Free Childcare

Alison McGovern Excerpts

Monday 21st November 2016 Westminster Hall

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to speak in this debate and to serve under your chairship, Mr Davies, and to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington North (Helen Jones), who has given us a brilliant exposition of the current problems with funding for childcare. Hopefully I will not repeat much of it, but I think it is interesting that so many people signed the e-petition and, as she explained, wanted to get involved in this debate.

This morning, before this debate, I was lucky enough to be asked to speak on Radio Merseyside—a fabulous local radio station. Often, when I take my little girl to the school gate, I do not have much political discussion there—parents tend to be busy and not thinking about politics—but it was notable to me that this morning when I dropped off my lovely girl, her teacher said to me, “I’ve just heard you on the radio talking about childcare,” and proceeded to talk to me about all the issues. It does not surprise me at all that my hon. Friend has had the experience of all those people getting in touch with her. This is one of the most significant issues that faces our country, and even though it may not appear to be high politics in the conventional sense, it is where politics in our country could most influence families’ lives for good.

I will go back to basics and talk about the principles of why Government should be involved in childcare, and then make a couple of points about how we should do so. In the end, support for families and children, and for parents at work, goes back a long way in our country. Beveridge recognised when he was considering what made people poor that there were two times in people’s lives when they had less earning capacity and extra cost. One of those was when they got old, and the other was when they had children.

Beveridge recognised that having kids had the power to plunge families into poverty that they would not be in otherwise. That is why he designed family support as part of the very nature of our welfare state. He thought that people should be able to smooth their costs over their lives and receive state assistance at times when they had extra costs and less capacity to earn, so that when they had the ability to pay in, they could do so, smoothing their income over their lives to prevent poverty. That is the principle of our welfare state, and it always has been.

Beveridge knew something else as well about preventing families from being poor. He knew that Government needed to be committed to the principles of full employment and prepared to provide public services to underpin good health and good education, to ensure that people had the ability not just in theory but in practical terms to get a job. When I read the e-petition as submitted, with its emphasis on helping working people, I agree with my hon. Friend that that is exactly what our country should be all about. That is why I think we should adopt the same principles, attitude and approach that Beveridge did when he designed our welfare state.

However, there is a crucial difference between the labour market then and now: people like me can get a job. Women now rightly expect to go to work. It turns out that once the historic prejudices against women in the workplace were removed—piece by piece, by those women in the ’50s, ’60s, ’70s and ’80s to whom I owe every chance that I have had as a woman in the workplace—women in great numbers wanted to go to work and have a career. We therefore need to fundamentally rethink the way in which the Government support families when their children are small, and we need to confront the fact that our labour market is now very different. That means that, as a country, we must applaud the nature and instinct of people who want to go to work and we must seek to provide good public services to back up that driving instinct. That simple conclusion is supported by the contribution of the woman who spoke before me on Radio Merseyside this morning, a dedicated Scouse nan called Linda who had gone on the radio to explain how stretched her family was; not just the mum and dad but the grandparents were trying to work and do childcare.

[Kirsten Oswald]

The hon. Lady makes a point that we should all consider very carefully, which is that this issue is not just about women—even though someone who looked around this Chamber might be forgiven for thinking that it was. It is about all of us. It is about everyone in a family: not just the children, but the parents and the wider family too.

[Alison McGovern]

I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention. Of course childcare is not just a women’s issue, but it is a fact that the labour market has changed because women have joined it in greater numbers, so we have to rethink how the Government support parents in work. As it happens, I am sure that in my constituency as many men as women care about the cost of childcare. As many granddads as nans are supporting their children to take care of their children. This issue affects the whole family, older and younger alike, for all the reasons that my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington North has set out: costs are cantering away ahead of wages and successive Governments have been too slow to be radical on childcare.

Another reality that we have to face is that we have a productivity crisis in this country: we are still working longer to make less than our competitors, and I think childcare plays a hidden role in that. Over the summer I went back to work—I did days at work with different types of businesses throughout the north-west, including in retail, manufacturing and care. Managers often told me that they wanted to find people to promote from within their businesses, who could do more, earn more and drive the business forward, but that people were not able to take on that extra responsibility because of their responsibilities at home. They did not think that they necessarily had the back-up to step up and get that promotion. Businesses can get people in through the door to do the basic jobs, but helping them to move on brings the risk of their fragile family caring responsibilities being unpicked.

[Helen Jones]

Does my hon. Friend agree that working hours have changed across the whole range of businesses and jobs? When I worked at holiday jobs in retail, for instance, we finished at 5 o’clock—it was 9 to 5. That is no longer the case, and it places a huge burden on parents.

[Alison McGovern]

My hon. Friend is correct. These days, retail is 24 hours a day. She makes an excellent case for some sort of royal commission or cross-party inquiry into the matter, partly because we need to take a sectoral approach. The challenges in retail are immense, and so are the challenges in care. The NHS and the care sector need their own childcare strategy. We have a nursing recruitment crisis on our hands, and a lot of it has to do with care. When I was shadow childcare Minister in the last Parliament, I argued that the NHS needed its own childcare strategy, which the Department of Health should lead across Government. That has not happened yet, but it must. In the present situation, with the risk of Brexit and the possibility of an NHS hiring crisis, we must recognise that a lot of the problems are of our own making. Nurses, doctors and other health professionals—women and men—are really struggling to work the hours they need to and to stay in work as they wish to, when they simply do not have the appropriate back-up.

The world has moved on, as my hon. Friend said. We want our businesses to be as productive as they can and our public services to be as efficient as they can. It is therefore incumbent on the Government to think strategically and to question the infrastructure support we offer so that our economy can work well. I know that the Government are committed to cutting corporation tax, but I really question whether that is the priority for business right now. When we talk to people in the business community, they are more interested in business rates than in corporation tax, and they are definitely interested in childcare. The childcare challenge that many employees face is a problem for small and big businesses alike. As the CBI has said, the Government could have a real impact on dealing with the infrastructure challenge that childcare represents.

I have two final points: the first is about children, who I feel always get left out of this conversation, and the second is about a possible way forward, adding to the very good suggestion of my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington North.

Disabled children, who face particular difficulties in accessing the right care and support, are often forgotten in all this. Their parents are entitled to the same childcare support as everyone else. Given the communication difficulties and medical needs that children with disabilities may have, their childcare provision is clearly incredibly important. We now know much more about how to help children with disabilities to progress, but the earlier that help comes in their life—the earlier they get that support—the better and more successful it is. I have seen that with families in my constituency who have children with disabilities. If the Minister takes up my hon. Friend’s sensible suggestion of an inquiry, I ask her to include those who have expertise in working with families who have a child with a disability. We can do more than ever before to give those children the best possible chance of a successful life, so let us do it from the very beginning.

The second group of children who are often forgotten about is those who live in rural areas. Towns and cities face many challenges in getting the right childcare provision, because geography can be a natural barrier to access. Those challenges can often be overlooked in our modern economy. I ask the Minister to think about that too.

Frankly, even for those who do not face those challenges, being a parent of a small child is terrifying. All of us who have ever experienced it know that. We need to move towards universal childcare for a very simple reason, in addition to all the reasons that I have set out about the benefits it would bring to businesses and our economy. Being a parent can be a huge challenge for anyone, and the one thing that gives a parent a little bit of confidence is meeting that key worker in the nursery or the childminder who has brilliant expertise, so that they have someone in their life to ask, “Am I doing this right?” I know that in the past parents coped without help and support, but these days our experience is that difficulties with parenting can strike anybody, whatever their income level or their confidence.

[Helen Jones]

Before my hon. Friend finishes her speech, may I point out that parents in the past had a lot of support? Extended families lived together or near one another, which is no longer the case. People did not look after a baby on their own; they had grannies, aunties and great-aunties all around them. As families become more mobile, that support network tends to disappear, which is a real problem for parents.

[Alison McGovern]

That is a very good point. In addition, bearing in mind what we know now about child development compared with what was known many years ago, I would argue that childcare is a real expertise. All parents welcome expertise on the best way to help their child to develop. All the evidence shows that the most important learning years of a person’s life are those when they are very small, but that is terrifying for the parent of a very small person. We know that what we do in those important years will echo down that child’s life and we desperately want the best for them, so it is really great to have a professional there who can help.

We should have a vision that runs from the midwife who cares for the child when they are first born, and for the parents before that, through the health visiting system to which the Government have said they are committed, to that family working with a key worker through nurseries and some universal childcare provision. That way, all through the child’s earliest years, professionals would consistently be around the family to help them, alongside their extended family, where possible.

How do we do that practically, though? I wish to add a final thought to the mix. We have heard from the hon. Member for East Renfrewshire (Kirsten Oswald) about the work the Scottish Government are doing, which is to be commended, but some new devolved institutions are also coming to England. We should look at how childcare is provided through local authorities, because there is a possibility of doing more and improving expertise if local authorities are able to work together across boundaries to come up with a good universal childcare proposal for their area. We might then benefit from the efficiencies of local authorities working together, and it would also help them to think strategically about the educational challenges faced by their city or city region and then to put investment in the right place. Ministers cannot know that from Whitehall. With the greatest respect to the Minister, she is never going to have a fine detail of knowledge about the best childcare arrangements for Merseyside, but we could do that in Merseyside for ourselves. Will the Minister think about how resources could be devolved out of Whitehall and given to city regions or groups of local authorities working together?

I am afraid I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington North: in the end, I do not believe we have backed up our children with nearly enough finance. Nevertheless, if we are going to spend more on childcare, let us do it in an effective way that respects the different challenges faced by cities throughout the country and does not dictate from Whitehall how it should be provided. If we do that, people will get a real sense that the Government are prepared to back them up. Our economy will most certainly feel the benefit, but—much more importantly—so will every family in the country.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kirsty Blackman]

Absolutely. There is a real problem with choice for families. In some cases, families cannot afford to go to work because of the cost of childcare. We should not be in that situation. All parents—men and women—should be able to choose whether they go into the workplace. For some parents, it is much healthier to go to work. I was a rubbish stay-at-home mum and did not enjoy it very much at all. I did not do it for particularly long, because it just was not for me—I was going mad. It was much better for me to be in the workplace, but in some cases it was costing me money to do that. I was having to spend more on childcare than I was earning, especially once commuting was taken into account. As has been mentioned, that is a real issue in rural areas, and there is a need for specific provision for such areas.

Choice is a real issue. There has been a little discussion about whether childcare is a women’s issue. In Aberdeen and my local area, it is probably more of a women’s issue than in some other areas of the country. We have so many people, mostly men, who go offshore for work. As they are offshore for two or three weeks at a time, there is a real issue with women going back to work. They certainly cannot work night shifts, because there is nobody there to care for the children overnight. Historically, a huge number of women have had to decide not to work on the basis of their partner’s working hours. The lack of flexibility in childcare is a real issue in that respect.

[Alison McGovern]

Does the hon. Lady agree that her argument is an absolutely cast-iron reason why this issue has to be addressed in a devolved way? It has to be devolved down to the best possible level, because local economies are different and not everything can be dictated from Whitehall.

[Kirsty Blackman]

It is really important that we look at how this issue is addressed in terms of devolution, and in different areas, because there are specific challenges—around specific industries, such as the one I mentioned; around rurality and the kind of distances involved in some rural areas; and around staff numbers.

We have a specific issue in Aberdeen with attracting qualified staff, because as we have historically had a lot of people working in the oil industry, where they have made lots of money, housing is more expensive than in other areas. Consequently, someone who works in childcare, or even teaching, will find it more difficult to live there. Although we have made local provision to deal with some aspects of this issue, we are not there yet, and it is necessary that local authorities, institutions and organisations can have input into how childcare provision is managed.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Caroline Dinenage)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies. I congratulate the hon. Member for Warrington North (Helen Jones) on securing this important debate and on all the hard work she has taken part in leading up to today, including all her various online activities. Regardless of her technical expertise, she has certainly triumphed. I am delighted to be here to set out the Government’s childcare offer to parents. As you know, Mr Davies, one of our top priorities is to give children the best start in life and to support working parents.

I congratulate all the Members who have taken part in today’s debate. Almost without exception, their contributions have been helpful and constructive and have shown that we all share a common goal, which is to support working parents and children in getting access to the best childcare, to work together with that aim, to share best practice and to find a common ground to build on. I say almost without exception because, while I welcome the shadow Minister to her place—I know that she is quite new to the shadow Government—I gently say to her that there was nothing positive or constructive in anything she said. At no point did I get the sense that she wanted to work with me on this area to make it work. All she wanted to do was make cheap political points in the name of the Labour party. She might as well have been dressed as a great big red rose and be done with it, but this area is too important for political point scoring. It is about children’s futures and parents being able to get out and work and make the money they need to run their families. It is not about cheap political point scoring, and she should be ashamed of herself. However, I congratulate the others who spoke.

I have been in the same position as other Members. I am a working mum, and the decisions I have made about my children’s education and their childcare have been among the most difficult I have ever made. It is difficult being in that position. For many years I was a single mother who felt like she was working only to pay for her childcare, so I understand how people feel. Wearing my other hat as the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Women and Equalities, I go round the country speaking to many women, and they tell me that the biggest obstacle to them getting back into work and fulfilling their potential is the cost of childcare. That is why we want to get things right.

The petition asked why we give free early learning to the two-year-olds of non-working parents. I want to be clear up front that the Government are proud to provide early learning to the most disadvantaged two-year-olds. We want to ensure that all children get the best start in life, regardless of their background. Unfortunately, evidence tells us that children from less advantaged backgrounds can be up to 19 months behind in their learning by the time they start school. We all know that gaps in learning can start appearing as early as 22 months of age, but high-quality early learning from the age of two can narrow that gap, helping those children to achieve better GCSE results and ultimately earn higher wages.

For that reason, in September 2013 the Government introduced the early learning for two-year-olds programme. Initially, it was for the most disadvantaged two-year-olds from non-working households in England. The programme was later expanded in September 2014 to include low-income working parents, as well as looked-after children, children who have left care, adopted children and children with special educational needs and disabilities. Now, 40% of two-year-olds are eligible. The Government are committed to supporting those parents who are just about managing, and the policy is focused squarely on those families.

Looked-after children and children who have left care can face multiple challenges in progressing well in the early years and at school. As a group, they persistently underachieve at key stages 1 and 2. As we know, adoptive parents are brilliant and play an incredibly important role. The Government want to ensure that they and their children get the best possible start and support. Giving adopted children an early education place is one aspect of the Government’s significant package of adoption support.

Research indicates that children with special educational needs and disabilities particularly benefit from early education. It helps their development and improves their social inclusion and wellbeing. However, families sometimes find it difficult to access appropriate care and can face higher costs. The hon. Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern) spoke about that, and she did an excellent job while she was the shadow Minister for childcare. Since 1 September 2014, two-year-olds entitled to disability living allowance, or those who have a current statement of SEN or an education, health and care plan, have been entitled to an early education place. Our new offer for three and four-year-olds includes a £12.5 million disability access fund to support disabled children in order to access the free entitlement.

[Alison McGovern]

I thank the Minister for giving way and for her kind remarks. I have one specific question on children with disabilities. Often it is the perception of difficulty in welcoming children with disabilities into early years settings that is a problem. Are the Government working on a way to break down barriers so that nurseries and childcare settings make it clear to parents of children with disabilities that they are welcome?

[Caroline Dinenage]

Absolutely. The hon. Lady makes an excellent point. We have heard a lot today about maintained nursery schools, which do a fantastic job with children with special educational needs or disabilities. They need to be supported to carry on doing that work.