(9 years, 5 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Lord Nash) (Con)
It may be helpful if I report to the House that there have been productive discussions in the usual channels about the next stage of this Bill and that as a result of these discussions we will be looking to arrange the Report stage for October when the House returns from the conference recess.
Noble Lords will be aware that last Friday the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee published its report on this Bill and other Bills before the House. We are of course mindful of that report and its recommendations in respect of this Bill and intend to prepare and publish our response in good time before Report, including tabling government amendments where appropriate. Both these points are relevant to our discussions on the amendments that have been tabled for consideration this afternoon. I hope it is therefore helpful to have set them out at this first available moment in proceedings this afternoon.
The noble Baroness, Lady Jones, and I had a helpful conversation last night. We agreed about the importance of making progress with this Bill and the important commitment to children and parents that it makes. I know that all in this House are agreed about that. We also agree that it is important that the voices and expertise of parents, providers, local authorities and employers properly inform the provisions we will make. I know that noble Lords want us to take time to get that right and the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, has raised many questions about it. The noble Baroness asked if I could be specific about the further information that will be available before Report to confirm and build upon the commitment I made in my policy statement that I sent to noble Lords last week. It is our intention to provide a full update to the House on how we will deliver this extended entitlement and an update on our plans to pilot it in 2016. This will take account of our consultations with parents, providers, local authorities and employers over the summer, the helpful contributions which I anticipate from your Lordships tonight and of course the recommendation of the Delegated Powers Committee, which asked for clarity about how we intend to use the powers.
In time for Report, therefore, the House will be able to scrutinise that information and we will respond formally to the Delegated Powers Committee. If appropriate we will bring forward amendments to the Bill which respond to its recommendations. We will also of course pay careful attention to the views that the Delegated Powers Committee has expressed about affirmative procedure. As noble Lords are aware, it is our intention to consult fully on draft regulations and guidance in the first part of 2016 after Royal Assent. In this regard, I am lucky and extremely grateful that the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, has agreed to work with me and the department to find a way in which we can take advantage of the invaluable expertise of members of the Select Committee on Affordable Childcare and others in this House to work with us on those regulations in due course to ensure that they are thoroughly fit for purpose.
Meanwhile I am delighted to confirm that we have already deliberated across government on the points raised at Second Reading and by the Delegated Powers Committee about the provision in Clause 1(5)(g) which will allow us to establish a body corporate. The noble Baroness, Lady Jones, has tabled Amendment 18 to remove that provision and I am pleased to inform the House that it is my intention to accept that amendment tonight. I beg to move.
Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)
My Lords, I apologise for detaining the House prior to Committee but I had given notice to the Government that I would be speaking on this matter. I am grateful to the noble Lord for his explanation. It is unusual when a Minister moves a Bill to be taken in Committee that he makes such a lengthy statement and I think it is an indication of the concern that has been expressed around your Lordships’ House that he has chosen to do so today. It is helpful to a degree and I am grateful to him for doing that. Perhaps we would not have had that statement today had it not been for the report from the two committees and our intention to speak today prior to Committee.
This is an important Bill, and we all want to ensure that there is proper and effective consideration of it. However, the way in which the Government have brought forward the Bill has serious implications for how we as a House consider legislation and fulfil our constitutional obligation as a revising Chamber. We cannot revise that which is not there. The primary role of your Lordships’ House is effective scrutiny. That Ministers accept so many amendments in your Lordships’ House, and propose others following our debates, is evidence that this role is valued by Governments in improving legislation.
At Second Reading, concerns were raised about the lack of detail in the Bill from all sides of the House, including from noble Lords on the Government Benches. Since that debate, both the Constitution Committee and the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee have reported. The Constitution Committee today says that this is, “a particularly egregious example” of the kind of legislation coming forward from government, and,
“an example of a continuing trend of constitutional concern to which we draw the attention of the House”.
The Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, in its report published on Friday, agreed with many of the concerns that were raised at Second Reading and said that it was:
“Unable to understand why the Bill has been presented in a skeleton form only”.
Rarely has this House seen such stark criticism of a Government’s failure to provide the information needed to allow proper consideration of legislation at the start of a Bill for Second Reading, or indeed for Committee. The Delegated Powers Committee rejected the Government’s bizarre assertion in their report that,
“too much detail on the face of the Bill risks obscuring the principal duties and powers from Parliamentary scrutiny”.
Surely it is the purpose of this House to examine the detail of a Bill. The committee also rejected the notion that regulations can be published at a later date to deal with what the Government referred to as,
“operational, administrative and technical details”.
The committee has been very clear that the use of regulations in this way is “inappropriately wide”, “flawed”, “vague” and that more detail is essential, otherwise,
“the House will have insufficient information … for a properly informed debate”.
Most damning of all, the committee also rejected,
“the Government's attempt to dignify their approach to delegation by referring to a need to consult”.
I think we heard from the Minister’s statement that the committee is highly regarded by your Lordships’ House and by Governments, who rarely fail to give effect to its recommendations. This is not at all a party-political matter—far from it. The committee is cross-party, and we on these Benches support the aims of the Bill. However, for this House to do its job it must have more than the bones of a policy to scrutinise. Our concerns, as the Government will understand, are wider than the Bill. The fact that the Minister has been brought to the House to make quite an unusual statement before the start of Committee today, as welcome as that is, is an indication that the information to date is completely inadequate. Therefore, with the wider concerns that no Government should consider this to be an appropriate approach to legislation or business in your Lordships’ House, I would be grateful if he can clarify some points.
The Minister said that there have been discussions among the usual channels, and the Report stage will not come forward before October. I will press him a bit further, as I was not 100% clear about that from the other comments he made. We are looking for guarantees and assurances on just three points about information being available, not by a specific date but prior to consideration on Report. The Minister may have addressed those points in his comments, but I will be grateful if he could confirm, first, that the committee’s report is followed up by the Government and effect given to its recommendations to amend the Bill. He said that he would take consideration and take note, but I was not sure if he said that he would bring forward amendments as the committee recommended. Secondly, the draft regulations that were provided for consideration must also be available prior to Report. Thirdly, the most crucial piece of information we require is that the financial report, which is the basis on which this policy will succeed or fail, will be made available before Report.
We do not in any way want to delay consideration in Committee, but we recognise—I think the Minister has gone some way towards recognising it today—that without this information, despite the best efforts of noble Lords who will take part in this debate, scrutiny will be inadequate. That information is essential for Report, otherwise we could not consider the Bill effectively. Finally, on behalf of the whole House, can we have a categorical assurance from the Government that this will not be their approach to any future legislation?
Lord Wallace of Tankerness (LD)
My Lords, further to the comments and concerns expressed by the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Basildon, I also thank the Minister for setting out the Government’s position when he moved that the House should go into Committee. It is helpful that he indicated that Report stage will not be until October, but, like the noble Baroness, I was not entirely sure what he was saying in terms of a commitment to amendments. We will therefore reserve our position with regard to anything that may come forward from the Government after they have given consideration to the many concerns expressed not only in your Lordships’ House but also, and particularly, in the committee reports that have been referred to.
This legislation has the hallmark of a party policy announcement during a general election, with the Government now desperately trying to figure out what it means and how to put it together. The comments of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee —which, having recently been in government, I can attest is a committee that Ministers take very seriously indeed—are some of the strongest that I can recall. The noble Baroness said, quite rightly, that it is a cross-party committee chaired by a member of the governing party. When the committee makes comments such as:
“In our view, the Government's stated approach to delegation is flawed. While the Bill may contain a legislative framework, it contains virtually nothing of substance beyond the vague ‘mission statement’ in clause 1(1)”,
it is a strong condemnation which I think shows that the Government have not given the matter adequate thought.
My real concern is that this is not the only Bill where the Government have singularly failed to make a clear case for the policy that they are advancing. People have been watching the proceedings on the Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill. That is a policy that also generally commands support but, nevertheless, we have seen in that case, too, the Government seeking to make policy on the hoof and pass through the revising Chamber legislation that fails to stand up to the most basic test of scrutiny.
I suggest to the Minister that—while it may be past praying for these Bills as they were introduced—tools such as pre-legislative scrutiny might be used more regularly when the Government want to do something that is, at the outset, somewhat unclear regarding the detail of how they wish to proceed. They might reflect on the failure to use the mechanisms available to them for this Bill and ensure that such measures will be taken, where appropriate, in the future.
The Minister said that there had been agreement to make progress. My noble friend Lady Pinnock will indicate today in Committee that we do not want to see this Bill delayed; we want the Government to get their act together and make reasonable progress with a measure that commands, I think, a fair degree of support. Primarily, our position is that we want reassurance that, in the future, this House will not be frustrated in its fundamental role of effective scrutiny because the Bills presented to it have not been properly thought through.
Baroness Andrews (Lab)
I want to reinforce the points that have been made by my noble friend the Leader of the Opposition and by the previous speaker. I was critical of the Government on Second Reading because I felt that the Bill that they introduced was, essentially, an abuse of process. Having read the report of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, I think that I rather understated the case. Now that I have seen the Constitution Committee report, which points to an increasing trend of legislation that is vacant and in fact leaves most of the delivery to regulations, I think that I have been even more restrained. I am grateful for what the Minister has said today because he has responded to many of the concerns that were raised, but I want to press him on a few things.
To pick up on the previous speaker’s statement about the mission statement, the nature of the Bill, what the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee said is excruciating stuff, advising the Government and officials that Bills are not there to “send a message”; they are there to implement legislation. I think back on great reforming legislation, such as the National Health Service Act 1946. If it had just sent a message that it would be rather good to have a national health service and left everything to regulations, we would be in a fine mess now, but that is precisely the nature of the trend of legislation that we see in this House, which is a point that has also been picked up by the Constitution Committee. Without knowing the likely impacts of this Bill, it is very difficult for this House to do its job. As my noble friend the Leader of the Opposition said, it is not so much a question of when Report stage is introduced, it is whether we will have the fundamental information that we need to actually test this Bill in this House as we are required to do.
We are in favour of the Bill. Who could possibly be against the expansion of affordable childcare when so much more is needed, when so many parents are not able to access it and when so many children are in need of the sort of quality childcare that lifts their learning and gives them a good start? In this Bill we will be looking for evidence of not merely an increase in capacity but a genuine increase in quality. However, at the moment we do not know whether the Bill will meet its objectives. We do not know whether it will make the situation better or worse, because there is currently a real issue of capacity in the childcare system. Many childcare providers think that at the moment the Bill could reduce capacity. That is why by Report we need a full account of the evidence that has been provided to the Government so that we can make a judgment about how to improve the Bill, how to deliver the objectives and how to get the best possible outcomes for children and parents.
The Earl of Listowel (CB)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for this announcement. Having worked with him on the children Bill, which he led through Parliament, I know how very hard he works to listen to Peers’ concerns and to respond to them, so I am very grateful to him for this response. I also know that his first ambition is to make a difference to children in this country. I am sure he will agree that, by delaying the Report stage and allowing us to gain more information, we will be in a better position to challenge him and work with him to get the best Bill and one which will make the most difference to children. Therefore, I warmly welcome the Minister’s announcement.
Baroness Eaton (Con)
My Lords, I find it very surprising that today the Opposition have decided that the Statement on child poverty made in the other place by the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions should not be repeated and discussed here. The Statement details the Government’s approach to tackling the root causes of child poverty and improving the future life chances of young people. Instead of debating child poverty as a matter of public importance, the Opposition have chosen to have a debate about procedural matters, when the Government have already made it quite clear that they have responded to their request to defer the Report stage of the Childcare Bill to October.
Baroness Hughes of Stretford (Lab)
Would the noble Baroness like to explain to the House the relevance of the point she has just made to the topic under discussion here today?
Baroness Eaton
My Lords, the Minister has already made it clear that the concerns of the House were to be brought back at Report in October. However, the issue of child poverty is of great importance to the whole nation. I do not think that the electorate are particularly interested in the finer points of how we reach conclusions.
Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab)
Perhaps the noble Baroness can explain why it is in the interests of either this House or the nation for the Government to bring forward legislation without telling the country the detail of what is contained in it. It is a constitutional issue that is being raised now, not a party-political point.
Lord Tyler (LD)
My Lords, I served as a member of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee and want to return for a moment, if I may, to the recommendations in our second report. I very much welcome the response from the Minister this afternoon because I think that it was very helpful, but there are wider issues here. I particularly appreciate the presence of the government Chief Whip, because I am sure he will wish to make sure, through the usual channels, that there is discussion of some wider issues.
I am also delighted to see that the chair of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee is here—the noble Baroness, Lady Fookes. It is probably her drafting that has produced what is, I think, the most critical paragraph in the second report—critical in both senses—which I will put before your Lordships’ House:
“We note that the Minister said that ‘the introduction of the Bill, with a strong duty on the Secretary of State, sends a clear message to parents and providers about the Government's commitment’. That is not, in our judgment, a proper use of legislation: the purpose of an Act is to change the law, not to ‘send a message’”.
I think that that is critical to the role and responsibility of your Lordships’ House. I therefore think it entirely appropriate—and I welcome the fact that they have given these indications—that the Government are prepared to respond positively to the report as a whole. However, it applies not just to this Bill. As the noble Baroness and my noble friend said, there are echoes here of the committee’s first report, which relates to the Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill, where again there were powers in statute, potentially, that are akin to Henry VIII powers, which this House has always been very sensitive to and I hope will always be.
As my noble friend said, in the immediate aftermath of a general election and change of Administration, there is always an absurd rush to legislation, with Ministers desperate to get something done. But it is an affront to the role of your Lordships’ House to put before us obviously inadequate legislation. That is true in both these cases. I hope that there will be an understanding, not just in relation to this Bill but in relation more widely to the legislative programme of the new Administration, that there are important implications for the role and responsibility of your Lordships’ House. I hope that there will be very careful reading of the first and second reports of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee.
Baroness Massey of Darwen (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his statement and am very pleased to hear that the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, will be helping in the progress of this Bill. The noble Lord chaired most ably the Select Committee on Affordable Childcare. It is to this point that I wish to refer, following on from the points made by my noble friend Lady Andrews about the skeletal nature of the Bill and the inadequacy of the deliberations before the Bill came to us.
The Affordable Childcare Select Committee interviewed more than 80 experts in childcare and several academics and parents. It was an excellent committee effectively chaired. I would like to know from the Minister whether the Government have actually read the Select Committee report. Even though the report was presented to this House in February, we have been promised a response only in the autumn. That seems to me to be a very long time for consideration.
If the Government have read the report, does the Minister think that it would be a good basis on which to produce or propose legislation now? The Government have missed an opportunity to produce a really good, solid Bill. They have not done so. They had the opportunity to read the Affordable Childcare Select Committee report with all its recommendations. What will the Government do now about this Select Committee report? Will they take it seriously and why have they not done so already?
Lord True (Con)
My Lords, I raised this matter on Second Reading. I was critical of my noble friend on the Front Bench and of the way in which the Bill had been brought forward. This was from the viewpoint of someone who spent rather too long in Whitehall and even longer—13 years—in the usual channels. I repeat what I said: it was not a good way to go about legislating. But I think that the House is at its best when it sheds light, rather than heat, on a subject, so perhaps we should get on and consider it in Committee.
The noble Baroness the Leader of the Opposition was a little bit holier than thou. During all the years I spent toiling in opposition, I remember a fair number of pretty outrageous Bills—indeed, skeleton Bills—that came forward from the other side. I remember in particular a scandalous planning Bill which would not bear much resuscitation. So we have all been guilty and we all agree that the House is at its best and does its duty best when it has the opportunity to consider a Bill in detail. I was grateful for the chance to talk to the Leader of the House yesterday, and to my noble friend, who responded, as the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, said, with the courtesy and consideration that the House expects from him. Clearly, a mistake was made. When a new Government are formed they understandably want to make progress on important matters. Lessons have been learned and I am unequivocally grateful to my noble friend for his response.
There is just one small thing. I do not want to upset my noble friend the Chief Whip, but Report stage is quite restrictive. It is not for me to do the usual channels any more but it may be that, in the light of information we receive, some of the Report consideration could be on recommittal, to enable your Lordships to look at one or two matters, provided that there is no obstruction to the timely passage of the Bill. This is a matter for the usual channels but the House does have that flexibility. I should like to thank my noble friend for the generous, courteous and honest way in which he has come forward with good solution for the House.
Lord Sutherland of Houndwood (CB)
My Lords, the Minister’s statement has been described as unusual. I welcome unusual statements, especially from Ministers; it is normally a sign that some thought has been given to what is happening, which is much appreciated.
The messages are clear. The Delegated Powers Committee has produced an absolutely vigorous report and comment which mirrors much of what was said at Second Reading. We have the beginnings of a response from the Government and, if I can play a small part in that, I shall be delighted to do so—I assure noble Lords that it will be on an all-party basis, as the Select Committee was.
The critical issues are, first, how much information will be available to the House before Report. That is fundamental to having adequate further discussion. Secondly, in the case of this particular Bill, is a very clear distinction being drawn between primary legislation and regulation? These are the two areas where major discussion needs to be held. I hope that postponing Report will give us time to do that—and I hope that we might even have the odd, additional, unusual statement coming forth to help us in a difficult situation to get a Bill through that we all want to see in good shape so that we can strongly represent it to the country.
Lord Storey (LD)
My Lords, the noble Lord described the Delegated Powers Committee’s report as vigorous. That is perhaps a little bit of an understatement. It is true that the Minister is a courteous and honourable person. Those who worked with him on the Children and Families Bill know how anxious he is to keep people together and to get agreement on the things that concern us all. This must be true of the Childcare Bill. It is too important to get it wrong. I am a great admirer of the noble Baroness, Lady Eaton. She and I have served together on a number of local government committees. However, I was slightly disappointed with her disingenuous remarks. Had she looked at the list of amendments, she would have seen that another local government stalwart—the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock—has tabled Amendment 34 on child poverty. Therefore, I ask the Minister: am I right in understanding that these issues will be sorted—to use a common colloquialism—before Report?
Baroness Fookes (Con)
My Lords, I hope that the House and the Minister will forgive me if I intervene briefly as the chairman of the regulatory powers committee. I accept that it was a hard-hitting report; none the less, I think that it was a fair one. On the other hand, I welcome my noble friend the Minister’s offer to postpone Report stage, and the various ways in which he is trying to put right what I think must be accepted as a mistake. However, I think that all this could have been avoided if one of two ways had been followed by the Government in this matter—either by introducing a draft Bill, where all the details could have been fleshed out, or by the time-honoured method of introducing a Green Paper for consultation, followed by a White Paper setting out broadly the regulations and Bill that they wanted to see. In those cases, we would have had no worries at all.
Lord Nash
My Lords, I am grateful to noble Lords across the House for expressing their support for this extended provision. I have already commented on the Delegated Powers Committee’s report and our gratitude to that committee, and the fact that we will reflect very carefully on its findings and bring forward any appropriate amendments on Report. Regulations will not be available until after Report but we will report by then on the findings of the funding review. We will have evidence from the pilots in 2016, before the provision starts in earnest in 2017. We certainly take the report of the Select Committee on Affordable Childcare extremely seriously. We are studying it in great detail and look forward to discussing the details of the Bill with its members on and off the Floor of the House.
The Bill is very clear on what it sets out to achieve. It places a duty on the Secretary of State to make available 30 hours of free childcare for working parents. That pledge was in the Conservative Party manifesto at the general election and is similar to what was in the Labour Party’s manifesto. I make no apology for the fact that we are getting on with delivering that pledge. The parents want it, the sector wants to know where it is and is, indeed, pregnant with anticipation for this provision. We have already had 500 responses to the funding review call for evidence. Of course we want to work with the House and our stakeholders to make sure we get the delivery right. I know that there is a lot of good will around the House to help us achieve this and I look forward to working together to do that. Taking all those points into account, I hope that we can now proceed to Committee.
“Consultation and reviews
In order to ensure that the duty in section 1(1) can be implemented effectively, the Secretary of State shall, before the end of 2017— (a) arrange for the following to be conducted and completed—(i) a review of the cost of providing childcare;(ii) an impact assessment for the provisions of section 1;(iii) a consultation with parents and childcare providers;(iv) a review of the 2016 pilot scheme;(v) the taskforce on childcare led by the Minister for Employment in the Department for Work and Pensions;(b) arrange for a report on each of the pieces of work under paragraph (a) to be laid before Parliament; and(c) publish and make available for consultation a draft of any regulations which the Secretary of State intends to make under section 1.”
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)
My Lords, these are crucial amendments that seek to take forward our concerns, which have just been set out by my noble friend Lady Smith. As we have just discussed, they echo the concerns identified around the House at Second Reading, which have been endorsed by the damning report of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, and further endorsed today by the Lords Constitution Committee.
Noble Lords will recall that at Second Reading there was broad consensus that we supported the principles behind the Bill but were concerned about whether it was workable and affordable. More fundamentally, there was a concern that we were being prevented from carrying out our essential scrutiny role effectively. I could cite a number of quotations from noble Lords around the House to endorse that argument, but I know that we all recall the frustration that we felt at the time. The Minister was not able to provide any reassurance because, as he said, the plan was to carry out the reviews and then publish the regulations in light of their conclusions—in other words, a long time after the Bill had left this House. We have since received a letter and a policy statement from the Minister, as well as his helpful statement today, but I would still like further clarification on what we will have before us on Report. This is what our amendments are attempting to tease out.
I gathered from the policy statement that it was proposed to consult parents, providers and employers, beginning in the summer, as well as to have a public consultation that would not take place until 2016, and that outcomes from both would feed into the draft regulations, which would be published after that. I am just checking the timescale that the noble Lord is now proposing, in light of what I read in the policy statement. Then, in September 2016, the pilot schemes will take place, so there will also be conclusions from these. I gathered from the noble Lord today that on Report we would have details of what the pilot schemes would do, but not their conclusions.
The policy statement also said, and the noble Lord echoed this today, that in the autumn the Government will produce their response to the affordable childcare report. As my noble friend Lady Massey has said, it would be helpful to have the Government’s response to that before Report. I am not sure that the Minister clarified that that would be the case. He said that there would be discussions with the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, and others, but a thought-through response to that report would be very helpful.
We then have the government task force on childcare, which I think we are also calling the funding review, to which my noble friend Lady Smith referred. As she said, the whole Bill will stand or fall on whether we get the funding right. Is the noble Lord saying that all the work on that review will be completed by September, in time for Report? It seems a very big piece of work to get it right—not only to consult all the providers but to look at the financial implications and at where the money will be drawn from to pay for any additional places. I am impressed if that is the case, but it would be helpful if the Minister could clarify that.
We also have the Minister for Employment chairing a childcare implementation task force—which I think is different, but the noble Lord will be able to clarify this—to look at the options for extending entitlement. However, as we discussed last night, it seems from the 10 Downing Street website that that task force’s report is not to be made public. Perhaps the noble Lord could clarify whether we will ever see it.
There is then a full economic impact assessment, which we will not see until 2016. Then, as we talked about, there are the final regulations and guidance. I am just trying to tease out in a little more detail which of these we will see on Report, because I would have thought—and this is what the Delegated Powers Committee report said—that most of them would be very helpful before we get into the detail of the Bill.
In essence, this is a topsy-turvy Bill. We are doing everything in the wrong order. As the noble Baroness, Lady Fookes, said, it would have been sensible to have reviews and pilot schemes and publish a more detailed Bill after that. Amendment 1, is, in effect, a sunrise clause: it puts a logical process of consultation and review into the Bill and enables both Houses to play a proper role in scrutiny before the Bill is enacted.
At Second Reading, the Minister argued that it was important for the Bill to be published early so that parents could plan for 2017. Crucially, our amendment would not alter that start date, but would give an opportunity to address the many concerns that parents and providers are raising about who will be entitled to the free childcare and how it will be funded, so that, by 2017, parents will have a much clearer picture of what is on offer to them. I hope that noble Lords will see the sense of the amendment. It is very much in keeping with the recommendations of the Delegated Powers Committee and it would underpin our right to scrutinise the intent and detail of the Bill more rigorously.
Amendment 27 is quite straightforward and essential, and again builds on the recommendations of the Delegated Powers Committee. As it stands, Clause 2(2)(d) is a Henry VIII power that gives widespread powers to the Secretary of State to amend, repeal or revoke any regulations made under the Bill. By removing subsections (4) and (5) and replacing them with our amendment, all the regulations in the Bill would need to come to each House for approval, so there would need to be an affirmative, rather than a negative, process. We believe that this safeguard is necessary because of the lack of clarity in many of the regulations proposed.
In their policy statement, the Government sought to make a virtue of the lack of detail in the regulations proposed, arguing that the reviews and the consultation should take place first. We of course agree that consultation, evidence-collecting and analysis should take place before the legislation is finalised, but we are not prepared to hand over so much detail of the legislation, both primary and secondary, to the Secretary of State when so much is yet to be decided. We believe that that is bad policy and bad scrutiny.
The Delegated Powers Committee’s report was clear on this. It said:
“In our view, the Government’s stated approach to delegation is flawed. While the Bill may contain a legislative framework, it contains virtually nothing of substance beyond the vague ‘mission statement’ in clause 1(1)”.
It went on to recommend that the affirmative process,
“should apply on the exercise of all powers conferred by clause 1”.
We agree with this recommendation and our amendment would give effect to it. I am not sure whether the Minister’s statement today confirmed that. Again, I would be grateful if he could clarify that. Amendments 40, 41 and 42 are then consequential on Amendment 21.
Given the lack of detail, on which all noble Lords commented at Second Reading and again this afternoon, I hope that these amendments will provide some reassurance and a vehicle for taking the Bill forward. I hope they will receive widespread support. I beg to move.
Baroness Pinnock (LD)
My Lords, I am very new to this process of scrutinising legislation. All the detailed procedures and processes that more experienced Members of this House know about, and the intricacies of how a decision is made, are a bit new to me. What I do know, though, is this: there is in front of us, for a very important change to legislation, a Bill that comes to just over three pages. The amendments that have been tabled across your Lordships’ House come to 13 pages, which is a very telling ratio.
What we have in the initial case is something that is extremely lacking in detail and substance, when we need detail and substance. The Bill is not about a Conservative manifesto commitment; I am concerned not about the Government’s manifesto commitments but about the impact of the final legislation on children and their families. So much is lacking in the Bill that we have no idea what the impact will be and whether it will be affordable or accessible for all young people. Which families will be able to take advantage of the 15 hours of additional free childcare that is on offer? We know none of these things. We do not know whether there is sufficient capacity in the sector to provide these additional 15 free hours.
In my other capacity, as a local councillor, representing families and their children, I would have to say, looking at this, that I do not know what is on offer, and whether I would be able to access and use it. We have before us a lost opportunity of immense proportions. Everybody across this Committee can agree that an additional 15 hours’ free childcare is very important to families and to children of preschool age, but we cannot get it right in the first instance. It is shameful that we are at this stage.
The Earl of Listowel
My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendment 29, and first declare my interest as a newly appointed vice-chair and parliamentary representative of the Local Government Association. I omitted to thank the Select Committee and the Opposition for their part in ensuring that we have this thinking space before Report on this very important Bill. I absolutely agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, and I was pleased to hear the passion in what she has just said.
I do not think it a good thing if a newly elected Government with a manifesto commitment and with a majority feel timid about taking action. I very strongly opposed the Academies Bill, which was introduced under the coalition Government. I do not feel it is wholly redeemed, but I think a Government have to be fairly bold, and maybe do new and dangerous things. Sometimes those can have very good outcomes. In what became the Academies Act, I think the power given head teachers has been a very good thing.
I think it is a difficult balance for a new Government. They need to assert themselves, and they should not be too timid, but for something as important as this—and I totally agree with the noble Baroness—time, thought and consideration are vital. I am happy that we have had this opportunity for extra thinking time.
In my amendment, I call for a commission to be set up:
“Within two years of the coming into force of”,
the Act, which will look,
“with particular regard to value for money”,
in childcare provision. Under the amendment the commission would appoint,
“the Children’s Commissioner for England … a representative of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, and … a representative of the Nuffield Foundation”,
to look at value for money in the childcare sector. I have done this because I have been rather shocked in the past to see from international comparisons of the cost of childcare how expensive it is in this country. I am concerned that the taxpayer is not getting value for money.
I must apologise to the Childcare Minister. In a recent meeting when he briefed us on the Bill, I am afraid that I put words into his mouth which he did not use. He did not refer to his concern that the cost of childcare in this country is higher than in other nations; that was a concern expressed by his predecessor in the other place, his colleague Elizabeth Truss. I apologised to him for that but he did point out that childcare provision in this country has been part of a piecemeal process. Over the years, it has been rather reactive and there has not been a strategic view of what we should be doing, so I hope that your Lordships might think this a worthy consideration.
One particular concern I have is that while parents are the drivers here—the money goes to where they choose to place their child—I know from research that they will often choose price over quality. That is absolutely understandable when you are desperate for childcare, but because we all know that quality is so important, we may need to think of other ways of funding the way the market works to ensure that there is more of an incentive to improve quality, rather than simply to have extra provision.
I will also speak briefly to my colleague and noble friend Lord Sutherland’s amendment, 38A. I do not have it in front of me right now but, having looked at it briefly, I felt that he had made a very helpful contribution in saying that there should be a longitudinal study of the impact of early years childcare. The development of children who experience early years provision is fundamental. I am sure that my noble friend Lord Northbourne will raise the question today of what happens in early childhood, and particularly how the relationship between mother and infant is mediated by early years care. That is fundamental to how we make mature relationships as adults. So much of the security and success of our relationship with our partners and children depends on what happens in early childhood. Perhaps we can get more information on this long distance between infancy and the ages of 25 or 30, when we start to make our own families, and even look at the next generation on. It would be really helpful to have a study to look at the impact of this, so I welcome my noble friend’s amendment.
Lord Sutherland of Houndwood
My Lords, I believe we are in a much better place now than we were during Second Reading and I thank the Minister for the part he has played in that. I also thank the usual channels, who I am sure were not silent when critical issues came up.
That being said, there are still some major issues and some of these amendments deal with them very well. Pro tem, until we see how much information we will have before Report, I would be inclined to give my support to Amendments 1 and 27—particularly Amendment 27, because we need to be clear that the regulations that do not come before this House deal only with practical constitutional matters. In principle, I give my support to both these amendments and we will see how things develop between now and Report. Effectively, the Government are under detailed scrutiny here and I encourage the Minister to do all he can to work with the good will around this place to bring about a successful conclusion.
That being said, I will refer briefly to my own Amendment 38A, which is quite different from the others. It recognises the fact that excellent work of a longitudinal nature has been done—for example, in the EPPE and EPPSE reports—with the encouragement and sponsorship of the Department for Education under two different Governments. That is something we welcome. We should look at the value of that work, which was evident to the Select Committee, with a view to continuing with a similar evaluation of what government policies bring about. The EPPE study takes children from the age of three. This legislation might alter that age and, if so, is an additional reason to look for the ways in which early education impacts on later educational opportunity.
I am looking for an indication from the Minister that the department still attaches great importance to building up this long-term database of how well or ill any particular policy might be working.
Lord Northbourne (CB)
I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Listowel for mentioning that we were going to speak together and I apologise to the Minister for being a minute or two late—I did not realise that there had been a slight rehash of the timings. My Amendments 4 and 7 dare to ask, in this company, whether childcare is always the right answer for all children and all parents. I shall, of course, come back with those questions when this matter returns. I understand that we are not discussing these things in any detail today, so I shall not press my amendments.
Baroness Andrews
My Lords, I have a few comments. First, Amendment 1 raises a lot of the issues that we began to talk about in our previous discussion on the way the Bill is managed. Again I tell the Minister that we are very grateful for the flexibility he has shown under the circumstances.
Amendment 1, in the name of my noble friend Lady Jones of Whitchurch, creates an opportunity for the Minister to give us a bit more information on the timetable in general. He has said clearly that we will have the results of the funding review before Report. It would be really useful if he would spell out, as far as he is able at this point, some sort of road map for the process as it will run over the next three to six months. There are so many reviews and all manner of different things happening. There are the pilots—I, for one, do not know much at all about those. Is it possible to set out the department’s working timetable, and perhaps put a copy in the Library, so that we can reflect upon it as we come back at various stages of the Bill? That would be very helpful.
Secondly, there is a contrast between the amendments in this group. Some are probing into the workability of the process itself and then there are two, in the names of the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, and the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, which raise much more fundamental questions about impact and longitudinal issues. We need a proper debate on what we actually know about the impact of childcare, in terms both of learning and social skills. At the moment we have a rather random collection of evidence about impact, much of which is from the agencies themselves. It would be extremely useful, given the investment that is going into this and given the expectations raised by doubling childcare, if we could have some thorough, systematic research on impact, as the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, suggests in his amendment.
I do not want to labour the point, but I am reminded that there is a contrast between the way the Bill has been introduced and the way previous childcare legislation was introduced. If we go back to 1999 and look at “Meeting the Childcare Challenge”, that was a very detailed road map for increasing the supply of childcare, which went along with tax credits, with start-up capital, with revenue funds and with the extension of after-school care. There was a very clear prospectus as to what was going to happen and how it was going to be funded. We should bear in mind that past massive changes in provision have been planned carefully. Some studies on not just the value for money of what we are getting but the impact on educational achievement in particular are long overdue. For example, a recent report from the National Literacy Trust on reading shows an increasing, not decreasing, gap between the achievement of boys and of girls from disadvantaged backgrounds, after all the effort that has gone into investing in boys’ education. We really need to know what we do not know, as well as what we do know.
Baroness Howarth of Breckland (CB)
First, I thank the Minister for his letter, which raised a number of issues in my mind but which was at least helpful in resolving some others, and say that I support Amendment 1. I believe that I heard the Minister say in his introduction that he had had useful discussions with the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, and that some of the issues that he outlined in his introduction were going to come forward in any event. Despite all the difficulties that have gone before—I am glad I am not taking a political view—this gives us a really good opportunity to take a strategic view of childcare at the moment. I want to be absolutely clear about the who, the how and the what as we go through the amendments. We have a number of amendments, which we will discuss later, about what a working parent is, who in a range of other groups, such as disabled groups, might qualify for extra childcare and how that will be delivered. Will it be on an educational or a childcare basis? The Sutherland report pointed out clearly that there are differences in those two things. What will it be? Who will deliver it? Will it be delivered by childminders as well as within that educational framework?
If we could understand, through these reports, the answers to some of the issues that the amendment moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, raises, we would have a good opportunity to settle funding, cost and consistency issues. Those are among the main difficulties across the country for those trying to access childcare—you only have to move across a county border to find you pay twice as much for childcare as you did in the previous county, which can cause great difficulties, particularly with a mobile workforce. I hope that as we go through the amendments we will get answers to these questions and that we will stop, if you like, the procedural issues—we have made enough of those. We now have some baseline information from the Minister, and maybe we can move forward and get further information so that, by October, we know which parents will qualify and can understand what they will get and where they will get it from.
Lord Storey
First, I apologise to your Lordships for not being able to speak at Second Reading. I will speak to Amendments 1, 29 and 38A. I very much agree with the comments of the noble Baronesses, Lady Andrews and Lady Howarth, but am very nervous of phrases such as “value for money” and “best value” in local government. It has to be about what is best in terms of provision. We have seen early years childcare grow over the last two decades. We have seen the Labour Government, the coalition Government and now the Conservative Government all doing something about early years, but we have not really thought about how it is going to look and how we want it to work. I find it concerning, for example, that three-quarters of our nurseries are, as we know, independent. There is nothing wrong with that, but we know that of those independent nurseries only half have a qualified teacher on the staff. We also know that, when there is a qualified teacher, the learning experience for those children is far greater than otherwise. So it has to be about the quality of the provision, for me.
I wonder about the effects of having those extra 15 hours. It might be great for working parents, but how do they affect the child? I will give an example. Schools will have nurseries, where children will go for part-time provision for three hours a day, Monday to Friday. So you can see a system arising now whereby the working parent will take the child to the childminder and the childminder will then take the child to the school nursery for three hours. With the extra 15 hours, they cannot use the school again, because it is a different set of children in the afternoon—not in every case but in most cases—so they will look for a different provider for the afternoon session. Then the child will go back to the childminder to be taken home to the parent. So there will be four different regimes or experiences of childcare, and I really wonder what the effect will be on those children. We need to look closely and calmly not just at the extra resource and provision, which we all welcome, but at how we ensure that there is quality.
Lord True
My Lords, this is very much a debate on Amendment 1, and I welcome it—it must not be another Second Reading debate—but the points in the amendment seem to be the essence of good governance. Even if my noble friend is unable to accept the amendment, I am sure that he would be the first to say that government will be constantly reviewing the cost of providing childcare and constantly consulting. I am already grateful for the assurances that I have had that he will consult childcare providers. So in that sense the spirit of it is agreed. Of course, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, that longitudinal and technical study is extremely important. Without going over where we have been before, policy should be founded on consideration of good information and be brought forward in due process, and we are moving towards that.
I have one mild stricture for the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock. She said that she did not care about what was in the government manifesto. That is a perfectly reasonable personal thought, but I think Mr Lloyd George from her Benches reminded this House that it ought to have a care for the manifesto of a newly elected Government. So I know that she does not oppose this Bill, but I hope that it is not going to be a doctrine that we hear from the Liberal Democrats—that they do not care too much what the elected Government have promised.
I wanted to probe further on regulation. I shall read Hansard very carefully tomorrow. My noble friend does not necessarily have to reply in detail; it may be something that he wants to give further thought to. But on the question of regulations—maybe draft regulations, not the final regulations—the fact is that the wrong regulations under this Bill, and under its wide powers, could drive small, private and voluntary settings out of existence, just as the wrong sort of heat drives our trains off our railways, it seems. That will be one of the concerns that I express as we go through the Bill. It is reasonable for Parliament to want to avoid the wrong sort of regulations on behalf of those whom we represent. Of course, I declare a particular interest as the leader of a local authority that may have to implement those regulations and as the husband of a provider who may have to respond to them. I hope that between now and October my noble friend will see whether we can show a little bit of ankle on the regulations, because some of them could be literally life and death, not only to businesses and voluntary organisations but to the hard-working women, if I may use that phrase —they are predominantly women—who work in these settings, many of them part time. So I would be grateful for the most that he can do to help us on regulations.
In the amendment proposed by the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, of course I agree that value for money is important. Once upon a time, Her Majesty’s Treasury was very interested in value for money before any policy came forward; now it seems that we are looking into affordability once the policy has been published. The value-for-money argument has another aspect to it that I hope we will not lose sight of. I recognise that the Government are committed to this principle. However, this policy, we are told, is going to be funded by taking away benefit from people earning more than £150,000 a year who are provident enough to save for their retirement. That money is going to be given to another set of people, many of them earning more than £150,000 a year, who, you might say, are not provident enough to put a bit of money aside to pay for childcare for their children. That could be a bit of a merry-go-round, to use a phrase that we have heard lately.
As the policy evolves, I hope that we will consider whether the state, the Government and the taxpayers are getting the best value for their money—not only what parents get in terms of providers; that is an issue of quality. This looks potentially—we shall see—to be a very expensive policy with a very substantial dead-weight cost involved in it of paying for a lot of people for something that they pay for already.
I do not expect an answer but I hope that that thought will inform a little the consideration of the implementation of the policy. Having slightly enlarged on the noble Earl’s Amendment 29, I hope that that aspect of value for money will be kept in mind as development of the Bill goes forward.
Lord Nash
My Lords, in this group, I will speak to Amendments 1, 27, 40, 41 and 42, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, and the noble Lord, Lord Touhig, and to Amendments 29 and 38A, tabled by the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, and the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland. I will attempt to flesh out a sequence of events and a road map which the noble Baronesses, Lady Jones and Lady Andrews, spoke about. I will write to noble Lords about this and place a copy in the Library well before Report.
The Government are committed to delivering the provisions in the Childcare Bill in a way that is flexible, affordable and high quality for parents. A number of amendments in this group refer to specific activities that have been discussed with reference to the Motion to move the Bill into Committee and that were covered in the policy statement published last week. As I clarified on Second Reading, the Government are reviewing the cost of providing childcare and have committed to increase the average funding rate paid to providers. It is essential that the rate that we pay is fair for providers, value for money for taxpayers and consistent with the Government’s fiscal plans. I agree with the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, in Amendment 29 that value for money must be a consideration for all aspects of government spending, and the early years should be no different. The extension of the free entitlement is a significant government investment.
Last month, the Government launched a call for evidence as part of the funding review and, as I have said, we have already had more than 500 responses. As I have also said, we will report back on the review’s findings by Report and will then be able to say a lot more about the delivery model. I can confirm that we want childminders to be able to deliver the extra 15 hours of childcare, as they already deliver the universal 15 hours.
On 25 June, I wrote to noble Lords with an assessment of the impact of the Bill on the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, child poverty, the public sector equality duty and the family test. The collective conclusion of these assessments is that the extension of the free childcare entitlement will have a positive impact for children and families. I can confirm to noble Lords that the Government will publish a full impact assessment on the extent of free entitlement when draft regulations are published for consultation in due course.
The Government want to engage with parents, providers, local authorities, employers and representative bodies about how parents currently access childcare and how it is delivered. This will begin shortly. We want to hear what is important to parents in choosing a childcare provider, and their views on how the extended entitlement will best meet their childcare needs.
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch
My Lords, I welcome the proposals of the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, and the noble Earl, Lord Listowel. I was also very interested to hear what the Minister said about the research that is taking place and I will look at that in some detail in Hansard in due course. I will also scrutinise very carefully the wording of the information that the Minister has now provided about the timeline and I welcome his suggestion of a road map. I think that would help all noble Lords to understand what we can expect on Report.
The critical issue here is not an October deadline. I am grateful that the noble Lord has offered that but it is more important to get the information right than to tie ourselves down to an artificial date. Whether it is October or November does not matter. What matters is that we are furnished with all the information that the Minister is now saying that we will get. I would hate to think that some of this work is being rushed to meet an artificial deadline, so I will just put that marker down, but if it can be ready by October, that is fine.
A number of noble Lords have said that we have had the procedural discussion and the procedural row and I agree with that. We are keen to move on with the detail of the Bill now so let us put the process behind us. I look forward to the information the noble Lord has given and will give in the follow-up letter and I hope that we can go forward on that basis.
I have one last caveat. The Minister talked about the draft regulations. Again, I need to check exactly what he said, but our Amendment 27 says that the regulations should be affirmative, which is an important principle. It is what the Delegated Powers Committee recommended and I hope the noble Lord will take that on board so that we can have a proper opportunity to debate the regulations, not only in draft form but in their final form, before they are put on the statute book. With that caveat, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
The Earl of Listowel
My Lords, before the amendment is withdrawn—I apologise for being slow off the mark—may I make a brief comment? I thank the Minister for his careful response, which I appreciated, and for your Lordships’ comments on my amendment.
On my noble friend’s amendment, I take it that the longitudinal study referred to by the Minister will finish fairly early in the children’s lives. It seems that our discussion is about longitudinal studies that are focused mainly on the educational outcomes and maybe a little on child development. The EPPE study terminated at either 16 or 18, but here it may be slightly earlier.
My concern is that we need some means to think about the long-term impact of early years care. We are becoming more and more aware of the importance of a secure attachment in the early years. I visited the Anna Freud Centre over quite a period and spoke to professionals at Coram. To give an example of the importance of a secure early attachment, they have developed a means of assessing potential adopters. With that tool, they can learn about the adopters’ own experience of their early childhoods, and from that discussion they can assess how secure the child that would be placed with them is likely to be. To simplify grossly, if the adopters have had a secure attachment in their own lives, it is likely that they will be able to give a secure attachment to an infant placed with them, even if that child is quite challenging, because they had a very good experience early in life. This is a very important thing to keep in mind.
I am sorry to bore your Lordships with this—I mention it so often—but in this country about 22% of boys and girls are growing up without a father in the home and, according to the OECD, we will overtake the United States in a few years. It is of course deeply distressing for children when their parents separate, and hugely economically costly for us as a nation when families break down.
I am sure many of us would feel reassured if there was research that looked at the experience of early years provision and the early years experience of childhood and connected that with the success of family relationships down the road. Maybe the Minister will think about that, and then we can discuss it at another point. I thank noble Lords.
Baroness Massey of Darwen
“Welfare of children in the delivery of childcare under this Act
(1) In exercising her duties under this Act, the Secretary of State shall—
(a) hold the welfare of all children as paramount in the delivery of childcare in England;(b) promote the progressive development of persons and institutions which provide childcare;(c) promote the effective execution by local authorities of their childcare duties under Part 1 of the Childcare Act 2006;(d) ensure that childcare provision under sections 1 and 2 provides valuable early years education and contributes to closing gaps between children from disadvantaged backgrounds and their peers; and (e) ensure that childcare in early years settings should provide caring and positive experiences which support children’s development and prepare children to thrive at school and in later life.(2) In this Act “welfare” in relation to childcare means the welfare of children in childcare in so far as it relates to—
(a) physical and mental health and emotional welfare;(b) protection from harm and neglect;(c) education and recreation; and(d) social and economic welfare.”
Baroness Massey of Darwen
My Lords, in moving Amendment 2, I shall not go through each point but there are other important amendments in this group.
First, I thank the Minister for responding to concerns about the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in the annexe to his correspondence entitled “Considering the Impact of the Childcare Provisions”. Of course, the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child states that the welfare of the child should be paramount. The Minister quotes Article 18 with regard to assistance of parents and legal guardians, and Article 3, on the best interests of the child. I add that UNICEF’s summary of that article states:
“When adults make decisions, they should think about how their decisions will affect children
That is a fundamental issue behind my amendment.
Of course I support getting parents into work, and I support the increase in free childcare. However, children are at the end of this. I think the noble Lord, Lord Storey, was in the same territory: children should be at the end of any deliberation we might make. The Bill as it stands is very adult-centred, and I want to redress the balance and put the focus back on to children and their needs, in particular with a specific provision to close the gap between children from disadvantaged backgrounds and their peers.
Eligibility for working parents and the problems about eligibility will be discussed later, so I will not go into them now. Nor will I go on and on about the wonderful report of the Affordable Childcare Select Committee, chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, although I have to say it is a good read. It is packed with research, options and recommendations from providers, parents and employers. Importantly, that report also has children and their welfare at its heart. It shows that children in deprived areas tend to get worse childcare than those in affluent areas and that early years provision attached to a school is generally of a better quality. The committee also recommended that the Government should reprioritise and focus on children who are most in need of high-quality childcare. As we go on, prioritisation may become important and we should discuss the options.
The Earl of Listowel
My Lords, Amendment 4 in this group would insert “high-quality” into Clause 1(1). Amendment 6, which we will come to later, similarly inserts those words into this subsection. It also asks the Secretary of State to produce a strategy for developing high-quality care within six months of the Bill coming into force and lays out that the strategy should include,
“a target for the number of graduates in the early years workforce”—
I am not sure whether it is a particularly helpful target so I will not discuss it—
“a target for the proportion of managers of early years settings who are graduates, and … a plan for increasing the number of nursery schools to a specified level”.
The reason I tabled this amendment is, in part, the same reason that I gave earlier: what happens at the very beginning of our lives affects our adulthood to a huge degree. This is something of which we are becoming more and more aware. The intimacy that we experience in childhood is very much what allows us to have intimacy as adults. If that experience of intimacy as a child causes fear and disquiet, then, as an adult, we may find it difficult to be intimate with others, which has a huge impact.
Quality is really important. I was grateful for the opportunity to speak to the Childcare Minister and to hear, for instance, that he is looking at sharing early years practitioners with schools, perhaps in reception. I hope that a strategy will look at these innovative ideas so that perhaps it would become normal for early years practitioners to move into primary school education and for primary school practitioners to move the other way. It would greatly enrich learning in primary schools; a really good understanding of child development—which can be developed in particular by working with and observing infants—could be really helpful for primary school teachers. Anna Freud said so to a group of teachers back in the 1930s or 1940s. As a teacher, your job—or an important part of it—is to understand child development, recognise when the child has strayed from the normal course of child development and know how to bring that child back on to their proper developmental course.
That notion is important. We might also look at a strategy of co-training—something that I know has been discussed in the past—whereby early years professionals train with health visitors, mental health nurses, social workers and family support workers to strengthen their understanding of, and develop a respect for, what others do so that they can work more effectively. It is a multi-agency way of getting the best outcomes for children.
The noble Lord, Lord Storey, alluded to concerns about the number of graduates leading early years provision and the evidence that we are unlikely to get the outcomes that we want if graduates—I think they have to be the right kind of graduates—are not leading settings. I had some acquaintance with the manager of a Montessori school in London. She was an Oxbridge graduate and we had many interesting conversations about her work. I was struck by how very thoughtful she is. Clearly her children must benefit from the degree and depth of thought that she gives to her work.
I have mentioned previously one element that is really important in a nursery setting and that is the “key person”—a designated early years practitioner who is responsible for each child. In a sense, the key person is the guardian of secure attachment while the child is placed in a nursery. However, there are two difficulties with that. First, it can be quite distressing for the key person from an emotional point of view because they become quite attached to the child and the child becomes attached to them. If they move on or there is a break in the care, the child will be upset, as will the key person. So, from an emotional point of view, there is pressure on them not to really engage with and care for the child. Secondly, some parents will be jealous that their infant is forming such a close relationship with someone in the early years setting. These things have to be thought through very carefully so that the child does not grow up in a sterile, unemotional environment but in a rich, warm environment. That is why I have tabled my amendment, and I look forward to the Minister’s response.
Baroness Tyler of Enfield (LD)
My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 20 in my name. However, before doing so, I want briefly to lend my support to the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Massey. I feel that it is a very important amendment as it provides a necessary rebalancing in the Bill between the needs of the child—we heard the statement about putting the child at the heart of the Bill—and those of working parents. Both are important but we have to think very hard about how those two interests and sets of needs can be best balanced.
The amendment to Clause 1 in my name would require regulations to set out the quality standards that childcare providers must adhere to in order to deliver the 30 hours of free childcare. Essentially it is about the quality of the childcare to be provided and it is a probing amendment.
While it is encouraging that the quality of childcare is gradually improving—we heard about this at Second Reading—there are still insufficient numbers of high-quality free entitlement places for three and four year-olds and disadvantaged two year-olds, resulting still in too many children attending poor-quality settings or being unable to access provision that meets their individual needs. Some 15% of disadvantaged two year-olds are attending settings that have not been judged good or outstanding by Ofsted. We know that this position is particularly stark both for children with special educational needs and disabilities—we will come later to amendments that focus on that group of children—and for disadvantaged children. I thought that the Affordable Childcare Select Committee report—I declare an interest as a member—was particularly strong in pointing out that childcare provision in deprived areas is less likely to be good or outstanding than that in affluent areas, compounding the disadvantage that already exists.
We know that current quality standards for early education and childcare are set out in statutory guidance for local authorities. However—this is my key point—it seems to me imperative that the expansion of free childcare to 30 hours does not in any way undermine recent progress in improving the quality of the free entitlement. The early years foundation stage and a robust Ofsted inspection process have both been central to improvements in outcomes for young children in recent years. While the Government acknowledge in statutory guidance that high-quality provision has the greatest impact on children’s development—that is very welcome, particularly for the most disadvantaged children—they have not restricted the delivery of the free entitlement solely to good and outstanding providers due to a shortage of high-quality places.
It is unclear to me—hence this probing amendment—whether the Government plan to use regulations underpinning the Secretary of State’s new duty to prescribe the quality standards that childcare providers must meet in order to be able to deliver the 30 hours of free childcare. I always like to look on the bright side, so it seems to me that the Bill presents an opportunity to secure quality standards for the additional 15 hours of free childcare and, at the same time, to strengthen existing quality standards for the free entitlement for three and four year-olds.
Very much in that spirit, perhaps I may ask the Minister some questions. First, will regulations be used to place quality requirements on providers of the additional 15 hours of free childcare? Secondly, can the Minister provide assurances that all childcare settings providing the additional 15 hours will be required to be judged good or outstanding in their most recent Ofsted inspection to deliver the early years foundation stage and to have all staff holding or working towards a level 3 qualification? Thirdly, will the Government consider using the introduction of the additional 15 hours of childcare to raise the quality of the current free entitlement? Finally, can the Minister provide any assurance that the Government will develop, publish and implement—I am sure that many people in this House would be happy to help on this—a strategy for expanding on and improving the quality of the early years workforce, building further on the recommendation in Professor Nutbrown’s report and, in particular, on the recommendation that there should be graduate leadership in all settings, including, most importantly, those in disadvantaged areas?
Lord True
I wish to speak to an amendment that I have in this group. I follow entirely the comment of the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, about the need for things being child-centred. My noble friend was kind enough to embarrass my wife by saying that she was Montessorian of the Year, so I am obviously particularly attached to the Montessori system, which is quintessentially child-centred.
I will not repeat the remarks that I made at Second Reading but I think that, as the Select Committee said, there is a little bit of a risk of a conflict at the heart of the Bill. It is presented by my noble friend as an Education Minister but much of the rationale is that it is an employment measure. Indeed, the Minister for Employment is creating a task force that is intended to enhance the take-home pay of a two-earner household doing whatever the regulations—when we see them—will define as work. We do not know quite what that is, but we know that it is work done outside the home or work done inside the home, other than anything to do with caring for the children, as far as I can see. At the same time, we are moving from 15 to 30 hours and bringing in something that was never there before—a barrier against women who stay at home and provide that affective affinity which is so vital. Heaven knows, my mother was never a graduate—she did her bit in the war—but I do not like to think there was anyone better than her at providing childcare. I hope that we can find a way in going forward with this policy to explore whether that barrier is necessary. It will be costly in terms of administration for local authorities, and potentially to providers, and potentially socially costly in what it says about the role and enormous social, and therefore economic, contribution made by mothers who stay at home.
I fear that increasingly, given the comments I have received since the remarks I made at Second Reading. I have had a number of emails from groups and individuals about what I said at Second Reading about not venturing to put in second place the role of the mother who stays at home and cares for a child. That has certainly struck a chord. We must have care as we tread forward. If we really do believe in a big society, is that a big society that we wish to build? I unashamedly think that that is a marvellous phrase of the Prime Minister’s, and I strongly support the principle.
Baroness Howarth of Breckland
My Lords, I will be, as I usually am, brief. I am not going to make the speech that I was going to make as I think that it has already been made by other noble Lords I just want to make some points that I think have not been made and, if possible, take up one or two points with the noble Lord, Lord True.
I primarily want to support the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, in ensuring that, whatever we decide in this Bill, the child’s needs are paramount. Having heard him on previous occasions, I am quite sure that the Minister will agree that the child’s needs must be paramount. The problem is how to implement that. Listening to some of the points made by the noble Lord, Lord True, I felt that there was a conflict between the suggestion that there should be universal provision for every child and the need to meet the needs of children who have more deprivation or disability than the general population. I am quite sure, even on my poor economics maths, that the Chancellor of the Exchequer will not have the funding for universal provision. I therefore hope that, when we get to some kind of pilots, we do not just look at the employment issues.
I know that this is a manifesto commitment and absolutely understand how it has to be met by the Government. However, I think that there is a risk of making things worse for some groups of children. If some families who are earning good funds—I think that the noble Lord, Lord True, was right on this—take up the 30 hours and are already paying for half of it, that means that there will be less finance available for those young people and children, two year-olds and upwards, who are not yet getting proper provision. Knowing some of the parents in those groups as I do, I appreciate that they do not always even know how to access that provision. I know that the Government are keen to improve information so that they can access it.
Those are the points that I wanted to make in seeking the Minister’s assurance that, despite the manifesto commitment that this is about employment and getting more women into work, the child’s needs will be paramount. I agree that quality is not always about qualifications. Having interviewed many staff down the years, I know that some of the best qualified have probably been some of the least caring. Then again, some of the most caring have not had the skills to actually implement the caring. It is about having an understanding of the two. I think that we could get more for less with a more strategic approach across the whole. I hope that the Minister will, in some of the reviews that are being undertaken, take that overview of it all. The way in which funding is given and the range of different funding—for example through tax credits and universal credit—is such a jigsaw for families. Just to rationalise that would make a difference both to access for families and to finances generally.
Lord Sutherland of Houndwood
My Lords, I want to focus briefly on one word in the amendment proposed by my noble friend Lady Massey—the word “paramount”. It will make a huge difference as to how choices are made when it comes to implementing this Bill. There will be hard choices of a financial nature about commitments to manifestos and about the kind of care provided. As a principle, it may read like motherhood and apple pie, but it is not. “Paramount” is saying where the final commitment will be. For example, is it the case that paramount considerations will lead to children in deprived areas or children with special needs being favoured if there is a shortage of money? The word “paramount” begins to put an edge on this and that is why I support this amendment.
Baroness Pinnock
My Lords, I support what the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, has said. As the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, said, the focus of this Bill must be on the quality of provision for the child. I made that point on Second Reading. It is most important that we keep our focus on the quality of the provision for the children whom the Government are going to spend money on by providing additional hours of childcare.
The one word that I noticed was missing from the Bill was the word “quality”. When you are dealing with the very youngest members of our society, you would think that any additional provision made for them would have the word “quality” attached to it. When I read the Bill, it struck me that the focus or driving force behind it was not the needs of the child but the needs of the parent. That is why I passionately support these amendments. We need to shift the focus back on to what is done for the child. It would be wonderful if we could rename this Childcare Bill, which has all the connotations of care rather than anything else, the “Early Years Care and Education Bill”. Within the additional 15 hours for which the Government are paying we want to see not just aspects of care, but aspects of early years education as well. That would bring with it the qualities proposed by both the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, and my noble friend Lady Tyler. I hope the Minister will take those two points on board.
Lord Touhig (Lab)
My Lords, the Minister and I have something in common: we are both in celebration mode. I believe that it is his wife’s birthday. Unfortunately, business in this House prevents him from being with her this evening but I am sure that we would all want to send her many happy returns. For my part, I have to leave before the Committee finishes its business tonight. My youngest daughter is getting married in the morning and I have to catch a train to Wales this evening.
I turn to Amendment 2. My noble friend Lady Massey posed a key question when she spoke on Second Reading on 16 June. She asked:
“Who is the Bill for?”.—[Official Report, 16/06/15; col. 1115.]
The more I see and try to understand this measure, the more I begin to wonder that myself. The noble Baroness said that any Bill with “child” in the title must reflect—as set out in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child—that the rights of the child are paramount. I share her view. Good childcare should be child focused and offer learning and developmental opportunities. Otherwise, what is the point of it?
I share the fear expressed by the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock—a blunt-speaking Yorkshirewoman if ever there was one. On Second Reading, she said that the Bill’s focus was on providing means to encourage women into work. While that might be laudable, the primary focus must be on its impact on children’s lives and not just on the future of the labour market. If, in the end, all we get from this Bill is a very costly system of babysitting and nothing else, we will have failed every family who wants the opportunity of meaningful, progressive and fully rounded childcare in which the child’s development can be the central objective.
Amendment 2 gives us an opportunity to persuade the Government to refocus the Bill and put the child at the heart of this measure. It places a specific duty on the Secretary of State to promote childcare and underpins that by requiring the Secretary of State to,
“promote the progressive development of persons and institutions which provide childcare”.
Those objectives go hand in hand. The first without the second would be worthless.
That brings me to a key point highlighted in the report of the Select Committee on Affordable Childcare, chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland of Houndwood. Paragraph 25 stated that the committee and its witnesses were concerned,
“about the lack of coherence in the Government’s stated objectives for childcare policy”.
Witnesses appearing before the committee had flagged up the trade-offs necessary to achieve the separate policy strands. These were highlighted as,
“improving child outcomes, narrowing the attainment gap, and facilitating parental employment”.
The committee concluded, after listening to witnesses, that there was no evidence,
“to suggest that the need for such trade-offs was … acknowledged by Government”.
It formally asked the Government to clarify,
“how competing aims between the policy strands are prioritised, and what mechanisms are in place between Government departments to address the necessary trade-offs”.
Could the matter have been resolved and perhaps a different paragraph 25 put in the report? If the then Exchequer Secretary and now Employment Minister, Priti Patel, had turned up to give evidence it might have been. However, like some latter-day Louis XIV, she wrote to the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, and said:
“I have concluded that it would not be appropriate for me to attend”.
I do not know the lady—I know nothing ill of her and I am sure she is a very good person. However, it is becoming typical of the attitude of this Government to refuse to submit Ministers to the scrutiny of Parliament. If we cannot hold the Executive to account, who will? That is why we come here every day. Ministers and the Government must understand the need to co-operate with the House, with noble Lords, and not to resist our legitimate scrutiny role. I believe that the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, spoke for all when he wrote back to the Minister expressing his disappointment that the Minister refused to attend. He went on to say that what is best for child development may not be best for enabling parents, and especially mothers, to maintain their attachment to the labour market.
I have been greatly encouraged by the response that the Minister gave at the start of this debate. He is clearly wanting and willing to engage with the House and with noble Lords on all sides to make this a better Bill. I invite him to assuage the fears expressed by my noble friend Lady Massey and other noble Lords and state without equivocation that this Bill is about childcare—a childcare service that is centred and focused on the child. The benefit of helping parents into work is a bonus, but it should not be the main objective of the Bill.
Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)
My Lords, I shall speak to Amendments 4, 7, 15, 20 and 33 regarding the quality of childcare and early years education. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, my noble friend Lord True and the noble Baronesses, Lady Tyler and Lady Pinnock, for tabling these amendments and for leading the debate on this important issue. I also thank other noble Lords for their contributions.
First, I will reassure all noble Lords that children are at the heart of our thinking in this area and that they will always be at the forefront of what we are trying to do. The Government are committed to driving up the quality across early years provision for all children and ensuring that the current early education entitlement is of the highest quality. The current entitlement ensures that all three and four year-olds can access 15 hours a week of quality early education free of charge to prepare them for school and improve their life chances. It also ensures that children are kept safe and well and that their individual needs are met. The purpose of this Bill is to build on the popular current package and to help families further by reducing the costs of childcare and supporting parents to work.
A number of noble Lords rightly focused on the needs of deprived families, but we all know that work is a key route out of poverty, which is why that is a focus of these measures. We are clear that the extended entitlement is intended to help families by reducing the cost of childcare and supporting them to work. We want to make sure that this is delivered in ways that meet the needs of working families and their children. We think that it is important that the extended entitlement is flexible for parents to access and can be delivered by a range of providers. But again—this point was made by many noble Lords—what is of equal importance is the quality of childcare and the impact that it has on child development. It is absolutely imperative that childcare is delivered in a safe, secure and welcoming way that contributes to a child’s welfare and development. Of course, a large number of parents already use significantly more than the 15 hours of formal childcare that are provided. All a child’s time spent in such registered early years settings is looked at by Ofsted.
I turn first to Amendments 2, 4 and 20. The quality and welfare standards of all early years childcare, and this Government’s expectation of providers to deliver it, is already set out in regulations under the existing Childcare Act, and, crucially, through the requirements of Ofsted’s regulatory and inspection regime. Ofsted has announced a new, improved common inspection framework to come into effect from September this year, which will bring more consistency to inspection approaches across education and registered early years settings assessed under the early years foundation stage statutory framework. There will be an increased focus on children’s outcomes and the quality of teaching and learning, and on whether appropriate continuous professional development to improve staff practice is in place. Once again, I stress that children’s welfare and safety remain paramount and are key elements of the inspection regime.
The noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, asked about the strategy for workforce improvement. We are committed to ensuring that we provide a clear and overarching framework of regulatory accountability and high-quality standards for childcare providers, alongside raising the bar on the calibre of staff via more demanding qualifications and qualification entry requirements. Within this framework, childcare businesses are incentivised and supported to self-improve. We think that this is the right approach for a largely private market and respect the fact that professional practitioners and owners of settings are best placed to recruit and retain a workforce that delivers the childcare that the Government, but, most importantly, parents, want.
The Government therefore are continuing to support the development of the sector by providing £50 million of funding through the early years pupil premium to support providers to raise the quality of provision for disadvantaged children, including supporting workforce development, £5 million to teaching schools to work with local providers and £5.3 million to voluntary and community sector organisations this year, many of which will focus on the upskilling of the workforce by offering training and development.
The noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, also asked about quality being reflected in the regulations. This was a key theme that ran through many noble Lords’ contributions. As we have said, we are talking to parents about their requirements for taking up the new entitlement, including quality. These views will be reflected in the regulations that we will consult on in 2016.
I turn to Amendments 7 and 15. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, for raising this issue. I think that we can agree on the importance of attachment in early childhood and its implications for long-term social and emotional development. International and UK studies have shown that the foundations for virtually every aspect of human development are laid in early childhood. What happens to a child from the womb to the age of five has lifelong effects on many aspects of health and well-being from obesity, heart disease and mental health to educational achievement and economic status.
The environment for a child in their early years is fundamental to their development and for secure emotional attachment. We know that infants become securely attached to adults who are consistently sensitive, loving and predictable in social interactions with them. With the security of knowing that their primary care giver is emotionally available, children grow in confidence and explore the surrounding world, including the learning opportunities of nursery and school. The Government are committed to supporting the promotion of developing secure attachments between young children and their parents. As well as increasing the number of health visitors, we have raised the standards of qualifications, including the introduction of early years teachers and early years educators and we want to ensure that practitioners have a strong understanding of child development issues such as attachment.
The early years foundation stage sets the standards that all early years providers registered on the early years register must meet to ensure that children learn and develop well and are kept healthy and safe. The statutory framework also recognises that good parenting and high-quality early learning together provide the foundation that children need to make the most of their talents and abilities as they grow up, and, of course, continuity of care is very important. I reassure noble Lords that Ofsted inspectors will take into account the need for the well-established key person system mentioned by the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, among others. It will help ensure that children form secure attachments and promote their independence and well-being. While I recognise the intentions behind the amendments I have discussed so far, I hope that we have sufficiently reassured noble Lords that they will agree to withdraw them.
I turn to the amendment spoken to by my noble friend Lord True, who raised the position of parents who choose to stay at home. I assure him that the Government recognise that it is a matter of choice for parents to decide whether they want to work or not, and that we have already implemented additional support for such parents, such as shared parental leave. The new marriage allowance will allow people who are married or in a civil partnership to reduce their partner’s tax by up to £212 a year. I understand his concern that for many parents the choice to stay at home, offering their own quality of care and love to their children, will be the right one to make. He will also be aware that those families are, indeed, entitled to the first 15 hours for three and four year-olds and to the 15 hours for two year-olds from disadvantaged homes. All in all, that adds up to a substantial package.
The principle that the additional entitlement is for working parents is, however, an important one, which I have already mentioned. It offers greater choice to parents who wish to work additional hours and for those who may wish to return to work, and it supports the Government’s goals of supporting hard-working families, reducing the cost of living and ensuring that fiscal goals can be met. However, it does not stop anyone choosing to stay at home and access the other support that I have outlined. I hope that the noble Lord is reassured by that and will feel able to withdraw his amendment.
In conclusion, the Government are committed to ensuring that childcare places are of high quality, as these have lasting benefits for children. The safety and welfare of children remain paramount. Children are at the heart of what we are seeking to do. I hope that noble Lords have been reassured by my responses and I ask them not to press their amendments.
Baroness Massey of Darwen
My Lords, this has proved to be a very important and stimulating discussion on these amendments. I thank noble Lords for their support for the notion of high-quality, child-focused childcare, and the Minister for her response. However, I would be reassured if the words “paramount”, “important” or whatever appeared before the notion of children, because my problem is that I do not see the importance of the child being paramount on the face of the Bill, and I would like it to be there.
However, as I say, this has been a very interesting and important debate. Developmental stages have come up time and time again—that is, children’s personal, social and academic development—and high-quality childcare, from whichever source it comes, that responds to the child’s needs. I very much agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, who talked about a strategic approach, recognising that children are different. Many noble Lords spoke about this. Children have varied needs. As many noble Lords said, this may, indeed, require hard choices.
I mentioned earlier the report highlighting that some boys not only have poor literacy but are miles behind at a very early age. We need to focus on children who require special help; their needs are paramount. If the welfare of the child is at the forefront, as the noble Baroness has just said, I think that needs to be spelled out in the Bill, preferably at the beginning. That would reassure me. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
The Earl of Listowel
I apologise for being slow to my feet this evening. Before the noble Baroness withdraws the amendment, may I make a few comments on what the Minister has said, since we are in Committee? I am very grateful to the Minister for her careful reply and for her reference to the importance of the key person in the nursery. I am also grateful for everything I have heard about the improving educational qualifications of staff and the encouraging inspection reports from Ofsted.
What troubles me, and I think may trouble other noble Lords, is the concern that this is a very low-paid workforce of mainly very young women. I recently visited a nursery near here and met a couple of young women who had just started working there. I learned of their history: they were abused themselves as children. I do not know how good their experience was of recovering from that. However, childcare staff are often young women who are poorly educated and may well have had poor emotional experiences themselves growing up.
With respect to levels of maternity in young people in care or leaving care, I believe that research was carried out 10 or 15 years ago which highlighted that about a quarter of girls were getting pregnant before leaving care, and a further quarter shortly afterwards. Young women who have had a poor experience of childhood are often attracted to the idea of having a baby, and perhaps to working with young children, because they seek love—the love that they never had—and they hope that through having a baby or caring for a child they will receive that love. Sadly, what they learn is that the child needs to be loved by them, and that responsibility quickly becomes too much for them. Perhaps that is part of the reason why so many children who grow up in care go on to have children who are taken away from them and placed into care again.
I am going to make it my job to visit a few more early years nurseries before Report to reassure myself that the improvements that the Minister described are taking place. Given the realities of the workforce, I find it surprising that we are moving forward in the way that the Minister describes. However, it may be that this is such a vocational line of work that there are young women attracted to it who have great capacity for it. That might be one reason why we are seeing such an improvement, despite the low pay and low status of the work.
I do not expect a response from the Minister, but I wanted to flag that up as a concern.
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch
My Lords, at Second Reading several questions were asked of the Minister as to why it was necessary to have a system of dual responsibility for delivering the free childcare allocations, with the proposed duties seemingly being shared between the Secretary of State and local authorities. However, I do not believe that we received a satisfactory answer at the time; I have scoured the policy statement and there does not seem to be an explanation in that document either.
Under the terms of the Childcare Act 2006, the duty for delivering the existing 15 free hours of childcare currently resides with local authorities. It seems that overall, despite the pressures they are operating under, they have done a good job. In the previous debate, the Minister cited a delivery figure of 95% take-up of free entitlement, which, given the geographical and financial variations that they are operating under, seems pretty impressive.
As I understand the proposals, it is not envisaged that this duty will be repealed. Indeed, in response to a question at Second Reading from the noble Baroness, Lady Eaton, about the local authorities’ role, the Minister said that,
“as my noble friend rightly says, local authorities play a very important role. We fully intend and need them to continue to do so”.—[Official Report, 16/6/15; col. 1130.]
So we are now faced with a potentially farcical situation in which local authorities will be responsible for delivering the first 15 hours and the Secretary of State will be responsible for the next 15 hours, even though the local provider is likely to be one and the same organisation. This arrangement will simply blur the lines of responsibility. It will confuse parents and providers alike and will provoke a blame game when things go wrong. I do not think that anyone understands the logic of this; I hope that the noble Lord will shed some light on the matter.
In the mean time, our amendment provides a simplified, streamlined structure in which the duties of local authorities are extended to cover the full 30-hour package. I hope that all noble Lords will see the sense in our proposal. I beg to move.
Baroness Pinnock (LD)
I shall speak to Amendment 31 in my name. Before I do so, I declare my interest—since it is pertinent to local authorities—both as a councillor and as a newly elected vice-president of the Local Government Association. I concur entirely with the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, about the confusion in implementing free childcare provision if local authorities are responsible for the first 15 hours and the Secretary of State is responsible for the next 15 hours.
However, our amendment focuses on a different aspect. We are asking for a new clause to be inserted into this Bill, to enable local authorities to be a provider of last resort. We do so for a number of important reasons. When I visited the Minister this morning, I noticed a big sign on his door that included the phrase “closing the gaps”. We all know, from our own research and from references already cited by many noble Lords this afternoon, that early years are extremely important in ensuring that children start school on a level playing field. We as a society must do our best to ensure that children who come from less advantaged homes have that gap closed before they start their formal education.
We are concerned that where children are less advantaged, either in homes where they are vulnerable or in areas where there is considerable deprivation, it is much less likely for vibrant private sector provision to be established, particularly when there will be 30 hours of free childcare. We already know, from evidence provided at Second Reading, that many private providers rely on additional funding, outside those free hours, in order to make their businesses financially viable. We need to give special focus to those areas of the country and those families that many Members of the House are already most concerned about, to ensure that children in those areas and families have the same opportunities and access as children from more advantaged areas. In those places where there are no viable providers from either the private or the voluntary sector, the local authority should be given the opportunity to close that gap to enable children to take advantage of the 30 hours that would be on offer. One of the reasons for doing this is because, sadly, many Sure Start children’s centres are either closing their doors or decreasing the number of hours that they are open for children from these very families. In many cases the buildings are there and could be used by local authorities by commissioning from the voluntary or private sector, but certainly provision should be made for children from less advantaged backgrounds.
As we have heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, local authorities already have a duty of sufficiency. Enabling local authorities to bridge that gap would give them the opportunity to ensure that there is a sufficiency of places for all children in our country to take advantage of the additional 15 hours of free childcare—or “early years care and education” as I am going to start calling it. As we heard in the debate on the previous group of amendments, that is probably the most important thing we can do: to focus on children who come from less advantaged areas and vulnerable families and give them the right start in life. Let us really do what it says on the Minister’s door and do our best to close that gap.
Lord Nash
My Lords, I shall speak to Amendments 3 and 31, regarding the model of delivery for the additional entitlement. I thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Jones and Lady Pinnock, and the noble Lord, Lord Touhig, for raising this important issue and bringing their considerable experience to the debate. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Touhig, for his congratulations to my wife on her birthday and reciprocate by congratulating him on his daughter’s impending marriage. I initially thought that Thursday was a rather odd day to get married, but then I remembered from personal experience that, given the Welsh legendary reputation for hospitality, a Welsh wedding can easily start on a Thursday and run right through to the Sunday night. The noble Lord will certainly have the weather for it.
There are many views about the best way to deliver childcare for working parents, including those in the excellent report from the affordability committee, chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland. We believe that we should take stock of all such views before setting out the delivery model for the additional 15 hours. That is only right and proper in a consultation process.
With respect to Amendment 3, the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, and the noble Lord, Lord Touhig, no doubt have in mind existing legislation under the Childcare Act 2006 that places a statutory duty on local authorities to secure early education free of charge for eligible children. The amount currently prescribed under that duty is, of course, 15 hours a week for 38 weeks, although this can be stretched over more weeks per year when parents wish and providers offer the option to do so.
As the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, said, delivery of the current entitlement has been phenomenally successful. Statistics published last week show that more children than ever before are taking up their entitlement. Around 1.3 million three and four year-olds now access the entitlement—some 96% of all children of those ages. Furthermore, around 157,000 two year-olds have been reported as taking up a free place—some 58% of those eligible. This is excellent progress for a programme focused on those least likely to participate in formal childcare. I put on record my gratitude to all those in local authorities and elsewhere who have worked to ensure the early success of the programme.
The Government are currently looking at the lessons that can be drawn from the existing delivery model for the free early education entitlement and considering the simplest and most efficient way to deliver the additional 15 hours of free childcare to working families, many of whom will already be paying for additional hours or provision outside the free entitlement. The extended entitlement must be delivered in a way that is flexible for parents and providers, and funded through an efficient mechanism that, as the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, said, reaches those who are disadvantaged in particular. Doubling the free entitlement is, however, a significant change for the system and it would be remiss of us not to pause at this early stage in the process and ask stakeholders, including local authorities and noble Lords, whether they have views about alternative approaches to delivery that could work, and that could deliver the quality, flexibility and efficiency that we want to see.
Baroness Andrews
Can I ask the noble Lord something that is slightly puzzling me? I understand that, under Section 6 of the 2006 Act, local authorities are required to provide sufficient childcare as far as is reasonably practical, but I also understand from research that has been done that many local authorities are not undertaking childcare sufficiency audits, which obviously means that they will not provide sufficient childcare. Given the new responsibility given to the Secretary of State, is that the sort of thing that he will be able to require local authorities to do?
Lord True
My Lords, as a local authority leader I am obviously grateful for the way that my noble friend responded. I understand precisely what he said about flexibility. At the moment, local authorities have to deliver the universal entitlement, the conditional entitlement and the targeted benefit for two year-olds. This will be another, different category of support. He is quite right to say that that needs to be thought through. I am not going to alarm the House as I once alarmed Whitehall by pronouncing the dread word “voucher”, but there are all sorts of ways that these things can be looked at.
I am worried that as a House our gift to Lady Nash is detaining my noble friend Lord Nash here at great length, but the only thing I would say, given this opportunity, is that local authorities will not find this easy. I agree with the permissive approach that my noble friend has endorsed and I am grateful for that, but just to inform the House, I asked my officials what it would potentially cost to extend provision to 30 hours across our existing maintained sector. Because of the constraints on building and taking a reasonable view that the regulations will not be less demanding than existing ones, capital investment would be more than £6 million for our maintained schools. That was in a local authority with a low proportion of maintained to private and voluntary provision.
While I understand the aspiration of the noble Baroness to enable local authorities to come forward, I think the Government and the House need to understand that the resource constraints on local authorities in filling such a gap would be considerable.
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch
I thank noble Lords —we have had a good short debate. I understand the point of the noble Lord, Lord True, that, although we can recognise the success of local authorities’ involvement until now, this would be a new challenge for them. Of course, if you follow the logic of that through—I think the noble Lord was making a bid for some extra money when he talked about the capital costs—there is no guarantee that the Secretary of State or local authorities will have the extra money to fund some of that capital build that we all know would be necessary.
I have listened very carefully to what the Minister said, but I have to say that he was not very persuasive on this matter. He said that they are consulting. I understand, and we agree with the need to consult, but if that is the case, how come this is very specifically in the Bill when everything else could or could not be part of regulations?
My key concern is that the Minister did not address the complexity of running a parallel system. The noble Lord did not respond to the question of whether local authorities would still be responsible for the first 15 hours. As I said in my opening remarks, it appeared that they would be responsible for the first 15 hours, so making somebody else responsible for the next 15 hours does not seem to make sense at any level.
I shall withdraw the amendment, but I think this is something that needs a great deal more thinking through before we get to Report. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
The Earl of Listowel
The Earl of Listowel
My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendment 5, and to Amendments 8 and 9.
I want to include homeless families. I want them to have the offer of 30 hours’ high-quality childcare each week. More than 90,000 children in England are living in temporary accommodation, and more than 2,000 families in England are living in bed-and-breakfast accommodation. These are the worst figures in seven years.
I do not know who is to blame for the current situation, but we seem somehow not to have produced enough housing. As a landlord, I know how challenging it is to be a landlord. I feel how badly we, as a nation, have all let these wonderful families down by not providing adequate housing for them. I think there can be some ambivalence about social housing. I have heard a couple of colleagues say, and I understand their concern, “If you offer social housing, then young women will have babies in order to get on the housing list, and we will be creating a culture of dependency”. My response to that is “Perhaps some might”. There is the other perverse situation in which women may bring up children on their own because, in order to get a home, the father has to live separately. On the continent, they seem to be more humane, and they do produce sufficient housing. In Italy, Germany and France the rate of teenage pregnancies is lower than ours. They do not have as much family breakdown as we do. So, experience elsewhere suggests that that ambivalence about providing adequate housing for our people is not necessary. People—families—need decent homes if they are to thrive and do well and secure employment. That is the context of the amendment.
Many years ago, I went with a health visitor to a number of households in Redbridge, in east London. One had damp running down the walls, another had a flooded basement that the landlord would do nothing about. In one, bizarrely, the lavatory was somehow part of the shower arrangement. The mother slept with her child in her bed. The provision was overcrowded and of poor quality.
I have also spoken on a number of occasions with mothers in temporary accommodation. Barnardo’s used to run a project called Families in Temporary Accommodation, managed by John Reacroft. I was fortunate to speak to those mothers about their experience. What I gathered from them is the isolation they have experienced: they might well be placed many miles away from their community, their family, their friends, and they might have to make a number of bus journeys to get where they need to go. Of course, there was also the uncertainty in their lives resulting from living in temporary accommodation.
I therefore encourage the Government to accept this part of the amendment, so that such children can get respite from an unstable and chaotic situation at home, and can have the stability of a hopefully high-quality nursery placement. I ask the Minister to consider asking the Education Secretary if there might be some ministerial discussion about the issue of homeless families, and what the Department for Education thinks needs to be done in this area.
The next subsection of the amendment is concerned with families with children at risk of significant harm. Visiting a nursery some time ago and being told that one of the mothers was a heroin addict helped me to think a little about this issue. Many of these parents will be addicted to either drugs or alcohol, so the benefits for them of having access to 30 hours’ free child care would actually be for the siblings of those three year-olds. Often, it is the siblings in an alcoholic or drug-addicted family who look after the younger children, so the elder children can get a break from having to worry about and care for the younger children. If the parent is taking part in a drug or alcohol programme, that allows them to immerse themselves in that programme, to build new relationships—their old relationships would probably lead them towards a drink or a drug—and to take a full part in the therapy offered, develop new activities and move on.
The family drug and alcohol court, which the last Government were so good at supporting strongly, is helping many families across the country to get off drugs and alcohol. Children who are at risk are, thanks to this work, able to remain with their parents. It has about a 50% success rate. A judge follows a family throughout a year and ensures that the parents give up their addiction and they can keep their children. I encourage the Minister to consider offering this opportunity to families with children at risk.
I turn to my proposal for literacy and numeracy courses. Perhaps it is a bit hard to define what those courses should be, but the research is very clear. I pay tribute to the work of many years by the National Institute of Adult Continuing Education and the Workers’ Educational Association, and to the recent report that my noble friend Lady Howarth of Breckland chaired for NIACE, which shows the benefits of family learning. It is so important to educational outcomes that parents be given the opportunity to learn, as well. When they start placing their children in education, they begin to want to learn, too. I am afraid that one can find, especially with very underprivileged families, that when parents are not given that nutrition and nourishment they may get resentful of their children, who are. I remember hearing of one mother—no, I will not go into the details of a rather painful story. However, it is very good to nourish both parents and children.
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch
My Lords, I want to propose Amendment 11 on the definition of a working parent, which adds our suggested categories to the list proposed by other noble Lords. In his response to the Second Reading debate, the Minister said that “working”—and by this we assumed that he meant “working parent”—
“will be defined as the equivalent of eight hours per week, will include self-employed work, and that lone parents will be able to access the entitlement”.
He added that,
“more detailed criteria will be subject to consultation in due course”.—[Official Report, 16/6/15; col. 1128.]
As we have discussed, we have not yet seen the more detailed criteria that will be the subject of that consultation, so on this basis we are helping the noble Lord along in this process by making some more helpful suggestions.
We discussed the report of the Delegated Powers Committee earlier. I thought it made a telling comment, because the Government had stated that their intention in the Bill was to send,
“a clear message to parents and providers about the Government’s commitment”.—[Official Report, 16/6/15; col. 1130.]
In its response, the committee said that it did not feel that the purpose of an Act was to send a message. I do not think we are sending much of a message to parents anyway if they do not know what the qualification criteria will be for this free childcare. Our objective behind Amendment 11, which by its very nature is a probing amendment, is to make the eligibility as simple but also as widespread as possible. Through this amendment, we want childcare to be available, free of charge, for qualifying children for a period equivalent to 30 hours in each of 38 weeks in any year for parents who: are not in work but are receiving job training; are,
“the main carer for a family member”;
or are on zero-hours contracts. More than that, we want by this amendment to ensure that “working parents” includes parents who have had their contracts,
“unexpectedly ended through no fault of their own”.
This is a point well made by the Child Poverty Action Group, which argues that generous rules should be established for parents who place their children in childcare when in work but subsequently lose their jobs through no fault of their own.
The Government have so far reached a definition of working parents without conducting any consultation on or assessment of how many children would miss out on the Bill’s provisions. At Second Reading, the Minister stated that a working parent is a parent who works a minimum of eight hours per week. Then in the policy statement issued later, he added an important detail refining the definition of a working parent as one who works a minimum of eight hours per week earning the national minimum wage. That leaves even more questions to be answered. For example, what happens in the case of parents earning below the national minimum wage? Although that is illegal, as we know, employers in disadvantaged areas often practise this. The Government have been given plenty of evidence of this illegal practice for some years now and have done very little about it. If the aim of this policy is to get parents back into work, surely it should be extended to parents on jobseeker’s allowance who are receiving training to get back into work. Alternatively, parents may be engaging in regular voluntary work as a means to build experience and their CV while seeking paid employment. Has the Minister any thoughts on how these categories of parents can be supported with childcare?
Parents on zero-hours contracts do not have a set number of hours to work a week. There are some women and some men whose shifts are cancelled at short notice—that day, and there is no work and no pay. These parents would not meet the eight hours per week criteria. Will they be penalised by this measure? Would they become criminalised if they had already filled in a form expecting to work eight hours per week but, due to circumstances beyond their control, were unable to do so? We also have a growing number of carers, with more and more people giving up their jobs or cutting back on hours to care for a family member. Have the Government accounted for the care sector in the delivery of the additional hours of free childcare?
These questions and many more are being left unanswered, so I hope that the Minister can confirm that he is taking on board the many examples we are all giving this evening, and come back with some further examples which embrace many of these wider definitions that we have been spelling out.
Baroness Massey of Darwen
My Lords, I shall speak briefly to Amendment 25. I support the amendments in this group, which look at what constitutes a working parent. Here, I would maintain that grandparents can fulfil that definition of a working parent if they are looking after a child or children, and they should get the same childcare opportunities as working parents. I will explain why in a moment. Grandparents are bringing up children because the parents of the child may be dead, in prison or addicted to alcohol or drugs. For grandparents, the welfare of the child is so paramount that many put their own lives on hold. They need and deserve support.
The issue of grandparent, or general kinship, care has been discussed in relation to many Bills over the past 10 years at least. I became aware of the issues facing kinship carers, particularly grandparents, when I chaired the National Treatment Agency for Substance Misuse. I met many grandparents who were suffering hardship. It is estimated that 300,000 children are being raised by relatives and friends—and I mean raised full-time. They are doing a job: they are looking after and bringing up someone else’s child or children. An estimated 60,000 kinship carers have dropped out of the labour market to bring up children. Many have decreased their working hours or their income. One reason is the high cost of childcare. Other kinship carers, usually grandparents, have retired from work. They and their grandchildren would benefit from extra free childcare. I know what they are already entitled to, but if they are not working the new provisions in the Bill will not apply. Many kinship carers are under severe strain and could be helped, as could the children they are bringing up, by more hours of childcare.
I met a grandparent a couple of years ago who used to work but gave up when her daughter died of a drug overdose. She took over responsibility for three children, aged between one and four, left with her one midnight. She was exhausted and needed more space for herself, and the children needed more stimulation than she could give. She was not helped by the bureaucracy of her local authority, from which she had little help or support. In a recent survey, 95% of kinship carers said that they had experienced at least one unmet need for support. Kinship carers have few rights, few specific services and a complex and confusing system to negotiate. The woman I just spoke about said, “I ought to be reading to my grandson but I have to spend my time filling in forms”. According to a survey by Family Lives, most feel that parenting is more challenging than it was a generation ago.
I am talking about committed carers, devoted to their grandchildren or relatives, who have taken over in a family crisis. They save the taxpayer about £750 million a year. Surely, these carers should be given support. Being able to access free extra childcare would make a huge difference to their lives and the lives of the children in their care.
Baroness Pinnock
At Second Reading, I raised considerable concerns about the lack of a definition of working parents. I welcome the contributions so far, which have tried to expand the definition of working parents that the Minister gave at Second Reading, which is now written in the policy statement he provided at the end of last week. If the Government’s aim is to enable more people to go out to work by providing additional free childcare, I think we need a wider definition than that the Minister provided.
I am particularly concerned about people who go into education and training. They, too, ought to qualify for the additional 15 hours’ free childcare. We know two things. One is that many young parents have missed out, somewhere along their route through life, on accessing further education or training, either by choice or not. We also know that skill levels in this country are not as high as we would like them to be. One of the best ways back into the workforce is by gaining extra skills or qualifications through further or higher education. The Government ought to be enabling and encouraging this to happen by including parents in education or training in their definition of working parents. I urge the Minister to consider that addition seriously.
Baroness Howarth of Breckland
My Lords, I have a very straightforward and simple question for the Minister. When I first read the Bill, I was struck by the phrase “working parents”. Do the Government really mean working parents or do they mean those with parental responsibility? One of the things the Minister will know about family construction in this country is that nuclear families, with two parents and two children, are at a minimum. I spent my life in the children’s court system looking at extraordinarily complex types of families. People with parental responsibility might be kin such as grandparents, aunts or other relatives, or they might not be directly related but have been given some sort of kinship care prior to adoption. There is a whole range there and I hope that the Bill, at some point, will make it clear that this is about those with parental responsibility. That would end the debate about a whole range of the issues that have just been raised.
Lord True
My Lords, the noble Baroness makes a very interesting point. I will intervene on a slightly different tack. I have tried to present myself as friendly and caring so far, and I hope I am, but we have of course just heard a debate which has lasted half an hour with a range of different aspirations. Some are very worthy, including those on behalf of the homeless, grandparents and people with wider parental responsibilities, and some relate to whether different types of things are work or not. I have not counted how many categories have been suggested by your Lordships, but there are probably 10 and maybe 12, each of which has to be assessed and policed by somebody. I do not want to try my noble friend again, but this problem of defining the frontier and policing the entitlement arises from what I called earlier the net curtain between the so-called working and the so-called non-working—although there are wider issues in relation to broader parental responsibility.
At the moment we have a beautifully simple system: someone comes with a child of three or four; the providers simply tell the local authorities the numbers; a return is made; and money is given to the providers and paid over. Each one of these aspirations requires a different sort of assessment, probably by a different part of the public sector. It may even touch people who do not touch the public sector—there are sad cases of people who are deeply involved in caring but very hard to reach. I venture to say to the Committee that trying to get everything into one bottle will be extremely difficult. If the Minister wishes to keep the net curtain as he goes forward, there may be wisdom in trying to find different types of authority with the entitlement to do the assessment rather than putting it through.
I would prefer to keep it simple. Universal benefits are much simpler, although a means test can be applied if it is wanted. But I recoil with some fear, not particularly from the point of view of the local authority but from thinking about public administration, the ethical doubts and challenges, the frontiers that have to be defended, the rows and the unintended injustices that will occur from having too complex a system where it is hard to define the frontiers between working and non-working in a way that is perceived as “fair” and therefore sustainable. I believe that this debate illustrates the point I have been trying to make about public policy: good intentions, unless we are very careful in framing the regulations, will lead us into some very difficult places—and I hope that they never become dark ones.
Lord Nash
My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 5, 8, 9, 11, 25, 26 and 33. This group covers a range of amendments on eligibility. I appreciate the intentions of noble Lords in laying these amendments and seeking further clarity on the definition of “working parent”. Perhaps I can clear up one point immediately, on whether a parent is someone with parental responsibility. This is defined in the Bill, in Clause 1(12)(a), which states that a,
“‘parent’, in relation to a child, includes any individual who … has parental responsibility for the child”.
The Government’s intention with this new entitlement is to support hard-working parents with the cost of childcare and to enable them, where they want, to return to work or work more. As I announced at Second Reading, parents working eight hours per week, including those who are self-employed, will be entitled to this additional provision.
The noble Earl, Lord Listowel, is well known for championing the case for support of the most disadvantaged, and he is absolutely right to do so. The Government provide a wide range of support to all families, especially the most disadvantaged. All families are of course entitled to 15 free hours of early education for three and four year-olds. Recognising that some children were missing out on the benefits of early education, we extended this to the most disadvantaged two year-olds. In particular, I know that the noble Earl will have welcomed that this includes looked-after children. We have been encouraging local authorities to ensure that many of these children can benefit from the support that is available.
The noble Earl raised the important issue of homeless families. I empathise of course with the practical challenges that such families face. Housing authorities and children’s services work together locally to ensure that the needs of children in homeless families are met. The Housing Act 1996 places a duty on authorities to co-operate with social services where children may be homeless intentionally or threatened with homelessness intentionally. However, I will be very happy to meet with the noble Earl on this matter. The Government are committed to supporting vulnerable groups such as care leavers. Our statutory guidance makes clear that local authorities, through the pathway planning process, must assess the needs and ambitions of their young people and set out how they will support them.
Amendment 9, in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, would include parents,
“on courses to improve their literacy or numeracy”.
The noble Baroness, Lady Jones, the noble Lord, Lord Touhig, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Pinnock and Lady Tyler, have, in separate amendments, also proposed that parents engaged in education or training or undertaking voluntary work or work experience for a minimum of eight hours per week should also qualify. As I have explained, the intention of this additional entitlement is to support working parents. If parents work at least eight hours per week, they will qualify regardless of whether they are engaged in education, training, voluntary work or additional work experience.
It may help the Committee if I explain the support that parents who are studying may already receive, in addition to the existing free entitlement. Parents who are under the age of 20 and are studying a publicly funded course are eligible for the Care to Learn scheme. This can provide vital financial support for childcare costs of up to £175 per child per week. For parents over the age of 20, discretionary learner support and childcare grants may also be available, depending on the nature of the education and training that parents participate in.
Where a child is deemed to be at risk of suffering or likely to suffer significant harm, the local authority has clear duties to investigate and to safeguard and promote the child’s welfare. This might include the provision of access to childcare provided by the local authority as part of a wider support plan.
Where a child is looked after, the local authority must make arrangements for their care, which might include support for childcare. The local authority must provide a fostering allowance which covers the full cost of caring for the child. For this reason, foster carers are not eligible for additional support through tax-free childcare or child tax credits for children who have been placed with them. We of course value the important role that foster carers undertake in looking after some of our most vulnerable children. However, whether foster care is considered work under the eligibility criteria for this additional childcare support is more complicated. I would welcome a further conversation outside the Chamber with the noble Earl on this issue.
I now turn to Amendment 25. The noble Baroness, Lady Massey, has rightly recognised the important role that grandparents play in the lives of children. In particular, some willingly and unselfishly accept the role as main carer for their grandchildren at a time in their lives that they should be able to dedicate to themselves after bringing up their own children. When grandparents have parental responsibility and meet the requirements that they are working, I hope the noble Baroness will be delighted to hear that they, too, will be eligible to benefit from the new entitlement. This will allow them to maintain their work or increase their hours so that they can support their grandchildren, safe in the knowledge that they will be well looked after.
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch
Can I ask a very simple question? The Minister did not specifically refer to the very telling comments from the noble Lord, Lord True, that, if you have too complicated a system with all the bureaucratic checking that needs to take place, it is a burden on the public bodies that have to do it—but also there is a cost involved. Is the funding review or one of the other reviews that is taking place going to look at whether having a universal system would not be a whole lot simpler than some of the tiers that we are now trying to put into place? I am not expecting an answer now, but it would be useful to know at least that these factors are being considered again.
Baroness Massey of Darwen
I apologise, because I know that everyone wants to get to supper, but I have a clarification point. In the Childcare Act 2006, which is quoted in the Bill, it says that,
‘“parent’ means a parent of a young child, and includes any individual who … has parental responsibility for a young child, or … has care of a young child”.
Did I understand the Minister to say that grandparents would still have to be working grandparents or that they would qualify because they would have parental responsibility or care for a child? Many of them are not working because they are too old or they have retired. Could he clarify that for me?
The Earl of Listowel
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his careful reply and his kind offer of a meeting to discuss homeless families and the status of foster carers. I note particularly what the noble Lord, Lord True, said about the complications of making such amendments possible. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.