Childcare Bill [ Lords ] (Second sitting)

Jess Phillips Excerpts

Tuesday 8th December 2015 Public Bill Committees

[Pat Glass]

That is precisely why we are probing the Minister’s thinking.

That is the reality for too many families. The amendment would include in eligibility parents who, through no fault of their own, are unable to work in paid employment and therefore might fall outside the eligibility criteria for access to the additional 15 hours of childcare. In all honesty, who needs that childcare more than those parents? They give up so much to support the medical needs of their children. Sadly, for some parents the issue will be temporary, and in time they will be able to pick up their lives. For many more, however, mainly mothers, but also fathers, the proposed measure will mean being unable to enter the paid workforce throughout the life of their child.

My own extended family felt the shock of a diagnosis of leukaemia for a small relative. The immediate family were living and working in west Cumbria at the time. Both parents were working and they had two little girls. The child who was ill was admitted to the Royal Victoria infirmary in Newcastle, which was the centre for childhood cancers in the northern region. She was admitted for long periods of treatment, and her mum stayed with her. Her mum had to resign from her job because no timescale was given for the treatment, which ultimately lasted years. Eventually, the strain on the family caused by the father and the other child living on one side of the country and the mother and the ill child living on the other meant that the father also gave up his job and resettled the entire family in the north-east, near the specialist hospital. That is the reality for many families.

The father took the opportunity to return to education and retrain. He did voluntary work in local schools until he qualified and was able to work as a teacher and support his family. He has done that for the last 20 years. Good-quality, free childcare would have been really helpful to that family. I remember the younger child, who would have gone to anyone because she was so used to being passed around like a parcel. Good-quality childcare is important to families in similar situations today.

Amendment 8 would allow families in such difficult circumstances to access the additional 15 hours of childcare, and I suggest to the Minister that no working families would benefit more. I am not asking for a great deal—I am not asking the Government to change the eligibility details and so on. However, will the Minister consider extending eligibility to parents who are doing voluntary work and satisfy the hours requirement?

Moving on to amendment 12, I want to probe what is meant by “working parent” for the purposes of the Bill. I should be grateful if the Minister gave details of exactly what it means. It has been said that it will include unpaid work, but will it? How will it work for the self-employed and those who move between self-employment and employment? What will be the impact on parents who work but do not necessarily receive payment for that work? I want to probe specifically how the definition will apply to the parents of disabled children. We have already heard that 40% of those parents are unable to access the 15 hours to which they are currently entitled, which is 10 times more than families with non-disabled children. A lack of suitably qualified and trained staff and a lack of confidence among providers prevent them from accessing that childcare.

We have heard that childhood disability is often a trigger for poverty, because families incur additional ongoing expenses and face significant barriers that the rest of us do not. We have also heard about the additional costs that go along with that and the fact that mothers of disabled children cannot work at all.

The Minister said he wanted to work with me to improve the take-up of free childcare by families of disabled children, but he was not prepared to support an amendment to increase the hourly rate. With amendment 12, we want to explore eligibility so that it is clear what we mean by “working parent” and what impact that will have on parents of disabled children.

Does the Minister’s offer to work with me to improve the take-up of childcare include a desire to look at eligibility and additional hours? We want to ensure that more families can access their entitlement, and that more mothers, and indeed fathers, of disabled children can go out to work, so that over time we can take more and more families with disabled children out of poverty. This is a probing amendment, and we simply want to see how far the Minister is prepared to go.

On amendment 9, the Bill states:

“The Secretary of State must secure that childcare is available free of charge for qualifying children of working parents for, or for a period equivalent to, 30 hours in each of 38 weeks in any year.”

It continues:

“The Secretary of State may make regulations for the purpose of discharging the duty imposed by section 2(1)”

and specifies that those regulations may, for example, include

“enabling any person to check whether a child is a qualifying child of working parents…make provision about the disclosure of information held by a Minister of the Crown, the Commissioners for Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs or”

any other person.

Clause 3(5) states that

“a criminal offence created by…regulations may not provide for a penalty of imprisonment on conviction on indictment”

of more than two years—so someone can get two years in jail. This is really serious stuff.

[Jess Phillips (Birmingham, Yardley) (Lab)]

On that point, it sounds dramatic to suggest that people might go to prison for this, but I have worked with women in refuges who have ended up in prison because their children did not go to school for a variety of reasons. Does my hon. Friend agree that that is alarming?

[Pat Glass]

I am shocked that women end up in prison because their children will not go to school. It is not necessarily something that a mother living in a refuge, separately, can do anything about. This is serious stuff, and it is really scary stuff for parents. If they get it wrong, they could end up in prison or with a hefty fine. It is really important that the Committee probes exactly what is meant by eligibility. I want to see how far the Minister is prepared to go on that, because I am not quite clear about who is eligible and who is not. He needs to help us with that.

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[Pat Glass]

That is exactly what we are asking for in this probing amendment. Yes, I agree that there need to be penalties if someone is deliberately defrauding the state. I do not want to get parents into a situation in which they are affected unintentionally because the guidance or the eligibility criteria are not clear.

[Jess Phillips]

I wonder whether my hon. Friend, like me, has ever tried to follow the guidance on child tax credits, or whether she has ever had anyone in her constituency office who has fallen foul of some of the guidance laid out by different Government Departments offering state-subsidised childcare. Potentially, we could have put every single person in prison.

[Pat Glass]

I have not personally ever tried to follow the guidance, because I have no children who would qualify for childcare, although I do have grandchildren. Many people who have come to my constituency surgeries have found themselves with huge tax credits bills to pay back. They never intended to get into that situation in the first place; it was not about trying to defraud the system. These things are complex, and we want to ensure that the provision is as simple as we can make it so that parents do not get into these kinds of difficulties.

How will the eligibility of parents whose patterns of work vary from day to day and week to week be assessed and monitored? Those people include parents on zero-hours contracts, those on flexible working hours, seasonal workers and those who are self-employed, whose hours of work and income are often entirely outside their control. What all those workers have in common is the need for their working hours and incomes to be averaged over a period of time. The way we work today is not the regularised pattern of eight hours a day, five days a week with weekends off. Look at the Members of this Committee—it is not the way we work, and it is not the way that most people work these days.

Many parents have several jobs and sometimes juggle taking care of their children with a couple of part-time jobs. The reality is that many families in my constituency work in self-employment because there are not jobs around for them to do. In a sense, they are forced into self-employment. Although that takes them off the claimant count, they cannot necessarily predict what they will do from one week to the next.

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[Chloe Smith (Norwich North) (Con)]

I do not know whether the hon. Lady knows this, but there are at least three members of the Committee who did not enjoy student grants—

[Jess Phillips]

Me!

[Chloe Smith]

There are four, but that is not the point of my intervention. The point of my intervention is to ask the hon. Member for North West Durham, in the spirit of her probing amendments—a healthy spirit—to explain to us a little more how she would have liked to tidy up the system with the introduction of the 25 hours of free childcare that her party was hoping to bring in had it won the election. Will she explain how things ought to be done?

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[Pat Glass]

It was universal for parents who are working. Getting back to the probing amendment, will an average of 16 hours a week over 52 weeks be possible for those on zero-hours contracts, in seasonal work and so on? What will happen if something goes wrong? What will happen if parents genuinely believe that they will work an average of 16 hours a week over 52 weeks, based on the average of the past three years, say, but something goes horribly wrong and they fail to reach the average hours or the average income?

Things do go wrong for families. Poor weather might lead to a rotten summer—it would never happen, because that is completely unknown in the UK, isn’t it? If a business depends on a good summer, people could find themselves falling foul of the income threshold. Flooding over Christmas, or even in November, might wipe out earnings in the peak season—again, not unknown in the UK. Recession might dry up people’s work and income—again, not unknown in the UK—or even an international banking crisis could force families into unemployment and poverty. It might be something else that is completely out of the control of the parents. What will happen then?

If the parents genuinely estimate their position based on the previous three years, backed up by all that historical stuff, and then something goes wrong, who will make decisions about that? What is likely to happen to parents? Will they have to pay back the cost? I was going to ask if they faced two years in prison, but we have already heard that they will not.

The Minister needs to make regulations and it would be helpful to know what is in his mind when he is thinking about them. We all welcome the Bill—so warmly that we want to get it right for parents. If the Minister can be absolutely clear about the issue of eligibility, we will be grateful.

[Jess Phillips]

I will speak specifically about eligibility and probe a little more how it will work. The two areas that I wish to speak about are women who live in domestic violence refuges and those who have their children in a maintained sector service much like the one my children attended.

If my children enjoyed the full week in childcare for free—it seems like manna from heaven to me—and I lost my job, their places would be removed. I would only be able to send them to the maintained sector service for 15 hours of the week, if I understand how the regulations will work. A place for only half the week would then become available to a child in that maintained setting, and another person using that childcare would need to lose their job to make that up to a whole place, so I would have to take someone down with me whose children also went to school with mine, which seems a bit dramatic. If free entitlement increases from 15 to 30 hours, the number of places in that setting is reduced. If my circumstances changed, there would be half a place free—half a place is as useful as a chocolate teapot. I am not sure how Ministers will get around that particular instance if people’s circumstances change. Will people whose employment is at risk—those who might not keep their job—only be able to get childcare in the private sector, not the maintained sector? Would I, under this system, have to put my child with one child carer for the first half of the week and a different one for the second half? I just cannot see how this will work in the world that I live in.

[Michelle Donelan (Chippenham) (Con)]

Will the hon. Lady please clarify something for me? Is she actually saying that if somebody like her lost their job, they should still be eligible for this benefit? It was my understanding that this policy is about helping people into work and helping those who are in work.

[Jess Phillips]

I am saying exactly that. Who knows how long someone might be out of employment? Their child would lose their place for the second half of the week. People need time to go and find a job. When me and my children were in that situation, I was working three voluntary jobs to gain experience so that after my second son was born, I was able to get a full-time job. So yes, I am saying that it is probably not the best thing to say to somebody who has just lost their job, “Your child’s situation will now have to completely change. You won’t be able to go and seek a job, as you’ll now be tied to childcare.”

[Michelle Donelan]

It is my understanding that the Bill gives a grace period to accommodate that.

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[Jess Phillips]

And how long is that grace period? I put that question to the Minister.

[Mr Gyimah]

I thank the hon. Lady for inviting me to intervene. The system will be checked by HMRC, which will check earnings on a forward-looking quarterly basis. Based on that, parents will be eligible for childcare. That will be done automatically; parents do not need to apply. If parents disagree with the decision that is made, there will be an appeals process about which I will speak in more detail in my speech. We have to remember the fundamental principle mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Chippenham—this is about work. Someone needs to earn only £115.20 a week––

[The Chair]

Order. Interventions must be short. The Minister will have an opportunity to wind up the debate in his speech later. Other Members have opportunities to intervene and make speeches because we are not limited to time. I would be grateful if Members would bear that in mind.

[Jess Phillips]

I am grateful for that clarification. From that, I read that there will be a three-month grace period, if it is quarterly. I totally understand that and it is great if someone can find a job within three months. Obviously, if they do not find a job in that time—for example, if they find one within four months—they would then have to find another place for their child separate from the 15 hours that the child would already be spending with a different child carer.

Government Members might think that I am splitting hairs, but I am speaking from real-life experience of what would have happened to me had this been in place when I was going through the process. I am not that special—I know that is shocking to hear—and this will be happening to lots of parents exactly like me. There is an issue with the maintained sector—how nursery places are allocated for the 30 hours compared with the 15 hours—that must be taken into account by any regulation. That is the first thing I would probe.

The second thing that concerns me, having worked for much of my career in a domestic violence refuge, is the effect of women leaving their jobs to live in refuge. I am sad to say that the way that our benefits system is structured and has been for many years—this is no fault of this particular Government on this occasion—means that women who live in refuge cannot really work. They cannot afford to be a working woman in refuge. It is near impossible. The vast majority of women who live in domestic violence refuges are therefore living on housing benefit, which cannot be claimed if they are in work, because the rates for refuge provision are far higher than the weekly rates for a normal social housing scheme. That said, 90% of women in refuge do not work and those who worked before they entered refuge by and large have to give up their job to live in the refuge.

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[Mr Gyimah]

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point about volunteering. We recognise the importance of volunteering, but as I said, the purpose of the extended entitlement is to help working parents with the cost of childcare. The approach we are taking here is consistent with other Government policy. Of course, where a parent or parents are undertaking voluntary work alongside paid employment that meets the minimum income criteria they will be eligible, as I have said, for 30 hours of free childcare. However we are clear that parents solely undertaking voluntary work should not be able to access the extended entitlement.

The issue of parents in full-time education has also been raised. Again, they get the first 15 hours and if they are in the 40% most disadvantaged households, they will get 15 hours of free childcare for their two-year-olds. In addition, the Government already provide support to parents in recognised education courses through discretionary learner support and the loans bursary fund. Students in higher education may be eligible for support through the childcare grant, which offers parents support of up to 85% of their childcare costs up to a maximum of £155.24 a week for one child and £266.15 for two children. Where parents choose to undertake part-time work alongside their studies, and on average earn the equivalent of 16 hours at the national minimum wage or living wage per week, they will also be able to benefit from 30 hours of free childcare. However, we are clear that parents solely undertaking full-time study should not be able to access the extended entitlement.

[Jess Phillips]

I wonder whether those training to be nurses, who are working now for free in our NHS, will be entitled to the 30 hours of free childcare if they are in full-time nursing training.

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[Pat Glass]

Finally, will the Minister think about what my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley said about women’s refuges? Domestic violence underpins so many problems across the country. Many years ago I was a director in an authority. We had an emergency crisis team for children in primary education, and we would meet every single week with groups of headteachers to consider children who were in crisis and allocate specialists and clinical psychologists to try to help those children. In 100% of cases that I saw—at the time, I remember being really shocked—there was domestic violence. It is endemic, and we do not address it in the way that we should. For those children and their parents, there may be—

[Jess Phillips]

A grace period.

[Pat Glass]

More than a grace period; an exemption.