Childcare Bill [ Lords ] (Third sitting)

Alex Cunningham Excerpts

Thursday 10th December 2015 Public Bill Committees

[Pat Glass (North West Durham) (Lab)]

I beg to move amendment 14, in clause 3, page 3, line 14, at end insert—

“(bb) make provision to enable priority to be given to qualifying children who are also assessed as being disadvantaged in the allocation of childcare places in childcare settings that have been classed as outstanding (or equivalent) following inspection;”

To require priority to be given to children who have been assessed as disadvantaged in the allocation of childcare places in childcare settings that have been classed as outstanding (or equivalent) following inspection.

Many of us have sat on Bill Committees before, but I have never led on one before. As with so much in life, I actually understand what is going on now—at the end.

When I first came into Parliament in 2010, given my background of working in education for 25 years, the former Member for South Shields, David Miliband, used to send me his speeches on education occasionally, asking me to have a look at them. After the first couple of times of me going back to him and saying, “You know, this is really important, but it is not the most important issue in education”, he stopped sending them to me.

The most serious problem in education today is not the limited number of children from disadvantaged homes who are making it into Oxford and Cambridge, or even into Durham University, wonderful institution though it is; it is not the perception of grade creep at GCSE, whether real or not; and it is not how many of our children are achieving at grade A or A* at GCSE, or at the C-D or B-C borderline, undoubtedly serious as those issues are.

The most serious problem in education today is not even the number of children who get five A to Cs at GCSE; it is the number of children who do not. Decreasing, but still significantly large, numbers of children of average, close-to-average and above-average ability in this country are failing to achieve five good GCSEs, and an even larger number are failing to achieve five good GCSEs including English and maths. The most serious and worrying issue in education today is the percentage of those children who are on free school meals, and the percentage of those children who are assessed as having special educational needs, even the most minor SEN. I am not talking about children who have profound or even serious or moderate SEN; I am talking about those who fall in the wide band between close to average and above average. They can and should achieve five good GCSEs.

The attainment gap has narrowed slowly. It was narrowing slowly in the period 2007 to 2010 and continues to narrow marginally, but the rate at which it is closing has slowed down significantly. If that is not addressed, it will start to go the other way quite soon. That gap leaves us without the trained and experienced workforce that we need in industries such as engineering, construction, childcare, catering and many others. It is creating a widening gap in productivity between the UK and the rest of Europe and the far east. If the gap is not addressed, history tells us that it will lead to serious and costly social problems throughout society.

I already talked on Tuesday about the Ofsted report that was published last week, in which Sir Michael Wilshaw expresses concern about the number of disadvantaged two-year-olds who are still failing to access early education. He is concerned that even if disadvantaged two-year-olds are accessing early education, a large percentage are not getting access to the best and most outstanding provision.

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

I have heard it said that the higher the income a person has and the more articulate they are, the sharper their elbows are when it comes to fighting for their children. Parents at the other end of the scale, however, do not have the sharp elbows and they certainly do not have the income. That might be all the more reason why we have to give them and their children a helping hand at the earliest point in their lives.

[Pat Glass]

I do not think the sharp elbows are necessarily linked to income. I have met some very sharp-elbowed parents at the bottom of the income scale, and I certainly do not blame any parent for trying to get their child into the best provision that they can. However, too many of the children who need access to the best provision and the best teachers are simply not getting such access. Even in secondary schools where there is a particular issue—I know we are talking about early years—one of the arguments I used to have with headteachers, particularly in schools that required improvement, was about the tendency to put their best teachers at key stage 4 and not at key stage 3, which is where they need to be.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alex Cunningham]

I am pleased to support amendment 14, which, as my hon. Friend the Member for North West Durham has outlined, would require children assessed as being disadvantaged to be given priority in the allocation of childcare places in settings that have been classed as outstanding. Members will recall from the Committee’s sitting on Tuesday that there is substantial evidence to show that high-quality early education and childcare have a positive impact on children’s development. Importantly in the context of amendment 14, that is particularly true for children from low-income families, who are more likely to fall behind. There is overwhelming evidence that children assessed as being disadvantaged are less likely to be able to access outstanding childcare provision, as my hon. Friend has said. Instead, they are much more likely to be able to access childcare that requires improvement.

We face the sorry reality of knowing that children from disadvantaged backgrounds are much more likely to fall behind. My hon. Friends and I have spelled out the facts in earlier Committee sittings. One in four children in England arrive at primary school without good early language development, and that figure rises to one in three for children from disadvantaged backgrounds, who, as I mentioned in support of new clause 1, start school on average 15 months behind their peers in language and vocabulary skills.

Many organisations with expertise in the sector have agreed that action is needed to close the attainment gap between the most disadvantaged children and their better-off peers. Closing the gap has been an aspiration of successive Governments over the last 20 years or so, but despite record levels of spending on education between 1997 and 2010, some of which the current Government have built on—a little, at least—that gap is still much in evidence. The Government will have the support of all Opposition Members if they can narrow it over the Parliament. The Minister knows, as does everyone else, that closing the gap has to start with our youngest. If he gets that right in the Bill, he will go down as a success, but if he does not, he will simply end up with a report card that says, “Could do better.”

[Mr Gyimah]

On the subject of successes, or perhaps I should say progress, is the hon. Gentleman aware that 85% of two-year-olds are taking their funded place in a good or outstanding setting already?

[Alex Cunningham]

Yes, and that is good news, but there are still 15% who are not. The organisations that we speak to and that brief us tell us that the most disadvantaged are still the most likely to lose out on the best provision. In the testimony given to the House of Lords Affordable Childcare Committee, published in February this year, there was strong consensus on the evidence for the persistence of the gap and its effects. Barnardo’s, for instance, noted the

“consistent and large gap in educational attainment in the UK, based on income”.

The Early Childhood Research Centre noted a

“19 month vocabulary gap at age 5 between children from the poorest and most affluent families”.

The Child Poverty Action Group spoke of intergenerational poverty being far greater in the UK than elsewhere, with children

“far more likely to follow in their parents’ footsteps in terms of income and educational level.”

For context, 53% of children in the 30% most deprived areas of England in 2014 achieved a good level of development in the early years foundation stage profile, compared with 65% of children in other areas. As the Minister knows, that gap of 12 percentage points has remained unchanged since 2011. That hiatus should be all the evidence we need to convince us that positive steps are required actively to address the sorry situation and revitalise efforts to close the attainment gap.

I am clear that the only route to resolving this unacceptable situation, and righting the inequality of opportunity that many children and young people from disadvantaged backgrounds face growing up, is to take action to level the playing field from the outset. We all accept that early education has a crucial role to play in helping disadvantaged children to catch up with their most advantaged peers. The Minister has accepted that as the case for investment, and he has made that clear. I do not need to remind him that in the light of the evidence of the difference to school readiness that early education makes, he suggested that

“being able to invest in it early, especially for the disadvantaged”

was key to narrowing the attainment gap. Indeed, the House of Lords Committee recommended that the Government consider targeting more resources at the most disadvantaged children because that is where the strongest evidence of the impact of high-quality education lies. It is not, however, clear that the Bill addresses that recommendation. I am therefore pleased to support the amendment to correct that oversight. It would give priority for high-quality childcare provision to those children identified as being from disadvantaged backgrounds and who are more likely to fall behind. Such a step would not only be a move towards closing the attainment gap, but would contribute to raising overall attainment levels. It is the right thing to do and I hope the Minister will join me in supporting the amendment.

[Mr Gyimah]

Once again, it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Dorries. At the start of the line-by-line scrutiny of the Bill, I said that there were three aims behind our childcare policy: to enable parents to work more hours; to help parents with the cost of living; and to give children the best start in life with high-quality early education.

[Mr Gyimah]

Obviously helping women in education is a broad aim of the Government, but those are the three objectives of this particular Bill. The amendment addresses the third objective of giving children the best start in life, and I am grateful to hon. Members for tabling it, as it draws attention to the importance of closing the gap in achievement between disadvantaged children and their peers. I am pleased to say that more children, including those in receipt of free school meals, are now achieving a good level of development at the end of the early years foundation stage. In 2015, 66.3% of children achieved a good level of development. That figure was up from 51.7% in 2013. In 2015, 51% of children on free school meals achieved a good level of development compared with 45% in 2014. That is the equivalent of an extra 5,800 children. The gap in achievement between disadvantaged children and other children has narrowed from 18.9 percentage points in 2014 to 17.7 percentage points in 2015, which is welcome news. However, the gap is still too large and the Government are absolutely committed to narrowing it.

[Alex Cunningham]

As the Minister says, that development is very much to be welcomed. I appreciate that the current Government and the previous coalition Government built a little bit on what Labour achieved in government when we funded education properly for the first time in a generation. However, there is still the same attainment gap that there has been since 2011. There has been a slowdown. What will the Minister do about that? Backing the amendment would help.

[Mr Gyimah]

I will come to the practicalities and issues of the amendment, which my hon. and learned Friend the Member for South East Cambridgeshire pointed to so deftly in her comments. The hon. Gentleman asked what we are doing to help to narrow the attainment gap. That is the reason we extended the pupil premium into the early years with the introduction of the early years pupil premium this year, providing £50 million of additional funding to support the early education of disadvantaged three and four-year-olds. The extra funding, worth 53p an hour—about £300 a year—goes directly to providers to help them to increase the quality of their setting. I am pleased that the feedback from local authorities is that providers are using the additional funding to achieve exactly that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Gyimah]

On good providers taking on disadvantaged children, specifically in the early years, we must acknowledge that the early years setting is very different. Schools are in the maintained sector, but here we have private providers. There are parents who have different ideas of where they want their children to take their early education. Some parents prefer childminders because they want their children to have their early education in a domestic setting; some would prefer a private nursery; and some would prefer a nursery in a school. In practice, as my hon. and learned Friend the Member for South East Cambridgeshire mentioned, making this proposal work would be tremendously difficult, because we would have to compel a private provider to take a specific type of child rather than operating on a “first come, first served” basis, which is how the system currently works.

The important news is that there are many good examples of how the pupil premium is working.

[Alex Cunningham]

rose—

[Mr Gyimah]

I would like to develop that argument, but I will take the intervention from the hon. Gentleman first.

[Alex Cunningham]

I thank the Minister for giving way. However, even if his figures from the former Deputy Prime Minister’s pupil premium initiative are correct, we have got to concentrate on what is happening long before the pupil premium kicks in for young children. We need to be kicking in at the offer for two, three and four-year-olds. That is where we need the quality and the funding.

[Mr Gyimah]

The hon. Gentleman is talking about having an intervention long before the early years pupil premium, which is for three and four-year-olds, kicks in. This is the Government who introduced for the first time ever early education for disadvantaged two-year-olds, spending something like £750 million a year on that. I would argue that we are already making that intervention. However, the Bill is about providing 30 hours for three and four-year-olds. I will just mention a few examples of how the early years pupil premium is helping disadvantaged three and four-year-olds.

In one nursery, the funding has been used for staff training and equipment, to help children achieving below their age-related averages on entry in mathematics, and in communication and language skills. Another provider has been able to employ a dedicated early years special educational co-ordinator and language specialist, to help children to develop attention skills, turn-taking and speaking in sentences. Another provider has put the funding towards the recruitment of specialist staff to communicate with the families and children who have English as an additional language, as well as to support their other learning needs. These are the sorts of interventions that really make a difference in narrowing the gap, and we will look to roll them out across the sector.

I am sure that hon. Members will share my view that the additional help and support can make a real difference to the most vulnerable children in our society, particularly as they get ready to start school. That is why the Conservative-led Government introduced the two-year-old entitlement, which has been maintained in the spending review. In June, local authorities reported that around 167,000 two-year-olds were already benefiting from a funded early education place, and that figure continues to rise.

That is an achievement for an entitlement that was only introduced as recently as three years ago, I think. We have seen rapid increases in take-up in local authorities that had initially struggled, with some remarkable increases in London, for example. However, we must remember that the offer to parents, as far as the education for two-year-olds is concerned, is voluntary. Parents do not have to enrol their two-year-olds in a nursery setting, and one of the projects that I worked on when I was first appointed as the childcare Minister was to consider how we can encourage more parents to take up the offer for two-year-olds.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alex Cunningham]

I am pleased to support amendment 15, which would ensure that parents were given the flexibility to use their 30-day entitlement to free childcare throughout the year. It would ensure that they were not restricted in when and how they take the additional 15 hours.

As my hon. Friend said, the concept of flexibility is central to the success of the 30-hour offer. All children aged three and four are currently eligible for 15 hours of free early education each week, or 570 hours each year. That offer can be taken over the 38-week academic year or be stretched over the calendar year to provide roughly 11 hours of free childcare a week. Although those 15 hours are of some help to parents, we are all too aware that they are often available only in inflexible morning or afternoon sessions, and that they frequently do not correspond to parents’ child caring needs.

We have already heard that the availability of affordable and flexible childcare is widely recognised to be a central issue for families across the country. According to figures published by 4Children earlier this year, nearly one in five parents are considering reducing their hours or giving up work altogether because of the cost of childcare.

[Mr Gyimah]

Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the Bill doubles the entitlement to 30 hours, and that parents will be able to stretch it across the year and take it alongside tax-free childcare or the childcare element of universal credit—whichever applies to them? We are giving parents a lot more flexibility than he is acknowledging.

[Alex Cunningham]

That is extremely helpful. That is the reassurance we seek, but we need it to be spelled out in the Bill. Perhaps the Minister will say that in his speech.

When the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced in the summer Budget that the Government would extend free childcare, he said that there would be a pilot in 2016 and that it would be rolled out from 2017. The Minister has just said—this was not clear at the time—that there is elasticity around the additional provision. I hope he will reiterate that in his speech and tell us how he is going to spell it out in regulations—preferably, he will do it in the Bill—to give parents the flexibly that they need.

The 30-hour offer must account for parents who work atypical hours, irregular patterns and inconsistent shifts. The Family and Childcare Trust highlighted that 29% of mothers routinely work at atypical times, such as during the evening or at weekends. Childminders are the principal means through which flexibility is offered in formal childcare provision. Other parents—my hon. Friend the Member for North West Durham referred to some of them—work full-time hours but are on zero-hours contracts, so they require even more flexibility in accessing childcare because they do not know when they will be working from one week to the next. I would welcome further clarification from the Minister on that issue.

There is also the challenge of ensuring that childminders have a role in providing flexible care. The Government’s proposals are not straightforward. Because of the increased competition from centre-based providers and the low levels of remuneration commonly available to childminders —often due to reduced fees from local authorities following central Government cuts—less than 1% of free early education for three and four-year-olds is currently delivered by childminders. If the Bill is to succeed in allowing parents to enter and stay in the kinds of jobs that are available to them, it is self-evident that childcare must be available to cover the hours they work. For that reason, it is important that free places are offered flexibly. The Minister has said that that is possible, but the sector must provide places when shorter or longer sessions are required. Parents must not be required to pay top-up fees because of when they need childcare.

It is also essential to get the balance right and ensure that quality is maintained as the free entitlement is extended. That means that the quality of the existing 15-hour entitlement should not be compromised by the reforms in the Bill. At the same time, questions remain on the pressing issue of how sessional and maintained providers will be both funded and supported to extend their offerings from part-time to full-time hours.

As the Committee has heard previously, 73% of three and four year-olds accessing free childcare at any one time are attending a school-based setting or sessional pre-school. Those schools and sessional pre-schools face barriers in extending provision to 30 hours each week.

[The Chair]

Order. Mr Cunningham, could you please stay within the scope of the amendment?

[Alex Cunningham]

I thought I was staying within the scope of the amendment, about the flexibility required for 30-hour provision.

For instance, if pre-schools are to extend childcare across the full day, they face having to dramatically reduce the number of places they can offer. Similarly, there are core logistical hurdles that need to be overcome. Many sessional pre-schools, for instance, use shared community premises for part of the day at vastly reduced rates of rent. Those institutions would need to move to new premises and access additional funding to extend their offerings and provide the flexibility that is needed, unless the funding is available to keep complexes accessible. In the same vein, nursery class facilities in schools may not be suitable for day care, with many lacking vital rest areas and requiring significant adaptation to cater for children across a full day.

It is important to be absolutely clear that the 30-hour offer is valuable, at least on the face of it, because it significantly increases the potential flexibility available to parents to go out to work or progress towards work. Certainly, the extension of the free childcare entitlement can play an important role in providing parents with the support they need to balance work and childcare responsibilities. However, the extent to which that potential is realised is, of course, dependent on the degree of support and malleability the Government offer providers.

It is therefore imperative that we do all we can to ensure that the Bill delivers provision that is inclusive, high-quality and supports good outcomes for all children. That, in my view, necessarily entails a comprehensive package that gives parents a realistic option of using their 30-hour entitlement flexibly. Of course, it is all very well being able to use entitlement flexibly, provided the facilities and the offer are there for the community to access.

[Mr Gyimah]

The amendments are focused on ensuring that the 30-hour entitlement delivers sufficient flexible childcare for working parents. I completely agree with the principle of the amendments tabled in the other place and by the hon. Members for North West Durham, for Birmingham, Yardley and for Stockton North, which is that the extended entitlement should be delivered flexibly to support working parents.

However, delivering flexible provision is not simply about ensuring that childcare is available outside the hours of nine to five, as the amendment made in the other place suggests, or during the school holidays, as suggested in this debate. Each parent has different needs. Some parents will need childcare to cover the period between leaving work and picking up their child, while a number of parents of children with special educational needs want their child to spend part of their time in a mainstream setting and part of their time in a special educational needs setting.

Real flexibility, therefore, is about responding to the specific requirements of working parents, and I am passionately committed to delivering that. I feel strongly that setting out in primary legislation a requirement for local authorities to secure provision to meet each parent’s individual needs will not work in practice.

[Alex Cunningham]

I am interested in the school-based settings for nurseries. What work is the Minister planning across Government, and with local government in particular, to see how the provision and facilities that exist can be utilised during school holidays, thus offering flexibility to parents?

[Mr Gyimah]

The hon. Gentleman is alluding to the announcement we made earlier this week on wrap-around care, which will allow private providers to bid to use a school site to provide care for school-age children during the holidays. So we are already working on that. I will come later to what we can do for children under five.

Local authorities depend on the market to supply childcare places. We want them to work with local providers to transform the market and increase flexible childcare provision for parents with out-of-hours working patterns. It would not be reasonable to place a statutory duty on them to guarantee out-of-hours or holiday provision for every parent who wants it, since their local childcare market may not be able to deliver that.

Returning to the hon. Gentleman’s point about school nurseries, there are a number of local authorities, particularly in the north-east, where the majority of childcare is delivered by sessional providers such as maintained schools or nurseries. A large number of those providers cannot offer out-of-hours or holiday provision. As Lord Sutherland said in the other place, for those providers

“to continue provision outside their normal hours may well stop them operating completely”.—[Official Report, House of Lords, 14 October 2015; Vol. 765, c. 265.]

Placing a duty on local authorities will not change that overnight. It is also important to note that local authorities, rightly, cannot require private providers to deliver the free entitlement. Therefore it is simply not right to give them a legal duty to secure flexible provision for every parent in their area.

In my view, the way to promote flexible provision is to work with local authorities and providers to look for innovative ways to meet the needs of parents, and to encourage new providers to enter the market to give parents more choice. We should encourage provision to respond flexibly to demand. It does not make sense to require every local authority to secure a particular type of provision when parental working patterns and the type of demand for childcare will vary from area to area.

I reassure the Committee that there is already flexibility in the system used for the existing 15-hour entitlement, and we intend to build on that flexibility in delivering the extended entitlement. There is no requirement that free entitlement places can only be in line with school term dates, or during the hours of nine to five.

In fact, the previous Government changed the statutory guidance to enable local authorities to fund providers to allow parents to access places between 7 am and 7 pm, so that parents can drop off their children earlier in the day or collect them later. Providers can also stretch their entitlement across the full year rather than limiting them to term-time only provision, and a number already do that.

The Bill is very carefully drafted at clause 2(1) to say that the free childcare must be available for a period

“equivalent to 30 hours in…38 weeks”

so that the primary framework allows for the stretched offer. Some local authorities are already promoting flexible childcare provision, including Brighton and Hove City Council, where 82% of year-round nurseries offer a stretched entitlement; Blackpool local authority, where nurseries and childminders work in partnership to offer out-of-hours provision, including weekends and evenings; and Bradford Council, which offers a community nanny scheme, providing flexible childcare for lone parents struggling to access work or training. In Tuesday’s discussion of eligibility I mentioned the great work that Swindon Council is doing to offer weekend sessions from January 2016. In addition, we will set up a flexible funding model to support providers to deliver flexible provision to meet the needs of parents.

Although it is great that some local authorities are already delivering flexible provision to meet parents’ needs, I want more local authorities to deliverthe 30-hour entitlement in that way. I have been clear that the extended entitlement needs to support parents to work. We have been working with the Local Government Association to set up an expert local government working group in the new year, to build on existing flexible provision and make the extended entitlement even more flexible.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Gyimah]

The hon. Lady raises an important point. First, it is difficult to use legislation to clearly define flexibility. Indeed, doing so in primary legislation is almost a contradiction; it cannot work. Secondly, she points out why our approach is the right one. It allows local authorities to work with providers to deliver the sort of flexibility that works in their local area. The flexibility that her constituents will need will be quite different from that required by parents in a rural area, which is why we cannot define it in primary legislation. However, we want to ensure that the 30 hours is equally accessible by all parents, which brings me on to my next point.

It is clear that the market will need to adapt to support a flexible childcare offer in the extended entitlement, and we will encourage different types of providers to offer the additional hours. The hon. Member for Stockton North mentioned the role of childminders in flexibility, and I agree that they have important part to play. There are currently over 46,000 childminders on the early years register, but not all offer the free entitlement due to local authorities’ payment terms, for example. We want to consider that carefully to see how they can be encouraged to offer the entitlement, because they can contribute to flexible delivery. For example, some parents could use a school nursery and have a childminder either pick their children up or drop them off. A shift-worker at the airport might use a childminder during evening or weekend work alongside some nursery provision.

I have said to the Professional Association for Childcare and Early Years, which represents childminders, that there is a big opportunity for childminders to work with nurseries and schools to deliver a full offer of the 30 hours. In the previous Parliament, we allowed childminders to operate outside their domestic premises for 50% of the time. Childminders can now team up with schools to offer after-school provision. If a child does a morning session, they can be looked after by a childminder on school premises for the afternoon to allow parents to pick them up. That flexibility for childminders will come into force from January 2016 and will open up many new opportunities.

I also recognise that a number of parents already use multiple childcare providers, such as sending their child to a nursery and then getting someone else to pick them up, as I have said. I want to ensure that the system continues to allow parents to make the right decisions for their children and will encourage information sharing between different providers so that there is continuity for the child and that their best interests are taken into account when multiple providers are involved in childcare delivery. On Tuesday, we discussed the Government’s plans to introduce the 30-hour entitlement early in some areas, and flexibility will be a focus. The early implementers will look at ways to encourage different providers to enter the market, including childminders who are not currently offering the free entitlement.

I hope that Committee members are reassured that the Government are absolutely committed to ensuring that parents have access to flexible childcare to fit their working patterns. I would therefore encourage Committee members to support Government amendment 4 and urge the hon. Member for North West Durham to withdraw amendment 15. I emphasise that the Government are committed to delivering flexible childcare for children of all ages, as I said in response to an intervention from the hon. Member for Stockton North. That is why we will consult on parents having the right to request wraparound and holiday care at their child’s school, as the Prime Minister announced on Monday. Providers will also have a right to request use of a school’s facilities when the schools are not using them. That will help local authorities to ensure as far as possible that there is sufficient childcare in the area that responds to parental demand.

[Alex Cunningham]

What will happen when an agreement cannot be reached with a local school or local authority, or when the private provider is not prepared to be more flexible in its provision? How do we ensure parents’ needs are met if the system in their particular area is not flexible enough?

[Mr Gyimah]

My hon. Friend the Member for Norwich North made an interesting point on Tuesday: we have significant additional investment in the sector which should be attractive to many new providers. If a provider does not want to offer flexible childcare to all parents in an area, they will struggle to find business somewhere else, because the majority of parents of three and four-year-olds will be entitled to the 30 hours of childcare. Providers that refuse to respond to parental demand may therefore struggle to stay in business.

[Alex Cunningham]

Government Members have talked about the particular challenges in rural areas, where there might be very little provision. Here we face a situation in which there might be 20 children in a local community who access care; all of a sudden the amount of available care will need to double, and yet there may not be the capacity in that small rural area to do so. How will we cope with that?

[Mr Gyimah]

As the hon. Gentleman knows, local authorities have a sufficiency duty. I hope that what we will do to encourage providers on the early years register that currently do not offer the free entitlement—such as childminders, who he pointed to—will work. We will also use £50 million of capital investment to target areas where there is a need for more places. Finally, local authorities can fund providers in a way that incentivises flexible provision, so a number of levers can be used to deliver flexible provision for parents.

--- Later in debate ---

I cannot help thinking, if it is so obvious, why have we not done something about it? How would we have felt if that sentence had ended with something else? Would we accept it if the sentence had said that obviously that is exacerbated hugely when a child is black, Jewish, Catholic, Muslim, or a girl? We simply would not accept that. We would be demonstrating outside Parliament, marching, holding candlelit vigils and throwing ourselves in front of the king’s horse—I am excited about this because I have been to see “Suffragette” this week. We would not accept those things. We would not say, “obviously, that is hugely exacerbated”; we would do something about it. Yet, in the second decade of the 21st century, it is obviously happening to families of disabled children, and we seem to be happy to let that continue, with the exception of we three: the Minister, me and the Minister for Children and Families.

[Alex Cunningham]

Does my hon. Friend agree that, although the vast majority of childcare providers do their very best, some will benefit from specifically knowing that discriminatory behaviour against children in the care setting will see them prosecuted?

[Pat Glass]

Unfortunately, it simply is not happening.

[Alex Cunningham]

It is not, but if it was specific, it might.

[Pat Glass]

The situation is so bad that we need to send out a strong message, which is why I want the amendment included in the Bill.

I will read from the parliamentary inquiry into childcare for disabled children. A parent told us:

“Even now, at age 3, we have only managed to secure 6 hours a week at a nursery, during term-time”.

One said:

“I feel like the 15 hours scheme at the moment is really invented for normally functioning kids”,

but it could be easily turned into something that could help children like hers. Another parent said:

“This is a nightmare. I have tried for a year to find an out of school provider that is suitable for my daughter...and...have not been successful.”

One told us:

“We have contacted every single private childcare provider (childminders, holiday clubs, day care nurseries etc) yet no one is willing to take on a disabled child”.

Another parent said:

“I have tried to access childcare. I contacted many child-minders and had a very negative experience. Some of the things they said were very hurtful and eventually I gave up as it was so demoralising.”

--- Later in debate ---

[James Berry]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Alex Cunningham]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Pat Glass]

Before I give way, can I make it clear that we do not want to put anyone in prison? As I said to the Minister, if the amendment is carelessly worded, I am happy to change it. The current situation cannot continue and I simply want to change it, however that may be possible, so that it is line with Disability Discrimination Act.

[Pat Glass]

That is exactly what I want to do. I have a Bill in front of me, and I want in some way to ensure that the current position—that what I have described is illegal—is used to improve the situation for the parents of disabled children, however we do that.

[Alex Cunningham]

I do not believe that the vast majority of care providers want to discriminate against children with disabilities. They do it possibly because they are ill equipped and do not have the experience, understanding and skills to cope with disabled children. Perhaps the answer is, as we discussed earlier, an upskilling programme across all situations, so that staff can feel confident that they can take on and deal with disabled children.

[Pat Glass]

I agree. I also think there is an element of childcare providers and even maintained settings not being aware of the law regarding refusal to take a child on grounds of disability. It is not absolutely clear to them.

I want to talk about the evidence given by one young couple. They had a lovely baby girl who had severe and multiple learning difficulties. The mother told me that she had approached every provider in her London borough. As soon as she explained the extent of her child’s problems, they were suddenly full. This young woman told me that she was attending mother and toddler groups with her child, and other mothers, who approached the same providers later, found they were not full. That is awful. One needs to sit face to face with this mother to understand how deeply she was disturbed and upset by that. It is wrong and should not be happening, but it is happening time and time again.

I appreciate that the childcare providers might be frightened. They will feel that they do not have the skills, knowledge or training to admit such children. However, when a child is born with a major disability the parents do not magically acquire skills and expertise. The NHS does not give parents special training.