Early Years Childcare

Alex Cunningham Excerpts

Monday 16th October 2023 Commons Chamber

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Selby and Ainsty (Keir Mather) on a full political speech delivered with real energy, style and passion, though I could have done without the age joke.

I sat on the last Childcare Bill Committee seven years ago, and I warned then that the plans would not fly because of lack of investment. We have just heard an example of that from the hon. Member for Buckingham (Greg Smith). The Minister all those years ago said that the market would create itself. It did not, and costs remain high while the number of places available is restricted. The spring Budget was an opportunity to get that right, and I welcomed the announcement of a funding package as well as the extension of the subsidised 30 hours entitlement—it was a step towards helping parents and providers with affordability and sustainability concerns—but this investment was too long overdue, and more will be needed to address the structural problems in the early childhood education and care system if the funding increases are to be implemented effectively.

Years and years of underfunding early years entitlements has left providers unable to invest in development and straining to survive. Children and families in my constituency and across the country deserve equal opportunities to thrive and fulfil their potential. The new clauses I moved all those years ago in that Bill Committee are still relevant today, but they are not on the statute book. One would have mandated the Government to ensure that all three and four-year-olds had access to high-quality, flexible and accessible early education and childcare provision, delivered by well-qualified, confident and experienced practitioners and led by an early years graduate. Sadly, that did not happen.

Childcare settings in disadvantaged areas are the least likely to be of high quality, which is why I argued during that Bill Committee for the Government to have the power and the responsibility to ensure that all our children are cared for and taught by highly qualified professionals. Instead, we have a situation in which nurseries are unable to pay the wages needed to attract early years teachers because of the chronic underfunding of the free education entitlement by the Government. At the same time, universities are withdrawing their early years teacher training courses because they cannot attract applicants.

It is widely recognised that effective early intervention and support is vital to improve the outcomes for children with special educational needs and disabilities. Such children have the same aspirations for the future as other children, but they face more barriers. Across education, health and care, we need to know that these children’s needs are being met and not missed. Despite their failures and initiatives, the Government still lack the ambition necessary to focus on those children whose life chances are being blighted from their earliest years, in order to close the attainment gap.

Last week, I was delighted to hear my hon. Friend the Member for Houghton and Sunderland South (Bridget Phillipson) set out Labour’s plan for the ambitious reform of childcare. With a taskforce chaired by Sir David Bell, Labour’s early years plan will ensure that we have a childcare sector that works for families, children and the economy, and that high standards are not just for those families who can afford them. The chief executive of the London Early Years Foundation responded to the policy, saying:

“As children from disadvantaged backgrounds struggle to find access to quality nursery education—thereby increasing the attainment gap even further—we welcome Labour’s new ambitious review to fix what is currently a broken childcare system.”

The Tory Government have broken the childcare system, from axing huge numbers of Sure Start centres to misunderstanding how they would deliver the promised provision seven years ago. There was no plan then and there is none now. It is time for them to move on.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (David Johnston)]

May I first congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Worcester (Mr Walker), the Chair of the Education Committee? He has helped with the development of our policy in this area, and his Committee produced a good report that we have responded to. I am also grateful to him for relinquishing his time so that I have longer to respond to some of the points made in the debate.

I also congratulate the hon. Member for Selby and Ainsty (Keir Mather) on giving his maiden speech, which I thought he delivered with aplomb. He gave us a lovely portrait of his constituency, which I visited—on the losing side—a number of times earlier in the year. I have no doubt that he will be a strong advocate for his constituents.

May I also take the opportunity to pay tribute to the hard work and dedication of our early years and childcare workforce? Through challenges from the pandemic to the rising costs of living, they have worked tirelessly to provide care that allows children to flourish. Extensive evidence makes it clear—a number of hon. Members touched on this—that high quality early years education has a positive effect on the cognitive, behavioural and social development of children in both the short and long term. Building a strong foundation for every child is at the heart of the Government’s agenda, and it is critical to enabling children to succeed both at school and later in life. That is true for all children, but as hon. Members will know I have a particular interest in disadvantaged children, having run charities for them before I became an MP, and it is especially important to try to ensure that they get the right support in their earliest years, as my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Siobhan Baillie) touched on in her excellent speech.

High quality childcare is also fundamental to building a strong economy, allowing parents to enter employment, take on more hours or choose from a wider range of jobs. That is particularly important for mothers, whose employment rates and pay have been and continue to be disproportionately impacted by having children.

The Government have a strong track record of supporting parents with the cost of childcare, supporting disadvantaged children and ensuring that childcare is of high quality. In September 2010, we extended the three and four-year-old entitlement that parents typically take as 15 hours a week for 38 weeks of the year. In 2013, we introduced 15 free hours a week for disadvantaged two-year-olds. In 2017, the three and four-year-old entitlement was doubled to 30 hours a week. Now, recognising that childcare is one of the biggest costs facing working families today, the Government are making the largest single investment in childcare ever.

This investment—an additional £4.1 billion—will double the amount being spent by the Government on childcare so that by September 2025 all eligible working parents will be able to claim 30 hours of free childcare—I will come back to the word “free” in a minute—from when their child is nine months old until they start school. As hon. Members know, that will be rolled out in stages. From April, eligible parents of two-year-olds will be able to access 15 free hours. From September, eligible parents of children aged nine months and upwards will be able to do likewise. The full 30-hour entitlement will come in from September 2025.

[Alex Cunningham]

We are all going to welcome additional funding within childcare and the expansion of services, but surely we need a very clear workforce plan if we are actually going to deliver all this.

[David Johnston]

I am grateful to the hon. Member, because I am about to come on to workforce. However, just before I do so, alongside this we want to increase the supply of wrap-around care to enable families to work more, or flexible, hours. We are investing £289 million in start-up funding to provide local authorities with funding to set up wrap-around provision from 8 am to 6 pm in their areas. More broadly, local authorities are critical to delivering this expansion of childcare, and we are working closely with them to understand the challenges they face and ensure they have sufficient places to meet parental demand. We will shortly be appointing a contractor to support them in that work.

There have been some key themes in this debate, beginning with funding rates. By 2027-28, we expect to be spending more than £8 billion every year on childcare. We have already increased the funding paid to nurseries for the existing entitlement by £204 million this year, rising to £288 million next year. That means that the national average rate for three and four-year-olds has gone up to £5.62 an hour, and for two-year-olds it has gone up to £7.95 an hour from £6—an increase of a third. Those rates are informed by a survey of more than 10,000 providers that we carry out in order to understand the funding pressures they face. That said, I am very happy to meet both my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (Greg Smith), who raised issues in his constituency—there has been a 10.1% increase for providers there—and my hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Danny Kruger), where there has been a 6.8% increase. I am happy to continue that discussion.

On quality and flexibility questions, it is worth first noting that we have some of the highest-quality childcare in the world, with 96% of early years settings rated good or outstanding. However, we are working with the sector to increase flexibility and remove unnecessary burdens. In September, as my hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth (Cherilyn Mackrory) touched on, we changed the ratios for two-year-olds. We are pushing landlords to be more flexible and to allow childminders to operate on their premises, and we will shortly announce our response to the recent consultation with the sector about the early years foundation stage, where we are hoping to make a series of changes to help practitioners more easily do their jobs while maintaining higher standards.

Delivering expansion is going to require a significant boost to the workforce, so it is key that we are able to encourage more people into this sector—to raise its status, as my hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth touched on. In the new year, we will launch a big recruitment campaign to encourage people to consider working in a nursery school or as a childminder. We are expanding the early years professional development programme: nearly 25,000 people are already undertaking apprenticeships in this sector, but we are looking at accelerated apprenticeships and degree apprenticeships and will also be running early years skills bootcamps from next year to try to get more people into the sector. A start-up grant scheme for childminders, which will provide £600 for those registering with Ofsted and £1,200 for those registering with a childminder agency, will also be starting shortly.

Very briefly, I will touch on some other points made by the Chair of the Select Committee. Our funding rates do take business rate costs into account, and in the autumn statement the Government announced a freeze to the business rates multiplier, a tax cut worth £9.3 billion over five years. Small business rate relief exists, as does relief for charities, but I am happy to look at the extreme cases that my hon. Friend set out. He is right to flag the issue of tax-free childcare, which can save parents up to £2,000 per year on the cost of childcare, or up to £4,000 for children with disabilities. We are trying to drive up the take-up of that through our Childcare Choices website. As for people in education and training, a big part of this offer is to try to encourage people into work: students are eligible for the universal 15 hours for three and four-year-olds and for the 30 free hours if they meet the income criteria, and there is also the childcare grant and the parents’ learning allowance. However, I have heard the point that my hon. Friend has made.

I think I have covered most of the points that people have made. A number of Members from Northern Ireland have spoken: obviously, this issue is devolved in Northern Ireland, but I will just say that next week, I am chairing a meeting of the British-Irish Council on the topic of childcare. I am sure we are going to discuss childcare in both Northern Ireland and the Republic.



I think I have covered most of Labour’s commentary. I would be a lot more amenable to criticism from the Labour party if it had any policy whatsoever in this area. As it does not and all it has done is commission a taskforce to tell it what to think, I will close the debate there.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered support for childcare and the early years.