Childcare Bill [HL]

Baroness Jones of Whitchurch Excerpts

Tuesday 16th June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for the very clear way in which he set out his aspirations for the Bill. They are aspirations we share, and we hope to work collaboratively as far as possible to make the offer of 30 hours’ free childcare for all working parents of three and four year-olds a reality. However, as the Minister knows, the devil is in the detail and, sadly, we are being massively constrained in our scrutiny role because of the lack of fairly crucial information today.

First, a great deal of excellent analysis has already been prepared for us in the form of the Lords Select Committee report, Affordable Childcare, which we debated just before the election but has yet to have a formal government response. That would have enabled us to have a better quality discussion today. Secondly, as the Minister said, the Government have launched a rather crucial funding review to ensure that providers can be properly recompensed for the free places they supply, and they have separately launched a consultation with parents and carers. The outcomes of both reviews are fundamental to the success of the scheme and yet, as far as we can see, they will not be available until the Bill has long left this House. Thirdly, as the Bill is constructed, it subsumes all the detail of the proposals into secondary legislation, which we have not yet seen, and it is not clear whether we are intended to see the draft regulations before we start to scrutinise the Bill in detail.

I am taking the Prime Minister and the Minister at face value when they say that they want this to be a flagship policy which transforms childcare provision and helps hundreds of thousands of parents back to work. Equally, I am sure they were committed to the previous policy of providing 15 hours’ free childcare. But as the Lords Select Committee report shows, there has been very little evaluation of the impact of that policy and whether it achieved its intended outcomes.

We do not have the previous evaluation, we do not have the funding formula and we do not have the draft regulations. This all begs the inevitable question of why the Bill is being rushed through, when a little bit more time and preparation might have delivered a popular and workable scheme. Unless the noble Lord is able to provide some reassurances on the availability of that documentation today, we believe there is a strong case for delaying the future stages of the Bill until the information is available and we are able to carry out our responsibilities effectively.

In the mean time, I would like to raise the following issues. First, I would like to clarify how much this policy is currently estimated to cost. I understand that a review is taking place but it would be helpful to know the baseline calculations. When the Children’s Minister gave evidence to the Lords Select Committee, he was asked about the prospect of increasing the free offer, which was then 15 hours, to 25 hours a week. He said:

“Going from something like 15 hours to 25 hours would cost an extra £1.5 billion at least”.

Meanwhile, the Minister stated in response to an Oral Question on 3 June that the new proposals for 30 hours are currently estimated to cost £350 million. Clearly, there is a huge disparity here, so can the noble Lord tell us who is right? Can he explain the basis of the calculation and the estimated take-up among working parents?

Secondly, there is concern about where the money will come from. Again, the noble Lord was quoted as saying that it would be paid for by,

“reducing the tax relief on pensions for those earning more than £150,000 a year”.—[Official Report, 3/6/15; col. 412.]

Can he confirm whether this is still the case, and what happens if the funding review makes it clear that childcare providers need to be paid more to keep the service afloat? Where will those additional funds come from? Can he reassure us that other children’s services budgets in the department will not be raided to fund the extra costs? Can he also reassure us that local authorities will not be expected to fund the increased provision without a commensurate increase in their dedicated school grant allocation?

Thirdly, even if an acceptable formula to fund the additional free hours can be found, it is doubtful whether the sector has the capacity or desire to expand its provision, particularly at short notice. The Children’s Minister admitted as much in his evidence. When asked about the private voluntary and independent sector, he said:

“I am not sure that providers necessarily want to deliver 25 hours of state-subsidised childcare, because it limits their ability to offer other childcare that may come to them at a higher rate, to be brutally honest”.

I suspect that this might be right. It is a real challenge for the success of the policy, so does the noble Lord agree with his colleague, the Children’s Minister, on this matter?

Meanwhile, we have to face the fact that capacity in the maintained sector is in a minority, and is dwindling. A recent report of the British Association for Early Childhood Education claimed that there are now 49 local authorities in England without a single maintained nursery school, and a recent FOI survey found that nearly half of councils said that they would not have enough places to meet the last government offer of places for disadvantaged two year-olds—let alone the new provision now being planned. We are all well aware that the most logical area for expansion, which would be the growth of nurseries attached to schools, will be considerably hampered by the pressure on accommodation in primary schools caused by the increase in school rolls. So can the Minister share his thinking on how the capacity can be expanded, both in the PVI and the public sectors?

Fourthly, we have debated many times in this Chamber the importance of quality early years provision for child development and children’s future achievement. The evidence is compelling and the arguments overwhelming; I do not need to repeat them today. However, there is a concern that this policy has moved too far away from a focus on child development and is targeted instead solely at getting parents back to work. Of course there is some crossover in these objectives but if we are serious about tackling the attainment gap, we should be concentrating on providing quality childcare at a younger age. We should also ensure that children in the most deprived communities receive the best childcare when, sadly, the opposite is currently the case. It would be helpful if the Minister indicated whether he shares the objective of getting the best quality provision to those in deprived communities, and what policies the Government are pursuing to achieve this.

Meanwhile, the need to improve the training and qualifications of nursery staff remains paramount. In replying to the debate before the Recess on the affordable childcare report the noble Baroness, Lady Garden, said that parts of the Nutbrown report into training were still “under review” by the Government. I would be grateful if the noble Lord updated us on how that implementation is going.

Finally, detailed questions remain on the definition of working parents and who will qualify for the additional hours. Does it have to be one working parent or two? What about lone parents, people in training or people actively seeking work who need time to job hunt? What about grandparents and carers? Can those working flexible or zero hours average out their employment history to qualify? What about parents of disabled children who need extra support? These are just some of the issues we want to explore in more detail as the Bill progresses through the Lords, and there is a strong sense of frustration among all those interested in this issue that we have so many unanswered questions at this stage. It feels like we are starting with a blank script when we want to debate a fully formed policy, and while we understand the need for the parents’ consultation, the funding review and a pilot scheme, we are not prepared to hand over the detail of the policy to a series of negative and affirmative resolutions which may or may not have the parliamentary scrutiny they deserve. I hope the noble Lord can clarify when the information we have requested will become available, and that he will consider postponing debate on the Bill if our legitimate request cannot be met. We want the policy to succeed and to play our part in shaping the details to make it a success. In this spirit, I look forward to working with the noble Lord on a much more detailed set of proposals in the weeks ahead.