Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Heidi Alexander and Elizabeth Truss

Monday 16th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

My hon. Friend is right that the local authorities have that data from the DWP. Furthermore, they have a role in promoting high-quality places. For example, we are giving school nurseries, through the small business, enterprise and employment Bill, the ability to offer places to two-year-olds. Local authorities have the ability to encourage their local schools to offer those places.

[Heidi Alexander (Lewisham East) (Lab)]

19. New analysis released by my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell) today shows that two thirds of councils do not have access to good-quality places for the most disadvantaged two-year-olds. I asked the Minister about this in Westminster Hall in March, but we know that some families and children are still missing out. What guarantee will the Minister give me that all two-year-olds who are entitled to a good-quality place in Lewisham and across the whole of England this September have access to them?

[Elizabeth Truss]

As I mentioned, local authorities have a role in encouraging schools to offer places. We know that more than 30% of early education places are in schools for three and four-year-olds, but not yet for two-year olds. That is why we are working with local authorities such as Lewisham, which we have given part of an £8 million grant, to make sure that schools are opening from 8 am to 6 pm and offering provision for two-year-olds.

Child Care (London)

Debate between Heidi Alexander and Elizabeth Truss

Wednesday 19th March 2014 Westminster Hall

[Elizabeth Truss]

I am about to come on to the issues that are specific to London, and will address that point then.

We are absolutely passionate about quality and improving outcomes, which we know have previously been issues. There is an 18-month vocabulary gap between children from low-income and high-income backgrounds. That is a problem for all of us, because it means that children start school in different positions. We have improved the standards for early years teachers, so that they now have to meet the same standards as primary school teachers. We have seen a 25% increase in the number of early years teachers enrolling on courses in the past year. We are also raising the standards for early years educators. This week, we announced an early years pupil premium for three and four-year-olds, which means that there will be extra money for the most disadvantaged children aged three and four.

We have improved the Ofsted framework, so it now looks at the qualifications of staff in nurseries and is much more focused on outcomes. We have introduced Teach First for early years teaching, to make sure that we are getting the best and brightest graduates into that vital sector. Most importantly, we are working on a coherent framework for the teaching structure from the ages of two to 18, so that early years provision is not seen as an afterthought but as a core part of our education system.

I recognise that there is a greater challenge in London. That is why I launched an £8 million fund with the Mayor of London at the end of last year. That aims to unlock the £1 billion that the Department for Education spends on early years provision in London.

I very much agree with the comments on increasing flexibility. A lot of school nurseries offer parents three hours, five days a week. That does not fit with many people’s working patterns. It also does not use our school nursery resources very well. In London, 45% of early years places are in school nurseries, which are generally open only between 9 am and 3 pm. If those school nurseries were all open between 8 am and 6 pm, that would give 66% extra child care hours. It is not a question of building more facilities but of using our facilities better. Those nurseries could open for two five-hour sessions a day, offering multiple hours.

[Heidi Alexander]

Will the Minister give way?

[Elizabeth Truss]

Forgive me, but I have to keep an eye on the time to make sure that I cover all the points that hon. Members have raised. I wanted to say specifically to the hon. Lady that the figure is even higher in Lewisham—half of all early years places there are in school nurseries. In Enfield, the figure is 42%. Think of the extra places we could provide if all those school nurseries opened for the longer hours I mentioned. It is not that the children should have full-time places; it is a question of parents being able to access places flexibly. Nurseries are entirely able to charge for the extra hours parents take, so they can open to suit the timetables of working parents.

That is why we launched the scheme with the Mayor of London and are working with different London boroughs. I would welcome the support of local MPs. Our officials have been discussing the matter with officials from Enfield and Lewisham in particular, as well as with officials from the three boroughs concerned. I hope that those discussions will help to address some of the issues. At the moment, we have fantastic resources, particularly in London, but we are not using them to full effect. That is a microcosm of the overall problem in child care and early years education: are we getting the best out of the facilities that we have?

If we look at the proportion of places that are in school nurseries, which is up 50% in some boroughs, and the fact that children’s centres provide 4% of child care, there is a much bigger issue to explore with regard to how we best use our school nurseries. In the Children and Families Act 2014, we have legislated for school nurseries to be able to take two-year-olds without having to register separately.

[Heidi Alexander]

We probably share the same aspirations, but the Minister talks about enabling schools to do things, whereas I am interested in how she is going to make them happen. Some of the time, schools do not want to do those kinds of things, and neither the Government nor local authorities have the power to get us to the position that we all want to get to.

[Elizabeth Truss]

We are instituting a school-led system, and it is important that head teachers and other teachers buy into that. We are making things easier by removing a lot of bureaucratic hurdles for schools. It is in a school’s interest to have high-quality nursery education and child care in the school, to help children start school ready to learn, able to communicate and with the right vocabulary. We need to change the culture in education to embrace early years provision more, and move away from having rigid barriers.

We are looking at how admissions policy can affect these issues, particularly for the most deprived children, so that schools have an incentive to take children on. There is a massive opportunity in that area. Some school nurseries across the country have made those changes. They offer very affordable places for children and help their school to do better. That is why we are working with boroughs such as Lewisham and Enfield. We are producing case studies, getting the data together and encouraging schools. The right first step is to make things simpler and easier for schools. I welcome the support of hon. Members in championing this issue in various areas. We can get much better value for money from what we are doing.

I want the overall child care landscape to be understood, as there is a lot of confusion about exactly what proportion of children are in which type of place. In London, a high proportion of children are in school nurseries at age three and four. We are piloting more places for two-year-olds in schools. A high proportion of children are in private and voluntary sector nurseries. I am working with organisations such as the National Day Nurseries Association so that non-school nurseries can link better to schools, the private sector can learn from the public sector and vice versa, and there is less of a divide between them. That is how we will get positive professional practice in the early years sector—by encouraging more inter-working.

On the use of money and the example of Australia, the key point is that we need to make sure that we expand supply. I agree with the hon. Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck) that if we do not, but simply push more cash in, there will be inflation. That is why the Government are making it easier to expand.