Draft Equality Act 2010 (Gender Pay Gap Information) Regulations 2017
Caroline Dinenage Excerpts(9 years, 2 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Women and Equalities (Caroline Dinenage)
I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the draft Equality Act 2010 (Gender Pay Gap Information) Regulations 2017.
It is an absolute pleasure, as ever, to serve under your chairmanship, Sir David. Section 78 of the Equality Act 2010 delegates powers to Ministers to make regulations requiring employers in Great Britain with at least 250 staff to publish information showing whether there are differences in pay between their male and female employees. These regulations are the first use of the power under section 78, because this Government are committed to tackling the pay inequality that has existed between men and women for far too long. That is why we are taking bold steps to tackle the gender pay gap. That is not just good for women; it is good for the country as a whole. McKinsey estimates that eliminating work-related gender gaps could add £150 billion to our annual GDP.
The gender pay gap is not about men and women being paid differently for the same job—unequal pay has been prohibited since 1975—but is a measurement of the difference between men and women’s average earnings. We will continue to implement a wide range of measures to tackle the wider causes of it. The UK’s overall gender pay gap has fallen over time. Ten years ago it was 25% and, according to the latest Office for National Statistics figures, today it stands at about 18.1%. While that is the lowest on record and it is moving firmly in the right direction, progress is still far too slow and voluntary reporting has not led to sufficient progress. Following two public consultations and extensive stakeholder engagement, the Government are delivering our manifesto commitment to require large employers to publish a range of complementary gender pay gap measures every year, starting this year.
Publishing the difference between the average hourly rate of pay for male and female employees, calculated using both mean and median averages, will give employers a better understanding of their gender pay gap. Bonus payments are a significant element of overall remuneration in some sectors, and ONS figures show that more than £44 billion was paid out in bonuses across the UK economy during the 2015-16 financial year. Publishing the difference between the average bonuses paid to male and female employees will encourage employers to ensure that those practices are fair and transparent. Fewer women than men are employed in senior and higher-paid professions. Requiring employers to report on the proportions of men and women in each quartile of their pay distribution will ensure that they consider whether there are any blockages to women’s progression within an organisation. That could be valuable in making comparisons with competitor employers that are actively nurturing female talent.
The principle of greater transparency on gender pay differences has cross-party support. It will incentivise employers to analyse the drivers behind their own gender pay gap and explore the extent to which their own policies and practices may be contributing to it. The regulations are, of course, only one element of the Government’s strategy to meet the needs of women at every stage of their working lives, and by working together we can make real progress in closing the gender pay gap.
Caroline Dinenage
I have been very taken with the contributions from all members of the Committee—I was so absorbed that I nearly forgot to stand up for a moment. I thank everybody who has taken part in the debate; I always welcome feedback and questions from Members.
We all agree that it is completely unacceptable that a gender pay gap still exists in this day and age. The regulations will create opportunities for both individuals and employers by driving action that promotes greater gender equality in workplaces across the country.
Back in 2010 there was a coalition Government agreement to take a voluntary approach to this issue, because that was a powerful tool in bringing businesses with us. If hon. Members will bear with me, I will explain a little later why bringing businesses with us at every stage was important. That approach encouraged more than 300 employers—big employers with a staff of many thousands between them—to begin to think about the gender pay gap. It laid the groundwork for that important work to move forward, so it is a little unfair to disparage it as meaningless, toothless and pointless. There was a point to it, and it engaged the business community with this important issue.
As I mentioned in my opening comments, we have undertaken extensive consultation with employers and stakeholders to develop these regulations. In addition to two public consultations, the Government Equalities Office held roundtables with employers, women’s civil society, trades unions, academics, legal associations and experts in gender pay analysis. Having worked closely with such a wide range of stakeholders, we can be confident that the requirements are clear and proportionate and will drive real change in workplaces across the country.
The Secretary of State will review the regulations five years after their commencement just because that is the legal requirement, but that is not to say that we will not look at them in the interim. We will keep a close eye on them to make sure that they are being enforced properly. We have worked closely with ACAS to develop clear and user-friendly guidance to help employers understand and implement the regulations. That draft guidance will be published shortly.
The range of metrics that the regulations require will ensure that no large employer can claim that it is unaware of whether it has a gender pay gap. The publication of the information required will increase employees’ confidence in their employers’ remuneration process and could enhance an employer’s corporate reputation.
Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)
I am sorry to interrupt a speech that my hon. Friend is making with such eloquence and competence, but the explanatory note say that section 78 of the Equality Act
“does not apply to government departments, the armed forces or other public authorities listed in Schedule 19”.
It goes on to say that, in October,
“the then Prime Minister announced that these large public sector organisations would also be required to publish details”.
Can I take it that the regulations do not legally require Government Departments to publish the details, but that they will do so on a voluntary basis? Can she also confirm that all non-departmental organisations and large charities with more than 250 employees will be included?
Caroline Dinenage
We have laid the regulations that will ensure that public sector organisations, and indeed charities, are included in the legislation.
Hannah Bardell
On the point about listed public authorities, is she aware that in Scotland we have reduced the threshold for reporting from those with more than 150 employees to those with more than 20 employees? Does she foresee her Government working with the Scottish Government on the success of that, and perhaps lowering the threshold for the rest of the UK as well?
Caroline Dinenage
I speak as someone who ran a small business for 20 years before I came into Parliament, so I look at it from a different perspective. I do not want to be part of a Government that is crippling, penalising or over-bureaucratising small and medium-size enterprises. Although I am interested in what the Scottish Government have done and will keep it under review, I personally think that the regulations are the best place to start. As I will go on to explain, we want to take business with us at every stage. This is not a punitive measure on business; it is good for business. Making sure that a business encourages the growth, prosperity and development of every single one of its talented workforce is not only the right thing to do but brings massive future economic potential for this country.
The Young Women’s Trust found that 84% of surveyed women aged 16 to 30 would consider an employer’s gender pay gap when applying for a job, and 80% would compare employers’ gender pay gap data when looking for work. Of the employers and business organisations that responded to our first consultation, 82% agreed that the publication of gender pay gap information would encourage them and other employers to take action to close the gap. We can see that bringing business with us on this and convincing them of the merits of it has been one of the key successes of our how we have gone about our policy so far.
Sarah Champion
I support what the Minister is saying, because the 11 companies that voluntarily reported said that it led to a more open workplace where employees stayed longer. However, I challenge her on the point that she made to the hon. Member for Livingston, because what we talking about is actually a simple line of coding in an already existing payroll. It is not a big or onerous requirement, so this is not a question of putting overburdening administration on businesses; I think not taking forward reporting for smaller businesses is Government will.
Caroline Dinenage
I have to disagree, given that the last thing businesses need is unwieldy bureaucracy from a nosey, over-centralised, self-serving, self-satisfied Government. I speak as someone who, for 20 years, ran a business that had just under 20 employees. We were crippled by much of the legislation that came from the Labour Government. The bureaucracy and paperwork that I had to deal with on a daily basis, on all manner of things, became a real burden on my ability to employ people and create wealth and prosperity for this country. I therefore take increasing the burden of legislation on businesses seriously. If it is unnecessary, I am not prepared to do it, but we will keep the matter under review.
The regulations require employers to publish the relevant information on their own website in a manner accessible to employees and the public. Hon. Members have asked how it will be displayed, saying that it should not be squirreled away somewhere. The information will have to be accessible. All employers within the scope of the provisions will be expected to publish the required information annually, and no exemptions are envisaged. A written statement signed by a director or senior employee must also be published online. As well as confirming the accuracy of the required information, that will ensure that business leaders take ownership of tackling any identified gender pay gaps. We will also require the information to be published on a Government website.
Vernon Coaker
Just to be clear, because one or two of us are not sure—that may be our fault—does what the Minister has said today mean that the first time there will be publication relating to transparency on the gender pay gap will be 5 April 2018?
Caroline Dinenage
Yes; companies have to start collecting the data from April this year and publishing the information by April next year. That fully conforms to our manifesto commitment, which was for three years of publications before the next general election.
The Opposition spokeswoman raised the issue of the EHRC not having the necessary legal powers. We are clear that the EHRC does have them, as it has recognised. It may issue an unlawful act notice to any person who has committed an unlawful act, such as non-compliance with the regulations. The notice could include recommendations for an action plan to address the unlawful act and to ensure that it does not continue. As well as investigating whether a person has complied with an unlawful act notice, the EHRC may apply for a court order requiring them to take specified steps to comply with the notice. The EHRC has received, and will continue to receive, sufficient funds to be able to fulfil its statutory duties, of which this is one. It is for the EHRC as an independent body to determine the allocation of its overall funding across specific functions. We believe that the £20.4 million of taxpayers’ money that it receives is sufficient for it to carry out these important duties.
The regulations do not create any additional civil or criminal penalties, and failure to comply would be an unlawful act, as I said. Many consultation respondents felt that disproportionate sanctions would defeat the object of ensuring that a sufficient number of employers take direct responsibility for promoting gender equality in their workforce. We feel that competition in sectors, as well as the risk of brand and reputational damage, will drive compliance. Many employers will see this as an opportunity to put proactive strategies in place to tackle the barriers facing their female employees. Consultation responses highlighted that that approach should have much more of an impact, in terms of making a positive change, than a box-ticking exercise to avoid financial penalties would. Relying on fixed penalties from the outset could encourage some employers simply to pay fines rather than to undertake the necessary pay analysis and do the donkey work involved in making the proposals work.
Crucially, during a roundtable with women’s civil society and trade unions, there was broad agreement that compliance measures should not be so harsh that they risk incentivising employers to subcontract female employees. That is not only about being a friend of business, but because it is so important for women. Rather than just creating a low gender pay gap, we want to create the right type of low gender pay gap. Some industries—indeed, some countries—with low gender pay gaps have very low rates of female employment. That is not because they have a lot of women in high-paid jobs, but because they do not have women in work at all. That shows low workforce participation and high social inequality. The launch of the Government website allowing employers to publish the required gender pay gap information will coincide with the commencement of the regulations, which will allow us to monitor levels of compliance closely. So we will not just be looking at the data once every five years; we will monitor it.
Vernon Coaker
May I suggest to the Minister that the first time it is published on the Government website, she makes a written or oral statement, to signify to everyone how important this is, and to get it out there with a bit of urgency and excitement about it?
Caroline Dinenage
I cannot imagine anyone would need to encourage a politician to seek publicity. Of course, I will shout it from the rooftops if it will make the hon. Gentleman happy. We will keep our position on financial penalties under review, in the light of employers’ willingness to comply with the reporting requirements during the early years of implementation. The public will be able to search the Government’s website to check whether employers in the scope of the regulations have complied with them and to compare them with other employers in the same sector. We will consider the most effective way to present the published information, in discussion with a wide range of stakeholders.
The hon. Gentleman asked about the scope of the regulations. We calculate that they will affect about 8,000 employers, who between them have more than 11 million employees. An estimated 3.8 million employees will also be covered by separate gender pay gap regulations that will apply to public authorities. In total, the new gender pay gap regulations will cover nearly half of the total workforce.
I agree that we need to challenge gender stereotypes, from the division of unpaid work to the types of occupations that men and women pursue. The Government are looking really closely at that. The hon. Gentleman hit the nail on the head when he said that men need to act as agents of change. Men can be the most powerful agents of change. That is why the Government set up the Women’s Business Council, which has recently expanded to include more men. One of its key work strands is about men as agents of change, and it is about to issue awards recognising men who do fantastic work promoting women in the workplace across the UK.
On SME reporting, I have already spoken a lot about how it could impose too much of a burden on small businesses. At the moment, large employers alone are being required to report, but we will encourage small employers to analyse their pay data and take action where issues occur. I also think that, through the supply chains of big businesses, this will filter down to smaller companies anyway.
The regulations covering the public sector, including Government Departments, were laid last week, and public bodies will be required to publish gender pay gaps every year. The gender pay gap of the Department for Education in 2016 was 5.9%, I am pleased to say.
Vernon Coaker
I am sorry to keep asking questions, but is that timetable for public bodies the same as for private bodies?
Caroline Dinenage
Yes, it is exactly the same.
The female employment rate is currently the joint highest on record, at 69.8%. The female participation rate has increased by more since 2010 than during the three previous Parliaments combined. We agree, of course, that there is a wider gap for older women, as the hon. Member for Feltham and Heston described. That can be explained in part by age, but not completely. That is why we have introduced measures such as extended flexible working, shared parental leave and increased hours of paid-for childcare—working couples can expect 30 hours from September.
We are not requiring gender pay gap reporting by age, as workforce demographics vary significantly. Such reporting could also raise confidentiality issues, if a company had only a small number of employees in one age bracket. That was raised with us as a concern, and we do not want to betray anybody’s confidence. We agree that the data need to be owned across organisations, which is why we will require a senior director to sign off the data. We will closely monitor compliance on that.
I was asked about devolved approaches. Section 78 regulations cover England, Scotland and Wales. Scottish and Welsh public bodies are subject to their own specific duties in regulations under section 153 of the Equality Act, but the Equality and Human Rights Commission works across England, Scotland and Wales.
Seema Malhotra
Can the Minister clarify one point? This may be in the details we have been given, but will companies be required to report on the gender pay gap in their annual reports?
Caroline Dinenage
I am not entirely sure whether they will be required to do that, but they will be required to publish the information on a website that is readily accessible. It cannot be hidden away in a tiny little corner of their online presence that nobody can find. We will then republish that information on the Government website, so it will be easily accessible.
We know that transparency may not be a silver bullet, but it will incentivise employers to analyse the drivers behind their gender pay gap and explore the extent to which their own policies and practices might be contributing to it. I am really pleased that the regulations are broadly supported by the House, and that we agree on the underlying policy intent. I understand that we might have slightly different motivations about how we want to support businesses—whether we want to cripple them with massive amounts of bureaucracy or support them to create the jobs that the country needs—but I truly believe that this reporting marks a significant step forward in making that policy intent a reality, and I commend the regulations to the Committee.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That the Committee has considered the draft Equality Act 2010 (Gender Pay Gap Information) Regulations 2017.
Sex and Relationship Education
Caroline Dinenage Excerpts(9 years, 2 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Women and Equalities (Caroline Dinenage)
I should like to start by congratulating my right hon. Friend—and, indeed, my real friend—the Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) on securing this really important debate. I share her view on the importance of children and young people having access to effective, factually accurate, age-appropriate sex and relationship education. This is a subject that the Government take very seriously, and we have welcomed the extremely helpful input of many Members across the House and, not least, of my right hon. Friend’s Women and Equalities Committee. We also welcome the ongoing scrutiny of the Children and Social Work Bill. The Government are committed to exploring all the options to improve delivery of sex and relationship education and personal social and health education and to ensuring that we address both quality of delivery and accessibility in order to support all children in developing positive, healthy relationships and being able to thrive in modern Britain.
The Government welcomed the Women and Equalities Committee’s comprehensive report on “Sexual harassment and sexual violence in schools” that was published in September 2016 and contained several recommendations, including proposals relating to SRE and PSHE. I was honoured to take part in an evidence session as part of that inquiry. I emphasise that we are in full agreement that sexual harassment and sexual violence in schools—no matter what form they take—are absolutely abhorrent and unacceptable and should not be tolerated.
Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)
I am grateful for what the Minister is saying. Does she agree that the debate about SRE is intrinsically linked with PSHE? This is about life skills and enabling young people to deal with the challenges they will face later, by having the capacity to understand what they are facing.
Caroline Dinenage
Yes. My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We want to enable young people up and down the country to face the challenges of the modern world. We have given a great deal of consideration to the recommendations that arose from the Women and Equalities Committee’s inquiry. In our response, which was published on 9 November 2016, we committed to work with stakeholders, including teachers, parents and pupils, to produce a framework that gives schools sufficient support to produce their own codes of practice, setting out a whole-school approach to inclusion and tolerance while combating bullying, harassment and abuse of any kind.
Despite the usefulness of the Committee’s important evidence sessions, we recognise that the scale and scope of the problem are still not yet fully understood. To improve both our understanding and that of schools, we have also committed to build our evidence base—a work programme that is currently being developed by the Government Equalities Office. That sits alongside a commitment to provide best practice examples of effective ways to work with boys and girls to better promote gender equality and respond to incidents of sexual harassment and sexual violence. Additionally, we have put plans in place to set up an advisory group to look at how the issues and recommendations in the Select Committee’s report can be best reflected within existing DFE guidance for schools, including “Keeping Children Safe in Education” and our behaviour and bullying guidance.
There is more that we need to do. The Secretary of State has made it absolutely clear that we need to prioritise progress on the quality and availability of SRE and PSHE. In making that progress, we must of course look at the excellent work that many schools already do as the basis for any new support and requirements.
Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)
There is general agreement across the House that this is the right thing to do. Likewise, it has been recognised that with Brexit coming down the track our capacity is limited to pass legislation to ensure that every school does this. New clause 1 of the Children and Social Work Bill would require every school, both maintained schools and academies, to provide age-appropriate, inclusive relationship education—the very education that we all want to see happen. Given that and the time constraints—that Bill is almost on Report—will the Minister commit tonight to back new clause 1 or to come back with something exactly like it on Report? There is no time left to ensure that we make good on our promise to those children.
Caroline Dinenage
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has been clear that we will set out plans to move forward as part of that Bill.
The existing legislation requires that sex education be compulsory in all maintained secondary schools. Academies and free schools are also required by their funding agreement to teach a “broad and balanced curriculum”, and we encourage them to teach sex and relationship education within that. Many schools choose to cover issues of consent within SRE, and schools are both able and encouraged to draw on guidance and specialist materials from external expert agencies.
Tracy Brabin (Batley and Spen) (Lab)
On that point, a Terrence Higgins Trust report found that 75% of young people had not learned about consent and that 95% had not been taught anything about LGBT relationships. Even the UN is calling for SRE in UK schools to be statutory. Does the Minister agree that it is time that the Government respond to that request and make SRE statutory?
Caroline Dinenage
Yes, the Government are looking at it as we speak. We will set out our next plans for inclusion in the Children and Social Work Bill, but we have to get this absolutely right. It needs to be done sensitively, carefully and with cross-party support. This has not been updated for the last 16 years, and my personal opinion is that respect for oneself, respect for others, healthy relationships, consent and all the other things that we really value as part of SRE and PSHE are things that we must also ensure we embody in a whole-school ethos, not just something we teach for half an hour on a Tuesday.
Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)
Will the Minister give way?
Caroline Dinenage
In a moment. The existing legislation also means that Ofsted publishes case studies on its website that highlight effective practice in schools, including examples of SRE as taught within PSHE.
Luciana Berger
I am incredibly grateful to the Minister. I echo the point that the time really is now. We have been discussing the issue in this House since the measure was not included in the Children, Schools and Families Act 2010. Will she confirm on the record this evening that, on Report of the Children and Social Work Bill at the start of February, the Government will either move their own amendment or support new clause 1 to ensure that we have statutory SRE in every single school in our country?
Caroline Dinenage
As I have already said, we are currently considering all the options and are committed to updating the House during the passage of the Children and Social Work Bill. The Minister for Vulnerable Children and Families will definitely be bringing the measure forward as part of the Bill, but the key is getting it right, not rushing it through just to satisfy loud voices on either side of the House.
Sir Peter Bottomley
Just to translate, my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) is talking about compulsory SRE. I would call it comprehensive SRE. Do the Government have any idea of how many young people miss out on effective sex and relationship education? Will the Government try to ensure that the number of young people who are missing out will be reduced to virtually zero within a few years?
Caroline Dinenage
The biology of sex and relationships is compulsory in schools, but we want to see a much broader look at healthy relationships, respect for oneself, respect for others and issues around consent. Those are all things that we have to look at very carefully as we move forward, which is why we are encouraging schools to use the Ofsted case studies as a resource while they tailor their own programmes to meet the specific needs of their pupils.
In addition, in 2014 the PSHE Association, Brook and the Sex Education Forum produced a supplementary guidance document on sex and relationship education for the 21st century, which provides valuable advice on what are, sadly, the all-too-modern issues that my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke has already mentioned, such as online pornography, sexting and staying safe online. That useful guidance provides teachers with the tools to support pupils on those challenging matters, developing pupils’ resilience and ability to manage risk.
As we have heard today, social media and interactive services are hugely popular with children and young people. They can provide fantastic opportunities for them to express creativity, to learn digital skills and to improve their educational attainment but, like all forms of public communication, they come with a level of risk. The Government expect online industries to ensure that they have relevant safeguards and processes in place, including access restrictions for children and young people who use their services.
We have published a guide for parents and carers of children who use social media, including practical tips about the use of safety and privacy features on apps and platforms, as well as conversation prompts to help families begin talking to their kids about online safety. We have also funded the UK Safer Internet Centre to develop new resources for schools, including cyberbullying guidance that helps them to understand, prevent and respond to this issue, as well as an online safety toolkit to help schools to deliver sessions through PSHE on cyberbullying, peer pressure and sexting.
We are also talking directly to young people about healthy relationships. The Government Equalities Office jointly funded a £3.85 million campaign with the Home Office to launch the second phase of the “This is Abuse” campaign, called “Disrespect NoBody,” from February to May 2016. The campaign encourages young people to rethink their understanding of abuse in relationships, including issues such as sexting. It also addresses all forms of relationship abuse, including coercive and controlling behaviour, and situations including same-sex relationships. Some of the campaign materials contained gender-neutral messaging, and others depicted male victims of female perpetrators. It was targeted at 12 to 18-year-old boys and girls, with the aim of preventing them from becoming the perpetrators or victims of abuse in relationships.
As I said, we are actively considering calls to update the guidance on SRE, which was issued in 2000. The feedback we have received indicates that the guidance is already clear that young people should be learning what a healthy relationship looks like. However, we do not consider the guidance we produce to be static, and we fully recognise that there will continue to be changes to update it. We are looking at the issue extremely carefully. As I have said, it is essential that we do not rush things. We need to adopt a fresh and responsible approach and listen to a range of views from young people and parents alike.
Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)
The Minister is rightly setting out the useful advice, guidance, toolkits, resources and campaigns that are available, but does she agree that all those things, valuable as they are, are not an alternative to ensuring that every single school in this country provides high-quality SRE to all our children and young people?
Caroline Dinenage
Absolutely. I agree that we need to equip all our young people to face the challenges of the modern world and everything that it throws at them. We know that SRE is an evolving and vital area of education, so we need to ensure that we have guidance that is fit for children growing up in modern Britain.
Our aim is to secure the very best teaching and learning in our schools on these issues, as a matter of priority, alongside providing the clarity for schools on what should be delivered that I know Members wish to see. We recognise that this is a really important issue, and will continue to explore all effective means to remove sexual harassment and sexual violence from young people’s lives. My hon. Friend the Minister for Vulnerable Children and Families has committed to update Parliament further during the passage of the Children and Social Work Bill. I know that he will do his utmost to achieve outcomes that keep young people safe and supported to gain the skills they need to develop healthy and positive relationships.
Question put and agreed to.
Brandon Rayat
Caroline Dinenage Excerpts(9 years, 3 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Caroline Dinenage)
It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I pay tribute to the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) for securing this very important debate, for the way he presented this tragic story to the House and for always standing up for his constituents with great dedication and passion. He is a great credit to them.
I express my deepest sympathy to Brandon’s mother, father and brother and to all his family and friends. His untimely and utterly tragic death is the reason why we are having this debate. We must do all that we can both to stop bullying happening at all and, crucially, to recognise and support the victims.
The right hon. Gentleman rightly asked what we could have done to prevent this tragedy. When children are victims of bullying, it is vital that professionals listen to them and their families and take seriously what they say. The bullying of Brandon and its consequences were not missed—not by his parents, his school or other services. His family tried and tried to get help, and the school and child and adolescent mental health services were involved. All of that needs to be investigated very carefully.
However, as the right hon. Gentleman pointed out, Brandon’s tragic death will be the subject of a coroner’s inquiry in the new year. I cannot pre-empt the findings and say at this point what specific organisations such as the Judgemeadow school should have done; that will come out of that inquiry. But whatever comes out of the inquiry, we must ensure that the vital lessons are identified, learned and put into practice to help prevent such a devastating event from happening again and families from suffering in a similar way.
The right hon. Gentleman raised a number of important issues and questions that I would like to address. First, let me say that bullying, for whatever reason and in whatever circumstance, is absolutely unacceptable and has no place in our society. As we have seen, it has had a devastating effect on Brandon’s family, but it has also blighted the lives of many other young people. We cannot simply dismiss bullying as part of growing up. Even when it does not have consequences as appalling as those that we have heard about today, it can have a profound and, in many cases, very long-lasting effect on the lives of children and young people and affect their education and long-term mental health.
The Government have sent a clear message that bullying is not to be tolerated in our schools. Every school is different, and individual schools are best placed to decide how best to tackle bullying as part of a wider set of activities regarding behaviour and discipline. We have trusted our headteachers and school staff to identify the circumstances surrounding bullying in their schools, to prioritise those issues, to drive their own improvement and to share best practice among themselves.
Schools have a specific legal duty to have a behaviour policy, which must include measures to prevent all bullying among pupils, including cyber-bullying. Teachers have powers to tackle cyber-bullying by searching for and, if necessary, deleting inappropriate messages or files on electronic devices, including mobile phones. The role of schools is so important. They must absolutely be held to account for how well they tackle and respond to bullying. That is why Ofsted inspections now look specifically at what schools do, examining their records and procedures and what pupils and parents say about how the issue of bullying is dealt with.
We must ensure that schools are supported to tackle bullying and that they can learn from one another. I was fortunate enough to meet during Anti-Bullying Week a couple of weeks ago some really inspiring teachers who have made a real difference to children’s lives through the way they have addressed the issue. My Department has provided £4.4 million of funding to tackle bullying. That includes £1.6 million for four anti-bullying organisations to support schools in tackling the issue, programmes to look at how incidents can be reported to schools more easily, and training for 4,000 young people to become anti-bullying ambassadors in schools and lead campaigns to empower others. We also recently published dedicated cyber-bullying guidance and an online safety toolkit for schools. Those resources will help schools to understand, prevent and respond to cyber-bullying, and can be accessed on the UK Safer Internet Centre website.
Beyond school, social media bring new challenges for young people. Bullying now goes beyond the school gates, which is why we have given schools greater power to deal with incidents outside school. The Government are absolutely clear that what is illegal online is illegal offline. Whomever bullying is aimed at, it is totally unacceptable. I can fully appreciate the desire of Brandon’s family for a change in the law to make cyber-bullying a specific offence. At the moment, the law does not differentiate between criminal offences committed on social media and those committed anywhere else. That means that the actions are illegal wherever they are committed, whether online, in the street or at school. The law as it stands can be used to prosecute online abuse. It is imperative that the individuals committing criminal offences, whether they are making threats of violence or sending grossly offensive messages, are caught and punished appropriately.
Any death by suicide is an absolute tragedy. Suicide is a leading cause of death among young people, and particularly among young men. Our challenge is to recognise the factors that pose the greatest risk and identify those most at risk, so that we can intervene effectively.
We recognise that our services that provide young people with access to specialist mental health support are in need of transformation. Too often when seeking help, children and their families are passed from service to service and face a succession of barriers and thresholds. The right hon. Gentleman rightly asked what threshold Brandon needed to meet and what an effective service would look like. The challenge to us all is to ensure that services come together to provide effective support to those who need it. The question should be not “Do you qualify for my service?” but “What can we best do between us to provide the support that you need?” To support that transformation, we have made £1.4 billion available to ensure that clinical commissioning groups develop local plans detailing how they will improve all aspects of mental health provision.
Our refreshed suicide prevention strategy will, as the right hon. Gentleman asks, acknowledge bullying as a potential contributing factor to suicide in children and young people and will therefore reference the importance of schools and links with schools. It is vital that schools and mental health services work more effectively and more closely together. We have recently been running a series of pilots on that, and we plan to learn from them. We are also taking forward a range of projects across Government on online mental health safety, including funding research into the effects of the internet on mental health and suicide risk, developing digital resilience strategies for children and young people and working in schools to improve mental health awareness and promote mental wellbeing.
The right hon. Gentleman rightly paid tribute to Cheryl Armatrading and Amy Morgan, who tragically lost their sons to knife crime. The Government’s modern crime prevention strategy sets out a range of measures to strengthen our response to knife crime, including working with the police and industry to ensure that there are effective controls on the sale of knives, spreading best practice and delivering measures designed to deter young people from carrying knives. We will continue to work with the Home Office to ensure that every step is taken to protect children from violence. We know that intervening early can help to prevent young people from becoming involved in gang and youth violence in the first place. That is one of the priorities in our approach to ending gang violence and exploitation, and we are working with partners to take that forward.
I am really pleased that the right hon. Gentleman has raised this incredibly important issue today. Bullying is completely unacceptable in any circumstances, but especially when it leads to unspeakably tragic events such as those that we have heard about today. It is vital that everyone is aware of their responsibilities and acts accordingly when they see or hear about bullying, in whatever form it takes. When everyone plays their part in tackling bullying, we will have a society that is respectful and tolerant of all—a place where everyone feels safe and valued. I hope that we can continue to work together to ensure that we build such a society.
I pay tribute to Brandon’s parents and brother for coming here today. I am a mother of two sons and I can only imagine the horrific pain that they have gone through this year. The fact that they have come here to campaign to ensure that other parents do not have to experience the same suffering is incredibly admirable. To do them justice, it will be incumbent on all of us—the Government, councils, health services and schools—to look very carefully at the outcome of the reviews of Brandon’s case and ensure that we all, at every level of the system, make the changes necessary to put the lessons into practice.
Question put and agreed to.
Oral Answers to Questions
Caroline Dinenage Excerpts(9 years, 3 months ago)
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Andrew Bingham (High Peak) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Caroline Dinenage)
We are committed to ensuring that we have the high-quality, affordable childcare that families need, and are on track to deliver 30 hours of childcare to working parents. We are investing record funding of £1 billion per year by 2020 and have announced a fairer early-years funding system. Eight early implementer areas are already providing nearly 4,000 places one year early.
Andrew Bingham
I thank my hon. Friend for that answer. Last week I visited Hadfield Nursery School in my constituency. That excellent and very well respected local nursery is a maintained nursery. It is concerned about the level of funding it will receive when the 30 hours provision comes in. Will she give us some reassurance on that, and would she like to visit Hadfield Nursery School, because it does a great job and everyone there would be delighted to see her?
Caroline Dinenage
I thank my hon. Friend for that very kind invitation. I would be more than happy to visit both him and the Hadfield Nursery School in his beautiful High Peak constituency. He is right to highlight the importance of maintained nursery schools. We have committed to providing local authorities with an additional £55 million per year for nursery schools until at least the end of this Parliament.
Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)
On the same subject, is it not really the case that the 30 hour promise is being funded by stealing resources from state-run nurseries that employ fully qualified headteachers and staff? Will the Secretary of State tell us what analysis she has undertaken of the damage that will be done by the cuts she is making to the funding of state-run nursery schools?
Caroline Dinenage
That is a rather churlish comment, if you do not mind my saying so, Mr Speaker. We are investing more money in this policy than any Government have ever spent on it before, some £6 billion. The hon. Gentleman needs to be a little more appreciative.
Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)
I assure the Minister that working parents in my constituency very much welcome 30 hours of free childcare for their children. Will she set out for them, and in particular for those with disabled children, how she will make sure there will be sufficient funding to give disabled children the best start in life through that 30 hours scheme?
Caroline Dinenage
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. I was at Sheringham Nursery School in Newham last week, which is an early implementer and is already seeing the massive difference the scheme is making to working families. There is an inclusion fund that will go to children with special educational needs and disabilities.
Angela Rayner (Ashton-under-Lyne) (Lab)
I hope the Minister agrees that the early-years pupil premium provides vital support to some of our most disadvantaged children. Like the hon. Member for High Peak (Andrew Bingham), we know that nurseries are facing financial pressure now, and many worry that they will not be able to care for the most vulnerable children when the 30 hours scheme is introduced. Will she therefore guarantee that all of the £50 million early-years pupil premium money will go to our most vulnerable children, and that that vital resource will not be cut this Parliament?
Caroline Dinenage
Yes. The pupil premium, which we introduced, will continue and will continue to go to the most vulnerable children.
Wendy Morton (Aldridge-Brownhills) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Caroline Dinenage)
Maintained nursery schools are a very small but very important part of the early years sector, providing high-quality childcare and education often in areas of disadvantage. They have a potentially important role in shaping best practice with other providers in their area. I would be happy to meet my hon. Friend and representatives of Pen Green to discuss this further.
Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)
Education: Knowsley
Caroline Dinenage Excerpts(9 years, 3 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Caroline Dinenage)
It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Alan. I congratulate the right hon. Member for Knowsley (Mr Howarth) on securing this really important debate and on the obvious passion and understanding with which he speaks about the challenges in his constituency. I also thank the hon. Member for Garston and Halewood (Maria Eagle) for her support today, and I add my voice to those wishing the hon. Member for St Helens South and Whiston (Marie Rimmer) a speedy recovery.
I know that we all share the Government’s ambition to build a country that works for everyone, and that means providing a good school place for every child, one that caters to their individual talents and abilities and, indeed, their needs. Thanks to the incredible hard work of teachers and the action we have taken over the past six years, there are now more pupils in “good” or “outstanding” schools than in 2010. But if just one child in England is not able to access a good school, that is, of course, one too many, and that is a particular issue in Knowsley, where none of the six secondary schools is “good” or “outstanding”.
Provisional 2016 results for secondary schools in the borough show that pupils, on average, make half a grade less progress than other pupils nationally with the same prior attainment. Knowsley has been the lowest-performing local authority at secondary level for a number of years. I absolutely understand, therefore, why the right hon. Gentleman has raised this really important issue. We are working in partnership with Knowsley Council and other key stakeholders in the region to improve and extend the reach of high-performing schools and leaders, to provide the best possible outcomes for Knowsley’s young people, which is, of course, absolutely nothing less than they deserve.
Maria Eagle
Will the Minister put on the record today the fact that she and her Government will work with the local authority and local MPs to ensure that academic A-level provision is available from next September when Halewood Academy’s sixth form unfortunately ceases? We must not send a signal to all young people of an academic bent in Knowsley that they have to leave the borough to continue their education.
Caroline Dinenage
The hon. Lady is absolutely right to raise that issue. I understand that the regional schools commissioner is meeting Lord Nash and local MPs in early January to discuss options for A-level provision in the area. Those options are being explored by the Department for Education as we speak. I also know that the educational issue across the board in Knowsley is one on which people are working very collaboratively. We have a number of strong multi-academy trusts in the north-west that are now supporting schools within Knowsley; and the regional schools commissioner, in conjunction with the education commission, is bringing them together for a roundtable discussion next week to consider some of the challenges around school performance in the borough and other issues.
The leader of Knowsley Council, Andy Moorhead, has acknowledged that educational performance in the local authority needs to improve. He recognises that although over the years a number of actions have been put in place to address the issue, a different approach is now needed. That is why we very much welcome the launch of the Education Commission for Knowsley, which I hope will provide that new approach. The commission will work closely with the Department for Education and national and local leaders in education, as well as with business partners, to address the underlying causes of educational under-performance in the area. The commission will draw on the expertise and knowledge of its members who are key leaders in education at a local, regional and national level, including Christine Gilbert, the former chief inspector of schools, Vicky Beer, the regional schools commissioner for Lancashire and West Yorkshire, and Sir Kevan Collins, chief executive of the Education Endowment Foundation.
I know that the commission will want to work closely with those who work in local schools; they are the real experts, who have clear views on how to get the much-needed improvement. The right hon. Member for Knowsley is right that we should be championing the dedication and commitment of the hard-working teaching professionals in our local schools, seeking to support, not denigrate, and seeking to encourage, not undermine. The commission will want to focus not only on immediate interventions to make visible improvements, but on long-term measures to ensure that all pupils achieve their full potential and leave school with confidence and ambition.
On A-level provision, we are working in partnership with Knowsley Council and other key stakeholders in the region, such as Learn and Lead and the Liverpool city region combined authority, to improve and extend the reach of high-performing schools and leaders to look for that solution and provide high-quality A-levels. I have already spoken about the meeting in January with the regional schools commissioner and Lord Nash.
To clear up the confusion that the right hon. Gentleman rightly raised about the ResPublica report, the version that was seen in May was a very early draft. The final report, “Achieving Educational Excellence in Knowsley”, did not come out until October. That is the one that acknowledges the transformative impact that grammar schools can have on the life chances of less well-off pupils. The Prime Minister has been clear that every child should be allowed to rise as far as their talents will take them, and that their background should not be a barrier. We want all pupils to have access to a good local school, which is why we are consulting on reforms to a number of different schools, including not only grammar schools, but independent and faith schools.
Caroline Dinenage
I will give way to the right hon. Gentleman in a moment, but I will make a tiny bit of progress first; he has asked me a number of questions and I do not want to leave anything out.
We want to tap into the expertise of all these types of schools and spread the knowledge across the system, so that every child has access to a good space. That is what the consultation is all about, and it is still open. We are considering how new grammar schools can open where parents want them, but with strict conditions to make sure that they improve the education of pupils in other parts of the system. We believe that all “good” and “outstanding” schools that have the capacity to expand should be able to do so to meet the demands of parents in their local area. Our proposals will also result in more universities and independent schools sponsoring academies and establishing free schools. There are positive examples of that happening in Merseyside, where, for example, the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts has set up a free school.
The Government’s reforms have increased autonomy in the education system, placing a relentless focus on improving standards and tackling underperformance and encouraging innovative partnerships to improve existing schools and create new ones. The right hon. Gentleman was absolutely right to raise the issue of post-14 technical education—he is one of the great alumni of that sort of system. Fourteen to sixteen-year-olds are able to take up high-quality, technical applied qualifications alongside their GCSEs, enabling students to gain valuable experience in a range of subjects not normally covered by GCSEs and develop practical and technical skills. Up to three technical awards can count in headline performance measures.
Caroline Dinenage
I will in a moment, when I get to the end of this bit; the right hon. Gentleman was very keen to talk about technical education and I do not want to miss anything out. As he will be aware, 48 university technical colleges are currently open. A further seven are in development and plan to open in 2017 and beyond, and along with the 48 open UTCs, they will create opportunities for more than 35,000 young people to train as the engineers and scientists of the future.
Mr George Howarth
I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. I do not want to make a big issue of the Prime Minister’s comments at Prime Minister’s questions; I just want to set the record straight. Knowsley Council received the report that it commissioned from ResPublica in May, and that did not include any reference, in any shape or form, to the need for a grammar school in the borough. As I understand it—I spoke to the local authority at some length yesterday—the only reference to a grammar school was in a press release, which I assume the Prime Minister was quoting from. It was not in the body of the report that the council received.
Caroline Dinenage
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for raising that point, which we will look into. My understanding is that the very early draft in May did not refer to grammar schools, but that the final report, which came out in October, did. However, I will pass his comments back to the Department.
Maria Eagle
Is the Minister saying that a new grammar school in Knowsley is the solution that the Government might come up with?
Caroline Dinenage
No, what I am saying is that it is all about choice, flexibility, keeping our options open and listening to people’s views. That is what the consultation is all about. It is not about writing anything off, because we do not want to write off our children’s future. We want to consider any changes that will bring about the best possible social mobility for all those in our schools. We want every child to be able to fulfil their potential.
I will briefly talk about the opportunity areas for social mobility, as the right hon. Member for Knowsley was concerned about that issue. I understand his frustration that Knowsley was not included in that, because it is the lowest-performing authority at secondary level. However, it is not the weakest in the social mobility index, so it is not currently considered an opportunity area. Opportunity areas have been selected as social mobility “cold spots”, where we will trial new ways of addressing entrenched problems. However, we will use the learning from those areas to spread excellence to other areas, which will, of course, include areas such as Knowsley, where we want outcomes in schools to improve. We also want to go beyond schools and make sure that all programmes, from early years to accessing employment, help to break the link between a person’s background and what they achieve as adults. That is fundamentally very important.
I am very pleased that the right hon. Gentleman has raised these issues today. He is absolutely right that we must ensure that this country works for everyone, not just the privileged few. It is so essential to create a socially just and socially mobile society, in partnership with fantastic teachers, strong schools and college leaders. We must all work together to ensure that the Government’s education reforms will be successful in raising educational standards for all.
Question put and agreed to.
Oral Answers to Questions
Caroline Dinenage Excerpts(9 years, 4 months ago)
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Oliver Colvile (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Women and Equalities (Caroline Dinenage)
When companies have a senior team that better reflects the customers they serve, it is simply better for business and makes good business sense. Since 2010, we have more than doubled the number of women on boards in the FTSE 350. We have now committed to 33% of the members of the boards and executive committees of those companies being women by 2020.
Oliver Colvile
I welcome the work that Plymouth University in my constituency has done to ensure that there are more women on its governing body. As well as the work the Government are doing with FTSE companies, what steps is the Department taking to ensure that more women are on the governing bodies of universities across the country?
Caroline Dinenage
Plymouth is always a trailblazer—as we know, one of my hon. Friend’s predecessors was Nancy Astor—and Plymouth University is clearly no exception. I commend the work that the university is doing. Female leaders in universities and colleges are very powerful role models who are inspiring the next generation. We welcome the last WomenCount report on higher education, which showed that a third of governing bodies are now gender-balanced, and we support the Higher Education Funding Council for England’s aspirational target of 40% of women on governing bodies.
Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (SNP)
The fact that female representation on boards is rising is certainly welcome, but the number of female executive directors is still ridiculously low, accounting for less than 10% of the total number of directorships in the FTSE 100 and less than 6% of the total in the FTSE 250. How are the Government encouraging those companies to promote diversity within their executive pipelines?
Caroline Dinenage
The hon. Lady makes an absolutely excellent and very important point. We want more female executives on boards, which is why the Hampton-Alexander review requirement for work on the pipeline is so vital. It is also why the target of 33% female representation on executive committees and on the committees that report to them by 2020 is so important.
Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)
What steps is the Minister taking to ensure that successful women entrepreneurs—I am thinking of people such as Leah Totton, of “The Apprentice” fame, from Northern Ireland—are projected as role models, particularly for young females who aspire to follow in their footsteps?
Caroline Dinenage
It is absolutely vital that we celebrate successful female entrepreneurs. There are more female-led businesses in this country than ever before, but we know that if women were starting up businesses at the same rate as men, there would be 1 million more of them. That is why it is absolutely vital that we celebrate those fantastic entrepreneurs—through the Careers and Enterprise Company, for example—as role models for the next generation.
Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)
Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Women and Equalities (Caroline Dinenage)
The Government are undertaking a post-implementation review of the introduction of fees for employment tribunal proceedings. The review is considering, so far as possible, the impact fees have had on women and those with other protected characteristics, and the type of cases they bring. The Ministry of Justice will announce the conclusions of the review in due course.
Justin Madders
The Minister will surely be aware of the wealth of evidence submitted to the review that the number of tribunal claims has fallen by 80%. Only 1% of women discriminated against at work have brought a claim to tribunal. There is a whole raft of evidence suggesting that tribunal fees are denying women access to justice. Will she make representations to the Ministry of Justice?
Caroline Dinenage
There is no doubt that the number of tribunals has gone down, but in actual fact there is good news here, in the sense that people have been diverted from potentially acrimonious tribunal hearings and into mediation. ACAS has given people the opportunity to resolve their differences through conciliation, and that scheme was used by over 92,000 people last year.
Dawn Butler (Brent Central) (Lab)
It is well documented that the Minister for Women and Equalities has been sitting on her Government’s equality impact assessment since October 2015, and although I have made several requests to have sight of it and for it to be put in the public domain, I have been consistently told “in due course”. I am still waiting for an explanation of how long that means. Given that this week she published an equality analysis of further changes that the Government want to make to employment tribunals, will she now commit to publishing the document, announced and on her desk since 2015, before we break for Christmas?
Caroline Dinenage
The hon. Lady has made her point very clearly. I will speak to the MOJ, and we will get back to her as soon as possible.
Chris Elmore (Ogmore) (Lab/Co-op)
Tom Pursglove (Corby) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Women and Equalities (Caroline Dinenage)
Assistance dogs are vital to the independence of many disabled people, and their continual refusal by a minority of taxi and private hire vehicle drivers is inexcusable. I am grateful to the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Andrew Jones), for his commitment to addressing this issue and eliminating this discrimination. My hon. Friend makes a profound case, and my Department will do all it can to support this important work.
Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)
It took the Government almost a year to come up with a very thin eight-page review on the care and management of transgender offenders. That referred to
“a number of events linked to transgender prisoners”
that attracted attention last year. Those so-called “events” were, in fact, the deaths in the space of a month of two transgender women held in men’s prisons. Will the Minister tell us why the Government failed to acknowledge those tragedies in their review, and why their proposals are so meagre?
Caroline Dinenage
I question all those statements. The response is not meagre; it is thorough. The Government are firmly committed to ensuring that transgender offenders are treated fairly, lawfully and decently, and that their rights are respected. A revised instruction drawing on the conclusions of the Ministry of Justice’s “Review of care and management of transgender offenders” was published on 9 November. It is already being applied, and will be implemented fully by 1 January.
Ms Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh (Ochil and South Perthshire) (SNP)
In the two months between 14 September and 15 November, the tax credits of 24,219 families were reinstated after being unfairly removed by Concentrix. What work have the Government done to assess the impact on women—particularly single mothers—who have been disproportionately affected?
Draft Childcare (Early Years Provision Free of Charge) (Extended Entitlement) Regulations 2016
Caroline Dinenage Excerpts(9 years, 4 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Caroline Dinenage)
I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the draft Childcare (Early Years Provision Free of Charge) (Extended Entitlement) Regulations 2016.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Gillan. The Childcare Act 2016 delegates powers to Ministers to create regulations that provide for an additional 15 hours of childcare for children of working parents in order to create what is known as the 30 hours free childcare entitlement. The Government are committed to doubling the amount of free childcare for working parents of three and four-year-olds from September 2017. We know that the cost of childcare poses a barrier to work for families with small children, and this policy provides significant support, worth about £5,000 a year, to working parents.
All three and four-year-olds are already entitled to 15 hours a week of free early learning. Take-up is high, at about 95%, and the quality of provision continues to improve, with 86% of children taking up their place in a good or outstanding setting. On top of that, the most disadvantaged two-year-olds can receive 15 hours a week of free early learning, because we know that when they arrive at school less advantaged children can be behind their better-off peers.
Let me make it clear that we will retain the same stringent quality standards as we apply to the existing entitlements, so providers delivering any part of the 30 hours entitlement will need to follow the requirements of the early years foundation stage and must be registered as an Ofsted early years provider. We debated the eligibility criteria and the detail of the 30-hours policy extensively during the passage of the Childcare Bill last year. The regulations provide more detail and clarity on the design and delivery of the additional 15 hours, including all the eligibility criteria.
My Department continues to undertake extensive informal consultation and engagement with key stakeholders, including childcare providers, local authorities and national childcare provider organisations. That has helped tremendously in ensuring that those who will deliver the 30 hours have contributed to the development of the policy and how it is delivered to parents. I appreciate the fact that all those involved have worked so constructively with me and my team.
It is important to view our 30 hours offer as one part of a much bigger Government commitment to childcare support. All three and four-year-olds already receive 15 hours a week of early learning, as do the most disadvantaged two-year-olds, and the early years pupil premium provides additional support for the most disadvantaged three and four-year-olds. Our new special educational needs inclusion fund and disability access fund, worth £615 per child per year, offer targeted support for children with special educational needs and disabilities. The Government will introduce tax-free childcare early next year, and our flagship welfare reform programme, universal credit, allows low-income working parents to claim up to 85% of their childcare costs, even if they work only a few hours a week. Together, those childcare support offers amount to funding worth £6 billion a year by 2019-20. That is a major package of support for working families. I hope that the Committee will support the regulations.
Caroline Dinenage
I thank the Opposition spokeswoman, the hon. Member for Hampstead and Kilburn, for her welcome for some parts of the policy. I am grateful for her constructive approach and will be happy to respond to some of her questions.
I start by reiterating my opening comments—that we want the 30 hours free childcare entitlement to have a real impact on the lives of working families by making childcare more affordable. That will ensure that parents have real choices about work and are not constrained by the cost of childcare. As I mentioned, we have undertaken extensive consultation with key stakeholders, including childcare providers and local authorities, to ensure that those who will be delivering the 30 hours of free childcare have contributed to the development of the policy. I know that their commitment will be key to making the policy a success, and I have been encouraged by their enthusiasm and determination to meet the needs of parents and children.
We have been very pleased with the early implementers, which is why we went live with the 30 hours offer in eight local authorities in September. The programme is going extremely well, with more than 3,700 children already accessing a 30 hours place. I had the opportunity to visit Swindon last week, to see at first hand how the offer is working for those involved. The early implementers have trialled focuses on different challenges of the policy: Northumberland focused on rurality and Staffordshire and Portsmouth on low-income families, which the hon. Lady mentioned. Swindon is championing flexibility; it has a nursery that is co-located at a hospital site, where staff work some obviously quite challenging shifts. Newham is supporting children with special educational needs and disabilities; I hope to visit them in the next week or so. Wigan and Hertfordshire are also exploring partnership working and focusing on low-income families. We are capturing the learning from those areas throughout the year and sharing it with every area, to make sure that the full roll-out benefits from learning from their successes and experiences.
With regard to the funding, the hon. Lady is absolutely right: we need to get the funding right and ensure that early years providers are funded on a fair and sustainable basis. That is why we are delivering our promise by spending an additional £1 billion a year by the end of this Parliament on free childcare. That will provide more than £300 million a year to increase the funding rate and it will be allocated on a much more fair and transparent basis. In the Government response to the consultation on the funding formula, which was published last Thursday, as the hon. Lady mentioned, we announced that the new national average funding rate paid to local authorities would be £4.94 per hour per child. We have also introduced a minimum funding rate of £4.30 an hour, which will reassure some of the areas that are at the lower end of the scale.
Equally important is ensuring that that funding reaches providers, so that they can deliver all of the free entitlements on a sustainable basis. The new funding rate will give local authorities the scope to pay providers, but we are also maximising funding to the frontline by requiring local authorities to pass 95% of the funding through to providers, and we are making sure that there is fairness in local formulae by moving towards the universal base rate for all providers in a local area. We are also creating a better deal for children with disabilities, as the hon. Lady mentioned, by introducing a new £12.5 million disability access fund, which is worth £615 per child per year, and we are legislating for every area to set up a local inclusion fund for children with special educational needs.
The hon. Lady is rightly concerned about the burden on local authorities. We have committed to undertake a new burdens assessment for the extended entitlement, and we will respond to the findings. We are committed to ensuring that we do not add unnecessarily to the workload of local authorities, which is one of the reasons that the guidelines for the way that this is calculated is done in partnership with tax-free childcare. The aim is not to impose an additional administrative burden on families or add to their confusion.
The hon. Lady mentioned sufficiency. We do not expect that the 30 hours free childcare offer will double the demand for childcare places, as we know that many parents of three and four-year-olds are already accessing more than the 15 hours of free childcare per week and paying for the additional hours themselves. We expect that the market will need to adapt and respond to meet the need of additional demand for places. It has shown that it can do that through the successful rollout of the 15 hours of free childcare for disadvantaged two-year-olds that was introduced in the last Parliament.
As well as learning from the eight early implementer local authority areas, which I already mentioned, we are supporting localised sufficiency needs by providing £50 million of capital investment to support the creation of additional places. We have also appointed a new delivery contractor, Childcare Works, which will be a conduit between the Department for Education and local authorities and work with local authorities to ensure that there will be sufficient 30-hours places from September 2017.
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her comments on maintained nursery schools. We very much recognise the work that they have done to help the most disadvantaged children to achieve their potential, and we also know that they bear costs over and above other providers. It is important that they have certainty to be able to plan for the future. I am also grateful for her comments on provision for children with special educational needs and disabilities, which I think I have covered. The local authorities’ inclusion fund in their local funding systems for children with SEN will be helpful in that.
I am pleased that the regulations are broadly supported. We all agree with the underlying policy that we must do more to support parents with childcare.
Craig Mackinlay (South Thanet) (Con)
There is a small, technical point that the Minister might be able to help me with. It relates to the calculation of income for the self-employed in regulation 6(3). There are some concerns that the regulations are introducing a different method for calculating self-employed income from normal bases. We now have cash basis for smaller businesses, which allows items of a capital nature to be deducted in calculating the old D1 income under self-employment, but regulation 6(4) says clearly that
“receipts and expenses of a capital nature are to be disregarded.”
It therefore seems that we will be going back to the normal basis that we are all used to in calculating someone’s income under self-employment, but I am rather concerned that we will have two bases with one for tax purposes and another for calculating what is deemed income under the regulations. That is a fairly technical point and I wonder whether my hon. Friend can offer some assurance.
Caroline Dinenage
My hon. Friend makes an important point. We have sought as far as possible to co-ordinate everything we have done with other Departments to avoid any misunderstanding of that kind or extra bureaucracy or burdens, but to be on the safe side, I will double-check and write to him with the answer to his question.
Question put and agreed to.
Transgender Equality
Caroline Dinenage Excerpts(9 years, 4 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Women and Equalities (Caroline Dinenage)
It is a great pleasure to take part in this incredibly important debate on transgender equality—indeed, it is the first debate on transgender equality—and I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) for securing it. I put on record my welcome for the passionate and thoughtful contributions of hon. Members from across the House and add my voice to the praise for the Women and Equalities Committee report, which was a really important milestone in Parliament’s consideration of trans rights. I thank the Committee for its thorough and groundbreaking review, and we welcome its recommendations on how we can further tackle trans inequality.
The Prime Minister has made it clear that the Government’s mission is to make Britain a country that works for everyone. We want a society where everyone has a fair chance to go as far as their talent and their hard work will allow. That, of course, includes members of the trans population. We want them to be safe, healthy and free from discrimination, and we want a Britain that works for trans citizens.
I am proud of the UK’s strong legislative framework that protects trans people, but I am aware that progress in the acceptance and recognition of trans people has not kept pace in any way, shape or form with that of the lesbian, gay and bisexual community. I am also aware that transgender people suffer particularly high levels of inequality—from mental health to hate crime, and from bullying in schools to discrimination in employment—and we have heard many hon. Members speak passionately about all those things today. As the hon. Member for Lanark and Hamilton East (Angela Crawley) mentioned, mental health and suicide are big concerns. A young trans person in England today is nearly twice as likely to have attempted suicide, and nearly three times as likely to have self-harmed, as are their non-trans peers. That is utterly unacceptable. It has been said that trans issues are too difficult to tackle and too marginal to take notice of, and that it is too hard to implement change. We say that that is wrong. Trans people deserve dignity, respect and a life without discrimination.
I welcome the words of the hon. Member for Ogmore (Chris Elmore). As he says, we should take this opportunity to celebrate our trans community, especially the brave and inspiring individuals—from within the trans community and outside it—who do so much to fight against the prejudice, discrimination and disadvantage that we have heard about so movingly and passionately from so many hon. Members.
Tackling transgender inequality is a not a new initiative for us, and we continue to be recognised as one of the most progressive countries in Europe for LGBT rights by the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association. In 2011 we issued the world’s first transgender action plan to address the real and everyday challenges faced by trans people, and the majority of the commitments in the action plan have been completed. We are in the process of collating progress updates, and we will publish a summary next year. Recently we invested £2.8 million to tackle homophobic, biphobic and transphobic bullying in schools that have no measures, or ineffective measures, in place to deal with it. We have also published practical and clear guidance for employers and service providers on how to deal fairly and sensitively with transgender employees and service users. We have absolutely no intention of ending our commitment to tackling transgender inequality.
In July we responded to the Women and Equalities Committee report and set out a further set of ambitious actions. One massive and key commitment was to review the Gender Recognition Act 2004. As my hon. Friend the Member for Bath (Ben Howlett) has said, it was a groundbreaking measure when it was introduced—I think we sometimes forget how groundbreaking it was—but the world has moved on incredibly since then, and it is right that we review how it is working now. We have begun a stakeholder engagement programme to look at how the gender recognition process can be improved, and at the legislative and non-legislative means that we would need to use to do that.
The Committee recommended that we move towards self-declaration of gender. We recognise that, as the hon. Member for Livingston (Hannah Bardell) rightly pointed out, the gender recognition process needs to be quicker, less bureaucratic and definitely less medicalised. However, we want to see more evidence on the case for change to a self-declaration model. A couple of other jurisdictions have just began to implement such a model. We will continue to monitor the implementation of the alternative gender recognition process in other countries, and we will analyse the very good evidence that the Committee published to inform our work.
Hannah Bardell
Briefly on gender recognition, will the Minister engage with those countries that are at the forefront of progressive policies, take evidence from them directly and work with them to see how we can implement their models?
Caroline Dinenage
Yes. Some of the legislation is very new, including that of our friends in the Republic of Ireland. We will keep it under review and we are determined to learn all the lessons of best practice from around the world, as indeed we always have.
Angela Crawley
On that specific point, will the Minister meet Angela Constance, the Cabinet Secretary for Communities, Social Security and Equalities in the Scottish Government, to have that discussion, given that Scotland is now embarking on that process? Perhaps there could be a shared learning experience to ensure that we take matters forward for trans equality.
Caroline Dinenage
Yes, I am more than happy to do that and I am keen to collaborate in any way with those from whose experience we can learn.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke presented her Bill today. We have not yet heard a convincing case for introducing gender identity as a protected characteristic. The Equality Act, and criminal, hate crime and employment legislation all offer protection for trans people. However, we will continue to keep an open mind, listen to testimony and monitor evidence to find ways to improve the lives of trans people.
My opposite number, the hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion), asked about hate crime. We have improved the recording of hate crimes against LGBT people to support more effective prevention and action. Police forces are now required to collect those data, and the first set of data was published as official statistics in 2013. We have committed to review legislation on hate crimes and we are currently considering the options. The Crown Prosecution Service also recently launched a consultation on draft guidance on prosecuting cases of offences involving transphobic hostility.
The hon. Member for Lanark and Hamilton East spoke about gender markings and gender X on passports. As she pointed out, UK passports currently recognise only male and female genders. Legal recognition is more broad than just changing passports and would need to be considered across Government. Introducing a third category, such as that denoted by an X in a passport, would require a change in UK primary legislation. However, on gender markings, as set out in the response to the Select Committee report, the UK has agreed with the International Civil Aviation Organisation to lead on a survey of member states on gender and passport markings. The gender questionnaire was circulated in October and member states had until the end of November to provide their views. We will review the responses, compile a report and submit it to the working group early in 2017.
Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)
Recognising that it is only 51 years since “transgender” was first used, I think the Government’s words on page 23 of their response to the ICAO are important because, as they rightly point out, we are now identified more by facial recognition and other things rather than by asking, “Is this person wearing trousers or a skirt?”
Caroline Dinenage
My hon. Friend never ceases to amaze me with his encyclopaedic knowledge of all manner of important issues, and this is no exception. He is right that we must keep pace with modern technology and always keep it in mind when we make Government policy and change legislation.
Several hon. Members, not least my hon. Friend the Member for Bath, who has campaigned hard on the issue, talked about managing offenders. When I was a Justice Minister, my hon. Friend and I worked closely on a number of particular incidents that he raised. Managing transgender offenders has been a major concern and we have taken action. A number of events involving transgender prisoners in autumn 2015 highlighted the need for the policy on their treatment to be given a more fundamental reappraisal. When I was in the Ministry of Justice, I led on that work and last month the Government published their review and confirmed the position. That is why we will, from now on, manage anyone received into services run by the National Offender Management Service in the gender with which they identify rather than the sex assigned to them at birth.
Sarah Champion
Will the Minister confirm whether that includes immigration detention centres?
Caroline Dinenage
I will come to that. Detailed guidance has been provided to staff on how to implement the changes. An advisory board has been set up to inform policy and establish best practice on the treatment and care of transgender and non-binary offenders in prison custody and under the supervision of the national probation service. I will write to the hon. Lady about immigration detention services. I know that the advisory board had its first meeting on 25 November.
Several hon. Members spoke passionately about health, particularly the hon. Member for West Ham (Lyn Brown). As she said, ensuring accessible and prompt health services for trans people is of continued concern. I am pleased that good, collaborative, progress is being made. Discrimination against trans people in the NHS is not allowed and is unacceptable. NHS England has convened a number of multi-agency symposiums to begin to address this issue. The hon. Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Ruth Cadbury) will be pleased to know that NHS England and the General Medical Council have acted on the Select Committee’s recommendations by publishing new guidance on GPs’ responsibilities in treating trans people. We are also tackling the very long waits to access gender identity services, and we are beginning to see results: the average waiting time for patients to receive reconstruction surgery at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust has dropped from 94 weeks to 61 weeks, and is getting better.
Lyn Brown
The Minister is doing a remarkable job on the Front Bench at the moment, so I thank her. May I ask her to push her colleagues in the Health team on a root-and-branch review of transgender and LGBT health, as the Select Committee requested? That is fundamental, rather than having small working groups working on small bits of the matter.
Caroline Dinenage
I will of course pass that sentiment on to my colleagues in the Department of Health.
NHS England has increased financial investment in gender identity services from £26 million to £32 million this financial year. In addition to funding, we need to increase capacity in this specialism. That is why a joint initiative between NHS England and Health Education England was launched on 20 October to develop a programme of work to address national workforce and training constraints in that specialty. The planned outcomes will be recommendations for the future workforce, and will include curriculum development, continuing professional development and general awareness training among NHS staff.
The GMC and NHS England are also currently considering piloting a formal process for accrediting competencies in gender identity. To provide a better service nationwide, we will revolutionise service provision. We are seeking new providers to host gender identity clinics, and we will tender for them via national procurement in 2017. We will ensure that they can deliver the requirements of the updated service specifications for adult services. That means not only clinics offering better services, but ensuring better geographical spread.
Deidre Brock
Will the Minister confirm that she will review spousal consent, which puts a person’s right to have their true identity recognised in the hands of someone else? It does not happen in Scotland. Will the Minister look to the Marriage and Civil Partnership (Scotland) Act 2014 to see how the issue might be sorted out?
Caroline Dinenage
It sort of happens in Scotland, but it is a different legal process. We will continue to monitor cases whereby married trans people are victimised by spouses with malicious intent. However, it is important to say that marriage is a contract between two individuals and it is right that both partners should have an equal say in the future of their marriage when there is a fundamental change.
NHS England’s new service specification will reflect the standards of care and will be out for consultation in the new year. NHS England has already published a new service specification for children, and a clinical commissioning policy for prescribing cross-sex hormones to gender-variant young people. The new policy is consistent with international guidelines and best practice.
Having a positive experience of childhood is vital, especially for trans children as they come to realise who they truly are. A number of Members, including the hon. Member for Brentford and Isleworth, said that schools have an important role to play in ensuring a positive experience.
My Department is commissioning research to understand whether social work training has sufficient coverage of gender variance. The initial research will be concluded by the end of March 2017, and we will use the findings to decide whether additional training materials should be made available. Outstanding and remarkable work goes on in some of our schools to support our trans students, which I have seen myself. I personally intervened to make changes after visiting a school where a headteacher raised the issue of recording pupils’ desired gender on school records. New guidance was subsequently issued in April—pupils can now sit their exams and receive certificates in their correct gender, which not only reflects who they are, but reduces the risk of their being outed in later life.
Other work that was not in the Select Committee report is under way. We are funding questions in the British social attitude survey on public attitudes towards trans people; issuing guidance on the provision of gender neutral toilets; and publishing guidance in the civil service on how to survey trans staff within Government Departments.
I hear the comments that the Government have not gone far enough or fast enough on trans equality. My response is to watch us as we deliver sustained and embedded change. We have shown that we can achieve major social reform—after all, we are the Government who introduced same-sex marriage, a defining milestone in equality. We will achieve the same milestone for our trans community by revising the Gender Recognition Act, and through other major initiatives.
I thank the Women and Equalities Committee for its report. We will continue to listen to all the voices on this important matter and deliver positive change for the trans community.
Free Childcare
Caroline Dinenage Excerpts(9 years, 4 months ago)
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Kirsty Blackman (Aberdeen North) (SNP)
It is really nice to speak on a petition in Westminster Hall; I have spoken in a number of other Westminster Hall debates, but never on a petition, so it is nice to have another first 18 months into the job. I thank you for your chairmanship, Mr Davies, and the hon. Member for Warrington North (Helen Jones) for leading the debate. As Members would expect, I wish to talk about the situation in Scotland, and what we are doing there on early learning and childcare. I shall discuss the real-life importance of childcare provision. The hon. Members for Wirral South (Alison McGovern) and for Warrington North both gave a lot of real-life examples; I, too, will discuss a few. I shall also talk about the importance of choice for parents.
I shall start by talking a little about the numbers and finances. Labour Members, particularly the hon. Member for Wirral South, have discussed the amount the Government will spend to increase the number of free hours. I understand that the UK Government are committed to spending an extra £1 billion by 2020. The Scottish Government are committed to spending £500 million by 2021; considering how much smaller Scotland is than England, that is a stark contrast.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Caroline Dinenage)
May I correct the hon. Lady? Although there is an additional £1 billion, the figure is actually £6 billion by 2020.
Kirsty Blackman
Yes, the Scottish Government have committed to spending an additional half of the UK Government’s additional spend. Considering the differential in the respective populations, there is probably a differential in the spend. I took the figure for UK Government spending from the Library debate pack.
In Scotland, we will create 600 new early learning and childcare centres, with 20,000 additional qualified staff. Doubling the free early learning and childcare hours for all three and four-year-olds, as well as for the most disadvantaged two-year-olds, will benefit families by more than £4,500 per year, per child. That is a significant saving. I will come on to discuss the importance of that in the context of choice.
Our doubling of free childcare in Scotland will not be linked to employment status, unlike the changes down here, but changes will be made in both England and Scotland, and I do recognise that England is making positive changes to childcare provision. Our respective Governments are doing that in slightly different ways, with slightly different funding structures. I am not criticising the UK Government for increasing the number of free hours; quite the opposite. It is a very good thing. I have spoken before about how important it is.
I have a five-year-old and a three-year-old, and I have friends with similarly young children. A number of the women have had to go back to work for nothing. After the childcare costs are taken out, it turns out that they have gone back to work for pretty much no pay. The hon. Member for Warrington North mentioned £800 for three days’ childcare a week; for a while, we were paying £300 a month for one day a week. That is an incredible amount of money, and it is difficult to earn that much in a month when working only one day a week.
Tulip Siddiq (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington North (Helen Jones), who opened the debate, for all the work she has done in raising the importance of the issue we are debating. She said at the beginning of her speech that she was not very savvy about technology, but she has done an amazing job, not just by having web chats but by engaging a record number of people on Facebook—mothers and fathers from across the country. It is not just about social media, however; it is about the number of face-to-face meetings she has had, the amount of research she has evidently done and the personal experience, as a secondary schoolteacher, that she has brought to the House. There are lots of people in Government who might not believe in experts but I believe in listening to them, and it is evident from my hon. Friend’s speech that she knows what she is talking about.
This is the first debate I am responding to as shadow Minister for early years, but I do not need to have that role to recognise that to give every child the best start in life, nothing is more important than the care they receive in the first few years. High-quality childcare is critical for our economy, as has been mentioned over and over by Members on both sides of the House. The biggest barrier for parents and carers returning to employment is the cost of childcare, and parental employment is vital to lifting families out of poverty.
I grew up in London in the ’80s and I remember the struggles my parents had when it came to providing childcare. We did not have grandparents around—something other hon. Members have mentioned. Before 1997, access to childcare, as well as its quality, varied enormously, and it is not a secret that Labour revolutionised the sector by introducing universal free childcare. Every three and four-year-old became entitled to 15 hours’ free childcare a week for 38 weeks of the year, which was a life-saving opportunity for parents. The measure was a huge success, with more than 90% of children aged three and four benefiting.
Another thing I benefited a lot from—as I am sure parents on both sides of the House have too—were the Sure Start centres, which were also created by a Labour Government and which served every family in the community, regardless of how much money they had. Labour expanded school nurseries and more than doubled the number of childcare places. Most importantly perhaps, we extended maternity leave from 12 weeks to 12 months, increased maternity pay and introduced paternity leave. It is shocking that it took so long, but it happened. We made childcare a key part of our plans to support families and to make work pay, but today’s debate, in 2016, shows that huge challenges remain.
Make no mistake, the petition speaks directly to the failure of the Government’s childcare policy over the past six years. Nevertheless, it is clear that hon. Members on both sides of the House, of different political colours, feel they have shared ambitions for childcare. Even if we believe in different ways of achieving those ambitions, we agree that childcare is a priority that needs to be addressed. The Government’s response to the petition fails to recognise, I am afraid, the effects of chronic underfunding on providers, but it at least acknowledges that childcare costs profoundly affect parents across the country. Labour agrees with the Government that disadvantaged two-year-olds are less likely to access formal early education than their more affluent peers and that they therefore deserve the support that will level the playing field. Further, we do not believe that we should pit those out of work, often because of circumstances beyond their control, against working parents struggling to afford childcare. We believe a distinction needs to be made between work incentive schemes and policies that must be pursued to give equal opportunities in life to impoverished children, and also to children who are disabled—a point made movingly, over and over, by my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern).
The Government should also be frank about the fact that those out of work are not receiving the free childcare to which their two-year-olds are entitled, with only 42% of families in England who qualify receiving it, which compares with the uptake of Flying Start provision for two-years-olds under the Labour Administration in Wales, which stood at 86% in 2015.
Caroline Dinenage
I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Lady’s flow, but I would like to correct her, as she has just given out a completely factually inaccurate statistic. Some 70% of eligible two-year-olds are taking up their entitlement to a funded learning place.
Tulip Siddiq
I thank the Minister for her contribution, but the source I have, which I believe and which is very credible, says that it is 42% of families, so we will have to figure out who is right. I would just like to point out again that under the Labour Administration in Wales the uptake of Flying Start provision for two-year-olds stood at 86% last year.
Labour believes that the Government have failed to deal with unacceptable local variations in the information that is available to families who could benefit from the childcare offer for two-year-olds. I have seen it myself, when knocking on doors in my constituency, and the Public Accounts Committee has heard that only 30% of parents are even aware of the family information services. That weakens the value of the childcare already on offer, when the socioeconomic gap in educational attainment is large and the benefits that come from high-quality provision for disadvantaged children are clear for everyone to see. Extending the entitlement to 30 hours a week for working families is likely to place further strain on quality and access for the most disadvantaged children, so we need to tread carefully. Labour believes that that is due to the policy criteria, the capacity of the sector and the quality of the provision that can be offered under the current funding rates. Will the Minister outline in her response how her Department will improve the quality and consistency of the information available to parents and also explain how providers can double provision with the funding they currently have?
It is clear that Government measures to help working families have been insufficient and have led to the justified anger seen in the petition. Over the last Parliament, the cost of a part-time nursery place for a child under two increased by 32%. A family paying for that type of care now spends in excess of £1,500 more than they did in 2010, and wages have been largely static, which adds to the pressures on working families. The member of the public whose Facebook post prompted the conversation we are having spoke for many when he said:
“Myself and my wife work full time and pay over £800 per month for childcare…If we had another child, I would have to give up my job, as it’s simply outrageous the amount we have to pay”.
On the Facebook page are other poignant comments by people who are struggling to make ends meet because of childcare costs. That individual’s experiences are also reflected in research by the Resolution Foundation, which shows that more than a third of mothers who want to work are unable to do so because of high childcare costs. That issue was referred to by the hon. Member for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman), and my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral South spoke extensively and eloquently about the problems of the current labour market. She told us the story of Linda from Merseyside. I can safely say to her that there are countless other Lindas, not just in my constituency but across the country, who will be able to relate to that story. Of course, childcare is not only a women’s issue—a point that has been made—but it is no secret that the pressures of childcare fall disproportionately on women, in lots of situations, especially the one that the hon. Member for Aberdeen North mentioned.
I want to come back to the tax-free childcare scheme that the Government speak about. The Government talk about helping those who are just managing, but the cap on working tax credit means that in 11 local authorities the average cost of part-time childcare now exceeds the support on offer. Furthermore, the tax-free childcare scheme, which I am sure the Minister will mention, has been poorly communicated and twice frustrated by Government delays. Research has indicated that the scheme will only deliver for those on high incomes, meaning that it may not support the families who need it most. Labour believes that it is proving to be a wasted opportunity in addressing the root cause of mounting childcare costs, not least for those struggling to make ends meet.
I also want to touch briefly on the funding formula and the lack of places. We believe that the extortionate costs that parents face—different Members have mentioned that over and over again in this debate—are the result of reduced funding being given to providers and the shortage of places available. Under the new early years funding formula, many providers will receive a much lower hourly income for free early education places, which is a disgrace. That reduction is happening when providers are experiencing higher running costs and expanding provision to keep alive the Government’s pledge of 30 hours of free childcare a week. Anyone who listened to the last Education questions will know that I have raised the issue over and over again.
The Family and Childcare Trust reveals that the number of English local authorities reporting a shortage of free early education places for three and four-year-olds has more than doubled. Figures from the House of Commons Library show that the number of places available has fallen by 45,000 since 2009. The figures speak for themselves. The Department for Education recently announced that it was paying £3 million for a private consultancy to find the 45,000 places needed to make the 30 hours’ free entitlement work. That is a choice figure. The costs that providers face, such as business rates and pension auto-enrolments, are fuelling the rapid increases in childcare costs. However, what worries me is that more than one quarter of local authorities will lose money through the funding formula while being asked to manage the costs and to double the childcare entitlement. A 2015 report by the Institute for Public Policy Research explored the possible consequences of such a funding gap. It said:
“Underfunding the 30 hours offer would lead to a smaller, less flexible market as providers…either exit, reduce the breadth of services that they offer, take on fewer children, or refuse to offer the free hours…This would reduce parental choice and potentially push up costs for paid hours or other services outside of the free offer, such as childcare for most under-3s”.
I will draw my remarks to a close, because I want to hear what the Minister has to say. In addition to their punitive funding formula, the Government have as yet refused to commit to supplementary funding for nurseries beyond the two years. Nurseries have been clear, both in the conversations I have had and in writing to all Members of the House, that the cocktail of funding pressures will ultimately push them into an unsustainable financial situation. My hon. Friend the Member for Warrington North eloquently referred to that in her speech. I hope the Minister will put an end to the uncertainty and immediately commit to funding to guarantee the long-term future of nursery schools.
Labour believes that working parents are bearing the burden of the Government demanding unachievable expansion in provision while providing woeful under- funding. It is no secret that the autumn statement is happening this week. We demand that the Chancellor provides parents and teachers across the country with the funding to keep nurseries open, to reduce the costs of funded places and to meet the Government’s 30 hours promise to parents. I hope the Minister will be able to offer even the slightest encouragement that those figures will be in the Chancellor’s autumn statement.
I finish by echoing the words of my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington North, who secured this debate. The early years cannot just be seen as an add-on. They are crucial to social mobility and to children reaching their full potential. Most importantly, they are crucial to the future of our country and the productivity of our economy.
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.
Helen Jones
Many maintained nurseries have special units for children with special needs. They take in disabled children. Does the Minister accept that that is another reason why maintained nurseries need to be fully supported in the extra responsibilities that they take on?
Caroline Dinenage
Absolutely. I am a great fan of maintained nursery schools. There is one in my own constituency, which has significant pockets of deprivation, that provides outstanding support for children. That is why the Government have committed, as part of the funding formula, to an extra £55 million a year for at least the next two years to support maintained nursery schools over and above the normal funding formula. Maintained nursery schools make up only 3% of childcare places. However, 98% of them are good or outstanding and 80% work in areas of disadvantage, which is why we want to consult them further about how we can support them in their very important work.
We know that good quality education at two can have a fantastic effect on a child’s development. We want children in care, children who have left care, adopted children and children with special educational needs and disabilities to benefit from that, as we have a duty to help them thrive and reach their potential. It is unacceptable that a child should have inferior life chances because of their background; this programme is key to tackling the problem. I am sure all hon. Members would agree that it is vital we help such children.
Kirsty Blackman
It is still the case that a child’s long-term future exam results can be predicted by the highest level of their mother’s qualifications. Does the Minister agree that both our Governments are working hard to do something about this and that we should continue to keep this as a top priority?
Caroline Dinenage
I did not know that interesting statistic. The hon. Lady is right. Providing better early education can only ever be a really good thing.
Some hon. Members have asked why all two-year-olds do not get a fully funded place. Such places are not offered to all two-year-old children because evidence tells us that the greatest proportion of parents return to work and need childcare when their children turn three. Some parents feel that two years is too young for their children to be in formal childcare and prefer to keep them at home. I was similar to the hon. Member for Aberdeen North and did not stay in the childcare environment for as long as I could have done. That probably gives me an added respect for the amazing individuals who work in that incredible profession.
We wanted to focus resources where they would have the greatest impact for the largest number of families. That is why we prioritised the introduction of an additional 15 hours for the working parents of three and four-year-olds.
The main driver behind the two-year-old programme is to improve outcomes for the children who need the most help in getting the best start in life. For that reason, we do not impose conditions on parents who are eligible for a place, but we hope the programme will support parents from poorer backgrounds to move into employment and training. We have come an incredibly long way since 2013. As I have already mentioned, 70% of eligible two-year-olds now take up their entitlement to a funded learning place.
We also know that 84% of all two-year-olds who take up their entitlement do so in good or outstanding settings, which means that children are receiving their learning in high quality environments. That is fantastic progress and will ensure that thousands of disadvantaged children get the right start in life.
Tulip Siddiq
I am sorry the Minister seems a bit rattled by what I have said. I am the Opposition spokesperson and I will hold the Government to account and do my duty in making sure that childcare is properly provided to parents; and I want to hear about the funding. The statistic I cited, which the Minister disputed, was from the Family and Childcare Trust childcare costs survey 2016. In England, the uptake of free early education among two-year-olds stood at 58% in January and at 46% in London. I would like to hear what the Minister has to say.
Caroline Dinenage
I am keen to tell the hon. Lady what I think. Because she is very new to her role, I am prepared to cut her some slack. If she chats to her hon. Friend the Member for Wirral South, she will find that she can hold the Government to account in a constructive and positive way, rather than in an endlessly and relentlessly negative way.
Caroline Dinenage
No, I have given way enough. In answer to her question, the figures are the Government’s figures and they are correct.
I want to make progress. We know that it is not only the most disadvantaged parents who need help with childcare costs. That is why we are increasing our investment in childcare from £5 billion to £6 billion a year by 2019-2020. We remain absolutely committed to providing 15 hours a week of early learning to all parents with three and four-year-olds. In addition to this universal entitlement, we will introduce 30 hours a week of childcare from September 2017, which will support more than 400,000 working families with three and four-year-olds, saving them around £5,000 a year in childcare costs. We want to remove the real financial barriers that prevent parents from going back to work or increasing their current hours, so that they can realise their potential and contribute to our economy and their children’s future.
Kirsten Oswald
I echo the Minister’s sentiments about removing financial barriers. Does she agree it is also important to remove structural barriers as far as possible by making sure there is flexibility of provision and that we do not continually assume that one size will fit all?
Caroline Dinenage
The hon. Lady is right. Flexibility is really important, which is why our recent consultation response committed us to offering free hours between the hours of 6 am and 8 pm to meet the needs of parents who work shifts. We also encourage local authorities and providers to offer the free hours over more than 38 weeks a year so that parents can stretch their hours, whether it is fewer hours over more weeks or during the school holidays. The flexibility that she talked about is really important.
At present, the Government are piloting the programme in eight early implementer areas. The hon. Member for Aberdeen North spoke about the importance of the really good trials going on at the moment. It is the same in the early implementer areas. Through these early implementers, more than 3,500 children have already taken up a 30-hour place one year early, which is giving their parents more disposable income and an opportunity to return to work or work more hours. We expect that figure to increase during the course of early implementation, because more parents will become eligible for the extended entitlement at different points during the year. I want to put on the record my gratitude to Hertfordshire, Newham, Northumberland, Portsmouth, Swindon, Staffordshire, Wigan, York and the childcare providers in those areas who have worked tirelessly to make the programme a reality.
The eight early implementers provide us with an opportunity to address key delivery issues for the 30-hour offer, and for us to test the practical ways that councils and providers can work together. Various Members have spoken about the specific challenges of different areas of the country: for example, the challenges in Aberdeen with the offshore workers. My constituency has a lot of families with partners in the armed forces, particularly in the Royal Navy, who face a similar challenge. That is why we have various early implementer pilots going on to look at all such challenges. For example, Northumberland is focusing on rurality and Staffordshire is focusing on work incentives, as is Swindon, along with flexibility, including the use of Saturday provision via a nursery attached to a hospital to support the staff who work there. Newham is focusing on developing a range of delivery models and supporting children with special educational needs and disabilities. Wigan and Hertfordshire are exploring partnerships through the use of childcare hubs and supporting parents back into work, and Portsmouth is supporting low-income families.
[Ian Paisley in the Chair]
Alongside our early implementers, we have also recruited 24 early innovator local authorities, which will provide valuable learning to support the roll-out of the 30-hour offer by developing approaches to support children with special educational needs and disabilities; developing scalable, flexible models that meet the needs of working parents; ensuring the sufficiency of the local childcare markets; and stimulating parental demand for the new entitlement to act as a work incentive.
I would like to point out that the consultancy that the Opposition spokesperson said £3 million is being spent on is actually not a consultancy; it is a contract to offer practical support to local authorities and childcare providers to help them get ready to deliver the 30 hours. It includes sharing lessons from the early implementers—
Caroline Dinenage
It is not a consultancy. It provides courses and shares best practice. It is about being out there, on the ground, speaking one-to-one to administrators and deliverers. The hon. Lady really needs to look up the meaning of the word “consultancy”. It offers practical help on the ground to providers, and helps them to get the very best out of their business models.
The lessons learned from the combined delivery approach of the early implementers and innovators offer a unique opportunity to provide vital information to the local authorities getting ready to meet parental demand when national roll-out takes place. We are capturing learning throughout the year and sharing it with all local authorities to ensure that early implementation is a success—that is what the £3 million contract is about—and that full roll-out has the benefit of the learning that success generates. The more planning and testing we can do in the widest possible number of areas, the more likely we are to have a smooth launch of this key Government priority.
At the same time, the Government will introduce tax-free childcare from early 2017, which is intended to help parents with the cost of living by subsidising the cost of childcare. The tax-free childcare will be paid per child, rather than per parent, and childcare costs will be subsidised for children up to the age of 12, or 17 if they are disabled. The Government calculate that, once it is fully implemented, about 2 million working families across the UK will have access to the new scheme. It will give parents a 20% subsidy on their childcare costs, up to a maximum contribution of £2,000 per child per year, or £4,000 for disabled children. The scheme will effectively subsidise 20% of childcare costs—up to £10,000 per child.
In addition, the Government’s flagship welfare reform programme, universal credit, also offers help with the cost of childcare for parents on lower incomes, even if they work only a few hours a week. Working parents on universal credit can now claim up to 85% of their childcare costs. Together with the 30 hours and tax-free childcare, that amounts to an unprecedented level of support to working parents for their childcare costs.
The hon. Member for Warrington North talks as though the high cost of childcare—we all know it is high, and I have outlined the many things the Government are doing to tackle it—is a recent phenomenon. Many hon. Members who spoke today have the advantage of having youth on their side and of having young children— I am jealous of them—but I was a parent during the previous Labour Government, which the Opposition spokesman spoke about in such glowing terms. I put my children through early years childcare under a Government who presided over the most expensive childcare in Europe. I was working to pay for my childcare. The Government introduced the 15-hours offer, but not everybody offered it, and I had great difficulty accessing it. Childcare is one of the biggest obstacles to women getting back into work, which is why it is important that we have all the schemes I have talked about.
Helen Jones
I am sorry, but I cannot let the Minister get away with that. She is right that childcare has always been expensive, but the Labour Government expanded the number of childcare places in this country hugely and set up Sure Start and children’s centres for the first time. She cannot get away from the simple fact that the cost of childcare went up 30% under the coalition Government—five times the rate of wage growth. That is what has put so many families in such a difficult position.
Caroline Dinenage
As the hon. Member for Wirral South said, this is not a recent phenomenon; it has accumulated over a number of years. I can speak only from my personal experience—I know that the children of the hon. Member for Warrington North are a bit older. My children were accessing early years childcare during the years of the Labour Government, and I saw those prices go up exponentially. That is why we are dealing with this issue. In addition to various other policies that help many of the issues that have been described today, such as giving people access to flexible working and shared parental leave, which was never introduced under the previous Labour Government, more than £6 billion will be spent on childcare by 2019-20 in cash terms—[Interruption.] I know the hon. Lady is not listening, but that is more than any other Government have ever spent on this issue. It includes an extra £1 billion on the free early years entitlement.
Kirsten Oswald
The Minister is being very generous in giving way. Will she humour me and agree that the Scottish Government have gone further than any other Government in their commitment to early years education and childcare?
Caroline Dinenage
I do not know, but I am keen to learn from best practice wherever I find it, so I will be hot-footing it back to my office directly after this debate to see what we can learn from what is happening in Scotland.
A large amount of the additional money that we are spending on childcare is going to increase the average funding rate. The Opposition spokesperson said it is going down, but it is actually going to go up for private and voluntary providers in 88% of local authorities, including that of the hon. Member for Warrington North, where the hourly rate will go up by 19%.
Helen Jones
The Minister is missing out the fact that going up from a low hourly rate to a slightly better one does not solve the problem. The Government’s problem when they introduce the 30-hour provision will be that, unless they fund those hours properly, they will simply raise costs elsewhere in the system, so parents will be unlikely to benefit. Once the cross-subsidisation is taken out, costs will go out somewhere else, whether for under-threes, out-of-hours childcare, or whatever. The low rate of funding throughout the system is what needs to be addressed—it leads to some providers struggling to maintain their provision and to endemic low wages in the sector, which work against recruiting skilled workers, and it does not provide the best quality of care.
Caroline Dinenage
I do not understand why the hon. Lady is saying that what we are doing is already leading to that, because we have not yet done it. The early years funding formula response has not even been published—it will be out soon. She is sniffing at a 19% rise in her area, according to the figures we saw in the summer, which seems a little unkind.
I was also a little disappointed with how the hon. Lady described early years professionals. She talked about them as unskilled teenagers, slightly undermining the quality—
Helen Jones
On a point of correction, I am sorry, but the Minister misquotes me. I said that children needed the best skilled and professional care but that some of them are being looked after by unqualified teenagers, who are not the professionals in this. The professionals are those who have the proper qualifications and experience. She really must not misquote me on that, because I was clear that the best outcomes for children are when they are looked after by skilled, experienced people.
Caroline Dinenage
I am grateful for the clarification, but the hon. Lady should be aware—I hope she already is and is just playing with me—that the quality of the workforce is already good and has been improving: 87% of staff in full-day care settings are now qualified to level 3, the proportion of such staff with at least that level having grown from 75% to 87% between 2008 and 2013, while the proportion of those with a degree or higher increased from 5% to 13%. We are not, however, resting on our laurels. We have a workforce strategy that will seek to support even further those excellent people who work in our childcare environment.
Kirsten Oswald
Regardless of the difference of opinion between the Minister and the hon. Member for Warrington North (Helen Jones), will they both agree with me that the quality of staff in those childcare establishments is absolutely key? It is one of the main things that makes it possible for mothers and fathers to feel confident about leaving their children in such establishments. The staff’s work is exceptional.
Caroline Dinenage
The hon. Lady is right: the work those staff do is exceptional. Any of us who have had access to early years education all know that the quality of early years childcare is exceptional. Recent Ofsted statistics show that 91% of providers in the early years are good or outstanding, and that is the highest such figure we have ever seen. Alongside that, the most recent EYSS—early years SEN support—outcomes data show that almost 70% of children are reaching a good level of development by the age of five.
I thank all Members who have contributed to this important debate. I hope they can see that the Government care enormously about outcomes for children and childcare costs for all parents. It is completely unfair for children who are disadvantaged not to have the same opportunities as others, but the significant burden that childcare costs can have on parents is also unfair, which is why we have put in place all the measures that I have mentioned today to help solve the problem.
International Men’s Day
Caroline Dinenage Excerpts(9 years, 4 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Women and Equalities (Caroline Dinenage)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) on securing this really important debate. I know that he, I and all the other Members who have taken part and spoken so excellently share the same conviction: that no one, whether male or female, should suffer unfair or unequal treatment because of their gender.
Such treatment can have devastating consequences for the lives of both men and women. Like other parents of sons up and down the country, I am aware of the challenges that boys face as they negotiate the road to manhood. We are at a moment in time when increasing numbers of people—men and women—are questioning a system of laws, norms and beliefs that have systematically disadvantaged women over centuries. But we sometimes forget that confining women within social norms also acts to confine men. Every restriction placed on the lives of women has had a consequence for the lives of men. Where women are told they are weak, men are told that they have to be strong and that there is something very wrong with them if they experience fear, vulnerability or emotion. Where women are told that they are naturally suited to childcare, then men are implicitly told that they are not. Where women are encouraged to be the homemakers, then the pressure falls on men to be the breadwinners.
The fact that men suffer from sexism is not a sign that the fight for equality has gone too far, but that it has not gone far enough. Gender equality is not, as the hon. Member for Dewsbury (Paula Sherriff) said, a zero-sum game where the gains of one sex can only be achieved at the expense of the other. Equality is good for all and for society as a whole. That does mean that people do sometimes have to give up privileges that have not been earned, but they have much, much more to gain from the creation of a fairer society for all.
I am not Minister for Women and Equalities because I am partisan to women, but because the key task in achieving gender equality is to establish a level playing field for women. That does not mean that we neglect the interests of men. I hope all here will agree that the introduction of shared parental leave was a huge step forward in supporting men to become more involved and fulfilled fathers. Our pioneering programme on homophobic bullying in schools benefits not just children who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender, but all boys who have been insulted or assaulted because they were considered not sporty or manly enough.
Our innovative work programme on body image recognises that boys too can feel overwhelmed by cultural messages about how they are supposed to look and behave. I am as concerned as anyone when men’s eating disorders are referred to as “manorexia”, as that does not describe the severity and seriousness of the issue. Our new teen relationship abuse campaign, Disrespect NoBody, reaches out to all young people, deliberately moving away from images and text that imply that men are always the perpetrators of relationship abuse and women always the victims. We know that that simply is not the case.
I want to say a bit more about violence. I am hugely proud of the Government’s national strategy on violence against women and girls. We have made great strides, but there is a long way to go, particularly in tackling sexual harassment in public spaces and online misogyny. As my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley rightly pointed out, violence features in boys’ lives, too. As my son moves through his teenage years, I am acutely aware of how vulnerable young men are to assault on the streets and in pubs and clubs. I can only guess at how much fear and anxiety this causes boys and men. I say “guess”, because we very rarely hear men talking about those feelings. Why? Because of social norms that suggest that men should be powerful and invulnerable.
There is the expectation that men should not show how much violence hurts or scares them. They keep it bottled up. Even worse, they express it through depression, drinking or aggression. Maybe it makes it harder for them to stand up to other men who may be harassing women or belittling other men, and say, “This is not okay.” As my hon. Friend pointed out, many of the dreadful things that are happening to women are happening to men, too. Just because statistically there are much lower numbers does not mean they are any less important or should not be talked about. It does not mean that victims’ lives are any less valued.
Bob Stewart
I have sat here for most of the debate—I missed just the first two minutes—but I have not heard anyone talk about the strength that men and women get from being in a family, whether unmarried or married. Living with other people is a huge benefit. I just wanted to put it on record that family matters.
Caroline Dinenage
Of course, family does matter. What also matters is that victims can be male or female. In some instances, men are the hidden victims. Earlier this year, during International Women’s Day, the whole House listened in stunned and horrified silence as one of the hon. Members listed the names of every single woman who had been killed at the hands of a violent partner or ex-partner. There were 81 of them—every single life lost an absolute tragedy. In the same year, 19 men suffered that same fate. No one read their names out. That is not okay.
The UK has made a £36 million commitment towards efforts to end child marriage, early marriage and forced marriage overseas. As the hon. Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Margaret Ferrier) point out, while the majority of those affected by child marriage are girls, UNICEF estimates that 18% of those married under the age of 18 are boys. That is not okay.
Crime surveys for England and Wales estimate that there were 610,000 male victims of domestic violence last year. I say “estimate” because, like many women, men are often reluctant to come forward and report crimes of this nature. And that is not okay. We continue to support front-line organisations working with male victims. The Home Office has extended £120,000 until April 2017 for the men’s advice line, which provides support and advice to male victims of domestic violence; while £90,000 has been provided to Galop to run a domestic abuse helpline for gay, bi and trans people affected by domestic violence and abuse. In 2016-17, the Ministry of Justice allocated £452,000 to 12 organisations in England and Wales to provide face-to-face services for male victims of rape and sexual violence.
Every time a little boy is told to zip up his man suit and be brave in circumstances where a girl would be cuddled or comforted, we are contributing to an ideal that a real man is fearless and emotionless. Most men treat this version of masculinity, which they see in characters in the media such as James Bond and those played by Steven Seagal, who are self-contained, aggressive, disconnected and always walking alone, with intelligence and resilience, but there are risks, particularly for the vulnerable and isolated, and these messages can be particularly toxic for men suffering from mental health issues.
We have heard a lot today about male suicide. Our national suicide prevention strategy highlights men as a high-risk group for what is perhaps the ultimate expression of despair, disconnection and aggression turned inwards. I am very encouraged by the work that the Department of Health has done with the National Suicide Prevention Alliance to identify innovative projects and to target mental wellbeing and suicide prevention support at men—projects such as the Men’s Sheds movement, which my hon. Friend the Member for Eastleigh (Mims Davies) has mentioned. I was there at the start of the Gosport Men’s Shed, which is now one of the biggest in the country. One gentleman there told me that it had literally saved his life.
In addition, the Department recently announced further financial support of more than £12.5 million over the next five years for the Time to Change programme, which seeks to bring attitudinal change towards people with mental health issues. Bottling up emotions and not being able to talk freely about feelings have implications not only for mental health but for physical health. Other Members have spoken about organisations such as the Movember Foundation and all the amazing men—and women—who attempt to grow moustaches in November, in order to raise issues such as prostate cancer that affect men and where early diagnosis and treatment can save lives.
I was going to speak about boys’ attainment in schools and justice in the family and criminal courts, but, in the interests of time, I will not. I will conclude by saying that my officials and the Government Equalities Office are there to tackle inequality wherever we find it, and we are actively exploring some of the issues touched upon today, in dialogue with groups such as White Ribbon, the Great Men initiative, HeForShe and Respect. These organisations do an enormous amount of good work, and I am confident that together we will make good progress in engaging even more men with gender equality.
And what of International Men’s Day? Of course it is a good thing. Anything that gets people to stop and think about equality and the inequalities we have spoken about today is important, and I will certainly consider all the points raised. Equality benefits everyone, and I hope that we can continue to share a constructive dialogue on how we can achieve a fairer, more just and kinder world for all.