Childcare Bill [HL]
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch Excerpts(8 years, 9 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)
My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for his progress report and for introducing the government amendments this afternoon. I am also grateful to him for the many meetings he has arranged since the Bill left this House, and in particular for the briefings on the outcome of the financial review.
As we stated at the outset and continue to make clear, we support the aims of the Bill. Our concern was that what could have been a more effective, ambitious and streamlined initiative to deliver free childcare has been let down by a lack of foresight and planning, and we continue to have that concern. So we were disappointed that the Government chose to reject our amendments in the Commons, because we believe that they would have enabled a more detailed analysis of the childcare funding system to take place, with properly costed long-term solutions to be put in place.
The amendments would also have ensured a proper degree of parliamentary scrutiny for a Bill which, as we rehearsed at the time, is skeleton in nature and relies on a raft of regulations to bring it to fruition. Instead, we will be reliant on debating secondary legislation —over which, quite clearly, we do not have the same influence—to agree the fundamentals of what the future childcare offer will be. I have listened carefully to the Minister’s outline of the next steps, and I am very grateful for the offer of continuing involvement in the regulations. I hope they will be as meaningful as he has now suggested, and let me make it clear to him that we will hold him to his word on this matter.
In the mean time, sadly, we are left with a Bill which is a pale shadow of its original ambition as set out by the Prime Minister at the election. The truth is that lots of parents who believed the election promises now stand to be disappointed. In order to bridge the funding gap, which, incidentally, we told the Government all along was a problem, the Government have now squeezed the eligibility for free places, so that less than half of all three and four year-olds will be eligible. The original plan was that 630,000 children would be eligible, and now that figure has been reduced to 390,000. It is the poorest parents who will lose out the most—those on the edge of the labour market with short hours, part-time work and zero-hours contracts. As we know, it is those parents, the most disadvantaged, whose children would benefit the most from the provision of quality childcare to help them to close the attainment gap. That is a fundamental regret of the Bill.
At the same time, despite the welcome injection of extra funds, the Government still do not appear to have squared the funding crisis. Research by the House of Commons Library has revealed a shortfall of £480 million over the Parliament, which means up to £470 per child per year. I am not sure that the latest figures announced by the Minister will square that figure. Those figures, which are backed by Ceeda research from the Pre-school Learning Alliance, make the case powerfully that the impact on the capacity in the system may lead to fewer rather than more places becoming available. In addition, as in the past, there appears to be no uprating mechanism, so that funding runs the risk of falling further behind over time. Will the Minister clarify how future costs will be evaluated year on year? He mentioned the national funding formula, but I am not sure that that will address those concerns.
I also regret that the Government did not pay more heed to our concerns and those raised by numerous stakeholders across the sector on these matters. Nevertheless, we do support the Bill. It clearly represents a step forward. For many parents, it will provide a welcome lifeline back into paid work and for many children it will become a new route into quality care, which will obviously give them a much better start in life. It addresses one segment of a much bigger problem of affordable childcare for all and the need to close the attainment gap between children on free school meals and their peers. In the mean time, we will continue to press this case. We will watch the rollout of the Bill with interest and we will participate in the scrutiny of the regulations with vigour. I thank the Minister for his commitment up to this point.
Baroness Pinnock (LD)
My Lords, I thank the Minister very much for what he said today and for the discussions that he organised during the course of the Bill. The Bill is very different from the one that first saw the light of day in this House, which was only notable by its lack of detail. It has certainly gained considerable flesh on the original skeleton, and I am grateful for that. However, it is not necessarily a fully formed being just because it has grown throughout its progress. We still have some concerns about the detail that the Minister has finally given the House today.
There has been a broad welcome across the House, which we agreed with, for the Government’s additional childcare offer. I will comment on two particular aspects of the Bill in its final form, in the light of the discussions that we had in this House. First, we have always been concerned about the funding. There were wide discussions in Committee and on Report about the viability of providers if there were no adequate recompense for the hourly rate, and we welcome the additional funding that the Government have put into that, albeit that it is 30p an hour. I have great concerns that it will not up be upgraded annually by either RPI or CPI. If it is not, that will put additional stress on the financial viability of providers.
An issue that we on this side particularly raised in the course of the discussions was that of the additional capital that should be made available to enable providers to offer the further 15 hours, and there were many discussions about how that could be achieved. I welcome the Government’s capital fund that they have set aside for just that purpose, which demonstrates that some of the arguments we made have been recognised, albeit perhaps not enough, in my view.
Baroness Pinnock
My Lords, noble Lords will recall that, on this side, we secured the support of the House for our amendment to include a flexible approach to the implementation of the additional 15 hours of free childcare. We did so because parents and providers told us that the main barrier to their working hours was access to childcare after school hours and during school holidays. Indeed, many parents—especially mothers—expressed to us the horror with which they viewed forthcoming school holidays, particularly the long six-week summer holiday, because of the difficulties they had in either affording childcare or dealing with it in some other way through family and friends. I have read with interest, and noted with satisfaction, that the Minister in the other place conceded the need for flexibility when he said:
“I completely agree with the principle of the amendments tabled in the other place”.—[Official Report, Commons, Childcare Bill Committee, 10/12/15; col. 103.]
I have listened very carefully to the Minister today and welcome his statement in support of the need for flexibility. We are, at last, all agreed: flexibility is important. Although we can all agree on the principle, it is the implementation that interests me. I also welcome and thank the Minister for his concessions towards implementing a flexible childcare offer. I am glad that, on this side, we have continually raised the issue of flexibility, which has put that bit of pressure on the Government to think about it and come up with an approach to dealing with it. It is absolutely vital to the lives of many working families that we address their difficult daily conundrums of “Am I going to get back from work in time to pick the children up?” or “What am I going to do in the school holidays?”—in fact, to have an offer which enables people to go to work with the worries of childcare not first and foremost in their minds.
I really do thank the Minister for what he said today. I will summarise it and then I will have a think about whether it is enough. First, he said that he will put in the regulations the need to support local authorities in developing a flexible approach. That seems to have it written down and, as long as the regulations are up to scratch, seems something that will work in providing flexibility. He also said that four out of eight of the early implementers—the pilot schemes, in my phraseology —will test this out. That also seems a very positive and constructive approach. He mentioned extra funding. I did not quite hear how much he said it would be. Perhaps he could repeat that in his response. If there is extra money, I am always in favour of that, especially if it is for childcare. I think he said that local authorities would be required to be transparent in their offer. Using the examples he gave of Bradford, Brighton and Hove, Swindon and so on would show other local authorities what they could follow and replicate. If that is transparent and open, that would also be positive.
I welcome the approach to childminders, who play an enormously important role in the provision of childcare in this country. To encourage them to do more than in their own domestic setting is very much to be welcomed because it will enable a more flexible offer to lots of working parents, who often use more than one provider to enable their working lives to continue. They drop their children off with childminders before work; then the childminder takes them to a professional provider and collects them; the childminder has them at the end of the working day and the school day, and they are collected from there. To envelop all the providers into one—I hope—coherent package is very much to be welcomed.
It seems that great strides have been made towards enabling a more flexible approach, both out of school hours and during the school holidays. I hope that will, first, enable more parents to develop their own skills in the workforce without those constant worries that their children are not being properly and adequately cared for; and, secondly, enable more families to become financially secure, albeit not the families that I mentioned earlier. Given that the Minister has made such a great stride towards meeting the thoughts that I had on the flexible offer in childcare, I will hear what other noble Lords say but I thank him for the movement he has made. I beg to move.
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch
My Lords, I will speak very briefly on these amendments. As noble Lords will know, we agreed with and very much supported the amendment originally proposed by the noble Baroness on Report and we still think that the principles behind it are important. We also noted, both on Report and in the Commons, Ministers’ wording when they agreed with what was proposed; that is, they agreed with the concept of flexibility and the need to build more flexibility into the system, so obviously that is very welcome. I suppose that my one remaining concern is that “flexibility” may be all things to all people. It can hide a thousand sins. I would like to drill a little more into what is meant by that word. The noble Baroness’s original amendment specifically referred to flexibility being in the context of extending opening hours beyond nine to five and making provision in school holidays. It would be very helpful if the Minister could confirm that “flexibility”, in his terms, is about those sorts of issues and not some weaker concept.
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch
My Lords, I do not know whether this is the appropriate time to do so, but before the Bill passes, I wanted to extend my thanks to the Minister and his civil servants for their courtesy throughout its passage. I know that it will continue to be extended to my noble friend Lord Watson for many months to come.
Childcare Bill [HL]
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch Excerpts(9 years, 1 month ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Lord Nash) (Con)
My Lords, I would like to take this opportunity to express my thanks to noble Lords for their support, challenge and dedication throughout the passage of this Bill. I very much appreciate the expertise that Peers have brought to the House on the complex subject of childcare, and I hope noble Lords feel that I have listened to concerns raised and addressed them appropriately. I particularly would like to thank the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, who has provided strong and heartfelt opposition on this Bill, and I greatly appreciated working with her on the education brief over the last Parliament. I will miss her on the education brief, and I wish her well with her new one. I will, of course, be keeping noble Lords up to date with the progress of the Bill, and am committed to holding a meeting on the funding review following the spending review. I look forward to working with noble Lords on the Education and Adoption Bill.
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for making time available during the passage of the Bill and outside of the official process to meet with noble Lords on a number of occasions. It was very much appreciated and helped to clarify a great many issues. I also thank the Bill team for their sterling efforts in producing a Bill at short notice and in difficult circumstances. The Bill is leaving this place in a better shape than when it arrived, suitably amended but with many questions still unanswered, so I look forward to hearing about further positive progress when the Bill is considered in the Commons and in other meetings that the Minister may be organising, so that we can achieve our shared and important goal of increasing free childcare for working parents.
Childcare Bill [HL]
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch Excerpts(9 years, 1 month ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
“Funding review
(1) Sections 1 to 3 shall not come into force until the Secretary of State has—
(a) established an independent review of the free childcare entitlement funding system, including a large-scale analysis of the cost of delivering funded places; and(b) put in place a comprehensive and sustainable funding solution, which takes into account the complete findings of the review under paragraph (a), and which addresses the funding of existing childcare and the additional requirements on childcare providers arising from this Act.(2) The review to be established under subsection (1)(a) shall consult local authorities, childcare providers, employers, parents and others with an interest.
(3) Where the Secretary of State’s funding solution under subsection (1)(b) does not follow the recommendations of the review under subsection (1)(a), the Secretary of State must publish a report outlining the reasoning.
(4) Any report published under subsection (3) must be laid before each House of Parliament.”
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)
My Lords, we have repeatedly said that we support the concept of extending free childcare. It was a manifesto pledge and I do not need to repeat the arguments because in principle we share the Government’s ambitions on this issue, as do most of your Lordships in the Chamber today. But we want a policy that will not just grab the headlines; we want a policy that will work. Sadly, this is where we and the Government part company.
The truth is that the progress of the Bill has been an exercise in how not to make legislation. The Government have incurred the wrath of both the Constitution Committee and the Delegated Powers Committee. To recap, the Constitution Committee criticised the Bill in the following terms:
“Legislation of this type increases the power of the Executive at the expense of Parliament. The Childcare Bill is an example of a continuing trend of constitutional concern to which we draw the attention of the House”.
Meanwhile, the Delegated Powers Committee described it as a “skeleton” Bill, saying:
“The remarkable imbalance between the provision that appears in the Bill itself and what is to be left to regulations, and the scarcity of explanation in the memorandum, has led us to question whether members will be in a position to contribute meaningfully to debates at Committee Stage and Report Stage”.
Despite the Government agreeing to go away and consider these concerns, the latest report of the committee, issued yesterday, is scathing. It says that the committee is,
“surprised and disappointed that many of our recommendations have not been acted upon. It appears to us that the amendments add very little … to the face of the Bill”.
This lack of detail was raised by us and others in Committee. In order to make progress, the Government made a number of commitments about further information that would be available on Report, at the heart of which was a promise to conduct, and report on the findings of, a funding review which would explain how the additional free childcare hours would be funded. This information is fundamental to the success or otherwise of the Bill.
In response to our amendments on this issue in Committee, the noble Lord, Lord Nash, acknowledged our concerns. He said that,
“we are conducting a thorough review. The review will report in the autumn and will inform our decisions on the level of funding that providers require to deliver quality childcare, and as I said, we will report on these findings by Report”.—[Official Report, 1/7/15; col. 2161.]
This could not be clearer, but, sadly, this is not what has happened. We will hear today from the Minister that the Government have reported in advance on part of the review—the part based on a call for evidence of people’s experiences in the childcare sector. Of course these responses are not to be dismissed, although, by the Government’s own admission, it was not a scientific survey—but that is not the point. The point is that there are real questions about how these new places are to be funded and what will happen if they are not fully funded. This was to form a central part of the funding review and, sadly, this is what we have been denied so far.
There were also real concerns from the sector that the way the funding review is being carried out has raised a number of queries. I have received numerous messages of support for our amendments in the light of that. For example, I have received a detailed critique from the CEO of a nursery chain in Stafford setting out his concerns about the way the survey and the follow-up round tables were conducted by Deloitte. He said that the survey questions were far too imprecise and open to subjective interpretation, rather than an attempt to gather detailed unit cost information. He further reported that at a well-attended and well-informed round table in Coventry, there was considerable concern that the evidence already gathered by respected bodies such as Ceeda and the PLA was simply being ignored. But we are never going to have the opportunity to scrutinise this evidence. In fact, we are now being told that the final funding review will not be published until the Chancellor has conducted the spending review on 25 November—well after the Bill will have left the House.
At its core, this is not about the Government’s disregard of Parliament, important though that is. It is important because we do not believe that the offer being made for free childcare in this Bill is viable without a considerable injection of money. Quite frankly, we do not believe that the Chancellor will be persuaded to find the necessary additional funds to make the scheme work. Why is this important? The current nursery providers gave evidence to the Select Committee on Affordable Childcare that the current scheme is being run at a loss, with complicated systems of cross-subsidy. Put simply, if you increase the free hours, you reduce the opportunities for cross-subsidy, and the whole scheme collapses.
The Pre-school Learning Alliance, which speaks for many in the private nursery sector, has estimated that the cost will be at least 20% more than the Government’s original estimate of £350 million. It stresses the need for a sustainable mechanism to ensure that funding rates cover delivery costs in the long term, and that is what we are seeking. Meanwhile, a recent IPPR report says that the Government have grossly underestimated the cost of this scheme, which they calculate to be £1.6 billion in 2017-18: £1 billion more than the Government’s estimate. The National Association of Head Teachers found that almost 80% of the nurseries based in schools are cross-subsidising the places from the rest of the school budget, as they are running at a loss, and that two-thirds thought that they would have to reduce the number of children they could accommodate if the new entitlement went ahead.
Lord Nash
My Lords, I would like to speak to Amendments 1, 30 and 31 tabled by the noble Baronesses, Lady Jones, Lady Pinnock and Lady Tyler and the noble Lord, Lord Touhig. I understand the concerns that the noble Baronesses and the noble Lord are seeking to address through these amendments. I share their view that we need to get the funding for the entitlement right. Much of the success of the extended entitlement rests on sustainable levels of funding. However, I do not agree that these amendments are the right way to deliver that outcome. Indeed, it would simply risk delaying substantially implementation for working parents, which has been widely welcomed. This Government have already shown their commitment to ensuring that funding levels will be sufficient to deliver the 30 hours’ free childcare for the working parents of 3 and 4 year-olds. The Prime Minister himself has already committed to an increase in the rate paid to providers; indeed, we were the only party to commit to such an increase during the general election.
We have acted swiftly upon our promises. Within a month of the general election, we brought forward this legislation and committed to early implementation of the extended entitlement for parents in some areas from 2016, so that we can test the provision, which is so important. We definitely do not wish to delay, because although 2017 may seem a long way off, there is a lot to get right. At the June budget, we made financial provision for the extended entitlement, announcing £840 million, including Barnett consequentials, in 2018-19. That is the current estimated cost before the average hourly rate that providers receive is raised and indicates a further commitment by this Government to the delivery of the extended entitlement. We have listened and addressed the concerns of a sector that has been asking for a review of funding for early years, by establishing a review on the cost of providing childcare as soon as possible. As I have said, this is the most detailed national review of childcare that has ever been conducted. It is a very complicated issue, as noble Lords heard yesterday, and we do not believe that we should delay.
I hope we can all agree that it is clear that we share the same objective—one which the noble Baronesses and the noble Lord have set out in their amendments. We, too, want to establish a sustainable funding solution that addresses concerns about the delivery of the existing entitlement and supports providers to deliver the extension to the entitlement. We have no interest in a solution that will not work for providers. Under the last Government we expanded childcare very substantially and successfully and we fully intend to do so again.
Noble Lords raised the question of funding and the funding review in Committee. Understandably, there were many questions about how the review would be conducted and what it would cover. We have sought to provide more information about the analysis of the first findings of the call for evidence, the terms of reference and the policy statement. The Government have also made very clear their intention to publish the final report from the review following the spending review. The findings from the review will feed directly into the spending review, which is imminent, as we all know. That is where decisions about future funding rates will be made. It is important therefore that the review is complete in order to inform this process. The Budget and the spending review are the appropriate times for the Government to set out their spending plans and Parliament debates those plans at the appropriate time. Legislating for the childcare entitlement is not the time to have this debate.
However, I have listened to concerns raised by noble Lords about ensuring that this Bill is scrutinised by Parliament once the Government’s spending plans are made clear at the spending review. Third Reading will be on 26 October and the Bill will then be sent to the other place in the usual way. It is then only four weeks until completion of the spending review. Although noble Lords would not expect me to be able to comment on the precise timetabling of business in the other place, there are no plans for the Bill to reach Royal Assent before that review concludes. I hope that noble Lords will find that statement helpful.
A delay to the coming into force of key provisions of the Bill will have a knock-on effect on the ultimate delivery of childcare to parents, delaying our consultation process as well as the start of early implementation. The purpose of the review is to provide a robust analytical underpinning for a funding rate that is fair for providers and delivers value for money to the taxpayer.
The review team is considering a significant body of existing and new evidence, such as published research and academic studies, and evidence provided by sector representatives, as well as studies recently commissioned by the Department for Education conducted by a number of consultancy companies. Some noble Lords have met the review team which, led by the department’s chief analyst, is working on two key analytical strands. I think that noble Lords found the meeting yesterday with the chief analyst helpful. I am sorry that the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, was not able to come yesterday, as I think she would have found it very informative. However, if she would like me to set up a separate meeting for her to meet the chief analyst, I would be delighted to do so.
The first of these two analytical strands looks at providers’ costs and the second considers the supply and demand side of the childcare market. Both are complicated and key to informing our work. The review team recognises that there is huge variation in costs between different providers and between children with varying needs, and the analysis and modelling will allow scenario testing to understand the drivers and consequences of these differences, which will inform our testing in the early-implementation pilot studies.
In Committee many noble Lords raised the importance of the review looking at the costs of providing childcare for children with additional needs. It is absolutely right that it should do so, and we are grateful to those specialist providers and charities that have helped us with this question. We will extend the analysis in the review to consider the characteristics of the families that will be eligible for the new entitlement, including which families it will help back into work or help to increase their income. Details like this are extremely complicated, yet we are clear that they need to be considered carefully to ensure that the system is funded to support all children who wish to access it.
The Government greatly value the opportunity to engage with those who are directly affected by our policies. We have been engaging extensively with all of these groups, both through face-to-face meetings and via other channels. Key organisations in the sector such as the National Day Nurseries Association have welcomed the extended entitlement and have been key partners in the delivery of the review of the cost of childcare. While we are aware of their concerns on the delivery of the extended offer, we have sought their involvement in the development of our policies and the review in particular.
Noble Lords will have seen the report we published on 2 October on the analysis of the responses to our call for evidence. We had over 2,000 responses, the majority from providers—and, as I have said, already over 1,000 providers have come forward, wanting to be involved in the pilot studies. These responses gave us very useful information, which is informing the content of the review. The findings from the call for evidence will help us put into context the work we are doing on understanding providers’ costs. The review team has followed up to gather more detailed information from some of the providers that responded to the call for evidence.
As part of our plans for engaging with stakeholders we have also held a series of round tables over the summer across the country. The round tables have been a valuable opportunity to engage with providers face to face and to tease out some of the issues that were raised in the call for evidence, building on the significant body of evidence that we are considering and looking at the challenges that providers will face in delivering the extended entitlement, while always remembering that the providers would not be doing their jobs properly if they were not asking for more money, because we are, after all, in a negotiation with them.
The childcare sector is healthy, vibrant and growing. It has grown substantially in recent years—by 12% over the three years from 2009 to 2012. It is not a sector that is severely underfunded, and the number of providers offering places under the entitlement has also continued to increase. The market has demonstrated that it is able to respond to the extension of the free entitlement. We just need to look at the rollout of the entitlement for disadvantaged two-year olds, which was introduced in the last Parliament.
I turn now to the proposal of the noble Baronesses and noble Lord for a review to be independent. In coming to a decision about the most appropriate type of review, the timings of different review options, as well as the cost to the taxpayer, were significant factors leading to our decision for this to be a government review with an element of external validation and scrutiny. We determined that the most appropriate approach would be a cross-government review with expert support from outside.
We all know that there is a rigorous and time-bound process supporting any government spending provisions, particularly when increases to particular budgets are involved. Our priority has been to secure our knowledge and understanding of providers’ costs and to inform the discussions on sustainable funding rates during the spending review this autumn. An independent review would have taken significant time to set up and its findings would, therefore, not have been available to feed in to the spending review. This is a vital point. It was important that we move quickly to set up the review and meet our commitment to providers to increase the rate.
We believe strongly that the review under way strikes the correct balance of needing to move quickly and thoroughly. If we now delay, it would be for a considerable period of time because, as I have outlined, the issues here are complicated and it would take considerable time for an independent review to get its mind round it. This would put under threat the timing of delivering the full offer in 2017, because it would delay the consultation, the regulations and, most importantly, the pilot schemes.
I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, for his comments on this. He so ably argued and explained why a delay would be a bad idea, and grasped quickly the fact that it would not be a short delay.
I am grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, for his comments about the impact that the Bill will have on social mobility, as it lifts more families into work or into more work.
As for the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, I know that she is very experienced in the field of local authorities. I found some of her comments yesterday particularly helpful. As for the wider envelope and taking that into account, I do not know about that, but I will take it back. My noble friend Lady Evans will talk later about cross-subsidies, but I can assure the noble Baroness that this review is very comprehensive, taking into account all the issues that local authorities will face, and I will take her points back.
I hope that I have provided sufficient reassurance as to the rationale for the way in which the Government have decided to conduct this review and the robustness of the processes that we are following. As I set out, the outcome of the review will be published later in the autumn, as, of course, will the spending review. It will provide sufficient explanation of the Government’s intentions and the next steps, and will be made available to Parliament. As I have said, there are no plans for the Bill to reach Royal Assent before that review is completed. I am happy to ensure that there will be further opportunity for this House to scrutinise the details of the legislation after the spending review has been published. As I mentioned in my opening remarks, I would be happy to host a further meeting with the funding review team after the spending review, if noble Lords would find that helpful.
As I will outline when we debate a later group of amendments tonight, the Government are proposing that the secondary legislation under the Bill will be subject to the approval of both Houses. This will provide an opportunity for further debate on the details of entitlement, once the funding review has concluded.
I hope noble Lords will agree that placing in primary legislation a requirement to conduct a review, which is already under way, is not necessary and could in fact delay the positive progress that has already been made if the Government were required to stop and begin again once the Bill receives Royal Assent. I therefore urge the noble Baroness and the noble Lords to withdraw their amendment.
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch
My Lords, first, I would like to thank noble Lords who have spoken in support of our amendments. I also thank the Minister for his statement and his subsequent comments. The Minister raised other issues in his statement that relate to other amendments, and I know that noble Lords will want to pick that up when we get to those items.
I want now to concentrate on the specific issues relating to the timing of the funding review. The Minister did not address in his response the concerns of the Delegated Powers Committee, which has once again criticised the Government for a lack of detail in the Bill. It does not believe that the case has been made for why all the detail should be contained in secondary legislation, to be seen at a later date, rather than in the Bill. I was sad that the Minister was not able to respond to that today.
Secondly, the Minister did not address why the Bill is being rushed through in advance of the outcome of the funding review being known, which might, as we have heard, fundamentally alter the shape of the package that will be on offer because of the complexities which I think we all now understand. In particular, he did not answer the question asked by my noble friend Lady Andrews about when he first knew that he would not be able to let us have the information that he promised us at an earlier stage. A lot was riding on that at the Committee stage and we feel let down by his lack of commitment.
I hear what the Minister said about the timing of the funding review and that it would be published after the spending review in November, but nothing that he has said so far has provided any reassurance that even Members of the Commons will have the opportunity to scrutinise the Bill at that stage. Clearly, the outcome of the funding review would need to be before them at the Commons Committee stage for there to be any chance of scrutiny of how the scheme will work in practice. Although I listened carefully to the Minister, I do not believe that he gave such a commitment.
This amendment is not about delaying the Bill. The Minister talked about scrutinising evidence and about consultation. All those things can go ahead as planned and still take place—we have got two years before the implementation date—so I do not believe that what we are asking for is unrealistic. There will be plenty of time before the Bill comes into force to allow the outcome to be published and properly scrutinised by both Houses, so the current rush to the statute book leaves us feeling sceptical about the motives.
I was saddened to hear the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, comment that he thought that a sustainable funding solution was unobtainable, because the scheme seems untenable in the long term if we do not have that. We cannot have a scheme where the funding is made available for one year and then left to drift for following years, which appears to be what is happening at the moment and is why the sector is so unhappy about the schemes now being funded at a loss. We need a response to that. I respect the views of the noble Lord, but I thought that he was being rather too pessimistic.
We believe that what we are suggesting is fair. It would not alter the implementation date of the Bill, but it would give us more reassurance that the scheme is workable and tenable in the longer term. We are not convinced by the Government’s response and would therefore like to test the opinion of the House.
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch
My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendment 9. Our amendment builds on the Minister’s own previous admission that a more detailed criterion was needed and his pledge to consider the issues again, taking into account what he described as our helpful contributions at Committee stage.
In this spirit, we are again trying to be helpful. Although the Government have made some concessions, we do not believe they have gone far enough, or are clear enough about which parents would qualify for the free hours. Again, we share the concerns of the most recent report of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, which criticises the Government for relying on the detail of the eligibility criteria being spelled out in regulation rather than on the face of the Bill. It went as far as to say it was “mystified” by this omission.
This is particularly important given that the Government seem to be rushing this Bill through because they want to send an early message to parents that the new entitlement is on its way. However, unless parents are clear on whether or not they will qualify, I rather think that that message will be lost on them. Of course, the current 15 hours of free entitlement applies to all parents, but the additional hours envisaged in this Bill will apply only to parents working a minimum of eight hours a week. I have to say that I do not think that that will go down well among parents with different circumstances sharing the facilities in nurseries. For example, nursery providers and parents will find themselves grappling with definitions and calculations. Some weeks parents will qualify, and other weeks they will not.
As the noble Lord, Lord True, pointed out in Committee:
“At the moment we have a beautifully simple system”.—[Official Report, 1/7/15; col. GC 2099.]
It is easy to administer, and there is a strong case for maintaining the additional free hours as a universal benefit.
However, if we accept the Government’s focus on just helping working parents with the cost of childcare, helping them return to work or to work more hours, then it is important that those new eligibility rules deliver that objective. That is what our amendment seeks to do. The first part of our amendment reflects the Government’s plan that there should be a minimum eight hours worked each week. The second part of our amendment identifies the exceptions to this rule for parents who are in the job market, training for work or unable to work through no fault of their own.
I submit that the categories we have identified are the very people whom the Government are most likely to help back into work by providing additional free childcare. These are the hard-working parents on the bottom rung of the jobs ladder, who will genuinely struggle with childcare costs. If the Government want to encourage work and extend working hours, these are the very people we need to help. Putting an artificial bar of a minimum of eight hours a week does not really address those concerns.
When the Minister addressed these issues in Committee he argued that there were some discretionary payments that might help parents who study or who were carers. The Minister has repeated those assurances today. However, that is very different from an automatic entitlement to free childcare and, as I have said, there is a strong case for keeping it simple. The Minister also made it clear that parents on flexible contracts, zero-hours contracts or who lose their job unexpectedly should not be disadvantaged. We welcome this commitment and our amendment seeks to enshrine it on the face of the Bill. Our amendment would provide a simple entitlement to categories of parents for whom the Minister has already expressed some sympathy. On that basis, I hope that the Government will feel able to support our amendment.
Baroness Pinnock
Throughout the debate, we have grappled with eligibility criteria. I recognise the fact that the Minister has listened and defined much more clearly the working parents who will qualify under the scheme. However, as the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, has just described, it will be a very complex scheme, as set out in the Bill.
I want to speak to Amendment 10, which we tabled, by first of all thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Evans, for reminding everybody that it was a Liberal Democrat initiative to ensure that 40% of two year-olds from the most deprived and disadvantaged families were for the first time given 20 hours of free childcare a week.
What concerns us here is the huge gap in childcare provision for the majority of parents and their children between the end of paternity or maternity leave and access to free childcare at age three. We want to keep reminding the House and the Government that this gap must be bridged. Despite what the Minister said, it will cost most parents who are in work around £400 a week, which is a significant sum of money, for their one and two year-olds to access full-time childcare. This is somewhat addressed by the tax-free childcare allowance of £1,000-plus a year, but that comes nowhere near addressing the substance of the bills that parents face.
The other issue that I want addressed and have consistently raised is that people who are out of work for more than a year find it increasingly difficult to get back into work. If we can reduce those barriers by providing free childcare, we will be helping them, their families and the state in the long term. That is why I continually raise this point whenever we debate childcare. For those reasons, I want to stress this amendment today. I know that it will not be supported across the House, but I want to keep reminding people about this issue. I shall keep coming back to it, because it is very important for many parents—and for social mobility, which the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, for instance, is concerned about. I hope that in the longer term the Minister will be able to address this gap in childcare provision.
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch
My Lords, I support these amendments. In essence they follow on from our earlier debate about funding. The noble Baroness has made a compelling case for the payment schemes being fully funded. This is important for providers and local authorities, who do not want to discover that once again, they are being expected to cross-subsidise the free places from other budgets or income streams. It is particularly important for children living in deprived areas, for whom additional funding from another pot simply might not be available.
We also support the strong case being made for an element of capital funding being included in the local authority grant. If part of the Government’s strategy is to increase demand and bring new people into the jobs market, rather than simply provide a higher subsidy for those already in work, extra capacity will need to be found. We cannot rely on the market to fill this gap, particularly in the poorer areas, so local authorities will need to step in and help.
The last thing that we want as a result of this Bill is for the gap in provision between the more affluent areas and deprived ones to widen, but if we are not careful that could be the consequence if the places are not fully funded. We support these amendments and the certainty that will arise from the commitment to funding being enshrined in the Bill.
Baroness Evans of Bowes Park
My Lords, I would like to speak to Amendments 24 and 25, tabled by the noble Baronesses, Lady Pinnock and Lady Tyler, to which the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, has just referred, and to which the noble Baronesses, Lady Andrews and Lady Howarth, referred earlier in relation to cross-subsidy.
On Amendment 24, I thank the noble Baronesses for highlighting the need for the rate paid to be sufficient for providers delivering the extended entitlement, and for bringing to my attention the need to secure provision for children in deprived areas. I understand the concerns they are seeking to address through these amendments, and the Minister mentioned earlier that we share the aim of getting the funding for the entitlement right. We are clear that this funding must be sufficient to ensure that providers are funded adequately to be able to deliver the additional requirements set out in the Bill.
We have listened to providers’ concerns that increasing government-funded hours will limit their ability to cross-subsidise from parent-funded hours and that delivering at current rates may not be sustainable. That is why the Prime Minister has committed to increase the average hourly funded rate paid to providers. As was mentioned earlier, we are the only party to have made this commitment. We have already committed £840 million of new funding to deliver the extended entitlement, and that is before we deliver on our pledge to increase the hourly funding rate.
My noble friend Lord Nash has spoken at length about the review of the cost of providing childcare, the purpose of which is to provide a robust analytical underpinning for a funding rate that is fair and sustainable for providers and delivers value for money to the taxpayer. I confirm that the review will include in its consideration the needs of children in deprived areas. I also assure noble Lords that the Government understand the importance of early years education for children from disadvantaged households.
We know that high-quality early education can lead to higher attainment later but there is a persistent gap between children eligible for free school meals and their peers in the proportion achieving a good level of development in the early years foundation stage profile. This is why we introduced the early years pupil premium in April this year, which provides extra funding to early years settings for each three or four year-old child from a disadvantaged household. We have estimated that there will be around 170,000 children eligible for this extra support in 2015-16. We expect to receive the first data on take-up of the early years pupil premium by the end of this year and will consider these very carefully and take them into account when we develop future policy.
Turning to Amendment 25, the Government aim to deliver a quality free childcare entitlement, with capacity created cost-effectively without driving up costs to parents. The majority of working families with three and four year-olds already use more than 15 hours of childcare. This means that many children will already be in a childcare place and will not require a new one. Rather, the new extended entitlement will pay for the additional hours parents are already purchasing from an early years setting themselves, helping working families with the cost of childcare.
There is natural growth in the childcare system but we can, and should, encourage new providers to enter the market or existing providers to expand. Collaborative arrangements across different types of providers and increased flexibility for providers are important elements of this. That is why, for example, under the Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Act, childminders will be able to provide childcare on non-domestic premises.
The Government have already made a £100 million investment of capital in early years to support the expansion of provision for two year-olds. We believe there is existing capacity in the system to help deliver the new entitlement, and we are continuing to talk to local authorities to increase our understanding and evidence of where this is. The Government are committed to funding the extension of the entitlement at a level that ensures choice and flexibility for parents, is sustainable for providers, and is fair to the taxpayer. Decisions on the level of funding, including any capital, will be made in the forthcoming spending review. I therefore urge the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment.
Childcare Bill [HL]
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch Excerpts(9 years, 4 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Earl of Listowel (CB)
I am grateful to the noble Baroness for moving this amendment. The Child Poverty Action Group has told us that it welcomes this legislation because of the positive impact that it is likely to have on child poverty. I hope that it may be helpful to remind the House of concerns about other current factors in play which might impact on child poverty.
I am grateful to the Minister for agreeing to a meeting on the issue of homeless families. I am reminded of a couple of times recently where, due to a combination of policy factors, many poor families have had to move out of London because they can no longer afford to live here. That is causing concern to employers, as their workforce is leaving London, and one must be concerned that those families are going to areas where they will have difficulty finding employment. While I know that this is an extremely difficult issue, it is helpful when we are talking about policies which will raise children out of poverty to keep in mind other things that might be pushing children into poverty and to think carefully about what we can do to hit that on the head as well.
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)
My Lords, I add my support to the amendment and to the comments of the noble Baroness and the noble Earl. What the Government are proposing in terms of redefining child poverty is an absolute disgrace. What we need is not a change to the definition of poverty but a plan to deal with poverty. The truth is that, after child poverty fell under the previous Government, last week’s Households Below Average Income DWP statistics show that more than 4 million children have plunged into absolute poverty under this Government. The Government seem to be determined to disguise the fact that they are on course to miss the target of abolishing child poverty by 2020 by changing the statistical goalposts. So what assessment have the Government made of the DWP statistics? Do they accept that the number of children in absolute poverty is increasing?
Following on from the Oral Question on the Family and Childcare Trust report, Access Denied, how will the provisions of the Bill contribute to meeting the child poverty target when children in disadvantaged areas are expected to miss out disproportionately on the early years provision? Does the Minister accept that families on low incomes frequently work on unstable contracts both in terms of the hours they are offered each week and the length of contract? These are the points that we rehearsed in the debates last week. So how can we be assured that low-income families will benefit from these proposals rather than being penalised —or even possibly criminalised—by their uncertain working patterns, where, for example, shifts are cancelled at short notice and the eight-hours criterion is not always met? This is a real challenge for us. How are we going to measure the progress that we are making on these issues? How can we be assured that disadvantaged children are not going to miss out disproportionately once again through these proposals? I look forward to the noble Lord’s response.
Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)
My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 34, moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock. I recognise that, following recent announcements, noble Lords will be seeking to debate the wider issue of child poverty in the fullest way and I have no doubt that there will be further opportunities in the future. As the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions confirmed in the other place last Wednesday, the Government will be bringing forward legislation to remove the existing measures and targets in the Child Poverty Act, as well as the other duties and provisions. When this legislation is brought forward, there will of course be further opportunities to debate the many specific details. However, the legislation will at the same time introduce a statutory duty to report on measures of worklessness and educational attainment. We do not underestimate the importance of income and its impact on children’s life chances, but we are clear that the current low-income measures do not drive the right action to tackle the root causes of child poverty, which are what we really need to focus on. That is why we have set out our proposals for new measures.
Childcare Bill [HL]
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch Excerpts(9 years, 4 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
“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.
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 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.
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.
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 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?
Childcare Bill [HL]
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch Excerpts(9 years, 4 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Earl of Listowel (CB)
My Lords, this amendment would require the Secretary of State, within six months of this section of the Act coming into effect, to lay a report before both Houses of Parliament setting out the Government’s strategy for developing the early years workforce. It seeks to secure a commitment from the Minister that the Government will publish a strategy to increase the quality and capacity of that workforce. I shall try to be quick.
I am grateful to the National Children’s Bureau for helping to prepare the amendment. I should like to seek clarity from the Government regarding their plans to ensure that all children receiving 30 hours of free childcare can access high-quality early years education and childcare that promotes both their learning and their development and is delivered by well-trained and qualified practitioners. I would like the expansion of free childcare to be supported by an early years workforce improvement strategy, setting out how the Government intend to recruit and train new practitioners and retain existing practitioners through qualifications and career development support.
Evidence shows that a well-qualified, confident and experienced workforce is central to the delivery of early years services that improve young children’s outcomes. The Nuffield Foundation has recently reported on a strong relationship between the level of staff qualifications, the quality of provision as judged by Ofsted and outcomes for young children. Despite recognition that employing a graduate leader improves the quality of provision, since the graduate leader fund ended in 2011 there has been no dedicated national funding available for local authorities to support the training and qualifications of early years practitioners. In addition, reductions in local government budgets have meant that many local authorities can no longer subsidise training for new and existing practitioners. At present, only 14% of private, voluntary and independent settings employ a graduate, with few opportunities for these providers to fund graduate training.
Measures are also needed to improve the qualifications of non-managerial staff. A significant minority of practitioners are working in the sector despite not holding a level 3 qualification, an A-level qualification, the minimum recommended by the Nutbrown review of early education and childcare qualifications in order to deliver high-quality services to young children and their families. One-third of childminders do not hold a level 3 qualification and 14% are unqualified. In group settings, 13% to 16% of staff do not hold a level 3 qualification and 4% are unqualified.
A lack of investment in the early years workforce, coupled with an increase in staff vacancies and a reduction in childminder numbers, is limiting the capacity of the early years sector to provide high-quality free entitlement places for three and four year-olds, with the greatest impact being felt by providers in poorer areas—areas that are required to deliver a greater proportion of free places for disadvantaged two year-olds.
Between 2011 and 2013, there was a 42% increase in staff vacancies in full-day care settings and a 59% increase in staff vacancies in sessional care settings. During the same period, the number of active childminders fell by 6%, from 48,800 to 46,100. I would argue that a review of the workforce delivering the free entitlement for three and four year-olds should be undertaken in order to ascertain existing and projected gaps in workforce capacity prior to the extension of free childcare to 30 hours. This review would help to ensure that accurate targets for increasing the number of graduates, graduate leaders and level 3 practitioners are set out in the workforce strategy.
The Department of Health’s health visitor implementation plan set measureable targets for increasing the health visiting workforce and is expected to miss its 2015 recruitment target of 4,200 new health visitors by only 3%. That is a tremendous achievement on the Government’s part.
If I may say so, the Childcare Bill provides an opportunity to increase both the quality and the capacity of the early years workforce through a workforce improvement strategy. Failure to do so would hinder the expansion of free childcare to 30 hours. I therefore have three questions for the Minister. Will he provide assurances that the Government will develop a strategy for expanding and improving the quality of the early years workforce? Can he confirm whether the Government will review the composition of the workforce delivering the current free entitlement in order to ascertain existing and predicted gaps in capacity? Finally, will the Minister confirm whether the Government intend to put in place measures to increase the number of graduate leaders? I apologise for not giving him notice of those questions and quite understand if he would prefer to write to me on them.
I have a couple of other amendments in this group, one of which is on hours of training for staff, particularly emphasising the need to allow staff to have training away from the children so that they can reflect on their relationships with them. Coram, a well-recognised, high-quality provider, provides such time away from the children for staff development. It can be seen as a costly input but it is vital. In teaching we have Baker days and recognise that teachers need time away from their pupils to develop themselves. The same should apply to early years provision. The other amendment is to do with increasing the number of nursery schools, and I was grateful to the Minister for his reply on that particular topic earlier today. I beg to move.
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)
My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendment 13 and to support the other amendments in this group which have been very ably explained by the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, and all of which highlight the need for a high-quality workforce in this sector.
As we know, there is compelling and conclusive evidence that the presence of trained early years teachers in nurseries has the biggest impact on children’s early years development. This was a central theme of Cathy Nutbrown’s report and was echoed in the Select Committee’s report on affordable childcare, where it was identified that the number of qualified staff, and therefore the quality of provision, was higher in the maintained sector than in the PVI sector. Most worryingly, it was identified that provision in the most disadvantaged areas tended to be of lower quality. For example, the report quotes evidence from Ofsted, which described how in the more deprived areas the people who put themselves forward to work tended to have lower levels of skill.
Clearly there has been some progress in this area. The Minister spelled out some examples in his Second Reading response and in the subsequent policy statement. There has, for example, been a welcome increase in those holding a level 3 qualification, although it is by no means universal. But as Save the Children has pointed out, over half of independent nurseries do not employ a single early years teacher and only 13% of staff in independent nurseries have a degree. Meanwhile, as the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, pointed out, since the graduate leader fund ended in 2011, there is no dedicated national funding to support the training of early years practitioners, which could help the PVI sector. Save the Children has also described how a third of childminders do not hold a level 3 qualification, nor do a sixth of staff in group settings.
In response to these concerns about the quality of staff, the Affordable Childcare Committee report recommends that,
“the Government considers how the proportion of staff qualified at a higher level can be increased in the PVI sector to drive up overall quality. In line with that, we also recommend that the Government reconsiders its response to the Nutbrown Review”.
We believe that this amendment provides a vehicle for the Government to do that. A report of the kind that we outlined would allow an assessment to be made of the progress in rolling out level 3 and early years teacher status. It would specifically enable an analysis to take place of the causes of lower qualifications among black and ethnic minority staff. This was also proposed by Cathy Nutbrown. It would provide a vehicle for analysing the recruitment and retention issues which many in the sector report are a major barrier to growth.
We also believe that low pay rates are at the heart of this problem. A recent survey for the National Day Nurseries Association highlighted evidence of qualified staff leaving to earn more money working in supermarkets. In his Second Reading speech, my noble friend Lord Sawyer gave examples of staff employed to look after dogs being paid twice as much as those who are looking after babies. All these examples demonstrate an urgent need to investigate levels of pay, comparators with earnings in other education sectors, the scope for paying at least the living wage and the contribution that a national pay structure can play in easing recruitment challenges in the future.
I hope that noble Lords will feel able to support this amendment which reflects many of the concerns of the Affordable Childcare Committee and would enable the Government to identify the further drivers which could help improve quality and retention in this sector.
Baroness Pinnock (LD)
My Lords, I do not want to expand on what has already been said most ably by the mover of the amendment, the noble Baroness, Lady—oh dear.
“(3A) In order to support the effective implementation of the duty under subsection (1), the Secretary of State shall arrange for a review to be conducted that shall include, but shall not be limited to—
(a) an assessment of how the new entitlements in this Act will support the inclusion of disabled children and those with special educational needs;(b) an assessment of how the existing structures and framework for childcare meet the needs of disabled children and those with special educational needs; (c) an assessment of existing barriers that limit access to childcare by disabled children;(d) an estimate of the access to the current entitlement of free early education;(e) an assessment of how many local authorities have sufficient childcare for disabled children;(f) a calculation of the additional costs, funding and support required to meet the needs of providing childcare to disabled children;(g) an analysis of the workforce available and their ability to provide quality childcare for disabled children.(3B) The report of the review under subsection (3A) shall be laid before both Houses of Parliament.
(3C) Once the review has concluded, the Secretary of State shall establish a strategy for improving the skills of the early years workforce to meet the needs of disabled children and those with special educational needs.
(3D) Where the Secretary of State does not adopt a recommendation from the review, the Secretary of State must set out the reasoning for doing so.”
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch
My Lords, I also support Amendment 16, which has similar objectives. Two key findings of the report of the Parliamentary Inquiry into Childcare for Disabled Children in 2014 were that,
“disabled children are denied the same opportunities for positive educational and social development”,
and that:
“Parents are denied the same opportunities to choose to return to work”.
Here in 2015, the same conditions still exist but now we have a chance to change that with these amendments to the Bill.
At Second Reading, the Minister stated that where parents of disabled children would like to go out to work, the Government wish to make it easier for them to do so. We support this aim. We know that 88% of the parents of disabled children who do not work wish to return to work. However, we must bear it in mind that 83% of them cite the lack of suitable childcare as the main barrier to doing so. The Minister also said at Second Reading that,
“parents with disabled children must have the same opportunities as other parents to access the entitlement”.—[Official Report, 16/6/15; col. 1127.]
That refers to the new entitlement to 30 hours. We obviously welcome this important commitment and will support him in achieving it. However, we have a long way to go to make this a reality. We know that parents of disabled children do not have the same opportunities to access the current entitlement. For example, only 21% of local authorities are now reporting that there is sufficient childcare for disabled children in their area. Simply adding a new legal entitlement on top of that entitlement, when we know that it is already not working for families with disabled children, will not be enough to secure equal access.
For disabled children and their families, business as usual will not be enough. This amendment would also require the review to make a calculation of the additional costs of funding and support required to meet the needs of providing childcare for disabled children. My noble friend Lord Touhig made it clear at Second Reading that one of the main barriers to the greater inclusion of disabled children was the lack of consistent funding to meet the additional cost. We were therefore pleased that the Minister stated at Second Reading that the funding review announced by his department would consider evidence on the funding issues for disabled children. However, given this commitment, why does the call for evidence for the funding review make absolutely no reference to funding the additional needs for disabled children? I hope that he will be able to reassure me on this point and can confirm that the funding review will explicitly take into consideration the additional cost of ensuring equal access to the new entitlement for the parents of disabled children.
I also request that the Minister asks his officials to work on the funding review with members of the Special Educational Consortium, who have expertise in this area. He and his team will benefit greatly if they do. They will produce better information by working closely with those who, on a day-to-day basis, help parents with these problems to solve them by giving them advice on where they can go for help.
Amendment 12 also identifies workforce issues, which are a recurring theme today. We supported the Government’s reforms to special educational needs and disability provision contained in the Children and Families Act 2014. This Act focuses on early identification and early intervention, and on achieving the best possible educational outcomes. We know that the earlier a child’s needs are correctly identified, the more effective the intervention will be. However, an early years workforce without proper training or qualifications will not be able to deliver the Government’s vision for children with special educational needs and disabilities.
The Parliamentary Inquiry into Childcare for Disabled Children found that the situation could be so bad that the lack of staff skills and confidence was often the reason for parents,
“being subtly discouraged or simply turned away by a provider”.
This simply is not right. It is discriminatory and I urge the Government to address it. The review proposed in our amendment would be a vehicle for this, so I very much hope that your Lordships will support it.
Lord Nash
My Lords, this group includes Amendments 12 and 16. I remember well the excellent debates we had during the passage of the Children and Families Bill, and it will be no surprise that I sympathise with the intentions of the noble Baronesses, Lady Jones, Lady Tyler and Lady Pinnock, and the noble Lord, Lord Touhig, in their desire to ensure that the new entitlement is implemented in a way that meets the needs of children with SEN and disabilities.
We know that families with disabled children too often experience challenges and financial pressures in getting the service they need. That is why we have already acted—or will be taking steps—to address the issues highlighted by the proposed amendments. There is a strong legal framework in place to support children with SEN and disabilities. The Equality Act requires local authorities and other public bodies to promote equality of opportunity for disabled people. Early years settings, schools and colleges must make reasonable adjustments for disabled children, including the provision of auxiliary aids and services, to ensure that they are not at a disadvantage compared with their peers.
The Children and Families Act introduced significant reforms to the way children with special educational needs and disabilities are identified and supported. The improvements they will bring will be for all children, including those who receive childcare. Local councils will now commission support across education, health and care jointly with their health partners, publish a clear, local offer of services for children with SEN and disabilities and provide comprehensive information and advice to parents on these matters. New 0 to 25 education, health and care plans for those with more complex needs will replace the current SEN statements.
We want every family to have access to flexible and affordable high-quality childcare. We are monitoring take-up of the entitlement for two year-olds closely. In 2015, there were 2,450 two year-olds with some form of SEN or disability who took up a place within the current entitlement, compared to 1,300 in 2014. We can be confident that this is high-quality provision since the majority of children—85%—are attending settings that are currently rated good or outstanding by Ofsted. As the entitlement for three and four year-olds is universal, we do not currently collect information on why children take up a place. However, we know that 94% of three year-olds and 99% of four year-olds in England are taking up funded early education.
We are funding a number of projects to increase the number of good-quality and flexible childcare and early education places for disabled children: for example, 4Children’s project to build on the success of childcare hubs and Family Action’s work to support more school-based childcare for children under five with SEN and disabilities. We are also building on the Family and Childcare Trust’s parent champions and outreach work to increase the number of flexible early education and childcare places for disadvantaged families.
The Government are committed to building a highly skilled workforce for all children. All early years childcare providers must have in place arrangements to support children with SEND under the accountability framework that they are assessed against. The current early years teacher standards require that all new early years teachers have a clear understanding of the needs of children with SEND and are able to use and evaluate distinctive approaches to engage and support them. Similar arrangements apply for schoolteachers.
To ensure that providers and local authorities are equipped to deliver the expectations of the new code of practice, we are funding a number of projects to better equip the early years workforce to support children with SEND responsibilities. These include: funding the National Day Nurseries Association to build on local systems for self-improvement through SEND champions; the Pen Green Centre, which supports a model of peer-to-peer training; and the Pre-School Learning Alliance, to build mentored workforce development networks. More broadly, the SEND gateway, established by the National Association for Special Educational Needs, provides information and training resources for education professionals across early years, schools and further education. Through our voluntary and community sector grants programme, we are also funding the NASEN to develop online learning to help practitioners effectively to identify and meet the needs of children with SEN.
To make sure that we fully understand the issues that families face, we will engage with parents and providers to find out more about how they currently access and deliver childcare. We want to hear their views on how the extended entitlement could best meet their needs. I am pleased to say that we have already received a number of responses from groups representing and supporting disabled children and their parents, offering to host consultation events for parents and providers. We will continue to work with providers to identify what more can be done to ensure that early years settings are building inclusive and accessible services for parents with disabled children. I shall take back the idea put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, of making sure that providers for disabled children and the needs of disabled children are factored into the pilots.
As the Committee has heard, funding and affordability is a significant issue for many parents of SEND children. Local authorities must have the flexibility to provide support according to the circumstances in their area. They are able to set higher funding rates for provision that involves additional costs, including costs for children with SEN or disabilities, and can use their high-needs budgets to fund provision for children with additional needs, including those in specialist settings. Some in the sector have expressed concerns over the higher costs of supporting children with SEN and disabilities. The funding review will, of course, consider the additional costs, funding and support required for children with SEN and disabilities. We would welcome any evidence that the Special Educational Consortium can submit to the review on this issue and we will be happy to work with it—indeed, my officials have already met its representatives.
I am in agreement with the noble Baronesses, Lady Jones, Lady Tyler and Lady Pinnock, and the noble Lord, Lord Touhig, about the need for concentrated action to ensure that the Government implement the new entitlement effectively for children with SEN and disabilities. As I have described, much of this is either in hand or about to take place. However, in view of the importance of ensuring that there is equal access to the new entitlement, I would welcome a conversation with noble Lords outside this debate.
I hope that I have reassured noble Lords, and therefore urge the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment.
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch
My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for suggesting that we can have a further conversation about this, and that may be the way forward, because I think that there are some issues that still need to be explored. I think that there is a problem with saying that we already have a legal framework in place, and that therefore there is no problem, per se. It is one thing to say that you have a legal framework and another to look at the practicality of what is happening on the ground. We have to marry those up in some way—so, if we have a legal framework but parents of disabled children are not accessing it, we have a problem, and we really need to get to the heart of why that is the case.
I am pleased to hear that the funding review will consider the issue. As I said in opening the debate, the call for evidence does not explicitly say that we want to hear from parents of disabled children. I think the noble Lord is saying that that will be done as a separate exercise or a parallel exercise. If that is the case, I am very pleased to hear that. Rather than just assume that parents of disabled children were responding to a general call for evidence, we need to go and seek them out in a more targeted way.
“(3E) In order to ensure the effective implementation of the duty under subsection (1), the Secretary of State shall establish an independent review of the free childcare entitlement funding system, including a large-scale analysis of the cost of delivering funded places.
(3F) The review established under subsection (3E) shall consult local authorities, childcare providers, employers, parents and others with an interest.
(3G) The Secretary of State must establish a comprehensive and sustainable funding solution taking into account the findings of the funding review to address the funding of existing childcare and the additional requirements on childcare providers arising from this legislation.”
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch
My Lords, this amendment seeks to explore in more detail the purpose of the funding review announced by the Government, the extent to which real evidence will inform its findings, and the need to find a fully sustainable solution to the funding crisis.
At Second Reading there was a general recognition that the funding of the existing 15 hours of free childcare was unsustainable and would not survive an extension to 30 hours. There was also considerable evidence given to the Affordable Childcare Select Committee on this matter. This was subsequently echoed by the Pre-School Learning Alliance and others, which made a persuasive case to show that the hourly rate was so low that nurseries were able to provide the free hours only if they did so at a loss and cross-subsidised the payments from additional hours elsewhere. To be fair, the Government were quick to identify that this was a problem and announced the funding review soon after, and, of course, this is to be welcomed. However, serious questions remain about the conduct of the review, and this amendment seeks to explore these issues further.
First, the call for evidence asked parents and providers to send in any information that they wished to provide to inform the review, such as existing studies on the cost of childcare and the factors that make up the cost. That is okay as far as it goes, but where is the analytical research that needs to underpin a review of this nature? What we do not want is a whole series of anecdotal stories, important though they are. Surely what we need is a proper, independent study to investigate and evaluate the cost of provision across the different providers, how much the current shortfall is estimated to be and what the full cost of providing a fully funded, sustainable system would be. For example, it would be helpful to know how the Government will calculate the number of parents they expect to be eligible for these payments. Will any capital funding be included to allow for the expansion of premises or the creation of new premises? Will the calculations allow for any increase in staff pay, which providers say is necessary to recruit and retain staff? Will the assessment end the historic disparities in payments between the different local authorities? I could go on, but the point is that to do this properly requires a major piece of research, and I am not convinced that this is what the Government have in mind.
The Minister said in the policy statement:
“Between now and September 2015 the Government will be considering the simplest and most effective way to deliver the additional 15 hours of free childcare to working families. This process will be led by the Minister for Childcare and Education and the Government Task force on Childcare. The Government will provide a full update on this at Report Stage in the House of Lords”.
Again today, the Minister has confirmed that the funding review will be completed by September. This hardly allows time for a proper inquiry to be carried out.
There is then a question about how any increase in the payments to parents will be funded. The Pre-School Learning Alliance estimated that it would cost at least 20% more than the original estimate of £350 million; and, as we know, the Children’s Minister was at one stage talking about a figure over £1 billion. So there is an urgent need to clarify where any additional money will come from. Will the Minister confirm that it will be new money, not money drawn from existing budgets, and will arrangements be made to increase these sums year on year?
This amendment seeks to tease out more information about the nature and scope of the review, who will be consulted, what the timetable will be and how the outcome will be financed. It goes without saying that we welcome the Minister’s reassurance that this House will have an opportunity to consider the outcome of the review and its impact on regulations as proposed by the Delegated Powers Committee, and we look forward to further debate on this in that context. In the mean time, I beg to move.
Baroness Pinnock
I shall speak to Amendment 30 in this group which is tabled in my name and that of my noble friend Lady Tyler of Enfield. For a serious new investment by the Government, it is disappointing that there is no indication in the Bill of the funding package that will be available for its implementation, because the funding is critical to the nature and quality of the childcare that will be provided. I welcome the funding review that has been opened, and I am delighted that the Minister has already received more than 500 responses to the request for information, but that simply shows the nervousness of the sector over the funding package that may be available.
I know from comments that have been sent to me by various childcare providers that they are very worried that if the funding is not of the right size, the implementation of what is otherwise an excellent proposal will be seriously damaged. There are several reasons for this. We do not know the quantum figure. We know that two figures have been bandied about. One is £350 million, which was mentioned in the Government’s manifesto, and the other is more than £1 billion, which was mentioned prior to the election period. The figure surely must be more than £350 million in order to fund an additional 15 hours of childcare for three and four year-olds. I hope the Minister will be able to explain where the money will come from, even if he is not able, at this stage, to tell us the total figure that will be available.
The other significant issue is that providers will not know the hourly rate that they will get for providing this childcare in the different settings. We know the rate is determined through local authority school forums and that they get the grant via the early years element of the direct schools grant. We also know that that is a flawed system. It is not necessarily a fair distribution of funding to local authorities across the country. We end up with different hourly rates for different childcare providers in different parts of the country which may not be sufficient to meet the costs of provision in those areas. I hope the Minister will be able to throw some light on this area.
There is going to be a significant demand for capital expenditure. For instance, providers in the state sector in nurseries attached to primary schools currently provide 15 hours through a morning session and an afternoon session. If there is going to be only one session of 30 hours, there will need to be a 50% increase in the amount provided. Capital funding will be necessary to do that, and it would be good to know whether any capital money is going to be available for either the voluntary or the state sector to do that.
The last point I want to make is one I raised at Second Reading, on the question of cross-subsidisation. Currently, parents who are working full-time may have to have childcare from eight in the morning to six in the evening. It is obviously quite proper that they have to pay for some of those hours, but people have been telling me that in the hours outside the free entitlement, they might be paying up to twice as much as the hourly rate in order for the private provider to meet the full costs. If, therefore, a private provider or voluntary sector provider is providing not 15 hours but 30 hours free, where is the cross-subsidisation going to come from? I am confident that the Minister, through his request for comments on the funding review, is receiving in his inbox many expressions of concern about the hourly rate that will be necessary to ensure these childcare providers are viable. For those reasons I have tabled the amendment in my name and that of the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, and support the comments that have been made by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones.
Lord Nash
My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 14, 30 and 32 regarding the review of the cost of childcare, the funding rate to deliver early education places and the impact of the additional entitlement on providers.
I appreciate the concerns that the noble Baronesses and the noble Lord are trying to address through Amendments 14 and 30. I agree with them that a review of the cost of providing childcare is needed and that providers should receive a fair funding rate to deliver early education places. This is particularly important as we move forward to extend the free entitlement to 30 hours for working parents of three and four year-olds. In order to do this, as we discussed, we are conducting a thorough review. The review will report in the autumn and will inform our decisions on the level of funding that providers require to deliver quality childcare, and as I said, we will report on these findings by Report.
The Government have committed to a funding rate that is fair and sustainable for providers and meets the needs of a diverse market—we were the only party that committed to increase the rate. The findings from the review will inform what that rate should be. This is a complex issue which will be looked at both by experts across government and by an external team of experts. Their role will be to support the review process and validate their findings. A call for evidence is already under way, and as I have said, we have already received more than 500 responses. With regard to how we will pay for that, it will be funded by restricting tax relief on the pensions of higher earners.
The noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, talked about the scale of the increase facing us. We have introduced an offer relating to two year-olds and raised the offers for three and four year-olds from 12 to 15 hours, and the sector has coped well with that. However, the increase is nothing like the 50% that she spoke about. Many children will be in reception classes in primary schools at the age of four and many will already be taking up the offer—parents will be paying for it themselves—so the challenge is not as great as it might appear at first blush. As I say, we are confident that the sector will be able to respond. I hope that the noble Baronesses and the noble Lord will agree that the Government’s firm commitment in respect of the review and funding for early education addresses their concerns. I therefore urge them not to press the amendments.
Amendment 32 is in the name of the noble Lord, Lord True. I understand the noble Lord’s concern that the additional provision may have a negative impact on some providers, many of whom will provide a valuable service to their local community. As I mentioned earlier, I am happy to confirm that we do not envisage that any provider will be forced to provide places. While the number of providers offering places under the existing entitlement continues to grow, it is true that some choose not to do so. Parents may choose, as some do already, to receive their free entitlement from more than one provider. The existing entitlement of 15 hours per week for disadvantaged two year-olds and for all three and four year-olds will of course remain. We will keep all aspects of the delivery of the new entitlement and all the different types of providers under observation and careful consideration but it seems to us that a report such as that suggested by the amendment would be wholly disproportionate. It would be very intrusive into the private business affairs of providers. I hope that this gives the noble Lord the reassurance that he seeks and I therefore urge him not to press the amendment.
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch
I thank the Minister for that response. The difficulty is, I think, that there is a great deal seemingly riding on the funding review and we are all trying to piece together what will be in it. Originally we were referred to the call for evidence, which we have of course looked at, but it does not give a great deal away and, as I said earlier, the evidence that it is calling for is very generalised. There are some quite specific issues that we want the funding review to look at, such as capital funding, the historic disparities between local authorities and where the money will come from—I note that the Minister said that it would be paid for by the tax relief but, if it turns out that it costs more than the original assumption, where will that extra cash come from? I give those issues as examples.
This is the last opportunity that we will have to talk about the funding review before we see the findings—according to the timetable now, we will see the findings on Report—and our last chance to influence what is in the funding review. Given that, it would have been, and still would be, helpful to see the terms of reference so that we know exactly what is in them, what is being looked at and what is excluded
I was very taken with the examples given by the noble Lord, Lord True. You cannot assume that some of these providers will find their way to us if we do not ask them to give us the evidence to help get a full picture. I am pleased to hear that there are experts in and outside of government, but I would love to know exactly what they will be doing. I do not want everything dotted and crossed, but a bit more of the flavour of what exactly is going on with the funding review would be really helpful while we still have a chance to encourage people to participate in it and before we finally get a chance to debate the outcome in October. We have moved a little way forward but I think that we still have a way to go on some of these issues. In the mean time, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment 14 withdrawn.
Amendments 15 to 17 not moved.
Amendment 18
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch
My Lords, this is one of the many clauses about which the Delegated Powers Committee was scathing. Regarding the proposal for the establishment of a body corporate, it said in its report that the government memorandum,
“explains little about why a new body might be thought necessary or about the nature of its proposed functions”.
I am rather glad that it said that because our inquiries at Second Reading received a similarly blank response.
Since then, there have been some developments. I am very conscious that the Minister said before we started this debate that the Government had had some second thoughts on the amendment. I could spell out in more detail why we thought that the measure was not a sensible idea but I am sure that the noble Lord has something useful to say about it. Therefore, rather than pre-empt that, I should be interested to hear what he has to say.
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch
My Lords, of all the issues on which regulations might be produced, as listed in paragraphs (a) to (k) of Clause 1(5), this is the one that has caused the most concern and disquiet.
Our Amendments 19 and 22 would remove the new powers to create new criminal offences leading to imprisonment of up to two years. On the face of it, this appears to be draconian and unnecessary, and we would like to explore the thinking behind it in a great deal more detail.
The Government say in their policy statement that it is their intention to align these new offences with existing schemes involving information-sharing and self-declaration. However, as the Delegated Powers Committee points out:
“There is nothing on the face of the Bill or in the memorandum … identifying the categories of person from whom the information … might be required”.
It goes on to say that the Government have drawn a confusing analogy between their proposals and the 2006 Act, the latter being about childcare premises rather than about the provision of information.
The truth is that we do not know who might be covered by this possible regulation. Would it be individual parents, individual nurseries or childminders, or even local authorities? How severe would their crime need to be? At Second Reading, a number of noble Lords identified how confusing and contradictory the current childcare funding landscape is proving to be. Parents of children aged two, three and four all have potentially different entitlements. The scope for uninformed errors is considerable.
We do not feel able to agree to a part of the Bill that gives so much power to the Secretary of State to determine who will be criminalised in the application of the Bill. Our amendment therefore removes this paragraph. It is a probing amendment but we would need a considerable level of reassurance about the constraints of its application before we were able to support the original text at Report stage. I beg to move.
Lord True
My Lords, I raised this matter at Second Reading and, having raised it, it had rather more publicity than I expected. I had a very large number of expressions of concern on the subject. I had tabled an amendment but, seeing that the Opposition had also put one forward, I saw no need to persist with it. However, I think that a very clear answer is needed both on the range of possible forms of entitlement, which we discussed in relation to an earlier amendment, and in relation to the informality of a number of the settings which I described when debating the previous amendment. The fear of criminal offences and potential imprisonment is quite chilling for people who work in this sector.
Lord True
My Lords, I do not expect an answer now, but I should like to give an example which comes from the policy statement. It says that under Clause 1(5)(i), the number of hours of free childcare each eligible child takes up may be included. That can only come from a report provided by the provider, which is sometimes a small provider. Inadvertently false information may be given; it could be a mistake or something might be put in the wrong column—things happen. The next paragraph in the statement, which concerns provision for criminal offences, directly relates that to the provision and disclosure mentioned in Clause 1(5)(i) and (j). It may be that the example given is not included in that, but people reading this document could believe that there is scope for the offence to be pushed too wide by certain busybodies. I do not want to continue the point now but I hope that we can have further discussions on that matter of concern.
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch
I share the continuing concern of the noble Lord, Lord True. I have to say that the noble Baroness did not address the concerns raised by the Delegated Powers Committee. I know that, separately, the Government have given an assurance that they are going to look at that. However, she will know that they raised some concerns about the analogies being drawn between the 2006 Act and what is in the Bill now. I am not convinced by what the Government have said on this matter so far. I think that we need to have considerable further discussion on this, but I am prepared to allow the noble Baroness to look at the Delegated Powers Committee report and respond to that, and then perhaps we can have a more informed discussion. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Childcare
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch Excerpts(9 years, 4 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to ensure the effective monitoring of childcare places by local authorities.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Lord Nash) (Con)
My Lords, the department’s statutory guidance is clear that local authorities should report annually to elected council members on how they are meeting this duty and make the report available and accessible to parents. We know that the childcare market is thriving. The latest figures just published show that 99% of four year-olds and 94% of three year-olds are accessing the Government’s free childcare offer.
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply. He will have seen the recent Family and Childcare Trust report entitled Access Denied. It highlights a huge disparity in childcare places across England. For example, 49 local authorities have a shortage of free places for two year-olds in deprived areas, and while some local authorities are proactively managing the shortfall, others are not even bothering to collect the statistics, so the offer and the quality vary considerably from place to place. How can we be sure that future expenditure will be targeted at the families who would benefit the most from this money when we seem to be faced with a lack of nursery places in the most deprived areas?
Lord Nash
The noble Baroness is quite right to say that the recent report is concerning—and we are concerned. Local authorities of course must publish certain information, but only to a limited extent, so the new Bill will go further to ensure that we have better information. I can assure her that we are very focused on deprived areas, and indeed there has been a substantial increase in full daycare places in those areas over the past five years.
Childcare Bill [HL]
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch Excerpts(9 years, 5 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for the very clear way in which he set out his aspirations for the Bill. They are aspirations we share, and we hope to work collaboratively as far as possible to make the offer of 30 hours’ free childcare for all working parents of three and four year-olds a reality. However, as the Minister knows, the devil is in the detail and, sadly, we are being massively constrained in our scrutiny role because of the lack of fairly crucial information today.
First, a great deal of excellent analysis has already been prepared for us in the form of the Lords Select Committee report, Affordable Childcare, which we debated just before the election but has yet to have a formal government response. That would have enabled us to have a better quality discussion today. Secondly, as the Minister said, the Government have launched a rather crucial funding review to ensure that providers can be properly recompensed for the free places they supply, and they have separately launched a consultation with parents and carers. The outcomes of both reviews are fundamental to the success of the scheme and yet, as far as we can see, they will not be available until the Bill has long left this House. Thirdly, as the Bill is constructed, it subsumes all the detail of the proposals into secondary legislation, which we have not yet seen, and it is not clear whether we are intended to see the draft regulations before we start to scrutinise the Bill in detail.
I am taking the Prime Minister and the Minister at face value when they say that they want this to be a flagship policy which transforms childcare provision and helps hundreds of thousands of parents back to work. Equally, I am sure they were committed to the previous policy of providing 15 hours’ free childcare. But as the Lords Select Committee report shows, there has been very little evaluation of the impact of that policy and whether it achieved its intended outcomes.
We do not have the previous evaluation, we do not have the funding formula and we do not have the draft regulations. This all begs the inevitable question of why the Bill is being rushed through, when a little bit more time and preparation might have delivered a popular and workable scheme. Unless the noble Lord is able to provide some reassurances on the availability of that documentation today, we believe there is a strong case for delaying the future stages of the Bill until the information is available and we are able to carry out our responsibilities effectively.
In the mean time, I would like to raise the following issues. First, I would like to clarify how much this policy is currently estimated to cost. I understand that a review is taking place but it would be helpful to know the baseline calculations. When the Children’s Minister gave evidence to the Lords Select Committee, he was asked about the prospect of increasing the free offer, which was then 15 hours, to 25 hours a week. He said:
“Going from something like 15 hours to 25 hours would cost an extra £1.5 billion at least”.
Meanwhile, the Minister stated in response to an Oral Question on 3 June that the new proposals for 30 hours are currently estimated to cost £350 million. Clearly, there is a huge disparity here, so can the noble Lord tell us who is right? Can he explain the basis of the calculation and the estimated take-up among working parents?
Secondly, there is concern about where the money will come from. Again, the noble Lord was quoted as saying that it would be paid for by,
“reducing the tax relief on pensions for those earning more than £150,000 a year”.—[Official Report, 3/6/15; col. 412.]
Can he confirm whether this is still the case, and what happens if the funding review makes it clear that childcare providers need to be paid more to keep the service afloat? Where will those additional funds come from? Can he reassure us that other children’s services budgets in the department will not be raided to fund the extra costs? Can he also reassure us that local authorities will not be expected to fund the increased provision without a commensurate increase in their dedicated school grant allocation?
Thirdly, even if an acceptable formula to fund the additional free hours can be found, it is doubtful whether the sector has the capacity or desire to expand its provision, particularly at short notice. The Children’s Minister admitted as much in his evidence. When asked about the private voluntary and independent sector, he said:
“I am not sure that providers necessarily want to deliver 25 hours of state-subsidised childcare, because it limits their ability to offer other childcare that may come to them at a higher rate, to be brutally honest”.
I suspect that this might be right. It is a real challenge for the success of the policy, so does the noble Lord agree with his colleague, the Children’s Minister, on this matter?
Meanwhile, we have to face the fact that capacity in the maintained sector is in a minority, and is dwindling. A recent report of the British Association for Early Childhood Education claimed that there are now 49 local authorities in England without a single maintained nursery school, and a recent FOI survey found that nearly half of councils said that they would not have enough places to meet the last government offer of places for disadvantaged two year-olds—let alone the new provision now being planned. We are all well aware that the most logical area for expansion, which would be the growth of nurseries attached to schools, will be considerably hampered by the pressure on accommodation in primary schools caused by the increase in school rolls. So can the Minister share his thinking on how the capacity can be expanded, both in the PVI and the public sectors?
Fourthly, we have debated many times in this Chamber the importance of quality early years provision for child development and children’s future achievement. The evidence is compelling and the arguments overwhelming; I do not need to repeat them today. However, there is a concern that this policy has moved too far away from a focus on child development and is targeted instead solely at getting parents back to work. Of course there is some crossover in these objectives but if we are serious about tackling the attainment gap, we should be concentrating on providing quality childcare at a younger age. We should also ensure that children in the most deprived communities receive the best childcare when, sadly, the opposite is currently the case. It would be helpful if the Minister indicated whether he shares the objective of getting the best quality provision to those in deprived communities, and what policies the Government are pursuing to achieve this.
Meanwhile, the need to improve the training and qualifications of nursery staff remains paramount. In replying to the debate before the Recess on the affordable childcare report the noble Baroness, Lady Garden, said that parts of the Nutbrown report into training were still “under review” by the Government. I would be grateful if the noble Lord updated us on how that implementation is going.
Finally, detailed questions remain on the definition of working parents and who will qualify for the additional hours. Does it have to be one working parent or two? What about lone parents, people in training or people actively seeking work who need time to job hunt? What about grandparents and carers? Can those working flexible or zero hours average out their employment history to qualify? What about parents of disabled children who need extra support? These are just some of the issues we want to explore in more detail as the Bill progresses through the Lords, and there is a strong sense of frustration among all those interested in this issue that we have so many unanswered questions at this stage. It feels like we are starting with a blank script when we want to debate a fully formed policy, and while we understand the need for the parents’ consultation, the funding review and a pilot scheme, we are not prepared to hand over the detail of the policy to a series of negative and affirmative resolutions which may or may not have the parliamentary scrutiny they deserve. I hope the noble Lord can clarify when the information we have requested will become available, and that he will consider postponing debate on the Bill if our legitimate request cannot be met. We want the policy to succeed and to play our part in shaping the details to make it a success. In this spirit, I look forward to working with the noble Lord on a much more detailed set of proposals in the weeks ahead.
Queen’s Speech
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch Excerpts(9 years, 5 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)
My Lords, I should like to thank all noble Lords who have spoken in today’s excellent debate, and I apologise in advance that time will not allow me to reference them all individually. I should also like to welcome the noble Lords, Lord Nash and Lord Freud, back to the Dispatch Box. I look forward to some robust debates in the months to come.
It was not so long ago that the noble Lord, Lord Nash, was claiming that the Children and Families Bill was the first, and the last, education Bill that he would steer through this House. He has obviously decided that he enjoys it rather more than he, and we, thought. And who would have thought that the noble Lord, Lord Freud, would still be occupying the welfare brief? His defence of the bedroom tax and of the previous welfare cuts has surely led him to be branded the most unpopular Minister in the Lords. He obviously has a thicker skin than we ever imagined. The £12 billion of welfare cuts to which the Government are now committed risks making the noble Lord and his Secretary of State, I regret, even more unpopular.
A number of noble Lords have raised concerns today about the scale of the planned welfare cuts. The cuts already identified—freezing the level of working-age benefit for two years, disqualifying most 18 to 21 year-olds from claiming housing benefit, and reducing the household benefit cap from £26,000 to £23,000—will raise only an estimated £1.5 billion. We all want to know where the remaining £10.5 billion will come from.
What we can anticipate is that the cuts will disproportionately hit the poor, the young, the sick and the disabled. There will undoubtedly be a rise in the level of child poverty, a further decline in living standards for the poorest and further demands on the good will of food banks. Can the Minister clarify how these further monumental cuts will be decided? Will there be a detailed analysis of need before any further steps are taken? Will the charities working on the front line with these groups be properly consulted, and will the proposals be piloted before they are rolled out universally?
Another area where the sums do not add up is the health proposals. Again, sadly, the Government have some form on this. A number of noble Lords have referred to this matter: the subjecting of the NHS to a massively bureaucratic reorganisation while, at the same time, patient services have deteriorated. As we heard, it is harder than ever to see your GP; the number of patients waiting for more than four hours in A&E has quadrupled; the number waiting longer than 62 days for cancer treatment has nearly doubled; and the number waiting more than 18 weeks for an operation has more than doubled.
Meanwhile, the Government have pledged to find an extra £8 billion for the NHS by 2020, and obviously that is to be welcomed. However, as my noble friend Lord Hunt made clear, the NHS needs these resources immediately. Therefore, can the noble Lord give an indication of the likely budget increases in the coming year and future years to address the growing pressures on these services? Further, does he accept the point that was very well made in the debate today—that the funding needs to be focused on social care as much as on healthcare? Does he also accept that the Government’s plans for a seven-day NHS are simply not credible without extra resources and an urgent plan to address the workforce shortages, particularly the supply of trained GPs and consultants, and, equally importantly, to reverse the cuts in training places for nursing staff?
Another area where a lack of properly trained and qualified staff threatens to derail the Government’s proposals is childcare. Obviously, we welcome plans to extend childcare, and we had our own plans in our manifesto for a more radical extension of childcare. However, the fact is that since 2010 there are more than 40,000 fewer childcare places, and six in 10 councils do not have enough childcare available for working families. Therefore, increasing childcare entitlement without tackling the supply side does not make sense. How will the Government address the concerns of the Pre-School Learning Alliance and others that the current childcare subsidy system is being provided at a loss and is simply not sustainable in the longer term? How will the Government’s proposals address the education inequalities that start in the early years and are currently exacerbated as children progress year on year through school? Perhaps the noble Lord can tell us how we can ensure that the necessary quality resources are targeted at very young children of preschool age.
We also look forward to debating the new schools Bill later this year. We agree that new interventions are needed to address coasting schools, and we should not tolerate underperformance. However, my noble friends have rightly raised concerns about the disadvantages of having a monolithic school structure and the need for a better evidence base of what works.
We also recognise that raising standards requires a strong focus on the quality of classroom teaching, support for head teachers, greater collaboration between schools at a local level and more devolution of decision-making and oversight to a local level. Can the noble Lord the Minister reassure us that in future the Government will stop demonising the teaching profession, which is having the effect of driving good teachers out of the profession and is exacerbating the staff shortages that already exist? Does he also agree that the funding of new schools should be prioritised in areas currently facing shortages of school places?
Finally, my noble friend Lord Hunt highlighted the glaring absence of policies on culture in the Queen’s Speech. Again, a number of references have been made to this. There is so much to be said and done, given its importance to our economy, heritage and well-being.
One area where we know that action will need to be taken is the review of the BBC licence fee. I very much hope that the disparaging remarks made by some of the Minister’s colleagues during the election are not a foretaste of things to come. A number of noble Lords raised the fantastic contribution of the BBC to British culture and soft power in the world. I very much hope that the review will recognise that the BBC delivers high-quality services and programmes for everyone in the country and, indeed, brings the nation together. It is a vital part of our creative industries’ success story. In this sprit, could the noble Lord, Lord Freud, confirm that there will be a widespread consultation among viewers and listeners before any changes are made?
We look forward to scrutinising the government Bills with duty and diligence in the coming months. The Prime Minister has adopted the mantle of one nation and this will be a useful tool for us against which to measure future detailed proposals as they come forward. In this spirit, I very much look forward to hearing the noble Lord’s response this evening.
School Curriculum: PSHE
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch Excerpts(9 years, 8 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Nash
As with other areas of the curriculum, PSHE and citizenship are not explicitly covered in the school curriculum inspection framework. However, in reporting, inspectors must consider how the school is meeting the needs of the range of pupils and pupils’ SMSC and cultural development to help to prepare them for life in modern Britain. Inspectors will also look at how effectively schools engage with parents in the development of their SMSC policy.
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)
My Lords, the Education Select Committee, as the noble Lord will know, recently reported that PSHE requires improvement in 40% of schools, that the situation appears to have got worse over time, and that young people are consistently reporting that the sex and relationship education that they receive is inadequate. Surely the Minister is showing a large degree of complacency about this. Perhaps making PSHE statutory is, indeed, a simple answer.
Lord Nash
The noble Baroness feels very strongly about it, but the Labour Party had 13 years to make it statutory and did not do so. We are currently considering the findings of the Education Select Committee report. We have launched a communications campaign to promote the selection of high-quality resources via our social media sites. They include PSHE Association programmes of study, “Sex and Relationships Education for the 21st Century” and various other products.