Childcare Bill [HL]

Baroness Pinnock Excerpts

Wednesday 1st July 2015 Lords Chamber

[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.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Pinnock]

My Lords, I support what the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, has said. As the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, said, the focus of this Bill must be on the quality of provision for the child. I made that point on Second Reading. It is most important that we keep our focus on the quality of the provision for the children whom the Government are going to spend money on by providing additional hours of childcare.

The one word that I noticed was missing from the Bill was the word “quality”. When you are dealing with the very youngest members of our society, you would think that any additional provision made for them would have the word “quality” attached to it. When I read the Bill, it struck me that the focus or driving force behind it was not the needs of the child but the needs of the parent. That is why I passionately support these amendments. We need to shift the focus back on to what is done for the child. It would be wonderful if we could rename this Childcare Bill, which has all the connotations of care rather than anything else, the “Early Years Care and Education Bill”. Within the additional 15 hours for which the Government are paying we want to see not just aspects of care, but aspects of early years education as well. That would bring with it the qualities proposed by both the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, and my noble friend Lady Tyler. I hope the Minister will take those two points on board.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

I shall speak to Amendment 31 in my name. Before I do so, I declare my interest—since it is pertinent to local authorities—both as a councillor and as a newly elected vice-president of the Local Government Association. I concur entirely with the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, about the confusion in implementing free childcare provision if local authorities are responsible for the first 15 hours and the Secretary of State is responsible for the next 15 hours.

However, our amendment focuses on a different aspect. We are asking for a new clause to be inserted into this Bill, to enable local authorities to be a provider of last resort. We do so for a number of important reasons. When I visited the Minister this morning, I noticed a big sign on his door that included the phrase “closing the gaps”. We all know, from our own research and from references already cited by many noble Lords this afternoon, that early years are extremely important in ensuring that children start school on a level playing field. We as a society must do our best to ensure that children who come from less advantaged homes have that gap closed before they start their formal education.

We are concerned that where children are less advantaged, either in homes where they are vulnerable or in areas where there is considerable deprivation, it is much less likely for vibrant private sector provision to be established, particularly when there will be 30 hours of free childcare. We already know, from evidence provided at Second Reading, that many private providers rely on additional funding, outside those free hours, in order to make their businesses financially viable. We need to give special focus to those areas of the country and those families that many Members of the House are already most concerned about, to ensure that children in those areas and families have the same opportunities and access as children from more advantaged areas. In those places where there are no viable providers from either the private or the voluntary sector, the local authority should be given the opportunity to close that gap to enable children to take advantage of the 30 hours that would be on offer. One of the reasons for doing this is because, sadly, many Sure Start children’s centres are either closing their doors or decreasing the number of hours that they are open for children from these very families. In many cases the buildings are there and could be used by local authorities by commissioning from the voluntary or private sector, but certainly provision should be made for children from less advantaged backgrounds.

As we have heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, local authorities already have a duty of sufficiency. Enabling local authorities to bridge that gap would give them the opportunity to ensure that there is a sufficiency of places for all children in our country to take advantage of the additional 15 hours of free childcare—or “early years care and education” as I am going to start calling it. As we heard in the debate on the previous group of amendments, that is probably the most important thing we can do: to focus on children who come from less advantaged areas and vulnerable families and give them the right start in life. Let us really do what it says on the Minister’s door and do our best to close that gap.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Pinnock]

At Second Reading, I raised considerable concerns about the lack of a definition of working parents. I welcome the contributions so far, which have tried to expand the definition of working parents that the Minister gave at Second Reading, which is now written in the policy statement he provided at the end of last week. If the Government’s aim is to enable more people to go out to work by providing additional free childcare, I think we need a wider definition than that the Minister provided.

I am particularly concerned about people who go into education and training. They, too, ought to qualify for the additional 15 hours’ free childcare. We know two things. One is that many young parents have missed out, somewhere along their route through life, on accessing further education or training, either by choice or not. We also know that skill levels in this country are not as high as we would like them to be. One of the best ways back into the workforce is by gaining extra skills or qualifications through further or higher education. The Government ought to be enabling and encouraging this to happen by including parents in education or training in their definition of working parents. I urge the Minister to consider that addition seriously.

Childcare

Baroness Pinnock Excerpts

Tuesday 30th June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

I agree entirely with the noble Lord, who is very experienced in this area. We all know that these are the most important years in a child’s life, but I am encouraged that of the providers who have been inspected under the early years inspection framework, which is a more rigorous one, we now have some 85% of them being found to be good or outstanding, up from 69% five years ago.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that the problems of undercapacity in the childcare sector will not be resolved unless hourly rates for the free places are substantially increased? The hourly rate is dependent on the vagaries of the early years funding element in the revenue support grant to local authorities. We need to address both concerns if the rates for free places are going to be increased, as well as problems around capacity in the childcare sector if the increase to 15 hours a week is to be provided.

[Lord Nash]

The noble Baroness is quite right to be concerned about these points; that is why we have a funding review and a task force, and will be entering into a consultation. However, we have to strike a balance between value for money and quality.

Childcare Bill [HL]

Baroness Pinnock Excerpts

Tuesday 16th June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, of course we very much welcome the basis of this Bill, which is the additional 15 hours a week of free childcare for three and four year-olds whose families are in work. However, as the noble Baroness has just said, the devil is very much in the detail of this offer. I have four broad areas of concern: funding—there must be sufficient funding allocated to cover the cost of a high quality offer; flexibility—to really help working families, there must be flexibility built in to the offer; focus—childcare provision must be primarily for the benefit of the child; and fairness—this provision must be of equal benefit to low-income and higher-income families. Our concerns are the four Fs—funding, flexibility, focus and fairness. I want to expand on each of these issues.

On funding, one of the key concerns is that the Government provide adequate levels of funding for the scheme. On this, sadly, the Bill is completely silent. However, we know that the manifesto commitment was for an additional £350 million. I hope that this is one manifesto pledge that will be broken. Even combined with the estimated lower demand for the tax-free childcare and a transfer of any of those savings, the scheme appears to be grossly underfunded. This potentially underfunded proposal is then subject to the unfair vagaries of the early years funding element of the local government grant. Consequently, some council areas will have the double hit of the combination of an inadequate funding package that is then unfairly divided. This leads to private providers making up for losses incurred on the free offer by charging highly inflated rates for hours outside of the scheme. One parent told me that he pays £8.36 an hour for these extra hours for a non-London nursery. The Government are undertaking a funding review which may report before the end of the year. However, that does not help us in our consideration of the Bill or, more to the point, the parents and children who will want to know what quality of childcare will be provided.

The second concern I have is flexibility. The needs of parents and carers who are working are many and varied. Many women, particularly, often have two, three or even four short-hour jobs in cleaning and catering. Their needs are often for childcare to meet early-morning shift working and for after-school cleaning jobs. Often jobs in this area of the labour market are unstable both in terms of hours worked and in length of contract, so having a flexible offer is vital for both the child and the parent. Then there is the constant pressure on parents to find childcare in the school holidays. This can be very expensive. One mother of three children has told me that it costs her £2,000 in childcare during the six-week holiday. Even with the tax-free childcare, her costs will be £1,600. I have asked parents to let me know their comments on the flexibility provided—or not provided—in the Bill. They have said that being able to spread the 30 hours per week over 52 weeks rather than the 38-week school year would be of enormous benefit. I urge the Minister to consider that proposal.

I have considerable concerns about the Bill’s focus, which seems to be on providing the means to encourage more women into the workforce. That in itself may be a laudable aim, but these are children’s lives we are dealing with and the primary focus of attention must be the impact on their lives, not just an economic argument about the labour market. I urge the Government to make adjustments to the Bill so that it becomes child centred. Making that change would change the thrust of the debate towards focusing on the quality and type of provision. We know that poor-quality childcare can actually damage a child’s development. An underfunded scheme may well result in lower quality, but the thrust of any childcare provision, especially that funded by the Government, must surely be to provide care of the highest quality. Focusing on the needs of children would force consideration of the effect of spending 30 hours in an institutional setting and thought about the potential benefits of childcare being shared between different providers. Wraparound care also needs to be thought through. A parent who may well need care from, say, 8 am until 6 pm will need more than provision that is just school based. Private providers are understandably reluctant to provide care just for an hour or so each side of the school day. It does not add up, for them, to a successful business model. I hope the Minister will be able to give us categoric assurances that the Bill will put the needs of the child first and foremost.

Finally, fairness needs to be at the heart of the Bill, and I am not convinced that it is: fairness to parents trying to juggle work and parental responsibilities, when they are in jobs that may last only a few months; fairness in defining the eligibility, so that parents in education or training also qualify; fairness to the child in ensuring that the free childcare is of a high quality; and fairness for children with disabilities and from dysfunctional families through actively encouraging their take-up of any offer which is adjusted to meet their specific needs. It is, therefore, only when we see the detailed regulation and, importantly, the funding package that we will be able to be certain that this measure will be positive both for children and their carers.