Affordable Childcare (Select Committee Report)

Baroness Garden of Frognal Excerpts

Wednesday 18th March 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)]

My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, for securing this important debate and for his eloquent speech in introducing it, and the touch of poetry which set us all off on the right note. I am grateful also to noble Lords for their contributions. So, I take this opportunity to thank the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, and the other members of the Select Committee for the report they have produced. It is a timely and comprehensive report, and something that, as noble Lords acknowledge, the next Government will want to consider in full.

As far as the coalition Government are concerned, we end this Parliament with the same commitment we had at its start—to support all parents to access affordable, quality childcare. That is why, by the end of this Parliament, and despite the challenging economic climate, we will have increased our annual spending on childcare by £1 billion. I hope that the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, will acknowledge that progress has been made by the coalition Government. However, of course we are not complacent and, as the Select Committee’s report acknowledges, challenges remain.

We know that good quality early years provision, especially from age two upwards, has positive benefits on children’s all-round attainment and behaviour, particularly for disadvantaged children. We know, too, that these last all the way through to GCSE and future earnings. Evidence strongly supports this. Recognising that early education matters, we have increased the free early education entitlement for all three and four year-olds to 15 hours. This is an increase on the 12.5 hours introduced by the previous Government, which, as well as benefiting children, also helps their parents with the cost of childcare.

My noble friends Lady Shephard, Lady Tyler and Lord Dundee, talked about the evidence of the benefits of early learning for two, three and four year-olds. We are certainly obtaining further evidence from our new study in early education and developments, as acknowledged in the report. The noble Lords, Lord Sutherland and Lord Patel, were among those who also spoke on this subject, and about the cost of childcare. We have increased the child element of tax credits to a maximum of up to £2,780 for families with one child, which is £480 more a year than at the election, and above inflation by £15. The cost of childcare undoubtedly acts as a financial disincentive to work and we know that government support helps to remove or lower those barriers. As my noble friend Lady Tyler pointed out, there is a real need for flexibility in childcare to enable people to access childcare so that they can go back to work and access employment. The other provision is for the benefit of the children themselves.

We are introducing tax-free childcare, which will be accessible to many more families than the current employer-supported childcare scheme. Up to 1.8 million families could benefit by up to £2,000 per child per year, which is also available to self-employed parents. The tax-free childcare extension was mentioned by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Derby and my noble friend Lord Dundee. The point about extending the scope further is that it is passed to relevant ministerial colleagues. It is important to have cross-departmental dialogue on these matters. The right reverend Prelate mentioned giving money directly to parents. We do this through tax credits and/or the new tax-free childcare scheme, which will put money in the pockets of parents, enabling them to choose the childcare that suits them. The right reverend Prelate also spoke of the church community provision which again plays a valuable part in this area.

The noble Baroness, Lady Massey, and my noble friend Lady Shephard mentioned the targeting of services in deprived areas. Schools, of course, provide an important part of the solution in more deprived areas, and the department is doing more to make it easier for schools to open and expand their nursery provision. We recognise, however, that our poorest children are less likely to take part and benefit from early years education. We remain concerned that children from poorer backgrounds continue to start school behind their richer peers. That is why we introduced the new entitlement to early education for around the 40% of the most disadvantaged two year-olds which aims to address the gap. Already more than 150,000 children are benefiting from this.

Alongside investing in places for eligible two year-olds we have made £100 million of capital expenditure available to support the introduction of this programme. This has created up to 67,000 new nursery places for two year-olds. As my noble friends Lady Walmsley and Lady Tyler alluded to, from April we are extending the pupil premium into the early years, which will provide an additional £50 million to support three and four year-old children from disadvantaged backgrounds. This should help to close the gap between children from such backgrounds and their peers by supporting providers to raise the quality of their provision.

My noble friend Lady Tyler and the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, mentioned support for children with disabilities. The Government are committed to supporting families with disabled children. Our vision for young children with disabilities is the same as for all children—that they achieve well in their early years, at school and college and lead contented and fulfilled lives. Our special educational needs and disabilities reforms through the local offer and independent advice make it clear that help is available to children with SEND. Local authorities must now offer joined-up help at the earliest possible point without false distinctions between education, health and care. We have also invested £30 million in independent supporters to help families applying for an education, health and care plan.

Children with disabilities aged two, three and four are able to benefit from 15 hours of free childcare through the early years entitlement. Linked with this, local authorities have the flexibility within their direct schools grant funding to provide additional resources and support for those children who need it—for example, to provide a young child with additional one-to-one support. The noble Earl, Lord Listowel, mentioned the importance of children being handed over from parent to carer through early years care.

Universal credit and tax credits also provide more generous support for children. The disabled child addition in universal credit provides extra support to low-income families with a disabled child. This is worth more than £4,300 per year. We have recently announced that tax-free childcare will allow parents of disabled children to receive a government top-up of £4,000 a year, twice that for other families. This support will be provided until the age of 17.

We are trying to take a number of measures to address the particular difficulties faced by families with disabled children. One of these is to influence the shape of local services at a strategic level and so we have increased funding for parent/carer forums from £10,000 per forum in 2013-14 to £15,000 in 2014-15.

On collaboration and accountability, we are, as I said, encouraging more schools to offer nursery provision, either themselves or in partnership with officers. We expect this to help address the gap in participation and achievement between the poorest and others. We are supporting collaboration through investment of £5 million in teaching schools and by working with 4Children on the development of its childcare hubs. We are increasing accountability through the reception baseline, which schools will be able to use from September this year. This will provide a snapshot of children’s starting point in reception and means the progress that schools make with all children, including those from a lower starting point, will be recognised. The baseline will be the only way used to hold schools to account for progress from reception right through to key stage 2 from September 2016.

Many noble Lords mentioned the importance of high-quality provision. As the Select Committee’s report set out, we recognise the importance of the role of qualified staff in our early years settings. We know that the qualifications of the workforce directly impact on the quality of provision. It is therefore pleasing that the proportion of staff with level 3 qualifications continues to increase, as does the proportion qualified to at least degree level.

However, we continue to do more. That is why we have introduced the new early years teacher status and established more robust criteria for level 3 qualifications, the early years education criteria. We now have more than 14,000 early years specialist graduates who have been trained since 2007, more than 1,500 are currently in training and a further 540 high-quality graduates began training in September 2014. Moreover, we have extended Teach First to the early years.

We heard the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, my noble friends Lady Walmsley and Lord Dundee, the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Derby, as well as my noble friend Lady Tyler express their concerns about provision by the private, voluntary and independent sector and the maintained provision. We must acknowledge that the employment and deployment of staff of PVI settings is largely a matter for the settings themselves. The legal framework provided by the Early Years Foundation Stage sets the overall parameters in which settings must operate, but they can choose to exercise permitted flexibility to determine the qualifications expected of staff and how they are applied to children in their care. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Derby talked about transparency in funding and investment. The department publishes data on the rates each local authority pays its providers in a funding benchmarking tool. In terms of local authority investment in PVI settings, local authorities are able to use funding flexibilities to support such settings so as to ensure sufficient and quality childcare places. The EFYS enables settings employing a graduate to operate a higher staff to child ratio, which gives nurseries greater freedom to operate in ways that best meet their needs and the needs of the children in their care. In this way, a nursery can increase its income and investment in its staff, including by helping existing staff to improve their skills and qualifications.

My noble friends Lady Shephard and Lady Walmsley, the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, and the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, raised concerns about the quality of early years settings. On recent inspections, in August 2014, 80% of all active early years providers were rated good or outstanding by Ofsted, which compares with 69% in August 2010. For two year-old children, 85% attend a setting currently rated by Ofsted as good or outstanding.

A number of noble Lords mentioned the importance of the home learning environment because evidence tells us that a rich home learning environment in the early years has a substantial and measurable effect on a child’s achievement right through to the age of 11. What parents do with a child is more important than who they are; it is more important than, say, parental occupation, education or income. Parents and families continue to be supported by children’s centres in a number of ways, both in relation to universal services and through targeted support for those facing the risk of poor outcomes. Independent data show that record numbers of parents and children are using children’s centres—in fact, more than 1 million. Family learning provision is also supported by the Government as part of community learning. Much of this is targeted towards the early years and takes place in children’s centres and schools. There is consistent evidence of the benefits of family learning for both parents and children. All of this helps to encourage a culture of learning in the family and equips parents to be more active in supporting their children’s intellectual, physical and emotional development. I certainly hope that music, as mentioned by my noble friend Lord Dundee, would be included.

The issues touched on in the Select Committee report also bring into scope other reforms and interventions being made by this Government, including more places and more provision. Here we have taken action to give more choice to parents, including the creation of childminder agencies and supporting schools to open nurseries and offer 8 am to 6 pm provision. The matter of flexibility was also raised by noble Lords.

The noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, and my noble friend Lord Dundee all made reference to the fact that it can be very difficult for parents to navigate the various schemes available to support them. We are certainly taking action to address this, including by publishing draft guidance for parents on the universal credit scheme online for consultation and feedback with a promise of more comprehensive information to be made available closer to the date of rollout. However, I take the point that some of the ways in which these surveys are framed and how the forms are designed are not the easiest for people to access, and very often it is those who are most in need who find them most difficult to access. I am sure that more work will need to be done, including on the dialogue between the various departments to make sure that the DWP, HMRC and the DfE are talking to each other to make it as straightforward as possible for parents to access the provision that they need.

My noble friend Lady Walmsley mentioned academy freedoms. We are aware of some of the calls that she mentioned to extend academy freedoms down the age range, and it is something that the next Government will want to look at closely. It is currently on the table but has gone no further than that.

The noble Earl, Lord Listowel, asked whether Ofsted inspections included looking at the role of fathers. Ofsted and the Association of Directors of Children’s Services will be establishing a joint policy group to agree the revised approach and the timetable for implementation later in the year. I am sure, within that, they will wish to consider the role of fathers.

There have been a number of other contributions to this debate, which I will need to review and follow up in writing. A number of noble Lords mentioned the Nutbrown review, parts of which we have of course implemented and parts of which are under review.

In conclusion, I repeat that the Government are committed to supporting all parents in accessing affordable, quality childcare. We are committed to addressing the particular issues that face children from disadvantaged backgrounds and have introduced the key measures that I outlined—measures of which we can be proud—although we acknowledge there will always be more to be done in this area. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, and the committee for such a thorough and insightful report. Its recommendations will be of great value to the next Government, and I thank all noble Lords for their contributions today.