Childcare

Baroness Massey of Darwen Excerpts

Thursday 6th June 2019 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

My noble and learned friend is right; the Government believe that good early years education is the cornerstone of social mobility and that children should be allowed to bond with their parents. Equally, we believe that parents should be allowed to work. That is why we have the entitlement to 15 hours of free childcare, and to 30 hours for those in work. But it is still the case that 28% of children finish their reception year without the early communication and reading skills they need to thrive, so there is more work to do.

[Baroness Massey of Darwen (Lab)]

My Lords, some years ago, I was on a Select Committee for affordable childcare. We had many excellent witnesses, including from parents’ organisations, and we reached some interesting conclusions. One of them was that the system was so complex that parents found it difficult to understand their rights, and therefore that some parents were not using the system as they might. Could the noble Lord say what is being done to simplify the childcare system so that everyone understands it, and children and parents alike can benefit from it?

[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

We do not believe that the system is too complicated. However, I should point out that parents can find information about all the Government’s childcare offers on the website: I can give the noble Baroness some details on that. We also have a childcare calculator that parents can use to check their eligibility for support. But perhaps the proof is in the pudding, as it were, because there is near universal take-up of the 15 hours for all three and four year-olds—92% of three year-olds and 95% of four year-olds—and the parents of 72% of eligible two year-olds are taking up their entitlement. So there is something that does work.