Child Care

Fiona Bruce Excerpts

Tuesday 19th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)]

All parents want the best for their child’s early years. They want a safe, stimulating and secure environment, an environment that provides the best possible foundation for the child’s future success at school and in life. I do not think we should forget that, for many parents, that means early years at home with mother or father; but for many others who, like me, are working full or part time, it means relying on child care. What we all want is the best-quality child care, which will promote the best possible development for our children in those early years. It is not just parents who are committed to that; the Government are absolutely committed to supporting families by providing quality child care, to meeting the costs of that care, and, importantly, to meeting parents’ need for flexible child care choices in an era of increasingly flexible work.

I speak from considerable experience. During my working life, I have probably accessed every possible type of child care: a small private nursery, a pre-school nursery attached to my son’s state school, a childminder, family support, after-school clubs and breakfast clubs—and dad helped. I received wonderful support from friends, neighbours, and families whom I knew from church. However, I knew what it took to make that work for my children: it took an enormous amount of co-ordination. Without the network of support that I was fortunate enough to have, many families struggle. That is why it is so important for us to give as much support as we can to families and parents who want to work.

[Fiona Mactaggart]

One of the sources of that kind of family support, which a quarter of families depend on, is grannies or grandparents. I am sad that we have not heard in this debate about how we are going to help working grandmothers cope. There was a study by a building society a couple of years ago which pointed out that grandparents save the taxpayer about £4,000 a year through every piece of child care they offer.

[Fiona Bruce]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right, and we should pay tribute to grandparents. I was very fortunate in having four wonderful grandparents without whom I could not have developed the business I did develop in those early years, when I could not have afforded the quality of child care that I could, perhaps, have afforded in later years. It is important that we strengthen family life, and I will come on to talk about some of the initiatives we need to put in place to support family life more widely. Many people cannot access that in their locality, however.

[Harriett Baldwin]

I am sure my hon. Friend will support this Government’s extension of the right to request to all employees, so that, for example, the grandparents the hon. Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart) referred to are able to take time off, perhaps for child care responsibilities.

[Fiona Bruce]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making that point because I was going to discuss the extensive provision that this Government are promoting for flexible working. As an employer, I have been able to accommodate some of the flexibility young mothers need, even when they perhaps just want to start work at 9.15 rather than 9. That can make an enormous difference to family life by enabling there to be good care and a good start to the day for very young children.

I was very fortunate that when my two boys were young we had a wonderful childminder, who is still very much a friend of the family. They still refer to her as “Auntie Pam.” Auntie Pam cared for my boys for two days a week. It is a tragedy that between 1996 and 2010 under the previous Government the number of childminders —the number of auntie Pams—dropped from 103,000 to 57,000. This Government are addressing that.

[Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that this Government’s policy of introducing childminder agencies will enable better support to be given to childminders, so many of whom say they left the industry because of the burden of regulation and the lack of support for their profession?

[Fiona Bruce]

That is absolutely right, and I am glad to have this chance to put on record that it is a profession that deserves respect. Many childminders do not want the burdens of having to set up and run their own business. They do not want to have the burdens of complying with regulations and training requirements; they simply want to care for children. Let us release them and set them free to do that by supporting this new initiative of childminder agencies that the Government are setting up.

[Meg Hillier]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Fiona Bruce]

I am going to make some progress now; I have taken several interventions.

The Government’s childminder agency initiative is an excellent step, not least because it will mean that families will have a local resource that they can access to find a childminder they can have confidence in—a childminder who has been through the appropriate training, and who is from an agency that they know is maintaining proper standards. The agencies will also provide for occasions when the childminder falls ill, which can cause a great deal of stress to parents; there will be additional cover to provide someone else at short notice when they need that.

The Government’s provisions to build up the number of childminders should be supported, therefore, and the agencies will also help to promote take-up of Government funding for two to four-year-olds. At present fewer than 10% of childminders are funded through Government funding. I am sure that a lot of early-year place provision is being missed out as a result of that.

I support the Government’s proposals. They will enable childminders to concentrate on delivering high-quality education and care, which is what they want to do, and not be driven out of their profession simply because they do not want to face the regulations and red tape they have had to deal with until now. They will be able to benchmark themselves against the highest standards. They will be able to access the new framework of training and support and ongoing improvement, and concentrate on giving the best provision to families.

We should remind ourselves of the support that the Government are giving families in meeting the costs of child care. Some 70% of the child care costs of those on tax credits are covered by the Government and an additional £200 million of support for lower-income families will be available within universal credit from April 2016, to take the proportion to 85%. Parents of all three and four-year-olds can access free child care. As we have heard, the Government have increased early education for three and four-year-olds from 12.5 hours a week to 15 hours a week so that what amounted to 475 hours a year of free child care in September 2010 now increases to 570 hours a year. I certainly would have greatly appreciated that when my boys were younger.

The Government are extending the offer of 15 hours a week of early education to two-year-olds from low-income families, which will benefit about 260,000 two-year-olds from September 2014, costing £760 million a year by the end of this Parliament. Just four weeks into this Government’s scheme that offers free child care to the most disadvantaged two-year-olds, 92,000 children are already benefiting, which is a huge increase on the 20,000 two-year-olds who accessed early education in 2010. Looking at share of GDP, this Government are spending £5 billion on early-years child care and are spending more than 40% above the OECD average on child care for children under three.

The early-intervention grant replaces a number of centrally directed grants in supporting services for children and young people and families. It has allowed local authorities greater flexibility and freedom at the local level. I want to highlight some of the ways the local authorities in my area have used that funding to support a wide range of services for children, young people and families. There is targeted mental health support for young children through the charity Visyon in my constituency, of which I am a patron, and additional support is being given for fostering and adoption—and I pay tribute to the Under-Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mr Timpson), my constituency neighbour, who has done excellent work in increasing take-up in Cheshire. There is also the funding for such projects as Let’s Stick Together run by Care For The Family.

[Andrea Leadsom]

Does my hon. Friend agree that it is so much better that the money that was previously ring-fenced for individual projects can now be used on proper early-years intervention?

[Fiona Bruce]

I do, because the key to all this is flexibility and choice, and that is what this Government are providing. They are providing flexibility in the way that money is used and flexibility and choice for parents in deciding how to care for their children.

[John Woodcock (Barrow and Furness) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to follow that at times very personal speech from the hon. Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce), but I want to pick up on one thing she said, which I think caused a little concern on the Opposition Benches. She talked about regulation of childminders in a way that gave us—and people watching on television, I suspect—the impression that all such regulation is a bad thing. Surely she is not suggesting that, for example, CRB checks should not be done. I caution Members on the Government Benches about the language they sometimes use in talking about regulation, as it can give a wholly misleading impression.

[Fiona Bruce]

Speaking as someone who has started and who runs a small business, I can tell the hon. Gentleman that it is often extremely difficult to know what the regulations are. The fear of non-compliance can deter many people from starting a business in the first place. The agencies will give childminders reassurance that they are complying with the regulations. That is the big difference.

[John Woodcock]

I thank the hon. Lady for that intervention. I am sure that everyone on both sides of the House agrees on the need to cut unnecessary regulation, but I stand by the point I made.

It is a pleasure for me to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester South (Jonathan Ashworth), who marked his return to the House with an impassioned speech. The increased relaxation that being in the House of Commons can provide to someone who is the father of two very young children has immediately given him a boost, and he brought that into his speech today.

When the cost of child care rockets, something has to give. For some, it is the opportunity to work, but those mums and dads who choose to stay in work try hard to ensure that they are the ones who bear the brunt of the cuts. They often stop going out, and they hold off from buying things for themselves that, in happier times, they would not think twice about buying. I should like Members to listen to one of the testimonies given to the Furness Poverty Commission, a body that I set up to look into the increasing deprivation in Barrow-in-Furness. A 34-year-old mother from my constituency told the commissioners that she was

“constantly worrying if the bills are all going to be paid, sometimes not having money for food, not ever being able to afford to get away anywhere, not being able to afford to secure your home, broken locks, no insurance…having to sell things to afford Christmas and not to be able to afford heating.”

Stories such as hers are all too common in Furness and right across the country.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to speak in the debate, and to follow the hon. Member for Barrow and Furness (John Woodcock). It is also a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Leicester South (Jonathan Ashworth), who gave us the great news that his wife had recently given birth to a beautiful daughter.

It was also interesting to listen to the beginning of the debate. I thought that the Under-Secretary of State for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss) was able to truss up like a turkey the shadow Education Secretary, the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt), by putting up a good defence of the Government’s record and exposing the issues involved. [Hon. Members: “Oh!”] I can assure the House that the jokes do not get better than that.

Of course, child care is an issue not only for mothers; both parents should and do play a full role in the care of their children. They, and people without children, such as me, recognise that access to good quality child care is key. We should also celebrate the fact that more women are working than ever before.

[Fiona Bruce]

Should we not also honour and celebrate those mothers who decide to stay at home throughout their children’s childhoods and commit to caring for them personally?

[Dr Coffey]

I fully recognise that, too. What matters is that we should be allowing people to choose what they do. It is right to say that we should not condemn people who decide not to work in an external job and to focus their time on caring for their children at home.

The Minister referred to a number of cases where there has been concern about statistics being bandied about. Everyone in this House, however, would agree that one of the worst situations for a parent is when they need emergency child care, as occurs when teachers go on strike and parents are left trying to get time off work. It would be welcome if Labour Members condemned the decision of teaching unions to go on strike at irregular intervals, so that we can make sure that children are in school. The Minister referred to the fact that we are starting to remove red tape, so no longer will schools have to have a separate Ofsted registration when they cater for children under three years of age—that is to be welcomed. We are also dealing with aspects of planning and other requirements that restrict schools and deter them from facilitating child care provision outside the core school hours. It is important that we make it as straightforward as possible for existing school buildings to be used, be it by the school or not. I understand the wraparound guarantee to which the Opposition refer but, as has been pointed out, no extra funding is being provided for that—indeed, Opposition Members suggest that the funding has already been built into the formula grant.

One thing that does matter is having extra flexibility and choice. I also appreciate the commendation made by Ministers to ensure that schools do not just keep contracting their opening hours, as that, too, causes problems for parents trying to juggle work with getting their children to school. Some schools in my constituency have tried to do that and were still not listening after a consultation. Fortunately, however, when I sent them their communications from the Secretary of State, they realised that they should, of course, be considering the wider issues for working families. So I am glad that in the particular school I am thinking about the decision was reversed by the governing body.

Let me deal with other aspects of removing red tape or increasing the number of places. My hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) eloquently referred to the issue of childminder agencies, which will be introduced. That is a good innovation to allow more people to put themselves forward to offer child care, and that is very welcome. In addition, childminders who are rated “good” and “outstanding” will be able to be funded directly from Government, as opposed to the money being routed through the local council. That is a good step forward and, again, it removes the administration or other extra bureaucracy that stops government funding —we must remember that more than £5 billion is being spent by this Government on early years education and child care.