Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Baroness Morgan of Cotes and Baroness Keeley

Monday 27th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Nicky Morgan]

I would be delighted to meet my hon. Friend and the hon. Member for Stourbridge. We are aware that a small number of state-funded boarding schools and academies are charging for day places, and in some schools the admission arrangements are unclear. We are looking into the matter, and I am also aware of the adjudicator’s investigation.

[Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)]

May I add my voice to the call for all young carers to be included in the pupil premium? We have an excellent young carers’ group in Salford, but that cannot make up for the fact that the support is not there. Young carers are more vulnerable, and they do 40% less well academically than other pupils. Will the Minister commit himself to including all young carers?

Childcare Payments Bill

Debate between Baroness Morgan of Cotes and Baroness Keeley

Monday 14th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Nicky Morgan]

Employment levels have gone up substantially under this Government. More people are getting jobs and more hours. As I say, the Bill is about a choice. With more people securing employment, this is about enabling families to make a choice if both parents need to or want to work, or, in the case of lone-parent families, providing support that is more generous than the current employer-supported child care voucher scheme.

The scheme, which launches next autumn, is to be rolled out to all those eligible families with children under 12 within the first year of its operation. The real triumph of the scheme is that it will make hundreds of thousands of parents who are currently excluded from support eligible for it.

The scheme has been designed so that support is available to the self-employed, who play a crucial role in our economy but are currently excluded, and so that it suits the needs of part-time workers, who are very often parents staggering their way back into full-time work, and those parents who are temporarily absent from the workplace—for example, during statutory parental leave. It is also designed to support those couples where one member is in work and the other is in receipt of carer’s allowance or employment and support allowance, by making them eligible for the new scheme.

[Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)]

The Minister is reading out a list, but on the question of future roll-out, Opposition Members are very concerned about universal credit, the future of which we spent much time discussing in the Chamber last week. When will additional support be made available for those low-income families, who deserve help with the costs of child care? Is it really the case that 4 million low-income families could be waiting until 2017, and why is there still so much uncertainty around funding this part of the programme for universal credit?

[Nicky Morgan]

I do not think there is uncertainty around that, but there is uncertainty among Opposition Members and I find it staggering that they are criticising and querying universal credit when it is absolutely needed. I think that all Government Members and most people in the Chamber will agree with that. From April 2016, working families will be able to recover 85% of their actual child care costs under universal credit.

[Barbara Keeley]

Where will that be funded from, because there is also a lack of clarity about how it will be funded?

[Nicky Morgan]

I do not think there is a lack of clarity. We have published regulations today and there will be further debate during the Bill’s Committee stage, so may I suggest—[Interruption.] More information and plenty of guidance will be made available to families who might move from universal credit to tax-free child care and to those who might have to move back again. That will be available online and there will be a provision to enable people to get guidance from Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs as to which scheme is most suitable for them.

[Barbara Keeley]

rose—

[Nicky Morgan]

I am not going to give way again. The point is that, under universal credit, families will get support for 85% of their child care costs. In short, this is a system that recognises and adapts to the complexities of modern working patterns. It also goes a long way towards providing the simplicity sought by many parents.

Someone with a screaming child in one arm and a BlackBerry with a screaming boss on the end of it in the other hand does not want to spend their time negotiating a complex and rigid child care scheme. We have therefore been working incredibly hard to ensure that the scheme will be simple, responsive and flexible. It will be easy for parents to register and open a child care account and to access the scheme through online portals. It will be flexible to the changing demands of child care they face. It will allow them to pay in money when they want to, and it will also allow other people to pay in, such as grandparents or an employer. In many cases, it may well be a family member who is keen to support the child’s upbringing. The scheme will also allow parents to spend money on qualifying child care at a time of their choosing, by allowing them to use their vouchers on, for example, summer holiday clubs, not just during the school term.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Baroness Morgan of Cotes and Baroness Keeley

Thursday 1st May 2014 Commons Chamber

[Nicky Morgan]

I know that my hon. Friend is a dedicated campaigner in this area. The Government recognise that violence against women and girls is strongly linked to gender inequality. Our action plan sets out work to raise the aspirations and ambitions of women and girls and the Government are also taking strong action to support women’s economic empowerment and making lasting changes to ensure that our workplaces match the needs of women in modern Britain, including by extending the right to flexible working, increasing child tax credits and extending the free entitlement to early education.

[Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)]

I welcome the hon. Lady to her new role. Two women a week in England and Wales are killed by a current or former partner and in my constituency we have had two violent murders of women in just eight months. Both of the women were in their 20s with a young child or children. Women’s Aid has warned that cuts to services mean that women and children are likely to remain in abusive situations or are more likely to return after they have left. Is it not time for the Government to accept Labour’s idea of an independent commissioner on domestic and sexual violence to champion victims such as those in my constituency and to drive improvement?

[Nicky Morgan]

This is an incredibly serious issue and I am sure that Members on both sides of the House have dealt with tragic cases of women who have been put at risk of violence or who have suffered violence at the hands of their partner or someone close to them. Protective injunctions remain within the scope of legal aid, and immigration cases in which domestic violence is a factor continue to qualify for funding. We have also recently scrapped the application fee for those injunctions to ensure that there are no unnecessary barriers between people and the help they need, and we have said that if there are any other areas in which legal aid is not being made available, we want to be made aware of them. I am happy to look again at the issues that the hon. Lady has raised.