Childcare Bill [Lords]

Chloe Smith Excerpts

Wednesday 25th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Chloe Smith (Norwich North) (Con)]

I rise to give some reasons why I welcome the Bill. First, it goes to the heart of what I am sure constituents in every part of the country say to us, whether they are already working and want more security against the costs of the childcare they currently pay for, or are in a couple and want to be able to get into work or back to work, but find that the costs of childcare mean that it is just not worth it. I have spoken to scores of Norwich parents and childcare providers who welcome the Bill for those reasons. I am proud that the childcare provision was an election manifesto pledge. The Bill will help parents considerably by doubling from 15 to 30 the number of hours of free childcare that they can access.

If we get this right, it will have a transformative effect for many people. Parents will be able to manage their household finances more easily and will now be able to choose to go to work. Some parents might be able to change their career if they wish because they have this backing behind them. We will see a benefit for the children who will be able to get more high-quality early years education; I, too, want to see an emphasis on quality as much as quantity in the Bill. We will also see a benefit for local businesses and local economies, as the workforce will be better supported, less stressed and more resilient. Employees will be altogether more able to take advantage of the opportunities that they wish to. Local businesses— nurseries and childcare providers—will also be able to grow to meet this demand and to employ more local people.

We have to get the legislation right. I want to give a few examples from my constituency and from the county of Norfolk. Norfolk County Council’s 2014 childcare sufficiency assessment and more recent surveys show that with household incomes in Norfolk lower than the national average the biggest concern for families is the cost of childcare. Research shows that there is already a large private voluntary and independent sector in Norfolk, although the county does not necessarily attract the large national chains. Childminder numbers are coming down and recruitment is a challenge for some settings.

The quality of childcare provision in Norfolk is higher than the national average, which is very much to be welcomed, and 94% of Norfolk parents are happy with their current childcare although they report some dissatisfaction with affordability, accessibility and availability. Norfolk parents want to use childcare. Nearly eight out of 10 parents of eligible two-year-olds have taken up that provision, compared with six out of 10 nationally. Credit should be given where it is due to Norfolk County Council for having promoted the scheme well and for having been able to respond to demand by creating more than 2,000 free places for eligible two-year-olds in one year.

There is a surplus of places for two-year-old funded children in Norfolk overall, with deficits in certain pockets of the county, but there is a widespread shortage of funded places for three to four-year-olds. The county council estimates that places are still required for more than 3,600 two-year-olds and more than 18,700 three to four-year-olds. In Norwich North, specifically, demand outstrips supply for places for two-year-olds and three to four-year-olds. For example, recent figures suggest that there are about 560 childcare places available in the Catton Grove, Mile Cross and Sewell areas of my constituency, but 1,200 three and four-year-olds. In other words, there is a shortfall of half the number of places needed.

As in many constituencies around the country, there is housing growth to come to the north of Norwich and the nought to five population is rising. Quite naturally, demand is likely to rise still further with this doubling of the free hours. In many ways, this is an opportunity, and that is the theme of my speech. There is an opportunity to be grasped in local economies such as Norwich so we can do this well for parents.

Let me add some thoughts from constituents who contacted me. One constituent talks about there also being a shortage of out-of-school care. Of course, that relates to children who, in some cases, might be older than those about whom we are talking, but her comments apply to parents facing all types of childcare shortages. She says that the local childminders are all full, with waiting lists, and that the local school has increased its intake and that its breakfast and after-school clubs do not provide enough places for the total number of pupils at the school. She asks, “How is that sufficient?” She wrote:

“I work for the NHS as a nurse working with disabled children. I am going to struggle severely to be able to continue doing any of this type of shift work. I love the work I do. However, my son has to come first and with no option of childcare I will have no option to leave… If you can influence the provision of after schools provision that would be great for many parents.”

Another parent, who faces having to give up her new job, told me that

“having exhausted all avenues including the NCC website, Facebook groups, online services, Sure Start centre, playgroups and even the school itself we are left with either my giving up my job or trying to move our child…The situation in this area is desperate and I feel that I am being penalised for having to work full time.”

We have a huge opportunity to get this right for working parents, particularly those of three and four-year-olds, which is what we see in the Bill. It is an opportunity for parents, children and our local economies. In my constituency, we need more providers to come forward with more places. I have convened a local action group, bringing together the council, with its statutory responsibilities, the local further education college, as a workforce training provider, the chamber of commerce, major employers, existing providers and the National Day Nurseries Association, to ask how we can encourage greater supply in Norwich. We have to consider that question alongside the Bill. We have two years to get this right. We all want to get it right. Parents need us to get it right.

In Norwich, we are looking at some of the obvious concerns, such as the availability of suitable premises and land in an urban area and the funding settlement. I welcome the higher funding settlement announced today, and I want the message to go out loud and clear to childcare businesses in Norwich that this is their chance to serve their local economy by doing business in this area. I also expect the council to reconsider its funding model, some of the detail of which it has recently changed—for example, how it applies funding to different types of setting. I note, as well, that it spends nearly 9% of its early-years funding centrally rather than passing it to providers. That is too high. By comparison, Cornwall spends 0.3% centrally and Lincolnshire 2.9%. It can be done, therefore, and those costs should be brought down. I urge the council to consider that.

The group I am convening will work together in five areas: first, we will co-operate with schools as they plan for their intakes; secondly, we want to co-operate with local authorities on their development and housing planning—neighbourhood plans, business rates, the community infrastructure levy and the use of existing buildings and land; thirdly, we want to work with business and inward investment organisations—the larger chains, which have not yet seen the opportunity there, should come to sunny Norfolk and see the investment opportunities there; fourthly, we want to work with local education providers on a training offer to meet the necessary demand; and finally—this is my call throughout my contribution—we must raise awareness. We must grasp this opportunity. We would let down parents, children and our local economies if we did not grab it, so let the message go out that childcare is an exciting opportunity and the Government are doing what they can to deliver for parents and children.

In conclusion, I have laid out some of the characteristics of childcare in Norfolk, particularly in my constituency. I am leading action on behalf of parents in my constituency who need this childcare, but there is much more to do. I thoroughly support the Bill. It will pave the way for parents to go into work, for local businesses to grow and for children to benefit from good-quality early education. Childcare is a foundation in the lives of the parents and their children, and it lets people build their dreams. We should see the Bill accordingly.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tristram Hunt]

I am arguing not about reduction in quality, but for an improvement in it. I understand the point about doubling the provision, but when there is such ingrained inequality in our society and such disadvantage in so many communities, surely the quality of provision needs to improve.

We know that investment in the early years is about more than just announcing more childcare. The Government have repeatedly ignored, cut and deprioritised a huge part of the infrastructure for early years education. Time and again, children’s centres, a huge part of this country’s early years architecture, have come under assault from the Government. The previous Labour Government tried to make Sure Start centres and early years an essential part of the welfare state. This Government’s ambition to dismantle the welfare state means stripping away one of the elements that are such a civilising part of our society, with more and more centres being forced to close and drastically cut back their services owing to inadequate funding.

There were no announcements today for funding for children’s centres or support for the early intervention grant. According to the Children’s Society, when the early intervention grant, which funds children’s centres, was introduced, its total value was around £3.2 billion in today’s prices. However, by 2015, the value of the grant has been more than halved to around £1.4 billion. By the end of 2015-16, the allocation provided to local authorities through the revenue support grant will have been cumulatively reduced by £6.8 billion compared with funding for comparator services before the Budget in 2010.

Overall, local authorities in England reduced spending on children’s centres and young people’s and family support services by some £718 million in real terms between 2010-11 and 2014-15. That amounts to cumulative spending reductions of more than £1.5 billion. With local authority budgets coming under extra pressure, the outlook for children’s centres is bleak.

The Government do not like this figure, but over the past five years more than 700 centres have been closed. We know that effective early intervention does not begin at the age of three, but with antenatal classes, drop-in health clinics and open access provision. It begins with teaching parents the importance of bonding and attachment. If anything, those first years of a child’s life are the most important for child development. The more we discover about neurological development and the growth of the brain in those early months and years, the more startling it is that the Government have piled on the cuts for the earliest years. They are not serious about tackling disadvantage and inequality. If they were, they would not be making all the cuts in that area. It is no wonder that great charities like Teach First say that poor kids do worse under this Government, and it is no wonder that we see the effects of that in our education system. The Government’s record on protecting the architecture and delivery of early-years education over the past five years is wholly lamentable.

The Labour Government protected the entire education budget, including the crucial early intervention grants that were part of our election promise. This Government protected only schools. Today’s announcement about sixth-form and further education is welcome, but it really means an 8% cut in those budgets over the coming five years. Despite the global financial crash, and with the help of the Sure Start architecture, we slashed child poverty by 900,000 during our time in office. That is what Labour Governments do: that is what progressive Governments do. On the basis of the latest figures from the Resolution Foundation, we know that we shall see child poverty rocket under this Government. Time and again, the early years have been deprioritised.

Labour Members have an enduring commitment to the emancipatory power of early-years education. We believe that it is the most effective way of narrowing the achievement gap so that no children are left behind when they take their first steps inside a reception classroom. We are—I am—supportive of working families—

[Chloe Smith]

Does that that suggest that there is a division?

[Tristram Hunt]

No! We are all united in this House on the need for measures to help working families and raise maternal employment rates. However, we need a much richer, deeper and more sophisticated focus on the quality of early-years provision, and on what it can do to tackle inequality and disadvantage.

Oral Answers to Questions

Chloe Smith Excerpts

Monday 19th January 2015 Commons Chamber

The Secretary of State was asked—

[Chloe Smith (Norwich North) (Con)]

1. How the new careers and enterprise company for schools will ensure that more young people are ready for working life.

[The Secretary of State for Education (Nicky Morgan)]

First, Mr Speaker, may I wish you a very happy birthday? I am sure that Members on both sides of the House wish you the same. We shall do our best to behave ourselves so that you do not have to raise your voice too early in your birthday celebrations.

It is vital to ensure that all children are inspired to reach their potential, which is why broadening young people’s access to a range of options is so important. The new employer-led careers and enterprise company I announced last month will help to broker extensive links between employers, schools and colleges, and will have the specific remit of spreading existing good practice to every part of England.

[Chloe Smith]

Happy birthday, Mr Speaker.

Will my right hon. Friend join me in calling on local firms to be involved in the new careers and enterprise company, in much the same way as they have risen to the challenge of helping me and others in Norwich to halve Norwich’s youth employment in two years?

[Nicky Morgan]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on the excellent work that she and other supporters of Norwich for Jobs have done to help more young people get that vital first step on the careers ladder and achieve their aspirations—I believe she has been awarded the “Youth Friendly Member of Parliament 2014” tag in recognition of her excellent work. As I said, the new careers company will have a crucial role in ensuring that initiatives such as those in Norwich are available to all young people across the country.

Voter Registration

Chloe Smith Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd October 2014 Westminster Hall

[Chloe Smith (Norwich North) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to take part in the debate under your chairmanship, Mr Williams, and to be the second speaker after the hon. Member for Sunderland Central (Julie Elliott), who made an extensive speech. I would invite her to Norfolk, where the climate tends to be a little drier and, occasionally, warmer, although I cannot speak for that in a week where we have all been battered by somewhat higher winds than normal.

I congratulate the hon. Lady on calling this important debate. This is an urgent and important matter for us all, and particularly for me, because, until 1 pm today, I am the secretary of the all-party group on voter registration—we have our annual general meeting at 1 pm, and I fully hope to continue being the secretary or to become another officer of the group. At our meeting, we will also have a briefing from Cabinet Office officials on individual electoral registration. I can therefore reassure hon. Members that there is great interest in this important reform programme and that it is being properly scrutinised, not only in this room, but by the all-party group. It is, indeed, also being scrutinised by many others outside this place, and I could name, among many others, Bite the Ballot or the group I met last night, who are behind the Twitter handle “It’s A Power Thing”—I am sure that you tweet every day, Mr Williams, and that when you find examples of what politics really consists of, you, too, use the hashtag ThisIsPolitics. I am confident that every one of us in the Chamber shares with such groups a passion not only for getting young people to register to vote, but for making sure that anybody and everybody can use their rightful place in the franchise.

I am sure the Minister will explain everything he is doing to ensure the greatest possible accuracy and completeness in voter registration. He will not need me to reiterate the many arguments I have made on this issue, because I have been on record many times in this Parliament as a former Minister with responsibility for the registration programme.

I am pleased to see that we have colleagues from Northern Ireland with us, and I am sure they will be able to explain further some of the lessons that have rightly been learned from a similar roll-out there.

[Chris Ruane]

I pay tribute to the non-partisan work the hon. Lady does on the all-party group—she is an excellent politician. On the lessons from Northern Ireland, the registration rate there in 2011 was 71%, which was way down. There was then a complete canvass, with door knocking, and the rate went up to 88%. Door knocking is the single most important way to improve registration, but, in 2013, 23 authorities did not door-knock. What does the hon. Lady think of that?

[Chloe Smith]

I do not disagree with the hon. Gentleman. He and I have tussled over this many times—again, in a non-partisan way. There is no call for this to be a party political question, but there is every call for us to ensure that local authorities have the tools to do what works, and I am sure the Minister will respond fully and properly to the suggestions that the hon. Member for Sunderland Central made.

On the subject of errant local authorities, the hon. Member for Vale of Clwyd (Chris Ruane) will remember that I wrote to colleagues in this place when I was a Minister, and I have done so again during my time with the all-party group, to encourage Members to hold their local authorities to account for what they and their EROs do to properly engage with those who should be registered. Members of the House have a real chance to take a proper interest in this subject—again, in a non-partisan, non-party political way—because we have every interest in ensuring that we have an accurate and complete register and, indeed, that all the tools of the trade are being used to back up the state of our politics. It will not be a matter of debate among us that politics has a bad name and continues to be the subject of declining interest among voters. That is not acceptable to any of us, and all of us, in our different ways, take a passionate interest in the issue.

[Dr William McCrea (South Antrim) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on introducing this timely debate. When she talks about people who vote, she means those who are on the register, but there is a disconnect even there. After we get those people on the register, it is difficult to get them to exercise their voting rights. However, how do we get those who are totally uninterested on the register? There certainly is a problem there. In Northern Ireland, 88% of people are on the register, but there is still a long way to go to get the proper franchise.

[Chloe Smith]

The hon. Gentleman makes a sensible point, but I am certainly not going to be able to solve the problem he raises in my comments—and nor, I suspect, will the Minister be able to. In the scenario the hon. Gentleman described, there is an element of somebody not wishing to do something, and, in the final analysis, I do not think there is a way to compel somebody to do something they do not wish to do. Before we got to that point, I would put every argument to show that their place in democracy is a hard-won right and, at times, very sensitive; and I am sure the hon. Gentleman would be able to give us many more localised reasons why that is so in Northern Ireland. I would argue that, in the grand scheme of things, it is not hard to get on the electoral register in our country. We should compare that with what happens in countries around the world, where it is still hard for people in this day and age to have their democratic voice heard. The best example, which we have seen in the newspapers only in the last month, is probably Hong Kong, where people wish to play a part in democracy. We could all take a few lessons from that back to the people we represent to further the discussion of what democracy really is about.

That allows me to move to the point I wanted to make. I want to go back to principles. I disagree with the hon. Member for Sunderland Central that we are facing disfranchisement—we are not. The people we are talking about are enfranchised and legally able to vote. We are talking not about some descent into North Korean-style practices, but about the method of getting as many people as possible, in the most accurate and complete way possible, to change from one system to another. I am no fan of large bureaucratic systems, and I would—like the Minister, I am sure—place a high value on making the programme as simple and as fast as possible for the voters concerned.

I strongly agree with the hon. Lady’s point—which unfortunately she made only in passing—that the IER programme has cross-party agreement. We do not need to go back to a hyperbolic disagreement; we are looking at the best means of achieving a shared goal. It was the right thing to do in the early days of this Parliament to remove potentially wasteful and expensive duplication in the programme by bringing it forward, and I am sure the Minister will be able to give us a full update on why he continues to think that that was the right thing to do at the time.

Let me also lay out a crucial factor in the implementation programme. There is not going to be—I say it again—some forced North Korean-style loss of participation in our democracy at this crucial time, because no elector will be removed until after the general election. Again, I shall leave it to the Minister to explain fully how he envisages that working, but it is important not to blow things out of proportion. The programme has cross-party agreement and that should continue. We should all pull together to find the best ways to get the result we want.

As to the principle behind IER, it is one of the most important final pieces in the democratic journey, made over centuries, towards a right and proper adult franchise. Among those three letters the “I” has always, for me, been important; it is right and proper for individuals to be able to exercise the right to register, and that is why I believe in the programme. Neither I nor, I am sure, the hon. Member for Sunderland Central would think it acceptable for the right of a woman to register her hard-won place in democracy to be exercised by someone else in her household; so why do we seem to be quibbling over the ability of young people, renters or single adults to take care of their affairs? We need to keep in mind the basic principle that it is right for individuals to take responsibility for their own place in democracy. We have a good democracy, in which there is a place for those people, with their names on it. It is, in the end, for them to take that up, and for us to persuade them why doing so is worth their while. It takes two to tango, of course.

There are a few short months until the general election. There is much for us all to do—in this place, together and individually—to put politics across in the best light. Parliament week will shortly be upon us, so that we will collectively be able to do that little bit more. I could name many groups where people are already encouraging their peers to vote. As I have said, I am particularly interested in encouraging young people to take their place in democracy.

[Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)]

Does the hon. Lady agree that the problem is double barrelled? It certainly is in Northern Ireland and, I am sure, in the hon. Lady’s constituency. Young people, who tend to be more mobile than older people, are less likely to register and less likely to come out and vote even when they are registered. We have a twin approach to deepening the franchise.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chloe Smith]

I could not agree more with the hon. Gentleman. He is right. We are all familiar with the statistics from the previous general election: turnout in the 18-to-24 age group was about 44%, while three quarters of those at the other end of the age scale turned out. That is the difference we are talking about; but we are also talking about an evolution that has happened in politics. The situation is not one in which young people will snap into the habit of voting when they get married and get a mortgage. If we wait for that, we will be waiting a long time, for some of the reasons that the hon. Member for Sunderland Central touched on when she spoke about housing.

However, this generation has changed the way it does politics, and actually does fantastic things through non-traditional political means—through informal politics and community politics. It is our job to make sure that formal politics meets them halfway. That is something that I will continue to speak on passionately in this place and act on outside it, and I will endeavour to open up this place to those people. I hope that today’s debate allows us to contribute a little to that process. We should all be in agreement about the value of the programme and the need to ensure that individuals’ rights to register and vote are upheld and encouraged. We should be talking merely about the best way to get people in our local authorities, and the citizens we represent, to the ballot box.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Ruane]

We did not do our job and I admit that. However, we had a plan from 2010 to 2015 to remedy that and to put the missing millions on the register in time for IER to be introduced in 2015. That plan was wrecked for party political advantage by the Conservative wing of the coalition Government.

The Electoral Commission has let us down in other ways. In the dry run for IER, the Department for Work and Pensions cross-referenced national databases with the electoral register. There was a match rate of about 82%, which it then sent to 383 local EROs. It asked them or said that if they wanted they could do local government data matching to get them from 82% to 92%. Of the 383, only 137 informed the Electoral Commission that it had done that. There may have been others, but they could not be bothered to tell the commission. It should have been firm and told those authorities that they had to take part in the dry run to iron out any difficulties ready for the live run. It did not do that.

The Electoral Commission’s plan for 2014 to 2019 covers what it hopes to achieve over the next five years. It recognised in 2014 that 7.5 million people were missing from the register in 2010. What is its aim for putting those people on the register over the next five years? The answer is zero. It has said that its aim for April 2011 was for the register to be 85.5% complete; for April 2019, the aim is that that completeness does not deteriorate. So 7.5 million names are missing now and there will be 7.5 million missing in 2019. That reminds me of a report once sent to my mum stating, “Christopher has set himself very low standards and failed to achieve them.” The Electoral Commission has failed. It set itself low standards and will fail to achieve them. It has been remiss.

When the Electoral Commission found out that the number of people missing from the register in 2010 was not 6 million but 7.5 million—that has flatlined; it is the same now—it welcomed that. It welcomed the fact that there had been no improvement in the registration rate. It had flatlined and had not increased, and the commission thought that was an achievement. It has set itself low standards. It is not only happy that 7.5 million people will be kept off the register for the next five years, but it has introduced restrictions on the handling of postal votes. It says that political parties cannot be trusted to go out and ask people whether they want a postal vote and to send it off when it has been filled in. It refers to electoral postal vote fraud, but there has been only one case of that in 10 years.

The Electoral Commission is not happy with just doing that. It is proposing that when people go to the polling station in 2019, they will have to show photo ID. That has been done in America, in right-wing Republican states—there is a perfect mirroring between Republican and Democrat states in America in terms of those that have and have not introduced photo ID. The independent Electoral Commission in this country is proposing that we copy those Republican states. It is an outrage. There has been one successful prosecution for electoral registration fraud in 10 years.

There are big issues out there. The prediction, as my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland Central outlined, is that there will be an additional 5.5 million people missing off the register as a result of IER. The hon. Member for Norwich North is right that they will be protected for the general election. There will be a carry-over from household registration to individual registration, and we thank the Government for that—I think they were forced into it by the Lib Dems and others—but the next big date is the freeze date for the Boundary Commission, for the next boundary review, which is December 1 2015. If there is no carry-over for those 5.5 million people and for the 7 million people already off the register, 13 million or perhaps 14 million people will drop off it before the boundary review freeze date of 1 December 2015.

[Chloe Smith]

I want to draw the hon. Gentleman back a little. He is correct about the December 2015 date, but does he think that those voters then go to a Siberia of democracy? Does he not think that they still have the right to register if they wish to?

[Chris Ruane]

Absolutely, and those black voters in the southern states of America had the right to go and register but they did not. We know that people have not registered and that more will fall off, and we know that we can take steps to encourage more to fall off or to stop people from falling off. I think the coalition Government are quite happy with the situation. I think it is deliberate, given the time scale, the bringing things forward by one year and the lifestyle choice that they considered. It all points in the same direction: that they wanted maximum political benefit from the constitutional changes that they were introducing.

I shall finish my speech as I started it. If we have 11 million people not voting and 7.5 million people—perhaps 14 million people—not on the register, we will not be serving democracy in the mother of Parliaments.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Evans (Islwyn) (Lab/Co-op)]

Thank you for calling me, Mr Williams. I think I only have four minutes, so I will throw away the magnum opus speech that I was going to give and just make a few points that I think were covered by my hon. Friends the Members for Vale of Clwyd (Chris Ruane) and for Sunderland Central (Julie Elliott) in two outstanding, passionate speeches.

My key point is that the introduction of voter registration, as we have seen, is so important. As my hon. Friend the Member for Vale of Clwyd wrote in Progress magazine, we could return to electoral registration rates like those of Alabama in the 1950s. We saw the situation in Florida in 2000, with the famous Bush versus Gore presidential election, where there was widespread belief that people were missing out on a democratic duty.

[Chloe Smith]

On that point, I intervene extremely briefly to ask the hon. Gentleman whether he is implying that he thinks I am racist, as I think his hon. Friend, the hon. Member for Vale of Clwyd, was doing?

[Chris Evans]

No, I do not think I said that. If I implied that, I apologise. I do not think the hon. Lady is racist.

Oral Answers to Questions

Chloe Smith Excerpts

Thursday 16th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Vaizey]

I am delighted to tell the hon. Gentleman that our rural superfast broadband project is going extremely well, and we should have reached 90% of the country by the beginning of 2016, but broadband is already, in effect, universally available to 99% of the population.

[Chloe Smith (Norwich North) (Con)]

The Minister received East Anglia’s digital divide proposal on rural mobile and broadband, including a request for Norwich to be made a super-connected city. Will he update East Anglia on his consideration of that?

[Mr Vaizey]

We had an extremely good meeting with my hon. Friend and her East Anglian colleagues, and we are looking carefully at the proposals they made. Norfolk, Suffolk and many other counties in East Anglia are great examples of counties that do not just sit back but take the lead and come up with interesting initiatives and proposals.

Infant Class Sizes

Chloe Smith Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Chloe Smith (Norwich North) (Con)]

Thank you for calling me, Mr Deputy Speaker. I, too, had expected that my colleague would be present to seek to catch your eye; I am sure he will be on his way back to the Chamber in a matter of seconds.

It is the right time of year to begin my comments by wishing well all those children who are starting their schooling this week or very soon, and starting, in some cases, in an entirely new school. For both parents and children it can be a daunting time of year. I also wish very well all those slightly older students who picked up results this summer, and I am sure, Mr Deputy Speaker, you would join me in that, as I am confident do those on the Government Front Bench.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Yes, I certainly would.

[Chloe Smith]

Quite right, Mr Deputy Speaker.

Parts of Norwich North have a rising birth rate, and therefore, as a local MP, I have already been active on this problem on my constituents’ behalf for some time, and have been working with schools, parents and the local authority to look into what needs to be done. I welcomed, therefore, the increase in funding for school places—£33 million for Norfolk school places in particular. Dare I say it, that is a better figure than for our neighbouring county, Suffolk, and for Cambridgeshire. But of course I welcome that increased funding for Norfolk because it is in keeping with what this Government have done to put right the inequalities in funding that Labour left behind.

Labour did not do well in Norfolk. It did not help schools there to beat the bulge. As we have heard many times today, Labour is the party that cut 200,000 primary school places in the middle of a baby boom. That had an impact on Norfolk. Labour is the party that failed to adjust the funding formula in a way that would be fair to rural counties and would have been fairer to my constituency. We, in government, have done those things and I congratulate those on the Front Bench on doing so.

As I said, I have worked with infant and junior schools in the north city area of my constituency over several years on the issue of planning sensibly for the local bulge in births. I welcome the fact that councils now have a three-year allocation of funding for the first time. I welcome the foresight that comes with that type of decision. It allows Norfolk county council, like any other education authority, to plan ahead and to ensure that every child has a school place. I urge my local authority to continue doing that planning. Only this week I contacted the local authority to highlight the fact that the latest information that I have received from Norfolk county council shows that 17 of the 25 infant, junior or primary schools listed in my constituency are forecast to exceed their current capacity.

We could turn that sentence several ways around. We could talk about “forecast to exceed their current capacity” or we could talk about the schools needing to provide more places for local children. The Government have put the funding in place for that to happen and I welcome that greatly. I think it stands in stark contrast to the attitude of those Labour Members who lost sight of what their own Government did, cutting 200,000 primary school places in the middle of a baby boom while letting immigration soar. It stands in great contrast to the actions of that party in failing to give Norfolk a fair funding formula. I also think, for what it is worth, that it stands in great contrast to what some Members, notably the right hon. Member for Salford and Eccles (Hazel Blears), seem to think of Norfolk, and I suspect that my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Ben Gummer) agrees with me. We were dumbfounded to hear the right hon. Lady, who is not in her place—perhaps she is in another television studio, saying the same thing right now, actually—

[Tristram Hunt]

Who told you to say this?

[Chloe Smith]

The right hon. Lady has been out on the airwaves repeatedly this week, suggesting that Norfolk, in the form of Norwich, and Suffolk, in the form of Ipswich, ought to be some kind of dumping ground for the rest of the country. I do not think that is a respectful or constructive attitude to my constituency or that of my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich.

That is what Labour appears to think of Norwich and Norfolk. It also appears to think—

[Kevin Brennan]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Chloe Smith]

Of course; I would be delighted. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman could tell us what he thinks of Norfolk.

[Kevin Brennan]

I think Norfolk is delightful. Can the hon. Lady confirm, for the record, that she told my right hon. Friend the Member for Salford and Eccles (Hazel Blears) that she was going to mention her views in the course of the debate, to give her the opportunity, if she so wished, to come to the Chamber and to put her side of the case? That is the normal courtesy?

[Chloe Smith]

My hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich and I have discussed the matter with the right hon. Member for Salford and Eccles. Perhaps Labour Front-Bench Members would like to accord colleagues the same courtesy in the endless visits they will now be making around the country, as they always do. I distinctly remember making a point of order in this place five years ago, when a member of the then Labour Government failed to accord me the due courtesy of telling me that they were going to visit my constituency.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

It is up to the hon. Lady whether she wishes to answer, but it is normal courtesy to let an hon. Member know if you are going to mention them or their constituency.

[Chloe Smith]

I welcome your guidance, as always, Mr Deputy Speaker. In this case I shall be happy to go and address the matter directly with the right hon. Member for Salford and Eccles. Her comments are, of course, already a matter of public record, having been repeated on various media outlets this week.

I come back to the current Labour party and its views on parents, parental choice and free schools. It does not accept that parents want better for their children. It does not accept that parents want the security of the best possible education they can find for their children. I do not think that it accepts that we ought to have higher ambition for many of our children. Data released in June show that Norwich, my city, has been the worst city in England for GCSE results. That is a shocking statement—

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

Order. The debate title is “Infant Class Sizes”. I have been very lenient and allowed some latitude, but that does not mean that we can concentrate on GCSE results. [Interruption.] Order. Mr Fuller, you should know better than to point while I am in the middle of giving good advice. Let us keep the debate to the subject of infant class sizes, and I will allow some latitude, but not too much.

[Chloe Smith]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I welcome your advice. The topics are linked because they relate to what a local authority can do for the children under its care, and I am coming to the subject of Norfolk county council. Labour Members laugh. They should be ashamed to the depths of their souls to be heard laughing at the children of Norfolk. The hon. Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan) should come to Norfolk. No doubt he would campaign against me if he did, but he would have to justify laughing at the point that I am trying to make, which is that over half of Norwich 16-year-olds recently left school without five GCSEs at grades A* to C including English and Maths. Perhaps he laughs at the future that awaits them; perhaps he laughs at the idea that those are not only figures but real people; perhaps he laughs at the idea that those people may now struggle to gain a job and that some of them may not be able to read, write, add or function very well. That is all extremely serious.

This is about the ambition that we have for our children. It is about how we manage the school system to allow for that ambition. All those children are being let down if we say that low ambition is acceptable.

[Toby Perkins]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Chloe Smith]

Does the hon. Gentleman have ambition for Norfolk’s children?

[Toby Perkins]

I am very interested in the topic that the hon. Lady is talking about. She is obviously very concerned about the education of children in Norfolk. What would she say to the parents of the 283 extra children now being taught in classes of more than 30 in Norfolk under this Government? What would she say to them about their educational chances, because they are being failed by this Government, are they not?

[Chloe Smith]

I would say that they are looking for respect in this debate. They are looking for honesty and for figures to be used responsibly. They are looking for a Government who are putting right the messes of the previous Government. The hon. Gentleman stood up to make the preceding speech, for which I thank him—of course, I should have observed that courtesy at the beginning of my comments—and I thank him for reminding us what schools were like in the years following 1997. I sat in a classroom of more than 30 pupils when I was at school, in a Norfolk comprehensive, so I have personal experience, should the hon. Gentleman wish to hear it, of having been at school under Tony Blair. You are about to remind me, Mr Deputy Speaker, to return to the subject of infant class sizes.

[Ben Gummer (Ipswich) (Con)]

My hon. Friend was an infant.

[Chloe Smith]

At one time I was an infant. I shall now return to the point in hand.

We need to set out high ambition for our children from infant school through to the point where our young people emerge into the world. I want children to be told about the stars and to be taught how to get there. I want them to be well educated and equipped with a passport to the world of work after that. I want them to be an asset to their city and their family and to themselves. I want to see our local authority continuing to pull its act together, which it has done in recent years in Norfolk, and I want to see our local authority continuing to apply those high educational standards.

I will continue to work with that authority to ensure that the funding being made available by this Government benefits Norwich and Norfolk children in their infant school experience. I do that because I believe in peace of mind for parents. I believe they deserve the security of a decent and ambitious education for their children. We owe those children and their parents honesty and a responsible approach to their money and their choice. It is the same old Labour party; on the last count, it would spend the same money 12 times over. It is dishonest to do so. It is also disrespectful to knock the choice of hundreds of my constituents who attend free schools in Norwich. The Labour party does not understand parental choice and does not understand good quality. It does not understand the taxpayers or their money. It has no plan on this point.

To sum up, I am backing those parents in Norwich. They want that peace of mind for their children’s schooling. We have made that funding available to put right the Labour party’s wrongs in culling 200,000 school places at the height of the baby boom. This is intensely relevant to Norwich. I want to see this put right for the constituents whom I represent and I want to see those constituents served well, with a better tone of debate than we have seen at times this afternoon.

Child Care

Chloe Smith Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd April 2014 Westminster Hall

[Chloe Smith (Norwich North) (Con)]

Child care is a crucial issue for many working families around Norwich, and I am grateful for the opportunity to raise it. I have been talking to a lot of mums, dads, nurseries and pre-schools in Norwich, and I would like to express on their behalf some of their concerns about the quality and affordability of child care. The Under-Secretary of State for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss) has been absolutely right to say in the past that a changing economy means that parents need affordable and available child care more than ever, and that, at the same time, a changing world means that children need a rigorous and rounded education more than ever. I agree with her that we have the opportunity to do both at once.

I would like to put the issue in context. Let us not forget the tax and benefit changes that are coming into effect this very week—the biggest changes in a generation—which will create more jobs and get more people off welfare and into work. Child care naturally follows from parents going out to work, so it is crucial to see it in the context of the whole economy. It is also clear this week that only by sticking to a long-term economic plan will we build a more resilient economy that provides a more financially secure future for families. We cannot look at the cost of living in isolation, and there can be no economic or household security if the public finances are not under control.

I want to look briefly at the Asda income tracker—the Mumdex—which was published this week. In February, the average UK household had £169 of discretionary income a week, up by £5 a week, year on year, and interestingly representing the fastest growth in family spending power since November 2012. That was the fifth month in a row that families had seen their household incomes rise—a rise boosted by a fall in the price of petrol, which is 5% lower than in the same month last year, easing the pressure on household finances. I do not cite those figures to try to explain that everything is currently easy for parents and families, because we all know that it is not, but it is important to note that things are slowly improving. Such improvements in family finances can, of course, come about only with the control of the public finances, and through the serious decisions that a Government can take, and that this Government have taken, about what to spend hard-earned taxes on.

I am particularly pleased that the Chancellor has put public money towards the tax-free child care scheme outlined in the Budget, because it stands to ease costs for families even further. I am also pleased that the scheme will be bigger and faster than first outlined, and glad that it will particularly help families who face the real squeeze—basic rate taxpayers who often find that the cost of child care outweighs the financial benefits of both parents working.

[Caroline Dinenage (Gosport) (Con)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising such an important issue. I am one of the few MPs who had two children in child care during the days of the last Labour Government, and I watched as my child care costs spiralled. I am disgusted that no Opposition Members are present to hear what my hon. Friend has to say. Does she agree that the Government’s support for child care will bring much-needed respite and help to working parents who struggled desperately with the added bureaucracy and cost of child care under the previous Government?

[Chloe Smith]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I am very interested to hear about her personal experience. I agree with her, and think that the Government’s support for child care will give families greater stability and flexibility, so that they can make choices about what best suits their family picture. I know that the Minister is passionate about that.

In response to my hon. Friend, I would like to refer to a constituent, Mr C, who told me:

“I’m now on 10k a year, at 39 years of age. My wife, an amazing mother, has to stay at home to look after two of our children, as we cannot afford the child care or would be worse off if my wife went to work”.

I have obviously spoken to that constituent about the changes that will be coming in with universal credit, for example, which I think will help with his wife’s choices about going out to work. Also, the personal allowance will rise to £10,500 from April 2015. Based on the figures he cited, my constituent may be one of the 400 people in Norwich North who will be taken out of tax entirely. He will certainly be one of the more than 38,000 people in my constituency who will benefit from our tax changes overall. On top of that, it may just be that he and his wife would benefit from the tax-free child care scheme, if she chose to work.

I also welcome the targeted provision of taxpayer-funded child care for families on the lowest incomes. We began with all three and four-year-olds receiving 15 hours a week of free child care, and have gone on to target the offer at the 240,000 poorest two-year-olds. However, the provision to spend taxpayers’ money in that way is nothing if people do not know about it. I am therefore keen to use today’s debate to call on Norwich parents, as well as others around the country, to take up what they are now entitled to by law.

In Education questions last week, my hon. Friend the Minister confirmed to me that 1,537 two-year-olds in our shared county of Norfolk are now enrolled in the programme. I am pleased to see that number of families on lower incomes making the most of the help available once their child turns two, but I think that the number actually represents fewer than half of the eligible children in our county, according to the figures published when the Minister first made the announcement. Will she confirm, either today or perhaps by letter later, whether that is one of the lowest percentages of target met by a local authority in the east of England? That appears to be suggested by table seven on page 20 of the Family and Childcare Trust’s 2014 survey, so I would be interested to know whether that is indeed the case in our shared county of Norfolk. In any case, I strongly urge Norwich families to take up the taxpayer funding that has been put aside, and say to constituents that if they are not sure whether they are eligible, they should please check the county council website, because that funding is there to help them.

Turning to issues of quality, I want to be absolutely clear that I want more great child care available for children, just as my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport (Caroline Dinenage) has described, and I want to be able to provide more choice and flexibility for parents. I want it to be easier for new providers to enter the market and for good existing providers to expand, because that brings consequent benefits in both affordability and quality. My hon. Friend the Minister has previously given the example of countries such as France and Germany, which have excellent systems for comparable amounts of Government spending, while paying staff good salaries and keeping costs affordable for parents. For me, those are the crucial things that we want British child care to achieve for parents and children.

I would like to give some examples. My hon. Friend the Minister and I recently visited Magdalen Gates pre-school in north Norwich, which has been rated “good” by Ofsted and also won multiple awards. Staff there would like to expand, but they are concerned about the sheer scale of the project of extending a building. As child carers, they do not feel that that is an area in which they have expertise, but as they are on an enclosed city site, it is one of the few things that they could do to provide more places. Will the Minister explain what she is doing to set such sites free from bureaucracy? Will she also lay out what she expects from local authorities—or, indeed, from local educational chains—in terms of sharing services to help parents more?

A second example is the Acorn playgroup in Thorpe St Andrew in Norwich, which is rated “outstanding” by Ofsted. Staff there are also greatly interested in running more places for two-year-olds under the scheme I have discussed, but they are concerned about the pressure of having two-year-olds through to four-and-a-half-year-olds in the same limited physical space. Will the Minister explain how she expects good settings to be able to deal with such concerns in the short term?

My third example is another nursery school in my constituency that is rated “good”, the Once Upon A Time nursery. Staff there raised with me the point that, inevitably, the rate paid for the free provision—it is of course paid for by taxpayers and is free only at the point of use—differs from the market rate. Other settings have also expressed concern about that, and I am sure that the issue is not unknown to the Minister.

Another outstanding local setting, the Montessori group, raised a parallel point with me. It finds it hard to cater for 15 hours of sessions, provided for free, to three and four-year-olds, even though it believes that it is crucial to provide quality full-time child care. Its problem is the combination of, as it were, part-time and full-time children. Will the Minister explain how she thinks a good setting should be able to deal, in a mixed market, with issues about the rate and—to use a horrible word, but I suspect the right one for the problem—sessionality?

Another example comes again from Magdalen Gates pre-school. It told us about the importance of language skills in early years. That is certainly one reason to value good-quality early years provision, because it can help children to develop social skills and vocabulary. Evidence suggests that once an attainment gap opens up, it is incredibly hard to close it in later life. I think all of us Government Members share a passion for helping people to move to where they wish to go in life. By the time they start school, poorer children are already behind and are somewhat trapped. They can be up to a full 18 months behind their richer peers in vocabulary development. That is just not good enough for those of us who believe that life is about where one wants to go, not where one started from.

The Minister confirmed to me last week in the Chamber that there has been a 25% increase in enrolment in higher-quality early years training. Will she explain a bit more about what that entails? How can people in my constituency apply to be part of that as a great career? That is an incredibly important message that we might be able to send out today.

My final example comes from Hellesdon Community pre-school, another outstanding setting in my constituency. This relates to the thorny question of committee-run pre-schools, which is well known to the Minister. Does she have any advice for my constituents in such settings, who would like to encourage more volunteers to be part of the committee, to provide the great-quality child care that we are all looking for?

I will draw my comments to a close, because I want to hear from the Minister on those points. I am grateful for having had the chance to raise some cases from my constituency. I have made a great effort to survey all the child care settings in my constituency, and I am expecting a deluge of more data that I can pass on to the Minister, who I know shares my passion for getting better child care, and more of it, at a price that parents can afford.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Elizabeth Truss)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich North (Chloe Smith) for her detailed analysis of child care in her constituency. I congratulate her on the work she has been doing with parents and nurseries to get under the skin of the issues they face. She has identified a number of issues that the Government are working on to make life easier for both high-quality child care providers and parents.

My hon. Friend was absolutely right to open her speech by talking about the dual significance of child care and early education. First, it is important to ensure that children get the best start in life. We know that, at the moment, children from low-income backgrounds begin school 18 months behind in terms of language and vocabulary skills. It is hard for those young children to catch up during their school career. High-quality early education can make a difference. All the evidence suggests that high-quality teachers who help children to develop things such as sentence structure and vocabulary through songs, stories and nursery rhymes and by using other techniques such as counting bricks can make a difference. They will help to close our educational gap.

Secondly, child care is important to support working parents. In the majority of families across OECD countries, both parents go out to work; it has become an economic necessity. However, we do not have to compromise on quality to get affordability; we can achieve both. That is what the Government are working on.

My hon. Friend asked a question about the programme for two-year-olds in Norfolk. The issue might be about the eligibility that is coming onstream this September: 3,600 children in Norfolk will be eligible for the places available currently. The proportion of children in Norfolk taking up places is a high 92%. I understand that the Family and Childcare Trust survey was conducted last autumn, so those data are less recent. I will write to my hon. Friend to confirm the data and their source so that she can have all the information. It would be useful to obtain Norwich city’s data if we can, but as she knows, they are held by Norfolk county council. We will see what we can do.

My hon. Friend the Member for Gosport (Caroline Dinenage) made some interesting points about affordability. I, too, struggled, with the affordability of child care, as I know many parents do. We have seen rising costs. Under the previous Government, child care costs rose by 50% as they piled more and more red tape on providers, but it was all about ticking boxes and not necessarily about getting better outcomes for children.

I am pleased to say that, after 12 years of rising prices, we saw a drop in prices, after taking inflation into account, for the first time in England this year. That is in contrast to Scotland and Wales. If we look at a nursery place for over-twos, English prices did not go up—in fact, they fell in real terms—whereas prices went up by 8% in Scotland and by 13% in Wales. The Government have taken action to make it easier for high-quality providers to expand. Previously, providers had to jump through hoops from both local authorities and Ofsted. Now, we have said that Ofsted is the sole arbiter of quality, and if someone is a good-quality provider, they are able to open new premises on that basis.

We have also got rid of planning restrictions, so nurseries now have the same planning freedoms as schools. They may convert commercial premises into nurseries without having to obtain planning permission. I have spoken to a lot of nursery owners who are pleased about that new freedom, which means that good-quality nursery chains can expand. We are also funding high-quality child minders, so good and outstanding child minders can automatically offer two, three and four-year-old places. Previously, only 1% of places were with child minders, so the change should enable a big increase in the number of such places.

My hon. Friend the Member for Norwich North made some interesting points about Magdalen Gates pre-school, and I was delighted to visit that high-quality nursery. I was struck by the fact that the nursery is on the same site as a school and by what could be done to use the facilities and resources in the school better, working with the local council. One of the things that we are keen to see is teaching schools reach down the age range and collaborate with private and voluntary-sector nurseries. Schools and private nurseries are developing expertise in how to offer flexible sessions to parents and high-quality early years education. In that particular case, there is a strong incentive for better collaboration with the school and the local council to see how the facilities can be used. The Government fund local councils to give capital grants to increase the number of two-year-old places.

We have also made it easier for school nurseries to open from 8 am to 6 pm. At the moment, 25% of places in Norfolk are in school nurseries. The figure is higher across the rest of the country; a third of all places are in school nurseries which, typically are open only from 9 am to 3 pm. However, if they were open from 8 am to 6 pm, that would enable providers to offer the 15 hours in more flexible allocations. Rather than three hours over five days, they could offer five hours over three days, which works much better with a part-time job.

Our feedback to the provider mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich North is that providers are able to charge parents for additional hours. They can come up with different packages. For example, I visited an innovative nursery in the north-west that offers a three hours-plus package, where children get three hours three mornings a week, then they get lunch for £1.40 extra, which is affordable for many parents on low incomes, and which means that the child is getting a high-quality lunch of, in this case, Lancashire pasties and homemade pastry, which I tried myself.

There are all kinds of innovative things that providers can do. We have case studies and models that we can send to my hon. Friend and nurseries in her constituency about how to schedule and roster services, and how they can offer parents different packages that suit their lifestyle. The days when every parent was able to drop their child off at nine and pick them up at 12 are pretty much over. That model does not fit with a lot of parents’ lifestyles and we need to make things easier for them.

School-age children—the over-fives—also need child care. There is a very good example in the constituency next door to my hon. Friend’s constituency. Free School Norwich offers a package of care for parents from 8am to 6pm, with an excellent after-school club—the Squirrels club. Again, that is an example of collaboration between the school and the private sector nursery, because the private sector nursery provides the nursery nurses to staff the after-school club as part of their roster. It is all about getting better use of the really excellent buildings and facilities we have, using them more flexibly so that parents can benefit from them, and ensuring that there is high-quality training of staff.

We are also piloting the extension of School Direct to early years teaching, so that high-quality nurseries can train staff, including early years teachers and early years apprentices, as part of their programme. Expert practitioners in nurseries and school nurseries are leading the training of the next generation of staff.

My hon. Friend asked me about early years teachers. It is absolutely true that we have seen a 25% increase in the number of early years teachers being trained this year. We have set higher standards, which seems to have attracted more applicants. Next year, we will introduce the full early years educator qualification, for which students need a C in English and maths, and we are offering a bursary for an apprenticeship in that area worth £3,000. School nurseries and private sector nurseries should be aware that they can hire really high-quality people. Once they have been in the position for three months, those people can receive a bursary, which again will help to train up highly qualified staff.

My hon. Friend asked if there is extra advice for schools that are taking two-year-olds. Again, a pilot programme has been running with an evaluation. There are 49 schools participating, and we are learning a lot of lessons from what schools have told us about how two-year-olds fit in with three and four-year-olds in nurseries, including the best way of organising and staffing such nurseries, and the best way to offer parents flexibility. I am very happy to send her that data, so that she can discuss with local schools and nurseries in her constituency the findings of that programme.

We shall soon introduce in primary legislation a measure under which school nurseries will no longer have to register separately with Ofsted to take two-year-olds. As I have mentioned, the communication and language benefits of teacher-led care are very high, and we want more schools to provide that care. In fact, academies and free schools are able to open nurseries as well as local authority-maintained schools. Where there is the capacity in schools, that is a good opportunity, and as I have said, there is an opportunity to collaborate with local private sector providers too. We do not want a Berlin wall, as it were, between private sector providers and school nurseries. They are both trying to do the same job, which is achieving really good outcomes for children, and they can learn from each other.

I will give my hon. Friend an excellent example of child care that I saw when I was in Warrington last week. The Evelyn Street pre-school takes children from the age of two on a free programme. The parents of some of those children pay for extra hours; some do not. The pre-school also takes three and four-year-olds. It opens from 8am to 6pm, to suit working parents. It is led by a high-quality teacher with an apprentice training up as an assistant, so it really does all the things I have talked about, and it also offers child care at a very affordable price for parents in the north-west. Some of the evidence that we have received shows that the child care it provides is two thirds cheaper than the average market price for child care, so it is possible to have really high-quality teacher-led care with an affordable price tag. That is an important message to send out.

My hon. Friend also discussed the work that the Government have done to extend tax-free child care, which is now up to £2,000 per child. That is a major extension of the scheme. The previous scheme—the childcare voucher scheme—was open to only a fifth of employees. Now, if someone is on a low income, they will be able to access child care through tax credits or universal credit. If someone is on a mid to high income, they will be able to access child care through tax-free child care, whether they are self-employed, working part-time or working full-time; it does not depend on their employer being part of the scheme. That is a much more widely available scheme. It will be easy to use; people can apply for it on the internet and the money is paid directly to child care providers.

My hon. Friend mentioned the issue of funding. We have had a historical issue, similar to the issue with schools, whereby different local authorities have been funded on a different basis. We want to sort that issue out in the longer term; I have made a commitment to do so. One thing that we have done is to ensure that local authorities are passing as much as possible of the money they receive to the front line, because that money will help to pay for high-quality staff, high-quality materials and high-quality facilities in those nurseries. One of the advantages of slimlining the inspection regime and making Ofsted the sole arbiter of quality is that more money can be used by local authorities, which can put it straight through to the front line rather than using it to duplicate the work that Ofsted is doing.

We have just announced the early years pupil premium, which we will soon consult on. It is worth £50 million, and it will go on a per-head basis to the most deprived children aged three and four. If nurseries focus on those two-year-olds who are going up through the system they will receive extra financial support on a per-head basis. That might address some of the funding issues that my hon. Friend raised.

This has been a helpful debate.

[Chloe Smith]

Before the Minister concludes, would she comment on the point about volunteers in community settings?

[Dr William McCrea (in the Chair)]

Before the Minister responds, I gently say to her that for her complete speech I have been looking at her back, and that would not necessarily be acceptable to the Speaker or another Chair. The microphone is trying to catch her remarks as well, so it would be helpful if she looked this way.

Oral Answers to Questions

Chloe Smith Excerpts

Monday 24th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Matthew Hancock]

Funnily enough, I do not agree with that one, Mr Speaker. The number of full apprenticeships—those longer than a year—has more than doubled for under-19s. In 2010, a 17-year-old could claim that they had an apprenticeship when they had a three or six-month programme. We do not think that is a proper apprenticeship. Funnily enough, nor does the Labour party policy review, so perhaps the hon. Lady should talk to some of her colleagues.

[Chloe Smith (Norwich North) (Con)]

8. What estimate he has made of the take-up of free child care for two-year-olds in Norwich.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Elizabeth Truss)]

It was a pleasure to visit the Magdalen Gates pre-school with my hon. Friend and see Norwich two-year-olds benefiting from our programme. I am pleased to tell her that 1,537 children in Norfolk are now part of that programme. Across the country, by the end of February we had more than 100,000 two-year-olds in the programme, which represents 77% of available places.

[Chloe Smith]

I welcome those numbers and all the recent announcements on child care because they give parents choice and support. I welcome—as, I know, does my hon. Friend—good-quality early-years education, because it can help children develop social skills and vocabulary, as we heard at that pre-school. What is the Minister doing to raise quality for all the children we have just heard about?

[Elizabeth Truss]

I thank my hon. Friend for her question, and I congratulate Paula Watts and her team in Norwich on their excellent work. We have seen a 25% increase this year in the number of people enrolling to be early-years teachers, which I think shows the level of confidence in our programme. Those trainee teachers have to pass the same skills tests in English and Maths as primary school teachers, and we know that children, particularly those from low-income families, benefit from high-quality teacher-led provision at that age, which can help them close the gap with their richer counterparts.

Oral Answers to Questions

Chloe Smith Excerpts

Monday 10th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Laws]

My hon. Friend rightly says that it would be a positive development if we were to have a royal college of teaching. Our Department is willing to play a constructive role in any discussions about the functions of such a body, which would particularly be in respect of professional development for teachers. We do not believe it would be right for our Department to seek to run such an organisation; we would want it to be independent of the Department for Education, but we are willing to do all we can to support such an initiative.

[Chloe Smith (Norwich North) (Con)]

14. What steps he is taking to improve support for young carers.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Mr Edward Timpson)]

On 8 October, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education issued a written ministerial statement announcing an amendment to the Children and Families Bill. For the first time, all young carers will have the right to an assessment of their needs for support, as part of the consideration of the needs of the whole family. This amendment will help achieve our aim of protecting young people from excessive or inappropriate caring roles.

[Chloe Smith]

I very much welcome those measures in the Children and Families Bill. I will meet Norfolk Young Carers Forum next week to, “Get it right in education”, as the forum puts it. These young carers tell me that there needs to be more awareness of young carers at schools and colleges, and in the workplace. What message would the Minister send the NYCF?

[Mr Timpson]

I commend my hon. Friend for taking up the challenge on behalf of young carers in her constituency. I know they have been particularly active in helping to design and commission many of the services across the country for young carers. To help raise awareness and to encourage good practice in schools, we are working with the Children’s Society and the Carers Trust to provide teachers with the tools—the training and guidance—they need to recognise and support young carers as early as possible.

Oral Answers to Questions

Chloe Smith Excerpts

Monday 6th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

I assure the hon. Lady that we are in fact increasing spending on early intervention and child care across the country. We have increased early intervention spending from £2.1 billion to £2.5 billion, and we are increasing the funding for two, three and four-year-olds as well. The reality is that under this Government the costs of child care have stabilised, whereas under the previous Government they went up by over £1,000 a year.

[Chloe Smith (Norwich North) (Con)]

I welcome my hon. Friend’s urgent drive to ensure that parents get the places to which their children are entitled. I welcome it in Norfolk, where £33 million is allocated for more school places. I also welcome it in terms of child care, for which 500 more two-year-olds in my constituency will be eligible. Will she join me in getting more information to parents on how they can access that flexibly?

[Elizabeth Truss]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend. We are keen that school nurseries, which typically operate two sessions a day, do it more flexibly to help to support working parents so that they can take up three five-hour slots a week that may fit in with their part-time jobs. At the moment, too many school assets are empty between the hours of 3 pm and 6 pm or before school. We can use them better and get better value for money.

Small Businesses

Chloe Smith Excerpts

Thursday 28th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Chloe Smith (Norwich North) (Con)]

I think that this is my first opportunity to congratulate you on taking the Chair, Madam Deputy Speaker. I also congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Newton Abbot (Anne Marie Morris) on securing the debate and all those who supported her at the Backbench Business Committee. To pick up on just one of the points that she made, I agree about the difficulties that are presented by the VAT threshold, which I saw recently in the case of a meals on wheels business that serves my constituents. It is just about to hit the threshold, but its customers are ill-equipped to deal with a hike in prices.

Like my hon. Friend, I look forward to celebrating small business Saturday in my constituency. I also look forward to a discussion that will take place shortly at Norwich business school, whose advisory board I sit on, about how such business schools can be anchor institutions for the small firms in their surrounding area.

In the report, “Growing Your Business”, Lord Young of Graffham drew out just how much more there is to do to open up public procurement to small and medium-sized firms. My hon. Friend the Member for Newton Abbot mentioned the Cabinet Office at the end of her comprehensive list, and I am sure that she would join me in congratulating the Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General on his work to give 25% of Government business to small and medium-sized enterprises. Surprisingly, it is often forgotten that the Government buy large quantities of goods and services on behalf of taxpayers, and there is no reason why small and medium-sized businesses should not take pride of place in that marketplace.

[Andrew Bingham (High Peak) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that small businesses find it difficult to deal with Government agencies because they are presented with a bewildering array of things such as pre-qualification questionnaires? Small and micro-businesses do not have a huge army of staff to deal with such nonsense, which increases costs not only for business, but for the Government, because they could have bought what they needed cheaper from a small business in the first place.

[Chloe Smith]

My hon. Friend could not have made a better intervention because I was pleased to be able to contribute to solving that exact problem when I was a Cabinet Office Minister.

Given a few tools, we can all do much more in our constituencies, and Lord Young is continuing to work on that issue in association with my hon. Friend the Minister for Skills and Enterprise. We must encourage small and medium-sized firms to use Contracts Finder, on which they will find a clear record of all available Government contracts. We should urge local authorities and others to put their contracts on that portal to allow the operation of a comprehensive marketplace.

We should also encourage constituency businesses to use the mystery shopper scheme that the Cabinet Office has introduced, which will help to solve the problem raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Newton Abbot. When small businesses that seek simply to get on and do business encounter poor practice or communication from the public sector, they need a way to solve the problem. The mystery shopper scheme does exactly that, and also gives us a chance to do more to encourage public authorities—whether local government, health, police or fire services, or any similar service—to do more to make their procurement SME-friendly.

Small firms can encounter many problems such as the prevalence of pre-qualification questionnaires and late payment. A care company in my constituency deals with customers who are particularly vulnerable, and tragic havoc can be wrought if a health body makes a late payment to such a company. The motion rightly calls on local government to do its part, and I suggest that better procurement forms an important part of that.

[Mark Pawsey]

My hon. Friend mentioned pre-qualification questionnaires. Once a small business has managed to jump through the hoops demanded by one authority, should not that be good enough for another authority? Perhaps we should have some form of qualification certificate.

[Chloe Smith]

That is my view. To the best of my knowledge, the Government are bringing forward proposals to put in place exactly that, which I support wholeheartedly, having started that work some months ago.

The motion refers to red tape, but again there is no way to solve that problem except through a methodical approach. I applaud the opening provided by the mystery shopper service to which I referred as it allows us to be methodical by making a list of things that have gone wrong and solving them one by one. That is the only approach that will work for regulatory problems. We must hear from small firms that regulations have served ill, and then we can go about solving the problems. I always say as a constituency MP that I cannot attempt to help a constituent to solve something if I do not know the detail of what the problem is.

Like many others, I am sure, I encourage firms to use the red tape challenge that the Government have rightly set up, and I welcome the results of the initiative so far. To date, more than 3,500 regulations have been identified for reform, saving businesses more than £215 million per year. That is worth doing, and I am sure that the Minister will update the House about how we can extend that approach to European regulatory burdens. On behalf of my constituency businesses, I care very much about that issue.

In the remaining two minutes available, I will conclude by talking about recruitment, which is crucial for small and medium-sized firms. Of course we all want such businesses to become larger firms, if that is their ambition, but to do so they need great people to become their employees. I run a large campaign in my constituency called Norwich for Jobs, which does what it says on the tin. It seeks to create more jobs in Norwich, especially for those aged 18 to 24, and we aim to halve youth unemployment in Norwich in two years. I am pleased that local firms have responded to the call and that more than 800 jobs and apprenticeships have been pledged to the campaign. Although the campaign has been going for only 10 months, 400 young people have been helped into work so far. I want to ensure that small firms have pride of place in that campaign. I will soon run an event with the Federation of Small Businesses and a sister campaign called Swarm. We will consider how to encourage small businesses into such operations, and help them to find the talent they need among local young people. That not only helps the community and young people, but places small businesses in control of their recruitment.

I hail the £2,000 reduction in national insurance that is coming forward in the shape of the enterprise allowance, which will be important for cutting small firms’ jobs tax from Easter next year. I also note the success of start-up loans. So far there have been about 30 of them in Norwich, and 10,000 nationally, which is to be welcomed as it is all to the good of small businesses.