery and a playgroup and with a childminder.

In such a case a single child might account for three "places" - and since attendance for these age groups is voluntary, the head-counting and take-up of places is not at all straightforward.

George Gyte says there will be a network of 15 such nurseries in Greenwich

And a childminder might look after a dozen different children, on a part-time basis, in the course of a week. But identifying this as 12 places might seem rather different to creating a nursery with 12 full-time places.

The nursery hosting the ministerial visit, Robert Owen Early Years Centre, which will look after 300 children, is held up as an example of the type of childcare provision that the government wants to make more widely available.

It is open between 8am and 6pm, all year round, which is designed to be flexible for working parents.

There is also educational support for parents, in areas such as literacy and parenting, and training for local people wanting to become childcare workers.

The nursery also accommodates support for children with special needs.

The head teacher, Judy Stevenson, said staying open all day was much better for children and parents.

"We're aware of children who, after their parents have gone to work, have been starting the day with a relative, then they've gone to a nursery, then to day care and then to a childminder. This is crazy from the child's point of view," she said.

Greenwich's director of education, George Gyte, said this was the first of a network of 15 such neighbourhood nurseries.

And he said they would bring benefits to whole communities, allowing parents back to work, raising educational achievement, and training local people in childcare.