Free Childcare Hours

Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton Excerpts

Tuesday 18th July 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

As the noble Baroness knows, we did a great deal of work in our review on ensuring that the pay for this was adequate. Indeed, that has been borne out by a number of independent parties. Some 145,000 people have now received a code. They then have to go to the provider and the provider has to come back to us to verify; 32% of them have done so already, which is well in advance of the September date—if they start in September. As I say, all the indications are that there will be adequate provision.

[Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton (Lab)]

My Lords, will the Minister, who often repeats his acclaim for high-quality education, encourage his colleagues in the Government to stop using “childcare” as an alternative expression for “nursery and early childhood education”? It is not the same. The experience is that good-quality nursery education provides a much better start for young children, particularly those from difficult backgrounds. Will he please encourage people not to use the term coterminously? Referring back to an earlier question about teachers, would he please accept that experience in Lancashire shows that employing bilingual young people to work with children as nursery nurses and teachers helps those for whom English is not their first language or mother tongue? It gives children a better start in their lives in education.

[Lord Nash]

I entirely agree with the noble Baroness. The evidence is clear: although we have had a dramatic increase in the quality of early years provision—it has risen from 69% to 93% rated good or outstanding by Ofsted since 2010—those attached to schools are the best. That is why we have been encouraging primary schools to open nurseries, and we will continue to do so through our free school process. She makes a very good point about bilingual nursery staff. Through our recruitment drive for teachers, we are working with the Spanish Government to recruit teachers from Spain. We are looking at whether we can work with France and Germany, and I will certainly take her point back to the teams.