Free Childcare Entitlement
Debate between Baroness Morgan of Cotes and Robert Goodwill(7 years, 2 months ago)
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Mr Goodwill
I will take no lessons from the Scottish Government, no matter what the hon. Gentleman wishes to read out to us. We have committed £6 billion in this area. We talk about childcare, but this is good quality early years education and 93% of the settings are providing good or outstanding childcare. That is great news for education and great news for those parents who, in many cases, find their working lives transformed by access to 30 hours of childcare.
Nicky Morgan (Loughborough) (Con)
This is clearly the right policy and has been demanded by working parents and others up and down the country. The shadow Minister talked about the policy being shrouded in secrecy; I do not know where she was in the general election of 2015, but I think that this is an issue that all parties discussed in many different debates.
Let me ask the Minister about the implementation of the policy by Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs and the operation of its website. He knows that I, as the incoming Chairman of the Treasury Committee, wrote to the head of HMRC over the summer, who replied on 17 August saying that a total of £45,000 or thereabouts had so far been paid in compensation. Can the Minister update the House and will he confirm that, as he said, those parents who had codes by 31 August will be able to access the childcare this autumn?
Unaccompanied Children (Greece and Italy)
Debate between Baroness Morgan of Cotes and Robert Goodwill(7 years, 9 months ago)
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Nicky Morgan (Loughborough) (Con)
“My right hon. Friend”, I hope. May I take the Minister back to his point about the number of Home Office staff in France, Greece and Italy? I think he was saying that he wanted staff to help with the scheme, but he mentioned in a meeting that I had with him that only one staff member was out there. If there were more staff, there would be more confidence that the right children were being referred under the scheme.
Mr Goodwill
We have 115 staff in Greece helping the Greek authorities in several areas, not least the successful operation of the EU-Turkey agreement that is preventing children from making perilous journeys.