Children’s Education Recovery and Childcare Costs

Debate between Catherine West and Will Quince

Tuesday 7th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Will Quince]

I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention, and I will come on in just one moment to exactly the funding we are putting into childcare. However, in total, it is £5.1 billion. On the free entitlements alone—the entitlements the hon. Lady references—it is £3.5 billion.

I know that there is more we need to do, and that is why I am working across Government to take a renewed look at the childcare system, finding ways to improve the cost and availability of childcare and early education for families across England. We do have some of the very best early years provision in the world, and I will continue to be hugely ambitious for working parents, ensuring flexibility and reducing the cost of childcare wherever we can.

A number of hon. Members across the Chamber during this debate have raised international comparators, which are of course important. So far, I have visited the Netherlands, and I will be visiting Sweden and France. I hope to visit more because it is very important that we take an evidence-based approach to this issue and look at the international comparators. [Interruption.] On day trips, I hasten to add, on the Eurostar—these are certainly not jollies. We are very much looking at the evidence and ensuring that we get it right. It is a hugely complex issue.

[Catherine West]

The Minister is very generous in taking interventions. Could I press him on the point that he is doing some case studies and doing some visits? That is all very helpful, but 12 years have gone by, and this is a crisis, an emergency, and we need to get women back into jobs because the economy is crying out for more workers. Provided that there is a high-quality work environment, I think we all support people getting back into the workforce, but they are saying they cannot afford it. There are the other costs such as the energy bills, the rent or the mortgage: if we add childcare to those, they just cannot make the sums add up.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Catherine West and Will Quince

Monday 8th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Will Quince]

I thank my hon. Friend for that question. She is a strong advocate for her constituents in Hastings and Rye. Since April 2019, and throughout the covid pandemic, we have provided funding to Citizens Advice and Citizens Advice Scotland to deliver Help to Claim, which gives specific and targeted support for those people needing additional support to successfully make a universal credit claim. I am pleased to say that we will be funding that support for a further 12 months.

[Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)]

What assessment she has made of the implications for her policies of the financial barriers to people’s compliance with the requirement to self-isolate; and if she will make a statement.