Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Helen Grant and Sarah Teather

Monday 11th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Helen Grant (Maidstone and The Weald) (Con)]

18. What steps he is taking to promote family-friendly policies.

[The Minister of State, Department for Education (Sarah Teather)]

The Government are committed to promoting family-friendly policies that can support better child outcomes, help parents to balance work and family life and deliver real benefits to employers. The Department is funding a scheme to support organisations to adopt more family-friendly services and working environments for clients and employees. The Government are consulting on proposals to introduce more flexible parental leave and extend the right to flexible working to all employees.

[Mrs Grant]

Lack of good child care can consign many capable women to the family home or to not having children. What action will the Minister take to improve this situation?

[Sarah Teather]

I am very aware of the difficulties that many families face in accessing suitable child care, which is one of the reasons why we announced last week that we will consult on a more flexible arrangement for adopting the free entitlement so that families can access it a little earlier and a little later in the day, for example. That is exactly why we extended the free entitlement to 15 hours.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Helen Grant and Sarah Teather

Monday 11th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Helen Grant (Maidstone and The Weald) (Con)]

T7. Under Labour, social mobility stalled. What action will the Government now take to kick-start that vital aspirational process for our children, our teachers and our schools?

[Sarah Teather]

My hon. Friend is absolutely correct; I am afraid that the legacy of the previous Labour Government is that social mobility did stall. This Government believe that one’s birth should not equal one’s fate. That is why we want Sure Start to focus better on targeting the most disadvantaged families, why we are reviewing the early-years foundation stage to ensure that all children are ready for school, and why we are implementing a pupil premium targeting extra resources on the most disadvantaged children.