Childcare Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Jones of Whitchurch and Lord True

Wednesday 1st July 2015 Lords Chamber

[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.

Childcare Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Jones of Whitchurch and Lord True

Wednesday 1st July 2015 Lords Chamber

[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.

--- Later in debate ---

[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.