Childcare Bill [ Lords ] (First sitting)

Debate between Jess Phillips and Alex Cunningham

Tuesday 8th December 2015 Public Bill Committees

[Jess Phillips]

The shortfall has been identified by the Pre-school Learning Alliance in its research. I can only work on the evidence that has been given to the Committee. There is already a clear shortfall with the 15-hour provision, which is why nurseries tell us time and again that they use other people’s fees to subsidise their rates. The cost of childcare has increased over the past five years.

[Alex Cunningham]

Would my hon. Friend be surprised to find out that in the Minister’s constituency, childcare already costs £4.85 an hour? That is today, at 2015 at prices. There is a tuppenny shortfall today; what is it going to be like in future?

[Jess Phillips]

Also, although one welcomes some of the increases in wages that the Government have instigated, they have to be taken into account in the cost of childcare provision. If the cost is already £4.85, by 2017 something will have to give. There is undoubtedly a shortfall. I really hope that the Minister proves me wrong, and that there is no rise in childcare costs for children aged nought to three. However, the evidence suggests that something quite different will happen. All I am asking is for reviews to be put in place to ensure that the Government take any rise in childcare costs into account in their policies, and perhaps that they adjust things to make the situation fairer.

As I have said, where I live, the average wage and the average cost of childcare mean that women pay 103% of their salary towards childcare and men pay 90%. I recognise the comments made by the hon. Member for Norwich North about a society in which men are also child carers. My husband is, and has been almost exclusively since my children were aged three, the full-time carer of my children. However, the simple fact is that is very uncommon, thanks to the gender pay gap. When parents have to decide who goes back to work, they usually do so on the basis of who earns the most money. Unfortunately, that is usually not the girls.

The cost of childcare where I live is a problem in itself, but the Government’s costing of the 30 hours of free childcare has the potential to push that burden even further, to the point where it will be completely unrealistic for the lowest earner in the household to maintain employment. It will be no surprise to anyone here that the lowest earner in most households is usually a woman, and there is a real threat that the rising cost will prohibit women from returning to work for the first three years after they have had their baby.

It should not be a shock to anyone in this room that women’s time out of the labour market is the single biggest contributor to the gender pay gap. For my constituents in the west midlands, where the national trend of the narrowing of the gender pay gap has not quite reached us, last year the pay gap grew from £98.90 per week to £105.60 per week. It is getting worse, not better. The Women and Equalities Committee, of which I am a proud member, is undertaking an inquiry into the gender pay gap. Although I do not want to pre-empt any of the report’s findings, I can guarantee—

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[Jess Phillips]

I apologise for going on to my favourite subject. I can almost guarantee that the findings of the review will show that the cost of childcare and women’s time out of the labour market are major driving factors behind the gender pay gap. There is real potential for the Government to exacerbate that with the proposals in the Bill, rather than helping matters, if they are not properly funded.

[Alex Cunningham]

There is another issue as far as income is concerned, because those who work in the care sector are predominantly women. If the proposals are not properly funded, one of two things will happen. Either wages will be screwed down and people will lose income, or there will be an increased ratio of children to adults in childcare settings. Both those ideas are unacceptable.

[Jess Phillips]

I totally agree. Without a proper funding structure, if the clause stands part of the Bill, we will need a real focus on quality. Any one of us who has ever left their children with a childcare provider wants to know that their kids are in the best care possible. For those of us who can afford it, sometimes the best care costs a bit extra.

Will the Government commit to a review of the rising cost of childcare for children aged nought to three, and of the issue of women dropping out of the labour market while their children are that age? Will they adjust the funding scheme accordingly if it is found to affect families negatively? For the same reasons, will they also review the rising cost of wrap-around care? The same private sector providers will often provide before and after-school transport as well as the 30 hours of childcare. If there is a shortfall, there will be a knock-on effect for all nursery costs.

To further assess whether the Government have their sums right, they could conduct a simple review of the number of places in the private sector and, more importantly, the maintained sector, when the 30 hours provision comes into being. My children both received 2.5 days a week of free early years education for a year, in a brilliant maintained nursery setting attached to the school that they both now attend. The nursery operated 45 places for school hours on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesday mornings, and a further 45 places for Wednesday afternoons and school hours on Thursdays and Fridays. I do not know why more nurseries do not do it like that, because it seems much better for parents. Having 2.5 hours each day seems as useful as a chocolate teapot to me.

The nursery building that my children attended simply could not manage 90 children for the full 30 hours of a school week. No matter how tiny their little bottoms are on the mats, there is no way that 90 children would be able to go there Monday to Friday. That means that the brilliant, highly sought-after maintained nursery where I live, which is helping many disadvantaged children, has a brilliant special educational needs service and offers a service to disabled children, will go from being able to offer 90 places to, most likely, being able to offer 45 places. That will reduce the availability of childcare in an area where it is really needed.

We cannot just say that we will build extra room on the side. Not only will the £500 million that has been allocated for capital funding not touch the sides for the whole country, but there just is not enough space in city schools such as the one my children attend. Last week, I visited Yardley primary school in my constituency. It is being pushed to go to five-form entry. I imagine that the idea of a five-form entry primary school is probably not that likely in the constituencies of most Conservative Members.

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[Alex Cunningham]

Even if there were the physical space, I wonder about the availability of sufficiently trained staff. There is greater demand from parents who want higher-quality staff, but there seems to be no plan to provide staff. That is all the more reason why we should review the measure over some time.

[Jess Phillips]

I think we have time to do that before the roll-out in 2017. I do not wish to delay it any further than 2017, and the Government have the time to make it right. On the training of staff, speaking from personal experience—my son has special educational needs; he has Asperger’s—I want to ensure that people who work with children such as my son every day have the training, qualifications and skills to make their lives and his life a little simpler, although I have not managed it yet.