Oral Answers to Questions

Baroness Chapman of Darlington Excerpts

Monday 7th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gyimah]

I totally agree with my hon. Friend. One of the great things about the UK childcare market is the diversity of provision—childminders, nurseries, school nurseries—available to parents, as it means we can meet all parents’ needs, especially when it comes to work. We will make sure that flexibility for parents is at the heart of how the 30 hours is delivered.

[Jenny Chapman (Darlington) (Lab)]

It really is all about delivery. The Minister talks about meeting all parents’ needs, but already 59 local authorities say they do not have the places to meet current obligations to three-year-olds, never mind the additional hours. What is he going to do?

[Mr Gyimah]

Once again, I shall give a dose of reality: 99% of four-year-olds and 96% of three-year-olds are accessing the existing 15 hours of childcare. I am happy to compare our record with that of the previous Labour Government. After 13 years in office, it had provided 12.5 hours of free childcare. In half that time, the Conservative party has provided 30 hours of free childcare. Labour never offered anything for disadvantaged two-year-olds; we have a programme for disadvantaged two-year-olds. We are investing more than any previous Government. It might not like it, but it must accept it: the Conservatives are the party of childcare.

[Jenny Chapman]

My party introduced Sure Start. There was no Sure Start and there were no children’s centres—no universal offer for any kind of childcare—prior to the Labour Government in 1997. The test of this will be how many families actually use the additional hours and who those families are. How has the Minister managed to concoct a system where a household with an income of £200,000 a year benefits from the additional hours, whereas 20,000 single parents on the minimum wage will not be eligible? How has he managed to come up with something so deeply unfair?

[Mr Gyimah]

Let me explain the policy to the hon. Lady. She should be familiar with it by now. Our eligibility criteria make absolute sense. To get 30 hours of free childcare, someone needs to be in work and earning more than £107 a week and not more than £100,000 a year—it does not matter if they are a lone parent. That means that if anybody in the family earns more than £100,000 a year, they will not be eligible. I know that Labour Members do not want to hear it, but Labour’s childcare voucher scheme meant that parents earning more than £1 million could get childcare subsidies but the self-employed could not. We are not allowing that to happen in our childcare scheme.

Further Education Colleges (North-east)

Baroness Chapman of Darlington Excerpts

Tuesday 26th January 2016 Westminster Hall

[Jenny Chapman (Darlington) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman) on securing this important debate, and I am grateful for the opportunity to contribute.

I am not opposed in principle to area reviews, and it is right to assess from time to time the post-16 education on offer to young people and adults in any locality. We need to do that now because resources are scarce and colleges have been under immense pressure—more than they have ever been—in the past five years.

As a result of the environment the Government have created in recent years, I have seen some quite sharp practices taking place between colleges. In my area, we have the ludicrous situation that students have been enticed by offers of free travel to study at colleges further from home, when they could just as easily have studied the same courses in their home towns. That is not a sensible use of public money. Colleges are incorporated, but they are funded by the state, and taxpayers would expect such practices to be discouraged. My fear is that area review actually encourages such a lack of co-ordination and collaboration and that, once colleges agree whatever they agree with the area review team, the situation will deteriorate. I want to know what area review will do to cement collaboration between colleges.

I am all for student choice. I have no objection at all to Darlington students travelling further afield to access courses that are not on offer in the town or that are offered to a higher standard elsewhere. In fact, I would encourage that, and a small number of students from my area travel to Hartlepool to study on the courses mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Hartlepool (Mr Wright). I am pleased that they do that, and it is great that they can, but the lamentable state of public transport in the Tees valley is becoming an ever bigger obstacle to that happening more often. However, I do not like the gimmicky enticement of students who have not had the benefit of independent, well-informed advice about what is best for them.

College funding mechanisms certainly need to be looked at. Currently, colleges can do well as long as they can attract enough students on to their courses and keep them there, but they are not held to account adequately for the destinations of course leavers. Colleges operate in a market, but that market does not work sufficiently well for students.

My hon. Friend the Member for Hartlepool was absolutely right to refer to social mobility. There is a lack of quality advice and guidance for young people. Students are therefore not savvy consumers able to shape the market in the way that I am sure the Minister would wish. The Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission put it well:

“There is a jungle of qualifications, courses and institutions which students find hard to penetrate. Quality is variable and there is little or no visibility about outcomes. Nor is the system working as well as it should for the economy with skills shortages in precisely those areas—construction, technical and scientific skills—that vocational education is supposed to supply.”

In the north-east, we have seen thousands of older potential students lose their jobs in the public sector—and now in steel, too. How will area review take account of the needs of older learners? I ask that because I looked at what happened in Scotland, which undertook an area review—indeed, I was expecting a Member from Scotland to be here. The number of colleges in Scotland fell from 37 to 20. At the same time, there was a reduction of 48% in the number of part-time students and of 41% in the number of students aged 25 or over. That is deeply concerning to those of us from the north-east, given the job losses I referred to.

[Chi Onwurah]

My hon. Friend makes an important point about adult education and the capacity of our further education colleges to meet a growing demand for which there is less support. As the chair of the all-party group on adult education, I hope that the Minister will be able to give us some reassurance that the destruction of adult education will not continue.

[Jenny Chapman]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. The review could do serious damage if we are not mindful of the impact on older learners, given the experience north of the border.

One of the real problems is the confusion about courses, funding streams and where courses lead. A UCAS-style website could be created for vocational education, so that any learner can see for themselves what progression they are likely to undergo and what employment and earnings opportunities they are likely to have, as a consequence of choosing any course.

It would be remiss of me not to refer to my two local colleges—Darlington College, which is ably led by Kate Roe, and Queen Elizabeth Sixth Form College, which is led by Tim Fisher. The heads of both colleges are fantastic individuals, but they are both grappling like mad with how on earth to take their colleges forward, given the context that we are likely to see. Colleges in Darlington are really struggling with what Darlington needs to look like in the 21st century. What should the course mix look like? Who are the students of the future? What will they want? What will the skills needs be not just in our local area, but in the region, in the country and internationally? I want students in Darlington to get the same opportunities as students in the Minister’s constituency, because that is not the case now. That is what we are meant to be aiming for. Those are the right questions for my colleges to be asking, and the Government should be focused on helping them to find answers.

Many of our colleges collaborate well, but there are too many examples of competition. I fear that the area review process will cement that counterproductive behaviour between colleges. As well as three-year funding security, colleges need external leadership. Unless we cement in some form of governance change—I do not know whether that should be done through city deals or some other means, but we do need strategic leadership on a wider scale—and force colleges to accept a direction that builds in employers’ needs, it is inevitable, given the likely future funding context and the competition for students, that different institutions will embark on wasteful enterprises and use novelty gimmicks to remain viable. That is in nobody’s interests: it is bad for the economy, bad for taxpayers and, worst of all, bad for our students, who need well-informed advice that is given without prejudice and based on a sound knowledge of the jobs market.

I am afraid that so far area review has been conducted away from the gaze of students and parents, and away from employers. That has to change. The colleges are our colleges. They are vital local employers and community resources, and they undertake a vital task. We all feel great ownership of our colleges and do not want that to be lost. As I have said, I am open to change, as are my colleges, but the Minister needs to understand that the rationale for that change must have the students’ best interests at heart.

Childcare Bill [Lords]

Baroness Chapman of Darlington Excerpts

Monday 25th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Jenny Chapman (Darlington) (Lab)]

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

[Mr Speaker]

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

New clause 2—Attainment and development of children—

“(1) In discharging the duty under section 1(1), the Secretary of State must have regard to narrowing the attainment and development gap between young children—

(a) of different genders;

(b) of different ethnic backgrounds;

(c) of different socio-economic backgrounds;

(d) living in different regions; and

(e) who do and do not have a disability.

(2) Within 12 months of the passing of this Act the Secretary of State must lay before both Houses of Parliament a report containing an evaluation of the impact of discharging the duty under section 1(1) on narrowing the attainment and development gap between young children—

(a) of different genders;

(b) of different socio-economic backgrounds;

(c) of different ethnic backgrounds;

(d) living in different regions; and

(e) who do and do not have a disability.”

This new clause would require the Secretary of State, in discharging her duty under this Act, to have regard to the attainment and development gap between different groups of children. The Secretary of State would also have to publish a report on the impact of discharging her duty on such gaps.

Amendment 1, clause 1, page 2, line 8, at end insert—

“(4A) Regulations under subsection (4) must provide for victims of domestic violence who have left paid employment in order to escape such violence to continue to be eligible for 30 hours of free childcare per week under section 1.”

This amendment seeks to ensure that provision is made for people who are suffering domestic violence who leave paid employment in order to escape their situation to continue to receiving 30 hours of free childcare per week.

Amendment 2, page 2, line 8, at end insert—

“(4A) Regulations under subsection (4) must set out in what circumstances a parent or partner who is a student nurse will be considered to meet any conditions relating to paid work.”

This amendment seeks to ensure that provision is made for student nurses to be eligible for 30 hours of childcare per week under this Act.

[Jenny Chapman]

I spent five years on the shadow Justice team and had to speak to many really quite dreadful Bills. It is a soft landing for me to be greeted by the remaining stages of this Bill, which is, essentially, uncontroversial. We enthusiastically support its aims.

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for North West Durham (Pat Glass) for her sterling work in challenging the Minister as the Bill made its way through Committee. She is, as everybody here will know, a ferocious champion of quality provision for all children, and she has particular expertise in services for children with disabilities. Having read the Hansard record of the debates in Committee, it is obvious how valuable her contributions were. She will be a miss to the shadow Education team, but in her new role she will be a robust champion and defender of Britain’s membership of the European Union as we approach the forthcoming referendum, whenever that may be.

New clause 1, tabled in my name and those of my hon. Friends, requires the Government to evaluate the implementation and effectiveness of the Bill, should it become an Act. As well as spending five years on the shadow Justice team, I spent five years serving on the Procedure Committee. In that time, we pondered the value of pre-legislative scrutiny and longed for a position in which Governments consulted meaningfully on their plans. I believe post-legislative scrutiny would be of similar value. The principal problem with the Bill is that it does not do what the Prime Minister claimed it would. During the election campaign—I know those are heady moments for all of us and there are those in my party, too, who occasionally get carried away—the Prime Minister, in one particularly effervescent moment, proclaimed in a press release:

“For families with young children, this is not one issue among many—it is the issue. They’re asking ‘How can this work? How can we afford it?’ It shouldn’t have to be this way. It is why we already fund 15 hours of free childcare a week to working parents of three and four-year-olds.”

He said:

“I can tell you today we’re going further a lot further. We’re going to take that free childcare and we’re going to double it.”

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

It’s all good stuff.

[Jenny Chapman]

It’s fantastic stuff, isn’t it? There is more:

“With a Conservative Government, you will get 30 hours of free childcare a week”.

Marvellous! Had I believed it, I might just have voted for it myself.

The trouble is that thousands of families did believe the Prime Minister when he promised to double the 15 hours of free childcare per week. How disappointed they will be to discover that the promise was false! Even those who dug deep and read the small print will be disappointed. When he made the promise, there was a caveat in the notes at the bottom of the press release: children will get the free childcare only if their parents are working more than eight hours a week. Thousands of families in which both parents worked more than eight hours a week each could plan on that basis, or so they thought—the Bill says nothing about eight hours. The Government now say that both parents must be working at least 16 hours a week, at the minimum wage, or, just to confuse things a bit more, earning above the equivalent earnings of 16 hours per week on the minimum wage but in fewer hours.

The Government, in their spin, misled the public, then they misled families with the detail, and now they are confusing parents and providers with the implementation. That is why I support new clause 1. It is necessary to ensure the Government examine the Bill after its enactment, which could have some serious unintended consequences. The first potential consequence I would like the Government to monitor is the impact on the supply and quality of childcare places.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Mr Sam Gyimah)]

All parties at the last general election promised to increase the free entitlement. Labour promised to increase it from 15 hours to 25 hours for working parents. The Conservative party promised to increase it from 15 hours to 30 hours for working parents. Who would she have included or excluded from Labour’s definition of working parents?

[Jenny Chapman]

As I will explain, the problem is with who the Government are excluding. People earning more than the minimum wage but working fewer hours would be entitled to the Minister’s 15 additional free hours, whereas someone working 15 hours on the minimum wage will not be entitled to them. If I am wrong, I will gladly let him intervene to correct me.

[Mr Gyimah]

The hon. Lady mentioned the hon. Member for North West Durham (Pat Glass), who, at the end of the Committee stage, said it was a good Bill and that she could find nothing in it with which to disagree. I hope, in their handover, they had that discussion. The eligibility criteria are very straightforward. Eligibility will be judged on income. If someone is under 25 and earning the national living wage, they will need to earn £107 a week. If they are over 25 and earning the national living wage, which the Government are introducing, the calculation will be the national living wage times the number of hours they can work. It is very straightforward.

[Jenny Chapman]

Well, I am glad that’s as simple as it gets. I said at the outset that I supported the Bill reasonably enthusiastically, but it is a bit arrogant of the Minister to suggest that it is a perfect Bill and that it has no complexity. As he just demonstrated incredibly well, there is huge complexity. Somebody on low earnings and working fewer than 16 hours a week will not qualify, but someone on higher earnings—

[The Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury (Damian Hinds)]

Universal credit.

[Jenny Chapman]

The Minister says that universal credit will help improve the system. I venture to suggest that it might well further complicate the situation.

The new clause is designed to ensure that these perceived and anticipated complications do not have unintended consequences. As I have said, I accept that they are unintended, but the Minister would be rather naive to think that these consequences could never occur.

[Chloe Smith (Norwich North) (Con)]

I am extremely grateful to the hon. Lady for giving way, but I struggle somewhat to understand how anything that she has spoken about will be achieved through new clause 1.

[Jenny Chapman]

Is the hon. Lady looking at the wrong piece of paper? I shall go on to explain what is in new clause 1, and if she listens carefully, she will understand what we are trying to get at.

The new analysis by the House of Commons Library reveals a black hole of £480 million in the funding of this childcare offer. That shortfall represents £470 per child each year for those taking up the full 30 hours of free childcare. Independent research undertaken by research company Ceeda, as commissioned by the Pre-School Learning Alliance, suggests that the Department’s funding review has underestimated the cost of delivering childcare. The researchers found that, if funded at the average rate of £4.83 an hour—£4.88 minus the early years pupil premium, which the Department claims is worth 5p an hour—announced by the Government on 25 November, nurseries and pre-schools would face an annual shortfall of £233.70 per child for three and four-year-olds taking up the existing 15-hour entitlement, and £467.40 for those taking up the full 30 hours.

What could be the consequence of that funding gap? Childcare providers will have some difficult choices to make. There is every possibility that in an attempt to make ends meet, the gap will be met through driving down quality, while some providers might leave the market altogether, resulting in less choice for parents and a lack of supply. The Pre-School Learning Alliance warns, rather ominously, that as the existing scheme is significantly underfunded, it is now “crunch time” for the sector. The sector is already in a precarious position, and the Minister needs to reflect on the fact that the Family and Childcare Trust reports that a quarter of local authorities have a shortage of places for children in their existing schemes. There are 40,000 fewer places now than there were in 2010. Given that the Government failed to build capacity in the sector, how are the extra hours going to happen and how does the Minister think providers are going to pay for it? New clause 1 flags up those issues for the Government and asks Ministers to monitor the effect of the new arrangements.

[Mr Gyimah]

I thank the hon. Lady for being so generous in giving way. The Conservative party promised at the election to increase the average funding rate and it is delivering on that promise. The Labour party did not promise to increase the hourly rate. If the hon. Lady is arguing that the funding rate is not enough, will she tell us what the Labour party considers to be the right funding rate for the entitlement?

[Jenny Chapman]

I do wish it was my Bill that we were debating here. I really do, but it is not; it is the Minister’s Bill and it is for him to defend it and to argue against my new clause. That is why we are here. This is not a re-run of the election campaign. I am sure we are all glad about that—I know I am!

New clause 1 also asks the Government to evaluate the impact on parental employment and the administrative burdens placed on parents and providers. What parents want, aside from high-quality and affordable provision, is a scheme that is easy to understand and predictable. After someone has had a baby, deciding when to return to work and for how many hours is a difficult and finely balanced choice. Employers and parents need certainty. As parents fret over the balance between work and family life, employers and co-workers also make choices about their hours and staffing. We want those parents who choose to work to be able to do so. Any opaqueness about eligibility is damaging to take-up of the scheme and harms the confidence that the Government will not move the goalposts once complex family arrangements have been put in place. The proposed scheme, under which someone earning £107 in half a day would be eligible for 30 hours per week of free childcare but someone who works 15 hours a week on the minimum wage is not eligible, will seem bonkers to most people. I therefore urge the Government to do as new clause 1 suggests and monitor the impact of this change, in particular on parental employment patterns.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Gyimah]

The hon. Lady raises important questions about parents on zero-hours contracts and how they will be monitored. The first point is that parents on zero-hours contracts are self-employed; they are all entitled to the childcare under this scheme. HMRC will check the income levels, and in the case of the self-employed will know how much they earn over a period of time. In addition, and more importantly, there is a grace period so that if someone falls out of work for a period they will not lose their childcare.

[Jenny Chapman]

I am, of course, grateful to the Minister for his intervention, but I might just suggest that he will get the opportunity to make his own speech when I have finished, and he might want to answer some of my questions then. I will move on—

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Jenny Chapman]

I will move on by giving way to my hon. Friend.

[Alex Cunningham]

I am grateful to my constituency near-neighbour for giving way. I was pleased to serve on the Bill Committee and I have never seen a Minister intervene so often during others’ speeches with reassurances such as “the Prime Minister’s promise will be fulfilled,” or “There will be sufficient quality places,” and all manner of other such statements. Would not the Minister be seen to be really reassuring us if he accepted new clause 1 and the scrutiny put down in law?

[Jenny Chapman]

My hon. Friend makes a good point, and does so very well. We all like a keen and perky and eager Minister, but it would be good if he were more willing to hold himself to account, after the introduction of this Bill, by adopting new clause 1. However, I shall move on to new clause 2.

This new clause, also in my name and that of my hon. Friends, requires the Government to monitor and report on the state of the attainment gap between young children, and it specifies between “different genders”, “different ethnic backgrounds”, “different socio-economic backgrounds”, those living in different parts of the country, and those

“who do and do not have a disability”.

Our experience tells us that unless Ministers monitor, and are required to report on, the gap, focus will be lost and equality of opportunity for all young people will never be achieved.

I would like to acknowledge the invaluable work of the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission in helping us to prepare new clause 2. I believe that setting up the commission was relatively easy for the Government, but listening to it and acting on what it says seem to be a step too far for them. The new clause would provide an opportunity to put that right in a very small way. The commission states that the Britain we should all aspire to help to build is

“one where opportunities are shared equally and are not dependent on the family you were born into, the place where you live or the school you attend. It is a society where being born poor does not condemn someone to a lifetime of poverty. Instead it is a society where your progress in life—the job you do, the income you earn, the lifestyle you enjoy—depends on your aptitude and ability, not your background or your birth.”

The commission’s most recent report warns that Britain is on the verge of becoming a “permanently divided nation”, and exposes some of the deep divisions that characterise our country. Those at the top in Britain today look remarkably similar to those who rose to the top 50 years ago. For example, 71% of senior judges, 62% of senior armed forces personnel and 55% of civil service departmental heads attended private schools, compared with just 7% of the general population.

Britain could become the most open, fair and mobile society in the modern world, but the policy and practice of this Government need to change, and that all starts with the early years. All children, whatever their background, should be school-ready by the age of five. However, less than half of the poorest children in England are ready for school by that age, compared with two thirds of the others, and a deep gender divide means that girls from the poorest families do almost as well as boys from the better-off families at that point. The commission has found that,

“efforts to improve the school-readiness of the poorest children are uncoordinated, confused and patchy.”

It also comments that,

“the complexity of the childcare funding system is hampering efforts to increase maternal employment.”

The commission has some straightforward suggestions for the Government to help to narrow the gap at the age of five. It says that the

“Government should end the strategic vacuum in the early years by introducing two clear, stretching, long-term objectives: to halve the development gap between the poorest children and the rest at age five; and to halve the gap in maternal employment between England and the best-performing nations, both by 2025.”

Further, the commission argues in relation to childcare that the Government

“should radically simplify the multiple streams which finance it”.

New clause 2 tells the Government that willing the gap in attainment and development of children to narrow is not enough. However, I believe that they have the will to do it. I have heard some of their mutterings and comments, and I believe that they have the will—

[Lucy Powell (Manchester Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

They are not intervening now, though, are they?

[Jenny Chapman]

No, they are very quiet now.

Willing the ends without the means will cause more resentment and division, rather than less. The new clause would force the Government to assess and report on the gap in development and attainment, which would ensure that progress was measured. Unless that happens, opportunities to intervene will be missed and inequality will be further entrenched.

[Mike Kane (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. As the equality gap widens in Tory Britain in 2016, is not the most important decision for a young person to choose their parents in the womb if they want to get on in life?

[Jenny Chapman]

I dread to think what my kids would say to that.

New clause 2 is a modest request, given the scale of the challenge that we face. It is also something that the Government should be doing anyway. The strategy to narrow the gap with properly co-ordinated policies and regular reporting to Parliament is urgently needed. The measures in the Bill have the potential to diminish the supply and quality of childcare, and we want to know that that gap-widening risk will be closely tracked and acted on by the Government.

New clause 2 encourages the Government to do some of the strategic thinking that we need. If it is adopted, the Government would have carefully to track the take-up of the offer among, say, the 40% most disadvantaged, better to understand the reasons for low take-up, and then they can seek to address them. The key to improving the attainment of the poorest children—high quality early education as opposed simply to childcare—is at risk due to the question marks over funding, which is why I encourage the Government to support the new clause. We know that poorer areas have a higher proportion of providers than the maintained sector, mainly pre-schools and children’s centres. Those providers face particular capacity challenges, and the National Association of Head Teachers has warned that they are unlikely to be able to deliver the increased hours, as they tend to take just two groups of children—one in the morning and one in the afternoon—and physically do not have the space to double their numbers.

Schools have also tended to cross-subsidise the funding of their early years provision from elsewhere in their budgets to ensure quality. The Government have committed £50 million of new capital funding to help with that, thereby acknowledging that there is a problem, but the figure is unlikely to meet the need and may leave some areas without new provision. All this clause does is seek to ensure that this problem does not result in a widening of the attainment gap.

[Alex Cunningham]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the Minister could win his place in education history by accepting this new clause, which has some great ideas? He believes that those ideas will narrow the attainment gap, and that everything will work. What has he got to fear from the scrutiny associated with this particular clause?

[Jenny Chapman]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. Not only would the Minister win his place in the history of education teams in Parliament, but it would be the first time ever in Parliament that a Government accepted a new clause tabled by the Opposition on Report. We can live in hope.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies says:

“We have already stumbled a long way in the dark in this policy area. It is time to stop stumbling, shine a light on the policy landscape, and plot an effective route forward.”

If the Government plan to spend £6 billion a year on childcare by 2019-20, I would argue—and I think that they would, too, if they were in opposition—that the risks of an ill-targeted and inefficient system should not be ignored. New clause 2 asks that the Government turn their head to narrowing the gap in early years attainment, and monitor the impact of their policy on this issue to ensure that the nation’s investment is rewarded.

Let me briefly speak to amendment 2, which is a probing amendment and is intended to assess the Government’s appetite for supporting a particular group—in this case, student nurses. This matter arose in Committee, and it is worth flagging up our concern about that particular group and its needs at this time. Members will recall that last week thousands of student nurses and midwives marched through London in protest at plans to scrap training bursaries. Many student nurses already have financial obligations such as mortgages, and many also have children. The Nursing and Midwifery Council requires them to have completed at least 4,600 hours while studying, with half of those in practice. The student nurses work the equivalent of 37 and a half hours a week at least. They work nights, days and weekends. It is very difficult for that particular group to get a part-time job to support dependants while training.

Have the Government made an assessment of the cost of extending the additional entitlement to student nurses with eligible children? I tried to do so, but I do not think that the data exist, so it would be interesting to see whether the Minister has been able to obtain an estimate of the cost. My parents were both nurses, and at the time there were hospital social clubs and a crèche. Obviously that was not recent, but the amendment encourages the Government to work with other Departments to ensure that particular groups—in this case, student nurses—are not disproportionately disadvantaged by a combination of Government policies. I commend new clauses 1 and 2 to the House.

[Mr Gyimah]

I am grateful for the opportunity to hold this important debate, and I once again welcome the hon. Member for Darlington (Jenny Chapman) to her position. The amendments that have been tabled raise a number of interesting issues, which I shall deal with in turn. Let me say at the outset, however, that extending the 15 hours to 30 hours is primarily a work incentive. That is why the first 15 hours are universal, but the second 15 hours are based mainly on economic eligibility criteria. In judging and evaluating the impact of the policy we should bear in mind the work incentive.

[Jenny Chapman]

What the Minister says is correct—that is his intention—but does he accept that in new clause 1 our intention is simply to hold him to that and to assess the success of the Bill in delivering that intention?

[Mr Gyimah]

The hon. Lady is right to ask the questions. However, I shall resist the new clause, and the main reason is that a number of evaluations, which she has asked for, are under way. There are important programmes, as I shall explain, that focus on reducing the gap between disadvantaged children and other children.

New clause 1 asks us to evaluate the impact of the new entitlement for working parents. That is extremely important and I hope that Members will be reassured to know that we have a very strong evidence base about the impact of free early education entitlements. We know, from studies such as the effective pre-school, primary and secondary education project that early education has a significant impact on child outcomes. Children attending high-quality provision for two or three years before school have a seven or eight-month developmental advantage in literacy compared with their peers.

The Department for Education has commissioned another longitudinal study, if the hon. Member for Darlington will listen: the study of early education and development, which follows 8,000 two-year-olds from across England to the end of key stage 1. It looks at how childcare and early education can help to give children the best start in life and at what is important for high-quality childcare provision. The study is being carried out by NatCen Social Research, working with Frontier Economics, the University of Oxford and 4Children, on behalf of the Department.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Gyimah]

My hon. Friend makes a good point about a concern felt by some parents. The first 15 hours is universal, but it is voluntary—parents do not have to take it. The previous Government were very mindful of supporting parents who chose to do something else, so we introduced the marriage tax allowance, which supports those parents. In terms of school readiness, the key thing is that the evidence shows that it is helpful for children to attend an early years setting little and often. The universal part of this offer is 15 hours so that those children do not lose out.

Where a family choose to work because that is right for their family circumstances, it is right that the Government respond to the cry from many parents that childcare is too expensive. That is precisely what this Bill does. Rather than widening divisions in society, as the hon. Member for Darlington suggested, this Bill, by enabling more parents to fulfil their aspirations to work, is helping to narrow the economic gap that she mentioned.

[Jenny Chapman]

The Minister is making quite a bold assertion about the impact of this measure. He does not know that his Bill will narrow the gap, nor does he know that the most disadvantaged children will be able to benefit from the 15 hours, because in fact they will not.

[Mr Gyimah]

The early years foundation stage profile data show that the gap is already being narrowed. Economically enabling more parents to work if they want to is a positive thing for us to do for the growth of our economy.

Funding has been mentioned several times. This Government have invested a record amount—more than any other—in the early years entitlement and in childcare more broadly, but we also know that there are inefficiencies in the system. For example, not all the money that is allocated is distributed fairly to different local authorities, and not all of it reaches the frontline. We will therefore engage in a comprehensive package of reform by introducing a national funding formula for the early years so that funding is transparently and fairly matched to need, and fairly distributed between different types of provider in different parts of the country.

Oral Answers to Questions

Baroness Chapman of Darlington Excerpts

Monday 25th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gyimah]

It is encouraging to see that the Scottish National party has followed the Conservative party’s lead and is now pledging 30 hours of childcare in the upcoming Scottish elections. The hon. Lady will be aware that we have the childcare element of tax credits in England, so that parents who do not qualify for the second 15 hours can get support for up to 75% of their childcare costs through that policy.

[Jenny Chapman (Darlington) (Lab)]

On 14 April last year, the Prime Minister boasted—I cannot do a David Cameron impression—that with a Conservative Government

“you will get 30 hours of free childcare a week”.

As I recall, there was much rejoicing throughout the land. However, can the Minister now confirm that one in three of the families who he said would get the 30 hours of free childcare—and they believed it because the Prime Minister told them that they would—will receive no additional hours at all?

[Mr Gyimah]

I welcome the hon. Lady to her post. I look forward to her future contributions as vice-chair of Progress, especially as I now understand that to be a front for hard-right views in the Labour party. She will know that for the first 15 hours, the offer is universal— 99% of four-year-olds and 94% of three-year-olds get it. We have been very clear that the second 15 hours is a work incentive. Surely she does not believe that Islington parents on £100,000 a year should be entitled to free childcare. I know that she wants to represent the new core constituency of the Labour party.

Oral Answers to Questions

Baroness Chapman of Darlington Excerpts

Tuesday 10th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Jenny Chapman (Darlington) (Lab)]

What impact does the Secretary of State think cutting the funding for further education colleges by 40% might have on the availability and quality of apprenticeships?

[Sajid Javid]

I speak as someone who went to an FE college, and no one needs to tell me about their huge importance up and down the country. My priority is to make them stronger, and one way we are going to do that is through local area reviews, which will look at local need.

Oral Answers to Questions

Baroness Chapman of Darlington Excerpts

Tuesday 15th September 2015 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

I know that my hon. Friend is very passionate about this issue. I am happy to congratulate South Devon college on its plans. Degree apprenticeships are a fantastic route to higher level training. I assure my hon. Friend that my Department is working hard with colleges, universities and employers to support what is an increasingly popular route.

[Jenny Chapman (Darlington) (Lab)]

I am afraid that there is an issue not just with quantity, but with quality. With further education in a state that is getting close to desperate, too few apprenticeships are of a high enough quality. I visited Mech-Tool in my constituency, where apprenticeships are four years long and people get good jobs afterwards. What will the Secretary of State do to make sure that we improve quality for the rest of our apprentices?

[Sajid Javid]

The hon. Lady makes an important point. No one wants an increase just in quantity; we at the same time want to see quality improve. I hope that the hon. Lady will, for example, support the Enterprise Bill, when it is introduced in the other place on Thursday, which will for the first time protect the term “apprenticeship”.

Electoral Registration

Baroness Chapman of Darlington Excerpts

Wednesday 4th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jackson]

I will not give way to the hon. Lady.

[Jenny Chapman (Darlington) (Lab)]

You named her.

[Mr Jackson]

I named her, but I have named a lot of people in this debate.

The Labour party’s problem is simple: it is useless Labour councils. Those useless Labour councils are being given a lot of taxpayers’ money to do the job properly. They should be canvassing, registering people, ensuring that the right people are on the register and ensuring that there is electoral integrity in the register. If Labour Members have problems in Bristol, County Durham and the London borough of Merton, all of which are controlled by the Labour party, they should take them up with local people.

Consumer Rights Bill

Baroness Chapman of Darlington Excerpts

Monday 12th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Philip Davies]

The point is this. Places such as viagogo guarantee the tickets. If someone enters into a transaction on a viagogo site and anything untoward or amiss takes place, viagogo will stand behind the transaction and ensure that no consumer loses out. When it comes to selling something that is fraudulent or counterfeit or selling a ticket that does not exist, there are already laws in place to stop that. We cannot create another law to make something that is already illegal more illegal. If the ticket exists and is genuine, I could not care less who is selling it, as long as it guarantees me my place in the grounds to watch the game I want to watch. I do not care who the original owner was, particularly when the secondary market exists and respectable companies such as viagogo are there, guaranteeing to the buyer that nothing untoward will happen.

[Jenny Chapman (Darlington) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Philip Davies]

I am going to press on because others want to speak.

If we stop this legitimate market, all the protections that the secondary market has introduced into it will disappear. What will happen is that it will not be possible to go to a legitimate company such as viagogo to buy a ticket and have it guaranteed that nothing can go wrong; rather, everyone will be competing outside with the Arthur Daley types with the mackintosh jackets and trilby hats trying to buy a ticket. Then people are taking their lives into their hands, as some of those tickets might not be what they seem.

If we want to protect the interest of consumers, it is essential to allow the legitimate secondary ticketing market to flourish. An event that I want to go to might come along, but I am not sure whether I can go to it because of my work commitments. All the tickets are sold out. I then find out that I am free to go to the event. Here the secondary market is the only one that allows me the opportunity to go to it. It will ask for a certain price, and if I do not want to pay it, I will not have to pay it. Nobody is fleecing anyone, because I will not pay the price if I do not want to. At least I would have had the opportunity to choose in a way that would not arise if no secondary market was available. That is why the secondary market works in the best interests of consumers. It also means that if someone has a ticket but cannot go, they can get rid of it. Some events do not even accept refunds when a ticket is bought, so it is possible to be left with a ticket and not be able to get shot of it.

The secondary market is good and a price cap does not work. Anybody who believes in the free market could not possibly agree with the amendment to the Lords amendment. I hope that common sense will prevail. I have no doubt that the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West will keep trying to peddle her socialist ideal outcome, with the Government interfering in every single market going just because she thinks certain things are too expensive. When she starts arguing that house prices should be capped because there are too few of them and too many people want to buy them, I will at that point have a little more respect for her. In the meantime, this is just pure political opportunism, which she thinks is populist but it is not in the best interests of anybody.

--- Later in debate ---

[John Robertson]

Therein lies a problem, because sometimes the tickets being sold are not even proper tickets—someone might just have made a very good copy. The person with the £500 would be taking that chance. I do not believe that is right—that is probably why the hon. Gentleman is sat on the other side of the Chamber and I am sat here. If the ticket says £25, £60 or £100—whatever the figure is—I expect to pay that. I do not have a problem if I have to pay a wee bit extra, but I would not be paying £500 or £1,000. The worst case I ever heard of was when two tickets for Wimbledon finals day, which were for disabled people, were being sold on eBay for £2,000 each, and the buyer had to buy the pair. That is not right, and I am talking about only a couple of tickets.

[Jenny Chapman]

Would my hon. Friend like to say something about venues? I understand that millions of pounds are being taken out of the music industry, in particular. I support small venues in my constituency. They really do struggle. I do not mind paying top dollar for a ticket for a band I want to see, but I want to know that that money goes to the person who bought the ticket at a fair price, the venue or the artist.

[John Robertson]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. I like to think that the small venues are for new bands—people who are up and coming and do not have a great following. I have bought a ticket to see AC/DC at Hampden Park, which I had no problem doing because it holds 50,000 people. That was easy, but there is a genuine problem in respect of the small venues. We have a new venue in Glasgow called the Hydro, which holds 13,000 people. I have been there and it is fantastic, but even there, depending on who is coming, the ticket touts are out selling the tickets.

Oral Answers to Questions

Baroness Chapman of Darlington Excerpts

Monday 27th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gibb]

I know that my hon. Friend has worked tirelessly behind the scenes to ensure early resolution of the problems the school has faced since it went into special measures. We are working closely with the Castle Community Trust, and on securing a strong sponsor for the school quickly. Ofsted’s monitoring inspection on 10 September confirmed that the academy’s plans are fit for purpose, and that necessary improvements are being made.

[Jenny Chapman (Darlington) (Lab)]

Schools in special measures should demand the highest possible standards of their teachers, but the 2011 teaching standards do not apply to such schools if they are academies or free schools. The standards include things such as the management of behaviour. Is it not more important than ever that the standards should apply to schools when they are in special measures, whatever their governance arrangements?

[Mr Gibb]

I do not think that the hon. Lady is right. The teaching standards apply to all qualified teachers. If she is referring to the issue of qualified teacher status, she should be aware that the vast majority of teachers in academies are qualified teachers and so are required to abide by the teaching standards. Even for teachers who are not qualified, who might be lecturers from universities or people who have come from industry to teach physics or science, the head teacher is able to use the teaching standards in assessing them.

Infant Class Sizes

Baroness Chapman of Darlington Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Jenny Chapman (Darlington) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Daventry (Chris Heaton-Harris). It was interesting to hear him draw on his experiences on the Public Accounts Committee. That was a good contribution.

I disagreed with the hon. Gentleman fundamentally on one point. He said that education should not be the same throughout the country. Of course, he was right about that. However, education never has been the same everywhere in the country and it certainly did not become the same under the last Labour Government. We actively supported specialist schools and introduced academies. Far more choice was generated by the Labour Government than we are given credit for.

Although neither the hon. Gentleman nor the Opposition want education to be exactly the same, one thing that we do want to be the same is the opportunity for all children. That, plainly, is not the case at the moment. Equal opportunity is not afforded to all children regardless of their background. That is why this debate counts. It is not about a very small area of the garden. We are talking not just about infant school class sizes nudging up over 30, but about what that means for the future. We are talking not just about the children who are now experiencing education in very large classes, but about what that means as it continues. I remember being at school in the ’80s under a Tory Government—we are all talking about when we were educated—when class sizes were much larger than they are now. I do not wish to see that for children who are currently in infant schools. When they get to secondary school, will they still be taught in classes that are larger and larger? The detriment is exaggerated as a child gets older.

I am particularly concerned about this matter because I see the huge disparity between the outcomes for the 7% of children who are privately educated, with the opportunities that they can access—they do very well—and the outcomes for the 93% of young people who are educated in state schools. That issue has been well debated. The Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission has had a huge amount to say about the critical role of education in providing better opportunities to kids from all backgrounds.

According to the OECD, state primary schools have class sizes with four or more pupils larger than those in independent schools. The difference in secondary schools is significantly worse. Average class sizes in UK state secondary schools are more than double those in independent schools at 21.1 compared with 10.

[Justin Tomlinson]

The hon. Lady is giving a characteristically great speech. I agree with absolutely everything that she has said. Will she therefore explain the logic of the last Government cutting 200,000 places, thus denying people opportunity and choice?

[Jenny Chapman]

When I consider the issue I look at what is happening now, and numbers in my constituency have risen by 66%—66% more infant school pupils are being taught in classes of more than 30. That is happening now, and I am interested in what the Government will do to fix it.

I am a bit like some of my colleagues who said that they did not want to upset the shadow Secretary of State—of course I do not want to upset him. I do not think he would be upset by what I am about to say, but I do not produce a lot of antibodies at the mention of a free school. In Darlington we have a school that is a free school in name only. It was established by a local academy that wanted extra provision for pupils with special needs. We are a pragmatic bunch in Darlington and will go where the money is. These days, if we want capital money, we make ourselves a free school—“Thank you very much, we’ll have one of those.” We have that and it is going fine. There was not a peep out of me as a Labour MP or the Labour council. We will get on with it, and if it gets us the outcomes we need for young people in the town, that is what we will do.

We have another free school that is a little more unusual because it is a private school that decided it would like to become a free school. That got me scratching my head a little—I think that finances may have been a little tight, which may have focused its mind on that transition. However, as a good socialist, the opportunity to take away a fee-paying school and make education available to all was not something I was going to let pass by, and I have worked with those trying to set up the free school and wish it every success. It will be relatively small and will help to provide the additional places that we may need in Darlington, particularly for primary education.

I have listened to colleagues from different parts of the country and it is clearly not the experience everywhere that the additional resources—scarce though they are—are following the additional need. That is where our objection lies. This is not about governance. We are quite relaxed about different forms of governance in education, as we can prove by our record. It is about ensuring that we spend the money where it needs to be spent, so that we do not end up with class sizes creeping up slowly over time.

[Mr David Burrowes (Enfield, Southgate) (Con)]

Everyone would agree that capital spend, limited as it always is, should focus on areas of greatest need, but does the hon. Lady recognise that the problem in Enfield was that the previous Government did not follow that through? They focused on Building Schools for the Future to fund secondary school buildings, and £1 million spent on consultants and not a brick laid to build more. Our primary schools were bursting at the seams, and desperately in need of what they have now achieved in terms of doubling spending and getting more primary school places. That is what the Government are now doing.

[Jenny Chapman]

I do not know the situation in Enfield, obviously, but I recognise the Building Schools for the Future that the hon. Gentleman describes. I tried to get BSF money for Darlington for three schools that badly needed it, and found the process absolutely tortuous. The process was perhaps too heavy and too rigorous, but it was there to ensure that resources went to the schools that needed them most. We had to demonstrate that the places we were creating and building capacity for would be needed, that we were not creating surplus places and there was demand for places in those schools, and that the right decision would not have been to go and expand another popular school somewhere else. I accept the hon. Gentleman’s criticism of BSF up to a point, but this Government have gone too far the other way. There needs to be some kind of procedure to ensure that money is spent where it is needed, and I have not heard any real answer to that throughout the debate.

[Mr Andrew Turner (Isle of Wight) (Con)]

Is the hon. Lady aware that in my constituency there were, I think, six secondary schools, and that from today there are seven? The reason their number has grown—the reason we needed a new school—was that one school was good and five were poor. The creation of a new school will give the other children the chance to do well.

[Jenny Chapman]

I am not familiar with the situation in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency, and he did not actually tell me where his constituency was, so I am slightly disadvantaged, but I support the idea of looking at the choices parents make, and where there is pressure on a small but popular school, I favour its expansion to enable parental choice, if that can be done without harming the educational standards of the students already there. Opposition Members have supported that approach in their constituencies for years, so I do not see it as a point of debate.

My concern is about the standard of education afforded to children being taught in extremely large classes. I queried our briefing on this debate, which said there were classes of 70, and I could not believe it possible—it is not something I have ever witnessed—but I was assured that it was happening. If so, it is an urgent problem that must be addressed immediately. It would be galling if hon. Members, such as my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham East (Heidi Alexander), saw money being spent in other boroughs, while her parents cannot get their children into classes of reasonable sizes.

It might seem like we are picking at a sore just to make a political point, but that is not it; this is about the future and what it signals not just for young people being educated now, but for all children as they progress through their school careers. We must nip this problem in the bud because if it continues it will only get worse, and children’s secondary education will be affected far more. Schools are probably managing quite well now, so this is more about the future than the argument over free schools or what the last Labour Government spent on school buildings. I am proud of what that Government achieved. In 1997, we had outdoor toilets in schools in Darlington, but we rebuilt, I think, every primary school in the town. Outcomes for young people and children there have soared ever since; the achievement gap between the highest and lowest achievers has narrowed, and the achievement of the top kids has got even better. That is a great record, and I am very proud of it, and it would be a shame if we let something like class sizes prevent that opportunity from being afforded to young people growing up now.