Child Care

Debate between Harriett Baldwin and Elizabeth Truss

Tuesday 19th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

I thank the hon. Lady for her points. I will deal specifically with childminders later and I will respond to her point then.

Labour also had a voucher scheme, but only one fifth of parents could use it—only those whose employers offered it, and only those who were in employment rather than self-employed. There was no limit on income, unlike tax-free child care, so millionaires got it, but the self-employed did not. That was Labour’s legacy on child care—a massive waste of money, added complexity and a huge spreading of confusion.

[Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)]

It was even more unhelpful than that, as my employer offered the child care voucher scheme, but because it was so tightly regulated, even though I was spending a fortune on child care, I was not able to use it.

[Elizabeth Truss]

I thank my hon. Friend for that point, which illustrates the problem with the child care voucher system.

Let me further point out to Labour Members that in the ’80s and ’90s, when we had a working mother in charge of our country, England was ahead in respect of maternal employment, but we fell behind other countries such as France and Germany under Labour’s watch. Maternal employment rates are rapidly rising under this Government. As Edmund Burke pointed out—the shadow Education Secretary is clearly a big fan—“those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it”, and if he has not learnt the lessons that people in the previous Labour Government learnt at the time, he will fail, should he ever get the opportunity to be in office. That is why we are reforming the child care system: we are reforming the hopeless legacy that Labour left.

The signs are that what we are doing is working. We are seeing prices stabilising, more places being made available in school nurseries and a revival in childminding. We want parents to have a good choice of options, including nurseries, schools, childminders and children staying at home with parents, or a combination of those. We are introducing much simpler funding and creating a regulatory structure to support modern working parents.

We are determined to reverse the decline in the number of childminders. From this September, good and outstanding childminders will be able automatically to access funding for early education places for two, three and four-year-olds. That means that an additional 28,000 childminders will automatically be funded. I think that addresses the point raised by the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier) about ensuring high-quality childminding.

Child-care Ratios

Debate between Harriett Baldwin and Elizabeth Truss

Thursday 9th May 2013 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

I have already outlined what our plans are; we announced them in our “More great childcare” proposal. Our plans have the support of Sir Michael Wilshaw, the chief inspector, who commented on them in a recent speech. He has accepted the principle of higher-qualified staff having more professional autonomy. Andreas Schleicher of the OECD also supports our plans. Of course opinion is divided within the British academic establishment, as it is on many education issues. I would point out to the hon. Gentleman however that these policies are alive and well in France, Ireland, Holland and Germany. There is not a single country, including Scotland, where the ratios as are low as they are here in England. Furthermore, he has not come up with any response on what he plans to do about the appallingly low wages in the child care sector or the high levels of staff turnover, or with any ideas about how he is going to reduce costs. Is this another spending commitment that he is pledging when his party has already pledged many more spending commitments than it has the money to pay for?

[Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)]

I am so pleased that the Minister is looking at ways to bring down the cost of child care for hard-working families. In her consultation, did she hear from the childminder who has four children who stay until 1 o’clock but who, because of these very inflexible regulations, has to say no the parent who wants to drop off an additional child at 12.30?

[Elizabeth Truss]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. Many childminders—I recently held a round table meeting with them—told me that they welcome the additional flexibility that they will have under our rules. They also welcome the increased level of trust that we are placing in child care professionals. Rather than dictating from Whitehall what they should be doing, we have a strong inspection regime, we are recruiting new Her Majesty’s inspectors into the sector and we are giving more professional responsibility to people on the ground.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Harriett Baldwin and Elizabeth Truss

Monday 4th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question, but all the international evidence from EPPE— the Effective Provision of Pre-School Education—to the OECD “Starting Strong” survey indicates a strong relationship between the qualifications people have, the quality of the child care provision and the outcomes for the children. I think there should be some flexibility in the system, however, so we can get high-quality people and improve vocational training and apprenticeships. I suggest that the hon. Gentleman respond to the consultation on precisely the point he raised.

[Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)]

Many people, including the shadow Education Secretary, have praised the Scandinavian approach to child care. Will the Minister confirm that in Sweden and Denmark there is no mandatory national child care ratio at all?

[Elizabeth Truss]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right that there are no national ratios. Indeed, in parts of Sweden, no ratios at all are set for some nurseries. What the Swedes do is to rely on high-quality professionals exercising their professional judgment in the particular setting. That is the system we want to move to here. It is backed by the OECD and by Sir Michael Wilshaw of Ofsted, so I suggest the Opposition back it as well.

A-level Reform

Debate between Harriett Baldwin and Elizabeth Truss

Wednesday 23rd January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)]

There are current alternatives to the A-level: the IB or international baccalaureate and the pre-U, which is being offered by a significantly increasing number of state and private schools. Does that not demonstrate that out there in the marketplace there is diminishing confidence in the A-level as a qualification?

[Elizabeth Truss]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. It also indicates increasing competition. We are competing not just with other institutions in this country, but in the global marketplace with organisations and institutions that are developing new ideas and new qualifications all the time. There is also the online world, through which many of those things are going to become available. We need to make sure that our qualifications are keeping up at the highest level. My real fear is that if independent and other schools move towards the pre-U and our A-levels do not keep up, we really will damage social mobility.

Finance (No. 4) Bill

Debate between Harriett Baldwin and Elizabeth Truss

Wednesday 18th April 2012 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

It was the highest income tax rate in the G20. We heard earlier from the Opposition spokesman that Labour did not understand the effect that that would have on our international competitiveness, which shows why it is not fit for office.

[Harriett Baldwin]

Did my hon. Friend share my shock at hearing the Opposition Front-Bench spokesman arguing that the sensitivity of the top rate of tax is static? The logic of that argument is that the top rate should be 75p, 80p, 90p or, perhaps, even 100%.

[Elizabeth Truss]

Yes, and perhaps some Opposition Front-Bench Members should move to France, where they might find that such policies are more conducive to their way of thinking.

At this time of increased international competition and great movements of people and capital around the world, and with new economies rising such as in India and China, according to the World Economic Forum Britain is 94th in the world in respect of the effect and extent of our taxation. One factor in that is the top rate of tax under the previous Government, and another is the extremely long tax code, which is a result of their meddling with our tax system over many years.

The UK is 11% less productive than the G7 average, and our skills base is lower than that of the US, France and Germany. If we are to become competitive again and improve our productivity and skills, we need incentives for people in this country to work and to invest in their skills, and we need to rebalance the tax system away from income tax and taxes on work such as national insurance, which the previous Government increased. We also need to reform our education and welfare systems and take the 2 million lowest earners out of tax, in order to give everybody more incentive to work. We must also merge our income tax and national insurance system to make things simpler for employers. We need to get rid of the previous Government’s flagship 50p tax rate as well, as it has done so much damage to people in this country who are seeking to work, to invest and to be part of building our future economy.

The Government have made it clear that we want shareholders to have proper control over executive pay in their companies, and that must happen. People must be rewarded in line with the skills they use, the risks they take and the income they generate. We need incentives for people to set up businesses, and to create and produce more. We also need to look outside Britain and see what the rest of the world is doing. We need to move away from the myopic approach that it does not matter what is going on elsewhere. If our country takes that approach, we will not succeed.