Childcare Payments Bill

Baroness Laing of Elderslie Excerpts

Monday 17th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Amendment 12, in clause 11, page 7, line 8, after “may —”, insert—

“(a) repeal this section, or”.

Amendment 13, in clause 15, page 9, line 10, after “may —”, insert—

“(a) amend this Act to allow childcare accounts to be held by persons other than those specified in subsection (1),”.

Amendment 3, in clause 30, page 17, line 3, leave out

“an award of tax credit is or has been made”

and insert

“an award of tax credit which includes the childcare element is or has been made”.

Amendment 4, page 17, line 18, after “credit”, insert

“which includes the childcare element”.

Amendment 5, page 17, line 22, after “credit”, insert

“which includes the childcare element”.

Amendment 6, page 17, line 31, after “credit”, insert

“which includes the childcare element”.

Amendment 7, in clause 32, page 19, line 16, after “credit”, insert

“which includes the childcare element”.

Amendment 8, in clause 35, page 21, line 21, after “credit”, insert

“which includes the childcare element”.

Amendment 9, page 21, line 32, after “credit”, insert

“which includes the childcare element”.

Amendment 10, in clause 36, page 22, line 12, after “credit”, insert

“which includes the childcare element”.

Amendment 11, page 22, line 24, after “credit”, insert

“which includes the childcare element”.

[Alison McGovern]

It is a pleasure to speak in support of new clause 2, which stands in my name and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell). Before I continue, may I pause briefly to pay tribute to the outstanding work that my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell) did as my predecessor in this shadow position, and in particular to her scrutiny of the Bill in Committee?

In and of itself, this is not a bad Bill. We agree with its aims; it sets out to address serious issues relating to child care costs and affordability, which we recognise form a major part of the crisis hitting so many families in Britain today. Our concerns with the Bill are that, for all its good intentions in proposing this scheme for payments towards child care costs, Treasury Ministers have not thought through all the potential consequences.

Some of the Bill’s weaknesses may arise from the fact that, as far as the Government are concerned, this is purely a Treasury Bill; it has perhaps lacked some valuable input from those with a stronger experience of how the child care market actually operates—or, in far too many cases, fails to operate—in this country.

In oral evidence to the Committee, numerous organisations and experts raised concerns about the long-term effects of the Bill, and we have seen little movement from the Government to address those worries. The new clause seeks to go some way to rectifying that, by requiring the Chancellor to keep under review the impact the scheme has on issues of child care cost inflation and, thus, affordability.

Let me say a few words about the situation in which we find ourselves. There is, undeniably, a crisis in child care costs. There is no need to take my word for that or to rely on the testimony we hear on the doorsteps in our constituencies. The Office for National Statistics tells us that between 2010 and 2014 the cost of placing a two-year-old or older in nursery rose by 31%—wages rose by just under 4% in that period—and for under-twos the figure rose by 27%. [Interruption.] If the hon. Member for Taunton Deane (Mr Browne), who is sitting on the Liberal Democrat Front Bench, wants to intervene, he is welcome to. [Interruption.] I shall take that to mean he does not.

The figures also reveal that, as we have seen so often during the past four years, the areas seeing the least benefit from this weak and uneven recovery have been hit the hardest by child care cost increases. In my region of the north-west, costs are up by 46% in just four years. Over the Pennines, in the north-east, the figure is 47%. A family in my constituency is having to find, on average, £31 a week more to fund 25 hours of nursery for their two-year-old, three-year-old or four-year-old. That is a hefty sum in almost anyone’s money. When that is tied in with frozen wages, reduced tax credits, increased VAT and soaring housing costs, it all becomes a pretty desperate recipe—I hear testimony on that from my constituents week in, week out.

We know that not only are there regional biases to costs, but families with disabled children are being hit disproportionately hard as well. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham), who was a doughty champion for the parents of disabled children in Committee and who has tabled amendments 1 to 13 today. The cross-party parliamentary inquiry on child care for disabled children, of which my hon. Friend was a member and which was chaired by my hon. Friend the Member for North West Durham (Pat Glass) and the hon. and learned Member for South Swindon (Mr Buckland), produced some valuable findings on that point.