Childcare and Early Years

Fleur Anderson Excerpts

Wednesday 8th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Fleur Anderson (Putney) (Lab)]

It is an honour to be speaking in this debate on International Women’s Day. I cannot think of a place I would rather be, and I cannot think of an issue I would rather be speaking on. I thank the hon. Member for Worcester (Mr Walker) for calling for this debate and for his earlier speech. Like other Members, I agreed with much of it. I am glad that the Education Committee is holding an inquiry into early years, and I look forward to the results.

As a mother of four, I know at first hand the stress and anxiety that children’s early years cause parents—as well as all the joy that comes with those years. That stress is mostly caused by the cost of childcare. As has been mentioned by many Members in this debate, flexibility of options for childcare and early years education is vital. During the years of caring for young children, I was helped in being able to go to work, or to stay at home, by childminders, my sister-in-law, state-maintained nurseries, an au pair at different times, staying at home sometimes, going part-time, being a member of a job share at other times and then being full-time. There were different options that I needed throughout that time. On this International Women’s Day, I wish to thank the early years educators, the childminders, those who work in our children’s centres and family hubs, the au pairs, the nannies, the grandparents, the relatives and the mothers who enable us to live our best lives.

The reality is that soaring childcare costs are compounding the cost of living crisis, which is putting increased pressure on families and pricing others out of parenting—literally stopping many couples from becoming parents. This affects women the most. Women are paying the price of the failure of our current system in reduced earnings, in cutting back on careers, and, in the long term, in their pensions.

Last Saturday, when I was out knocking on doors in my constituency, I met a man who said to me, “I am glad you are here,”—that is always a very reassuring thing to hear. “I have just heard that I am about to become a dad,” he said. “Congratulations,” I replied. “That is fantastic news.” But he went on to say, “Unfortunately, that means that I will have to move out of Putney.” That really broke my heart. He was so concerned about childcare costs which, combined with the very high house prices and housing costs in south-west London, would force him to move out of our community. He was also really worried about ever having another child. These costs are really affecting people’s choices.

One constituent wrote to me a couple of weeks ago. She said:

“My child attends a nursery in Wandsworth on a full-time basis. This is the cheapest nursery that we could find within a 30-minute walk of our home. My husband and I are ambitious and we consider ourselves to have good jobs and earn good salaries. We would love to grow our family. However, due to the cost of childcare, and despite being careful with our money over the years and earning above-average salaries, we literally can’t afford it.”

She went on to outline why:

“Five days a week of childcare costs us £2,174 per month. This is the cheapest nursery that we could find within a 30-minute walk of our house. This comes to more than £26,000 per year, which we pay from our after-tax salaries. This works out to about the same amount as our mortgage. We do not have parents or family who live nearby and can offer us help with childcare, meaning that we are left with the following options. Number one, I quit my job and look after both kids at home. That would be very bad for my career, our finances, and my mental well-being. Number two, we move to another country. Number three, we do not have a second child.”

How has it to come to this? No mother, no parent, should have to face such a heart-breaking and disempowering set of choices, but when we look back at the Conservative Government’s record, it is easy to see how that has happened. Missing from this debate so far have been the areas that could have made things so different. Different choices over the past 13 years could have made all the difference. Spending on early education and childcare is less than 0.1% of GDP, which is the second lowest investment in OECD countries. More than 5,000 childcare providers closed between August 2021 and 2022—something that many Members said would happen at the beginning of covid if urgent steps were not taken on funding for those childcare providers. The cost of a full-time nursery place for a child under two has risen by about £1,500 over the past five years. Knowingly underfunding the 15 and 30 hours childcare entitlements by more than £2 an hour has forced providers to cross-subsidise, leading to astronomical costs being passed on to parents.

The cost of after-school clubs has risen by £800 a year since 2010, with parents in England paying out an average cost of £2,537 for after-school clubs last year, which is an eye-watering amount, or choosing not to provide extra support for their children in the form of music education, sports and all of those other additional, but essential, parts of a child’s education. More than half of parents who use either formal or informal childcare are saying that they have had to reduce the number of hours they work due to childcare costs or availability: 76% of mothers who pay for childcare say that it no longer makes financial sense for them to work—just like my constituents—and one in four parents who use formal childcare say that the cost is now more than three quarters of their take-home pay. An estimated 1.7 million were women prevented from taking on more hours of paid work due to childcare issues, resulting in up to £28.2 billion of economic output being lost every year. The Government have now announced that they have dropped their plans to expand childcare support. I hope to hear the opposite from the Minister when she rises to answer this debate.

As the Women’s Budget Group has said, the early education and childcare system in England is not working for children, for parents, for childcare workers, for childcare educators or for the wider economy. It is letting down children at a crucial stage of their development, and it is letting down women and parents. The absence of flexible, affordable and quality early education and childcare is a huge barrier to positive child outcomes, to tackling inequality, to increasing women’s employment and to social mobility. The lack of access to high-quality early years education can leave disadvantaged children behind before they have even started school, and require expensive interventions in the future. Every contributor to this debate has underlined how investment in early years and childcare provides very high value for money. It is essential for economic growth and for tackling the unemployment and underemployment issues that face our country at the moment.

Research from the Women’s Budget Group has found that around two-fifths of the total attainment gap between 16-year-olds from the most deprived fifth of families and those from the least deprived fifth of families is already present at the age of five. It is essential that we invest in our early years for the long-term, so that there are opportunities for our young people to thrive.

Cuts in childcare and early years funding for children centres in Wandsworth, compounded by the impact of covid, have had a real impact on children starting school. I have heard that from all of the headteachers of primary schools in my area. I thought that the impact of covid would be felt most by those in, say, year six of primary school going on to secondary school, but schools are reporting that the impact is being felt in nursery school and year one. What has been hit has been the readiness for school. Children are starting school with a significant communication delay and behavioural issues. That is also being felt throughout the school as well. Even more early years support is needed to catch up from covid. We need a modern childcare system from the end of parental leave to the end of primary school.

Other countries have been able to tackle these problems, supporting parents to work and children to thrive, and showing us that it does not need to be this way here. Labour is doing its homework, looking across the world, from Estonia to Australia to Ireland, so that we can learn from the best, building a system that works for families, not constrained by the Conservatives’ so-called free hours approach. We are the party that revolutionised early years with Sure Start centres. I spent many years working in a community centre overlooking a closed Sure Start centre, and it broke my heart every day. I am glad to see family hopes returning, but I am heartbroken about the 13 missing years in which we could have been building on Labour’s excellent legacy of Sure Start centres, which really were proven to work.

As the first step along the road back to good early years support and childcare support across the years of primary school, Labour will deliver breakfast clubs in every primary school in England, as well as plans to allow councils to open more maintained nurseries. I am glad that state-maintained nurseries have already been raised in this debate; I have an excellent one in my borough of Wandsworth—Eastwood Nursery School—and I have campaigned with others, including the late and much-missed Jack Dromey, for our state-maintained nurseries.

In 2010, there were 428 state-maintained nurseries, and really we should have been increasing that number, but now there are only 389 left in the UK. They are a real jewel in our early years provision, providing not only excellent standards of early years education and special educational needs provision, but training for all other nurseries in the area. However, the headteacher at Eastwood Nursery School has said:

“The quality of what we can offer is in real jeopardy if our funding is reduced. We are fearful that the much-needed service we provide to the children of a very deprived community is at great risk if we do not have the secure funding to continue our work.”

That multi-year funding is essential for those state-maintained nurseries. She also said:

“Nurseries will simply not be able to continue at the current rates. Closures of early-years settings across the country will deepen both financial and educational inequalities, while slowing the recovery from the pandemic.”

I hope to hear from the Minister what specific additional support will be given to state maintained nurseries.

I will end by echoing the Early Years Alliance in its summary of the current situation of childcare and early years:

“The sector has reached breaking point. It is vital, therefore the government commits to adequate long-term funding for the early years in this month’s Spring Budget. Anything less will not only seal the fate of the sector, but will also make it even more challenging for families to access the high-quality and affordable care and education they need.”