Childcare

Baroness Jones of Whitchurch Excerpts

Tuesday 30th June 2015 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to ensure the effective monitoring of childcare places by local authorities.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Lord Nash) (Con)]

My Lords, the department’s statutory guidance is clear that local authorities should report annually to elected council members on how they are meeting this duty and make the report available and accessible to parents. We know that the childcare market is thriving. The latest figures just published show that 99% of four year-olds and 94% of three year-olds are accessing the Government’s free childcare offer.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply. He will have seen the recent Family and Childcare Trust report entitled Access Denied. It highlights a huge disparity in childcare places across England. For example, 49 local authorities have a shortage of free places for two year-olds in deprived areas, and while some local authorities are proactively managing the shortfall, others are not even bothering to collect the statistics, so the offer and the quality vary considerably from place to place. How can we be sure that future expenditure will be targeted at the families who would benefit the most from this money when we seem to be faced with a lack of nursery places in the most deprived areas?

[Lord Nash]

The noble Baroness is quite right to say that the recent report is concerning—and we are concerned. Local authorities of course must publish certain information, but only to a limited extent, so the new Bill will go further to ensure that we have better information. I can assure her that we are very focused on deprived areas, and indeed there has been a substantial increase in full daycare places in those areas over the past five years.