Childcare Bill [HL]

Lord Storey Excerpts

Wednesday 1st July 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, the noble Lord described the Delegated Powers Committee’s report as vigorous. That is perhaps a little bit of an understatement. It is true that the Minister is a courteous and honourable person. Those who worked with him on the Children and Families Bill know how anxious he is to keep people together and to get agreement on the things that concern us all. This must be true of the Childcare Bill. It is too important to get it wrong. I am a great admirer of the noble Baroness, Lady Eaton. She and I have served together on a number of local government committees. However, I was slightly disappointed with her disingenuous remarks. Had she looked at the list of amendments, she would have seen that another local government stalwart—the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock—has tabled Amendment 34 on child poverty. Therefore, I ask the Minister: am I right in understanding that these issues will be sorted—to use a common colloquialism—before Report?

[Baroness Fookes (Con)]

My Lords, I hope that the House and the Minister will forgive me if I intervene briefly as the chairman of the regulatory powers committee. I accept that it was a hard-hitting report; none the less, I think that it was a fair one. On the other hand, I welcome my noble friend the Minister’s offer to postpone Report stage, and the various ways in which he is trying to put right what I think must be accepted as a mistake. However, I think that all this could have been avoided if one of two ways had been followed by the Government in this matter—either by introducing a draft Bill, where all the details could have been fleshed out, or by the time-honoured method of introducing a Green Paper for consultation, followed by a White Paper setting out broadly the regulations and Bill that they wanted to see. In those cases, we would have had no worries at all.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Howarth of Breckland (CB)]

First, I thank the Minister for his letter, which raised a number of issues in my mind but which was at least helpful in resolving some others, and say that I support Amendment 1. I believe that I heard the Minister say in his introduction that he had had useful discussions with the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, and that some of the issues that he outlined in his introduction were going to come forward in any event. Despite all the difficulties that have gone before—I am glad I am not taking a political view—this gives us a really good opportunity to take a strategic view of childcare at the moment. I want to be absolutely clear about the who, the how and the what as we go through the amendments. We have a number of amendments, which we will discuss later, about what a working parent is, who in a range of other groups, such as disabled groups, might qualify for extra childcare and how that will be delivered. Will it be on an educational or a childcare basis? The Sutherland report pointed out clearly that there are differences in those two things. What will it be? Who will deliver it? Will it be delivered by childminders as well as within that educational framework?

If we could understand, through these reports, the answers to some of the issues that the amendment moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, raises, we would have a good opportunity to settle funding, cost and consistency issues. Those are among the main difficulties across the country for those trying to access childcare—you only have to move across a county border to find you pay twice as much for childcare as you did in the previous county, which can cause great difficulties, particularly with a mobile workforce. I hope that as we go through the amendments we will get answers to these questions and that we will stop, if you like, the procedural issues—we have made enough of those. We now have some baseline information from the Minister, and maybe we can move forward and get further information so that, by October, we know which parents will qualify and can understand what they will get and where they will get it from.

[Lord Storey]

First, I apologise to your Lordships for not being able to speak at Second Reading. I will speak to Amendments 1, 29 and 38A. I very much agree with the comments of the noble Baronesses, Lady Andrews and Lady Howarth, but am very nervous of phrases such as “value for money” and “best value” in local government. It has to be about what is best in terms of provision. We have seen early years childcare grow over the last two decades. We have seen the Labour Government, the coalition Government and now the Conservative Government all doing something about early years, but we have not really thought about how it is going to look and how we want it to work. I find it concerning, for example, that three-quarters of our nurseries are, as we know, independent. There is nothing wrong with that, but we know that of those independent nurseries only half have a qualified teacher on the staff. We also know that, when there is a qualified teacher, the learning experience for those children is far greater than otherwise. So it has to be about the quality of the provision, for me.

I wonder about the effects of having those extra 15 hours. It might be great for working parents, but how do they affect the child? I will give an example. Schools will have nurseries, where children will go for part-time provision for three hours a day, Monday to Friday. So you can see a system arising now whereby the working parent will take the child to the childminder and the childminder will then take the child to the school nursery for three hours. With the extra 15 hours, they cannot use the school again, because it is a different set of children in the afternoon—not in every case but in most cases—so they will look for a different provider for the afternoon session. Then the child will go back to the childminder to be taken home to the parent. So there will be four different regimes or experiences of childcare, and I really wonder what the effect will be on those children. We need to look closely and calmly not just at the extra resource and provision, which we all welcome, but at how we ensure that there is quality.

[Lord True]

My Lords, this is very much a debate on Amendment 1, and I welcome it—it must not be another Second Reading debate—but the points in the amendment seem to be the essence of good governance. Even if my noble friend is unable to accept the amendment, I am sure that he would be the first to say that government will be constantly reviewing the cost of providing childcare and constantly consulting. I am already grateful for the assurances that I have had that he will consult childcare providers. So in that sense the spirit of it is agreed. Of course, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, that longitudinal and technical study is extremely important. Without going over where we have been before, policy should be founded on consideration of good information and be brought forward in due process, and we are moving towards that.

I have one mild stricture for the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock. She said that she did not care about what was in the government manifesto. That is a perfectly reasonable personal thought, but I think Mr Lloyd George from her Benches reminded this House that it ought to have a care for the manifesto of a newly elected Government. So I know that she does not oppose this Bill, but I hope that it is not going to be a doctrine that we hear from the Liberal Democrats—that they do not care too much what the elected Government have promised.

I wanted to probe further on regulation. I shall read Hansard very carefully tomorrow. My noble friend does not necessarily have to reply in detail; it may be something that he wants to give further thought to. But on the question of regulations—maybe draft regulations, not the final regulations—the fact is that the wrong regulations under this Bill, and under its wide powers, could drive small, private and voluntary settings out of existence, just as the wrong sort of heat drives our trains off our railways, it seems. That will be one of the concerns that I express as we go through the Bill. It is reasonable for Parliament to want to avoid the wrong sort of regulations on behalf of those whom we represent. Of course, I declare a particular interest as the leader of a local authority that may have to implement those regulations and as the husband of a provider who may have to respond to them. I hope that between now and October my noble friend will see whether we can show a little bit of ankle on the regulations, because some of them could be literally life and death, not only to businesses and voluntary organisations but to the hard-working women, if I may use that phrase —they are predominantly women—who work in these settings, many of them part time. So I would be grateful for the most that he can do to help us on regulations.

In the amendment proposed by the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, of course I agree that value for money is important. Once upon a time, Her Majesty’s Treasury was very interested in value for money before any policy came forward; now it seems that we are looking into affordability once the policy has been published. The value-for-money argument has another aspect to it that I hope we will not lose sight of. I recognise that the Government are committed to this principle. However, this policy, we are told, is going to be funded by taking away benefit from people earning more than £150,000 a year who are provident enough to save for their retirement. That money is going to be given to another set of people, many of them earning more than £150,000 a year, who, you might say, are not provident enough to put a bit of money aside to pay for childcare for their children. That could be a bit of a merry-go-round, to use a phrase that we have heard lately.

As the policy evolves, I hope that we will consider whether the state, the Government and the taxpayers are getting the best value for their money—not only what parents get in terms of providers; that is an issue of quality. This looks potentially—we shall see—to be a very expensive policy with a very substantial dead-weight cost involved in it of paying for a lot of people for something that they pay for already.

I do not expect an answer but I hope that that thought will inform a little the consideration of the implementation of the policy. Having slightly enlarged on the noble Earl’s Amendment 29, I hope that that aspect of value for money will be kept in mind as development of the Bill goes forward.

Queen’s Speech

Lord Storey Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, there is much in the gracious Speech that we on these Benches welcome: the mention of social care, apprentices, child protection and, of course, childcare provision. On childcare provision, however, it is not just about the extra resources or extra finance; it is also about the quality of that provision. But we need to look closely at the financing issues as well. We also welcome the proposals on adoption, which further develop the coalition’s Children and Families Act. Various people have been praised. We should not forget the incredible work that Sarah Teather did on that particular legislation.

Every child deserves only the best education that we can provide. As I have said on many occasions before, a pupil cannot repeat a year or a subject, so the professionalism and quality of teachers is paramount, and the leadership of those schools is hugely important. I hope we will see the coalition’s proposals for a college of teachers taken forward by this Government.

We all want our children not only to get the best from their schooling but to achieve the best. We used to extol the virtues of the Finnish system when worrying about our position in the PISA international league tables but in Finland, of course, they do not have league tables or an endless battery of tests. Children start formal schooling at seven-plus and, most importantly, teachers are qualified to the highest standards, having to have a master’s degree. We seem to have gone instead for a sort of Asian model of name and shame, and constant testing and league tables. Sometimes I hark back to a time when children could enjoy their childhood and their schooling. The model of a top-down approach to education, with continual testing and targets—brought to us by a Labour Government—is stifling learning and creativity.

I am delighted that the noble Lord, Lord Nash, has decided to stay on, and I am sure that in education matters he will bring his inclusive and constructive approach to this House. He said that the new Education and Adoption Bill will speed up the academy programme, with up to a further 1,000 schools in England being turned into academies. He also said that the legislation will sweep away bureaucratic and legal loopholes, which includes consultation with parents. Heaven forbid that parents dare to have a view. What happened to the Conservative view of listening and trusting parents? Will the Minister say why parents should not be consulted on whether a school should become an academy?

The onward march of academisation will continue apace, so at the end of this Parliament we will be left, presumably, with a small rump of excellent, non-coasting maintained schools. If the new-found freedoms and financial rewards enjoyed by academies are so beneficial and pupils thrive so much more, I wonder—tongue in cheek—why it does not make sense to make all secondary schools academies, rather than endlessly chipping away at the maintained sector, which cannot be good for the morale of governors, teachers and parents.

Primary education should remain part of the local community and part of the maintained sector. Some of our academy chains have become bigger, in terms of the number of schools, than the smaller local authorities. Sir Michael Wilshaw is right to say that, like local authorities, these academy chains should be subject to inspection, and their finances regularly audited and made available for public and parental scrutiny.

As a number of noble Lords have mentioned, the BBC is a jewel in our nation’s cultural crown: it is the engine of innovation. In partnership with its commercial broadcasters, it provides a service that is the envy of the world. When listening in the last Parliament to the debate on soft power, I was taken with how many times the BBC was mentioned. I am sure that the review will be genuine, and not an attempt to emasculate Auntie. Can the Minister look at whether the money that was top-sliced for the ill-fated local TV could be used by the BBC? Why do we need to have a charter review every 10 years? Leaving the BBC to the whim of a particular Government cannot be a good thing.

My noble friend Lord Lee of Trafford raised the important issue of tourism. As he rightly pointed out, it creates 9% of our GDP, and has created a third of the new jobs that have been created. Indeed, my own city was turned round by tourism.

My noble friend Lady Tyler, along with other noble Lords, raised the issue of mental health. Three children in every classroom suffer from a diagnosable mental health problem. As with so many areas of education and health, early intervention is crucial. If we detect and treat early on mental health problems that children are facing, they do not become severe, chronic or life-threatening later on. Half of adults with mental health problems have the symptoms by the age of 14, yet there is often little urgency in getting a child into treatment or getting support. Would we tolerate such a response with other health issues? Of course we would not. Families and schools should not have to battle for weeks or even months to get treatment. The notion that teachers are not able to identify such conditions is shocking. If every teacher, as part of their professional training and development, had mental health awareness training, just imagine the impact on the lives of those children, the benefit it would bring to society as a whole, and the savings made in scarce NHS resources.

Schools: Academies

Lord Storey Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd March 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

As I already said, we regard the cash management of academies to be very prudent. We see no reason why efficiently run schools should not be involved in careful financial planning. It may well be that the Labour Party would like to run the school estate like they ran the economy—borrow, borrow, borrow and nearly go bust. We do not think that that is a sensible approach and we do not think that we should penalise successful schools.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, my noble friend will be aware that this works out at an average of £1.2 million per secondary academy and £1.8 million per academy chain school. He will also be aware of the suggestion that we are setting up schools to be run as businesses. Will he tell us, in no uncertain terms, that there never have been and never will be any attempts to run schools as profit-making businesses?

[Lord Nash]

My noble friend will know from his experience over 25 years as a primary head that all schools are facing cost pressures from national insurance and pensions, so any prudent school will have some level of cash reserves. I mentioned capital requirements for academies. The education sector has a lot to learn from the business sector in terms of efficiencies. We have found that when business people and educationalists work well together through the academies programme the effects can be quite dramatic. I cannot make promises for ever, but there are no plans as far as this Government are concerned to bring profit-making to the school system.

Schools: Substance Abuse Education

Lord Storey Excerpts

Monday 2nd February 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

We certainly look at what is effective in other countries; I know that ADEPIS has looked at this. We have supported a number of UN resolutions in this respect.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My noble friend may be aware that the Health and Social Care Information Centre found that drug abuse was more prevalent among those young people who had been excluded from school, at something like 12%, than among those in school. What plans do the Government have to reach those pupils so that this problem can be dealt with effectively?

[Lord Nash]

My noble friend makes a very good point. Attendance at school is, as I say, at an all-time high. However, this is one of the focuses of the troubled families programme, which has been so successful.

Schools: Faith Schools and Free Schools

Lord Storey Excerpts

Wednesday 28th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

My Lords, we have a rigorous approach to setting up new schools. They will not all work. We have closed a couple of free schools, with a total number of 200 pupils. Although that is very serious for those pupils and their parents, that compares with getting on for a quarter of a million new free school places that we will introduce under the free school UTC and studio school programme. Of the 87 pre-warning notices that this Government have issued to academies, more than 60% have been to sponsors approved by the previous Government, so it is clear that setting up new schools is not entirely straightforward.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, my noble friend has been a great proponent of British values. Does he agree that respecting and understanding other religions might find a route in ensuring that faith schools had a percentage of pupils from other faiths?

Early Years Intervention

Lord Storey Excerpts

Thursday 8th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, not only for securing this debate but also for all her work with young people and on education. We know from almost every report which has looked at the issue of how to deal with the problem of social mobility—in my day we called it “life chances”—that there are two main things that we can do. One is about poverty and the other is about early years provision and the opportunities for intervention at a very young age. Children who are exposed to quality childcare and early years provision have improved outcomes. There is no argument about that, and those outcomes are also better in their adult life. Most important, the positive impact of high-quality childcare is more pronounced in those who start out behind their peers; that is, those with less educated parents, from lower income groups or with English as a second language. We know that as a fact.

What can we do? We have to make sure that we get early years education right. The social benefits for individuals and for society as a whole mean that it is of paramount importance to do that. All political parties sing from the same hymn sheet on this, while successive Governments have done their bit. The last Labour Government brought in the hugely successful Sure Start centres, the early years foundation curriculum in 2006, and free entitlement to part-time provision. This Government brought forward through the Children and Families Act 2014 early years educator and teaching qualifications, plus 15 hours a week of free pre-school care and education for the most disadvantaged. I will come back to that in a moment, if time permits.

I have six steps that we should take now. They are not controversial or difficult and they do not cost a lot of money, but they would enhance what we do. The first is this. Every indicator in reports and from practice overseas shows that the presence of high-quality staff boosts the quality of the care delivered, and the impact is greatest when staff spend a substantial amount of their time interacting directly with children and they are responsible for the curriculum. We do not want to see graduates working in early years education filling in forms but working with children so that their passion can be shared with other staff.

Secondly, from the perspective of child development alone, it is better to prioritise access to high-quality care from an early age. There should be more provision at 18 months to two years and increased hours for three to four year-olds. If we get it right for younger ages, it has more of an impact. If resources are limited, we know where they should be spent.

Thirdly, early years provision needs to resist “schoolification”. We do not want the early years to be a carbon copy of primary and secondary school. Yes, get children ready for school, but they should be able to learn through discovery and exploration and by using their imaginations. Those are all hugely important in the early years. We should resist any move to dress up our little tots in school uniforms, give them pens and paper and sit them down to learn to read and write. That is not for the early years, and actually it is very damaging indeed.

Fourthly, early years provision should engage with parents because they are the other side of the coin. That is why the Sure Start centres were so important; they engaged with parents. Early years provision that engages with parents has a positive influence on the home learning environment. Early years settings that encourage parents to read stories to their children and sing songs and encourage the children to paint and to play with friends have hugely important developmental benefits for children.

Fifthly, we need to ensure that the provision is of the highest quality. Yes, Ofsted is there to monitor and to judge, but it is not best placed to improve standards. That has to be done by others. Local authorities have a huge role to play in improving standards in early years, for example in training and development, which is really crucial.

My last point, the sixth of my six steps, is for children from 18 to 36 months. Cognitive development for older toddlers is best supported in lower-ratio formal group provision. More hours in centre-based care for two to three year-olds is associated with better language skills and better maths, leading to higher academic outcomes in primary schools.

Those are the six steps, but I will add one other point, which I think another noble Lord mentioned. This is very complicated for parents. We need to make sure that it is very simple and that parents know how to access early years—it needs to be clearly signposted, but we use all these different phrases and words. I went to the launch of Ofsted’s last early years report, which made the very same point: we use different terms for early years. Let us use one term so that we can be clear about it and make sure that parents can access it.

My final point is that I would like somebody to come up with a different term from “childminders”, because “minding” a child is not what early years should be about. Perhaps the Minister could find a different term from “childminding”.

Academies: Special Educational Needs

Lord Storey Excerpts

Tuesday 16th December 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

My Lords, I am delighted to be able to answer my noble friend’s first question in your Lordships’ House. We know that some young people with SEN need longer to complete and consolidate their learning. That is why our reforms extend SEN provision to young people aged 18 to 25. Where needed, they can now get EHC plans from their local authority and receive the tailored support they need to remain in formal education. The code makes it clear that these plans should reflect their ambitions and enable them to make a successful transition into adulthood.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My noble friend will note that there has been an increase in the number of children with special educational needs in academies to 12.5%. However, in 16-19 academies there is no requirement to have a special educational needs co-ordinator—the person in charge. Therefore, how does he envisage that those pupils who are on an old statement—or now an education, health and care plan—can navigate the transition and be provided with the support that they need?

[Lord Nash]

The schools to which my noble friend refers must make clear what their offer is for SEN pupils. They must provide for SEN pupils, and they must publish their plans on their website very carefully.

Employment: Young People

Lord Storey Excerpts

Wednesday 10th December 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

I could not agree more with what the noble Baroness says. The involvement of the unions on this side of the piece is extremely important. I am delighted to be able to say that the careers company will have an advisory board, which will help it to design and implement itself, and Askel will sit on that board. I note the very good work that the NAHT has done in relation to Primary Futures. I was visiting a Primary Futures event at a school in Oxfordshire on Friday and noticed that one of the ex-presidents of the NAHT sits on the Primary Futures board. The noble Baroness’s points are very well made.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

I, too, thank my noble friend for this important and worthwhile Statement. I also praise the Enterprise for All document. I particularly like the Fiver scheme for primary schools, which I hope will be extended. However, on the day that we hear the Association of Colleges saying that careers education is broken, my noble friend mentioned in his Statement that the Government’s plan for careers guidance has received support from organisations such as the Sutton Trust. Does he agree with the Sutton Trust’s recommendation that all pupils should receive a guaranteed level of impartial, professional advice in careers education, while schools should ultimately be held accountable for the quality of the careers guidance provided?

[Lord Nash]

I certainly agree that schools should be held accountable for providing careers advice. Ofsted has made it clear that it will look at this very closely in its leadership category and we have strengthened the framework in this regard. I have already said that I do not think there is any one way of providing careers advice and I do not think that we should rely too much on one-to-one advice. Rather, we should involve the world of work much more in careers in the way we have been discussing.

Child Poverty

Lord Storey Excerpts

Monday 8th December 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, my noble friend will be aware that over the past five decades the gap has stayed the same, if not widened. Does he agree that all the evidence suggests, as we have heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, that the provision of high-quality early years provision in dealing with the problems of poverty is a way of tackling this problem? Does he agree that we should extend the provision for all two and there year-olds and the provision of a pupil premium?

[Lord Nash]

My noble friend is entirely right that the attainment gap in early years is stubborn, although under this Government the number of pupils achieving five good GCSEs has risen from 31% to 38%. It is a question of money and we do not currently intend to extend this further, although I can say that of the 260,000 two year-olds eligible for this provision, on the latest figures, 150,000 are taking it up, which is a remarkable achievement in terms of an increase in provision.

Schools: Admissions

Lord Storey Excerpts

Tuesday 21st October 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

As I said, faith schools and church schools are an essential part of our school system. They account for a third of our schools and perform generally very well. However, faith schools may give priority to children from faith, but many do not do so. All free schools and new-provision academies may prioritise only a maximum of 50%. We are keen to build a diverse system that offers parents choice but we believe that all schools should educate their children in the basic tenets of all main faiths practised in this country.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My noble friend will be aware that many families, particularly those who can afford it, move house or rent a house so that they can get the school of their first choice. He will also be aware that the top 100 best-performing schools do not take disadvantaged pupils as measured by the pupil premium. How can we ensure that children and young people from disadvantaged backgrounds get the same opportunities as those more advantaged pupils? Do we need to provide more information and education to those families so that they can have those choices as well?

[Lord Nash]

The Government are intent on improving the schools system so that all pupils have the opportunity of a good place. It is clear that some parents are able to buy houses near better schools. We are not in favour of that at all. We believe we should make all schools of a much higher standard so that that kind of thing does not happen.