Free Childcare

Emma Hardy Excerpts

Monday 9th March 2020 Westminster Hall

[Emma Hardy (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell), the Chair of the Petitions Committee, on brilliantly articulating the problems that families face in deciding when to start a family; the costs involved, including the 5% increase in childcare costs in one year, which is concerning and incredibly shocking; and the impact on women and the gender pay gap. I look forward to the Committee’s future debates and its work under her brilliant chairmanship.

I welcome the comments of the hon. Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (David Simmonds) and agree that those additional costs are not often initially considered when discussing free childcare. I particularly note his concern about the adequate provision for children with special educational needs and disabilities, which is an issue up and down the country. As someone has who worked in children’s nurseries, I congratulate him on his two youngsters being at nursery. I have first-hand experience of how delightful, curious and playful they are at that age, and I am sure that he is kept busy when is he at home in his constituency.

I also thank the nearly 150,000 people who signed the petition and, by doing so, brought this important debate to Parliament. How best to provide for children in the first two years of life and to support their parents to work is an issue that we should debate far more often and take far more seriously, if we are to tackle inequality in our society. It is a shame that today’s debate unfortunately clashed with the urgent question on coronavirus; I am sure many more Members would be present if that was not the case.

Sir Michael Marmot described the early years of a child’s life as the time when inequalities have the greatest impact on their life chances, and when interventions to disrupt those inequalities make the biggest difference. All the evidence shows that the foundations for a child’s future prospects are laid in the critical 1,000 days between conception and the age of two. A report last year by the Health Committee argued that:

“Investing in the early years is the best investment any government can make”.

As my hon. Friend said, the poorest children in this country are already 11 months behind when they start school. As a former infant teacher, it was something I saw at first hand.

Over 4 million children live in poverty—an increase on 10 years ago. Sir Michael’s report on health inequalities, published this month, showed that we have gone backwards in key measures of early development as a result of policy choices in the past decade. It is not just young children who have been let down by this failure; entire families are struggling to cope with the lack of support available for the early years. According to the OECD, we have the second most expensive childcare system in the world. Extortionate childcare costs force parents who want to spend more time with their children to work long hours away from home, and they force mothers who want to work to have to stay at home.

In 2018, there were 870,000 mothers who wanted to work but could not for financial reasons. Research conducted last week by Pregnant Then Screwed, which is an inspiring organisation that campaigns for mothers who are unfairly treated, found that just over a third of those who return to work say their earnings are either completely used on childcare, or do not cover the cost of it. Previous research by Pregnant Then Screwed found that 62% of parents work fewer hours as a result of high childcare costs. Report after report has shown that by increasing female employment and ending the penalties on women for returning to work, we could boost GDP by billions of pounds. However, economic benefit is not the main reason we should do this; the overwhelming evidence should give us pause for thought about why it is not happening already.

On providing support for families in the first two years of a child’s life, we are clearly getting things badly wrong. It is our job to debate the solutions and put the situation right, and we already know some of the solutions. Improving education, health and family support services for all young children and their families, and bringing them under one roof, dramatically improves the outcomes for children and takes pressure off struggling parents. That is exactly what the last Labour Government did with Sure Start. By 2009, there were over 3,500 Sure Start children’s centres providing support to families, which transformed lives. According to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, it saved the NHS millions of pounds. Since then, we have lost over 1,000 children’s centres, and spending on such services has fallen by over 60%.

There is also the issue of maternity pay. At the moment, mothers are allowed to take only a year off work after having a child, and they only receive statutory pay for the first nine months. I was proud to stand at the last general election on a manifesto that promised to extend maternity pay for a full year and to double paternity leave. From many of the comments shared on social media ahead of the debate, I know that the low level of maternity pay can cause huge problems. Employers should see the statutory maternity pay as a starting point rather than the maximum amount, and we need to consider encouraging employers to view it in that way.

Flexible working is also crucial for supporting families with young children. There are excellent companies and organisations such as Transport for London, which is leading the way on flexible working, but the share of people working flexibly increased by just 4% from 2005 to 2017, and we still have a long way to go. A right to flexible working in large companies would give thousands of mothers who want to work the opportunity to do so, and we should legislate for that as soon as possible.

However, early years funding is the key to the challenges we face, for two reasons. First, the amount of money that childcare providers receive from the Government has a direct impact on how much childcare they can offer, and at what cost. The annual survey by Coram Family and Childcare, published earlier this month, showed that average childcare costs for children under two surged twice as fast as inflation this year. It also found a postcode lottery in the quality and availability of childcare, with just over half of local authorities having enough places.

We know that childcare costs are particularly high in London and the south-east, but they are also very high in the place where I live—up in the north, in Hull. We can see that from the number of people who signed the petition right across the UK. In fact, nearly 500 people in my constituency signed it. The crisis of childcare costs affects the whole country, which is why it is important to give parents access to affordable, subsidised childcare rates outside their free childcare entitlement, and to end the needless complexities and fragmentation of the current system by funding providers directly.

The second reason why early years funding is so important is its impact on the workforce. The Marmot review argued that a highly educated, well-paid childcare workforce is essential in order to tackle health education inequality. Under this Government, however, early years staff suffered a real-terms pay cut of nearly 5% between 2013 and 2018, and nearly half of childcare workers currently claim universal credit.

We know that low pay is driving childcare workers out of the sector, and research published last week by Ceeda showed that staff shortages in nurseries are forcing them to offer fewer childcare places, depriving children of education and making it harder for parents to work. That particularly affects younger children, who require more restrictive adult-to-child ratios in childcare settings, which is why we are committed to tackling the early years recruitment crisis, with national pay scales, better career progression and a minimum wage of at least £10 an hour. If we accept that caring for young children is important, we should accept that people need to be paid properly to do the job. The UK spends just 0.1% of GDP on early childhood education and care, compared with the OECD average of 0.7%. We have all seen the consequences of that appalling choice in our constituencies, and it is time the Government started to invest in the early years.

I turn now to the specific policy suggested by the petition: giving 15 hours of free childcare to working parents with children aged between nine months and two years. Labour’s manifesto pledge was to extend childcare provision for one-year-olds, in addition to offering 30 free hours of childcare for two, three and four-year-olds. We should continue to debate how we can better support parents of one-year-olds. As neither the UK, Scottish nor Welsh Governments are extending free childcare entitlement to under-twos, the debate should be relevant not only to English MPs; it should be about debating as a United Kingdom how we can support such children.

We need to look at childcare provision holistically. The Conservatives have shown that better outcomes for children and parents cannot be achieved just by expanding free childcare entitlements, especially if they are not funded properly. Almost all childcare providers in England are experiencing financial difficulties as a result of the Conservatives providing 30 free hours at a time when early years has been so badly underfunded by the Government. In fact, the hon. Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner highlighted some of the additional costs that parents have to meet from their own pockets.

Many childcare providers choose not to offer the full free entitlements because of the financial hit in doing so. We on the Labour Front Bench support the expansion of free childcare entitlements, but it has to go hand in hand with sufficient funding. The all-party parliamentary group for childcare and early education found a £63 million shortfall in the funding given to childcare providers. As a result of the shortfall, many have closed and many more face closure. Research has shown that providers in deprived areas are twice as likely to close as those in affluent areas. Indeed, a report from the Education Committee—I was a member when we wrote it—found that the Government’s approach to free childcare was

“entrenching inequality rather than closing the gap”.

That is from a cross-party Committee with a Conservative Chair. This is not about party politics, but about supporting young children. Whatever approach we take, we must avoid such outcomes at all costs.

We must address important questions about childcare provision for under-twos, and I want to ask the Minister a few questions. First, ahead of the Budget on Wednesday, what representations has she made to the Chancellor about increasing early years funding? Secondly, what steps is she taking to tackle the unaffordability of childcare, particularly for parents with children under two, and to address the variation in availability and quality? Thirdly, how does the Minister plan to tackle the recruitment crisis in the early years workforce and improve staff qualifications so that we can provide more and better quality childcare?

We must all do more to give our children the best start in life and to support mothers who want to go back to work. I hope that we can all work together to find solutions to the important question raised by the petition.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Vicky Ford)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies. I thank the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell) for opening this important debate, and I congratulate her on her new role as Chair of the Petitions Committee. I also congratulate Harley Cuthbert on starting the petition, which has sparked so much interest. In my remarks, I will address the issues that hon. Members have raised.

The debate is most timely and allows me the opportunity to set out clearly the Government’s position on childcare and our commitment to helping working families with accessible, affordable, high-quality childcare. As the new Under-Secretary of State with responsibility for children and families, I thank all who work in the early years sector and who dedicate their time, effort and skills to providing high-quality early years education and childcare. They all do an excellent job in helping our youngest children to learn and grow. That is essential to those children’s development and to ensuring that they are ready for school.

A child’s early years are a crucial time for their development. We are already doing more than any previous Government to ensure that as many families as possible can access high-quality and affordable childcare. The good news is that that work has made a difference not only for families but, crucially, for children. The latest early years foundation stage profile results show that the proportion of all children achieving a good level of development is improving year on year, with 72%—nearly three out of every four children—achieving a good level of development in 2019, compared with 52%, or one in two, in 2013. There has been some discussion of the attainment gap. Since 2013, the attainment gap between children who are in receipt of free school meals and their peers has narrowed, in terms of outcomes at the age of five. The difference in their attainment of a good level of development was 17.8 percentage points in 2019, compared with 19 in 2013.

[Emma Hardy]

I am sure that the Minister is as aware as I am of the report published last year that showed that the attainment gap, having started to narrow, has now widened and that, on our current trajectory, we will not reduce the gap until at least 2050.

--- Later in debate ---

[Catherine McKinnell]

Thank you, Mr Davies. This has been a wide-ranging debate. We had the opportunity to put on the record a range of concerns and to consider the range of measures that successive Governments have put in place to try to tackle this issue. The one point I must make is that, clearly, this is not job done. The petition would not have been signed by 146,000 people if families out there felt that their childcare requirements were already being met and they were able to pay for it.

[Emma Hardy]

I want to correct something I said in my intervention on the Minister. The report I mentioned was by the Education Policy Institute, which found that the attainment gap had widened by 0.6%. I said that that gap would not be closed until 2050, but the report shows that it will take well over 100 years for the disadvantage gap in maths and English to close. I just wanted to clarify that.

[Catherine McKinnell]

I thank my hon. Friend for that clarification, which very much goes to my point that this is nowhere near job done.

I congratulate the Minister on her appointment to what I agree is a vital part of Government. I hope it will be central to the Government’s offer, so that, by the end of this Parliament—I hope we can assume that that will be in 2024—families are better placed to pursue their careers and to ensure that their children are well cared for, happy and educated, and arrive at school on a more equal footing.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (David Simmonds) on his first speech in Westminster Hall. My first speech in Westminster Hall was back in 2010 in a debate on volcanic ash. I do not wish to diminish the importance of that crisis at the time—Newcastle airport is in my constituency—but I must say that his contribution was vital and will be of long-standing importance to the work of this Parliament.

Clearly, this is a complex issue to which there is no one solution. There are important elements for families, children, social mobility, wider society, our economy, our productivity and our gender equality, and for the progress we must make as a country on all those fronts. I welcome any support for childcare that the Government can offer, but they must recognise that the support available at the moment is not sufficient. In too many cases, it does not keep pace with inflation. People are working harder and feel ever more squeezed and compromised when it comes to meeting the costs of childcare and making choices for their families and their careers.

I thank the petitioners—Harley, who started the petition, and the 146,000 people who signed it—for bringing this issue to Parliament’s attention and ensuring that the Government are tasked with considering not only what has been done to date but what more they can do, in particular to support families who feel a bit squeezed between the support available for very low-income families and the support that many more affluent families are able to take advantage of.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered e-petition 255237 relating to the provision of free childcare.