Education: Early Years

Lord Watson of Invergowrie Excerpts

Wednesday 29th November 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Storey, for initiating this debate on an important topic. It is a short debate, but because of the importance of the topic it is one to which we shall return, I am sure, before long.

The early years, as other noble Lords have said, are a crucial period in a child’s development and play a vital role in their chances of success throughout school and into adulthood. If the Government really are serious about social mobility, then that is where they should be focusing—and focusing relentlessly. Improving child development in the early years is vital in ensuring that every child is school-ready, because only that will begin to reduce educational inequality.

All the evidence points to inequality beginning from birth and getting wider as young people move through the education system, from results in school to staying on in education, the qualifications they achieve post 16, the kind of technical courses they take and the universities they attend, if indeed they do. This inequality must be addressed at the roots, in the early years, by offering every child the best start in life to ensure that they are given a fair chance to succeed based on their abilities and their ambitions, and not one that is predetermined, based on geography or household income.

The noble Lord, Lord Storey, said that he wanted to make a distinction between childcare and education. I thoroughly endorse that, and my view is that the first is important, the second essential. Without high-quality early years education being available to all, that will never become a possibility. Although much can be achieved once a child starts school, in many cases that is too late, with the gap in development at the age of four between those from advantaged and disadvantaged backgrounds in some cases already beyond the point where it can be bridged. The latest figures show that 30% of children have fallen behind in their early learning by the age of five, significantly impacting on their chances of success throughout school and in their later lives. That figure is worse for the poorest children, who last year were twice as likely as their classmates to be behind in basic skills at the age of five. If childcare and early years education policy are designed to improve child development at the earliest opportunity, to ensure that all children are school-ready to reduce educational inequality, and to support parents, particularly mothers, in returning to the workplace, the 30-hours offer looks likely to fail on both counts.

The families who most need the economic support—that is, those who are unemployed or on low wages—are not eligible for the additional childcare. Nearly 400,000 three and four year-olds are not eligible because their parents are not in work, and a further 110,000 are not eligible because their parents earn below an arbitrary income threshold set by the Government. This represents a clear promise to thousands of working parents who, it later transpired, would not be given the expanded childcare entitlement.

At 30 hours, even where parents are able to access it, it is not without problems. The first difficulty is in getting a code, but parents are finding that, even when they have that, they cannot then immediately start the childcare because they have to wait until the end of the current three-month period. Once they have started, they have to re-register every three months, both with the nursery and with HMRC. It is a bureaucratic nightmare. I have to ask: why is it so difficult? It surely need not be, and certainly needs to be made more accessible. If it were, there would be greater uptake.

This also impacts on a very worrying fact, referred to by my noble friend Lady Warwick. It has recently emerged that more than 3,000 three and four year-old children in foster care are not eligible for the additional 15 hours of free childcare a week. Two days ago the Minister stated, in reply to questions from my noble friend Lord Beecham, that the Government had no plans to change that policy. Frankly, it beggars belief that such a distinction should be drawn, excluding children who, given their life experience thus far, are surely at least as deserving, if not more so, of the additional childcare as children from established families. To hide behind the default excuse, as the Minister did in his answer, that the policy is being kept “under review” is unacceptable. He needs to tell us why the Government decided to discriminate against foster children and their foster parents and why, having reconsidered that decision, they have now decided to reinforce it. I say to him that the DfE is in a hole on this issue and it should stop digging. It should treat foster children and foster parents with the respect they deserve and do it now, as a matter of urgency.

This issue reinforces the view that the Government’s policies have increasingly ignored the role that childcare and early years education can play in child development, and increasingly regarded it simply as an economic policy. Statements made have highlighted improvements in maternal employment rates and parents taking on additional hours, with less focus on benefits to child development.

This loss of focus, coupled with serious underfunding of providers, as my noble friend Lord Parekh said, is making it increasingly difficult for provision to be universally high-quality, with low funding levels making it difficult to attract the staff needed to move towards a graduate-led workforce for the sector. As it stands, childcare policy is failing effectively to serve the goals of improving child development and reducing inequality on the one hand and boosting parental employment rates and incomes on the other. There is no reason why these aims should be mutually exclusive.

In government, Labour created the Sure Start programme, referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Storey. When Labour left office in 2010, there were more than 3,600 children’s centres, reaching 2.8 million children and their families. It gave those families the best start in life, providing parenting support, childcare for children and job training for adults as well as healthcare and advice. There are now more than 1,500 fewer designated Sure Start children’s centres, with about one closure per week. In 2015, Sam Gyimah MP, then Children’s Minister, announced a consultation on children’s centres. I asked the noble Lord, Lord Nash, in March this year where that was. The answer was that it was under review. It is apparently still under review. I ask that it now emerge from review and actually take place.

I am concerned about the critical shortage of early years graduates across the country. Earlier this year, the DfE published its early years workforce strategy. We welcomed the recognition of the positive impact that early years teachers have on children struggling with basic skills and the commitment to look at growing the number of early years teachers, particularly in the most disadvantaged areas. However, the figures are not encouraging. The number of people enrolled in early years initial teacher training fell significantly last year from 2,300 to just 860. Save the Children has identified a shortage of 10,000 trained nursery teachers up and down the country. Urgent action is needed to plug that gap if the impact on children’s development that we are all striving for is to be achieved.

An important point about the quality of teaching is that the DfE showed earlier this year that 20,000 nursery workers were being paid below the national minimum wage. Despite flouting the law, those nurseries receive millions of pounds of public money every year through free childcare offers and subsidies that help parents meet their childcare bills. If it is below the national minimum wage, it is poverty wages, and it leaves nursery workers, many of whom are parents themselves, struggling to make ends meet each week. Again, I raised this in March with the Minister’s predecessor, the noble Lord, Lord Nash. He said:

“That is an extremely good point. Nurseries are of course legally required to pay the national minimum wage and, just as any other organisation or business, they risk fines or even prosecution if they do not. We will be vigilant in this regard”.—[Official Report, 23/3/17; col. 264.]


In what way have the Government been vigilant and what action has been taken in terms of enforcement?

The Government are rightly investing in childcare because of the important role it plays in tackling inequalities. It helps parents work, and high-quality childcare helps narrow the gap between disadvantaged children and their peers. It certainly serves social mobility. We want the Government to do more and put more resources into it so that more families can benefit. If the Minister is not able to answer the questions that I have asked today, I hope that he will do so in writing on some of the issues, because they have been raised with me by many people involved in day-to-day provision of early years.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Lord Agnew of Oulton) (Con)]

My Lords, I am pleased to answer this Question for Short Debate. It is widely acknowledged that the first five years of a child’s life are critical: they are the foundation years, shaping their development and preparing them for school. The noble Lord, Lord Parekh, is correct in saying that speech and language gaps appear by the age of two and that early difficulties with language can affect pupils’ performance throughout primary school, with impacts being felt into adulthood. This Government are determined to close this gap and improve social mobility, extending opportunity to all. I agree with the noble Lords, Lord Storey and Lord Watson, and the noble Baroness, Lady Warwick, that the evidence consistently tells us that early years provision can have a positive and lasting effect on children’s outcomes, future learning and life chances. And I agree entirely with my noble friend Lord Griffiths that the role of parents in a child’s development is also crucial.

We have already taken a number of steps towards improving the quality of early education and outcomes for children, as well as the affordability of childcare for families. To provide some reassurance to the noble Lord, Lord Storey, and the noble Baroness, Lady Warwick, by 2019-20 we will be spending around £6 billion a year on childcare support, a record amount. Our offer to families includes the 15-hour entitlement for disadvantaged two year-olds, the 15-hour entitlement for three and four year-olds and, more recently, the additional 15 hours for three and four year-olds with working parents. This is on top of the support being provided through tax-free childcare and universal credit. As well as giving children the best possible start in life, these entitlements, particularly 30 hours of childcare, are also reducing the childcare costs for working parents. The noble Lords, Lord Storey and Lord Watson, may know that a lone parent has to earn only around £6,000 a year to be able to access the 30 hours of free childcare.

The noble Lord, Lord Parekh, is correct in saying that Ofsted last week released new data confirming that in 2017, 94% of early years and childcare providers are now rated good or outstanding, the highest proportion ever recorded. This is an increase of 20% since 2012. On outcomes, the noble Lord, Lord Parekh, might be interested to know that the latest results from the early years foundation stage profile assessment, which measures children’s development and school-readiness at the end of reception, tell us that children’s development is also improving. The number of children achieving a good level of development at the end of reception continues to increase year on year—71% in 2017, up from 52% in 2013—but we are not complacent. We recognise that there are challenges and remain committed to continuing to improve the quality of early education so that children can achieve the best possible outcomes. We are doing this in a number of ways: from support for workforce development to improvements in literacy and language teaching and monitoring the impact of 30 hours of free childcare, as well as ensuring that children with special educational needs and disabilities can access early education provision.

The noble Lord, Lord Addington, and the noble Baroness, Lady Warwick, are concerned about workforce training. The evidence is clear that a high-quality early years workforce can have a major impact on children’s outcomes. A well-qualified workforce with the appropriate knowledge, skills and experience is crucial to deliver high-quality early education and childcare. In March 2017 we published the Early Years Workforce Strategy, which outlines the Government’s plans to help employers attract, retain and develop early years staff to deliver high-quality provision. We are working closely with employers and training providers to strengthen level 2 qualifications and ensure that they better support practitioners’ progression to level 3 and beyond. We will be consulting on the proposed criteria for the new level 2 qualifications shortly. A new level 3 apprenticeship standard, designed to support the effective development of early years practitioners, is also near completion.

We continue to support graduates into the sector through our funding of the early years initial teacher training programme, including bursaries and employer incentives. I am also pleased to announce that we have recently established a new working group of early years stakeholders to consider how we can improve gender diversity in the sector. This group includes practitioners, training providers, unions, academics and employers. We believe that a diverse early years workforce that reflects wider society will help to enhance children’s experiences.

Research shows that five year-old children who struggle with language are six times less likely to reach the expected standard in English at age 11 than children who have good language skills at that age. At the Conservative Party conference in September, we announced a number of actions to tackle this astonishing finding. We will provide more funding to help schools strengthen the development of language and literacy in the early years, with a particular focus on the reception year. This includes establishing a £12 million network of English hubs in the northern powerhouse to spread effective teaching practice, with a core focus on early language and literacy as their first priority.

In September this year we also announced that we would take steps to improve the early years foundation stage profile, including reviewing what is assessed at the end of reception. We will be working closely with schools and early years experts as we implement these changes. It is important that we get this right, so changes will not be rolled out nationally until the 2020-21 academic year. We have also put in place measures to ensure children with special educational needs and disabilities have access to high-quality education. The new disability access fund is worth £615 per year per eligible child, paid to the provider. We have required all local authorities to introduce inclusion funds to support children with special educational needs.

Turning to the concern of the noble Baroness, Lady Warwick, our total hourly average funding rate for two year-olds has increased from £5.09 to £5.39 from April 2017. All local authorities have seen increases in their rates for two year-olds. We are also investing in the early years pupil premium to support better outcomes for three and four year-olds. This is worth over £300 per year per eligible child.

The department’s Review of Childcare Costs took into account future cost pressures facing the sector, including the national living wage. Our average rates to authorities compare favourably with recently published research into the hourly cost of childcare by Frontier Economics, as part of a study of early education and development.

We are committed to evaluating the impact of 30 hours’ free childcare. The evaluation of the early delivery areas published in July and August this year did not find any impact of 30 hours on the universal 15-hour offer. Building on this, the department is in the process of commissioning an evaluation study to assess the implementation and impact of the policy in the first two terms of national rollout.

The noble Lord, Lord Storey, and the noble Baroness, Lady Warwick, raised the issue of Sure Start centre closures. It is up to local authorities to decide the best solutions for their area. They are best placed to understand local needs and how to meet them. Where councils decide to close a children’s centre, they must demonstrate that children and families, particularly in the most disadvantaged areas, will not be adversely affected and that they are still meeting the duty to have sufficient children’s centres to meet local demand.

The noble Lord, Lord Addington, raised issues around children with special educational needs. We are doing several things in this area that he may be aware of. The first is the introduction of the new phonics screening check for children in year 1, which should pick up those children struggling with early literacy. We are funding the special dyslexia trust to raise awareness and support for parents and schools, and are working with the National Association for Special Educational Needs and other experts in the sector to ensure that schools have access to the Inclusion Development Programme training materials on dyslexia and other common forms of special educational needs.

Several noble Lords, including the noble Lords, Lord Parekh and Lord Watson, raised concerns over foster children accessing childcare. Children in foster care are already entitled to the universal 15 hours of free childcare. Carers also receive funding and support for the care of their foster children, including a national minimum allowance and favourable treatment in the tax and benefits system. We are in the first term of the 30 hours’ free childcare offer and will continue to keep the policy under review to see how it is working for families, including children in foster care.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

The Minister has basically repeated the Answer to my noble friend Lord Beecham’s Written Question that was given this week. The basic question is: why should there be any difference at all? Foster children are allowed the 15 hours but not the 30 hours; ordinary children who were allowed the 15 hours have moved on to 30 hours. Why is there a difference?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, it might be useful to write to the noble Lord, Lord Watson, to set out our thinking. At the moment I do not have the detailed information to hand, but I will do that.

In closing, I thank noble Lords again for their contributions to this important debate today. Many important points have been raised and I will write to address any of those that I have not had time to respond to fully. The Government are very clear that the early years are a critical time which influences outcomes for children and their families. We have achieved a huge amount, but there is still a lot more to do, particularly to close the gap between disadvantaged children and their peers. We remain committed to continuing to improve the quality of early years education to make sure that every child improves their life chances and has real opportunities to realise their potential.