Free Childcare: Costs and Benefits

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Tuesday 19th February 2019 Westminster Hall

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Bristol North West (Darren Jones) on bringing this issue to the Floor for consideration. I deal with this issue every week in my office, and in particular with my staff. I will give the Chamber an example of how the matter works in practice.

I have six staff, five of whom are ladies, so the issue comes through clearly. They are of differing ages, though I will not mention their names or refer to their ages, because that is something we do not do, if we want to live well. My part-time worker is in her 50s and is a grandmother. I allow her flexibility to change her days so she can mind her grandchildren and come into my office on the days or mornings that she does not have the children. That is a practical arrangement that works for her and for me—that is important.

A further two staff members in their 40s have children in the last year of schooling, so they are able to work their normal full-time hours. It is easier when children attend secondary schools and further education. I also have a staff member in her 20s who is due to marry next year, and she has informed me that I should be prepared for her maternity announcement the following year, as she wants children right away after she gets married. Again, I support her wholeheartedly in that.

My parliamentary aide is in her 30s, and has a three-year-old and a four-year-old. Her childcare arrangements are more pressing. They are all key members of staff, but she is in particular. When she returned to work after her second child, we came to a flexible working arrangement that allows her to work at home on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursdays, when I am at Westminster.

In practice, when my aide’s kids are at nursery in the mornings, she works away for me, and when her husband gets home at 6 pm, she works on. She is my speech writer, preparing many of my speeches, so she probably has little to do—I jest, because I keep her busy. I talk the speeches over with her, but cut and add to them as I progress through the time. She is kept very busy, and her workload means that I sometimes see work coming through to me at 1 o’clock in the morning. That is a fact; it is how she does it with her flexible hours—I am very fortunate to have her working for me.

When I asked my aide about childcare, her answer was simple: “Jim, I earn too much to get help from Government but not enough to pay the £300 a week for someone else to mind the children. I am holding on for the P2s”—primary school—“when the kids are in until 3 pm, and I can then cut back on night-time hours.” That has made me ask some questions. How many young families working to pay for childcare are holding on by a thread until they get the care? How many grannies and grandas are missing out on actually relaxing in retirement because their children are not able to pay for childcare?

Too many families are over the threshold for tax credits and struggle to do it all. That was illustrated clearly by the hon. Members for Bristol North West and for Mansfield (Ben Bradley) in their contributions. Families earn too much for social housing, but not enough to be comfortable.

What we have is what I refer to as the working poor and there are a greater number of them, and every one of us could probably reflect that and illustrate that in our constituencies. I believe that if the burden of childcare was lifted, there would be benefits for the quality of life for so many families throughout the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. We need more schemes such as the tax-free childcare scheme, which puts 20% of Government funding alongside someone’s 80%. The fact is that, although that is good, not many people are aware of it and I look to the Minister to give us some illustration of what can be done to improve that. There are many people who just do not know about the scheme.

Some 91,000 families made use of the new tax-free childcare system in December, which is far below the expected number. What are the Government doing to increase that number and increase awareness, because official figures show that the Government had planned and budgeted for 415,000 families? We are far off that figure, for a scheme that was launched in October 2017. It is a gentle question, but hopefully it will receive an answer. At one point, 3 million could qualify for the help, meaning that only about one in 14 eligible families had applied for it. So we really have an issue to increase that number.

When we look at countries around the world, we see that we are at the top of the league for costs, and they must come down. Just yesterday in the provincial press back home, there was an illustration of the cost of childcare per child across Northern Ireland. In my constituency of Strangford, and in mid and east Down, we have the highest levels of childcare costs anywhere in Northern Ireland. We have a middle class that is squeezed beyond control, with rising rates, rising insurance costs for their home and car, rising food prices and rising petrol prices. Everything is more money, apart from their wages, which remain the same.

It is little wonder that so many people believe that it is better not to work. We have mothers and fathers who slog it out at work, and then try to cram in time with their children in the evening hours, and stay on top of housework and mundane issues. I believe that they need help.

I will finish with this comment: childcare is one way we can help and encourage women with young children to have a career, and find a way to do it all. So I urge the Government to expand the 20% help for childcare and bring us down in the global charts, instead of our being “Top of the Pops” for all the wrong reasons.

[Geraint Davies (in the Chair)]

Thank you very much. We have still got a lot of time.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for School Standards (Nick Gibb)]

It is a pleasure, as always, to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Bristol North West (Darren Jones) on securing this debate and his welcome news—and the interesting way he introduced it.

I am grateful for the opportunity to set out the Government’s position on childcare support. It is a pleasure to stand in for the Under-Secretary of State for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Nadhim Zahawi), who I understand is seeing family in Washington DC, which is appropriate, given the debate on families that we are having.

I think the truth is that Members here violently agree on the importance of high quality childcare. Evidence shows that high quality childcare supports young children’s development and helps to prepare them for school. Affordable and convenient childcare gives parents the ability to balance work and family life, allowing them to enjoy the benefits of a job, safe in the knowledge that their children are in good hands.

When the Labour party left office in 2010, only 15 hours of free childcare was available for three and four-year-olds. It was the Conservative-led coalition Government that introduced free childcare for two-year-olds from disadvantaged families. Early education from the age of two has long-lasting benefits for children, and we believe that it helps to promote a child’s emotional, cognitive and social development.

However, evidence shows that, on average, disadvantaged families are less likely to use formal childcare provision than more advantaged families, which is why the Government introduced 15 hours of funded early years education for disadvantaged two-year-olds in September 2013. Eligibility was expanded in September 2014 to include children with a disability or special educational needs from low-income working families, or who have left care. Our balanced approach to managing the public finances enabled us to do that. The extended learning programme for two-year-olds has been popular with parents. Local authorities reported in January last year that 72% of eligible parents nationally took up their entitlement to a place. That is a significant increase from 2015, when the figure was 58%.

A year and a half ago, we also doubled the childcare entitlement of working parents of three and four-year-olds to 30 hours a week. On the point made by the hon. Member for Batley and Spen (Tracy Brabin), only working parents are eligible for those additional 15 hours; the first 15 hours are universally available for parents of all three and four-year-olds. In its first year, the 30 hours of free childcare, alongside the Childcare Choices website and the childcare calculator, helped more than 340,000 children to take advantage of more high quality childcare, with savings for parents of up to £5,000 a year. Again, the Government’s balanced approach to the management of the public finances and the economy enabled us to do that and to provide that benefit to parents.

Independent evaluation of the first year of the 30-hours entitlement found more than a quarter of parents reporting that they had increased their working hours as result, with 15% of parents saying that they would not be working at all without the extended hours. Those effects were stronger for families on lower incomes, helping to fulfil our commitment to help disadvantaged families and to boost social mobility. Furthermore, surveys of parents highlight the impact that the 30 hours can have on parents’ working patterns, with a majority of parents reporting that the 30 hours have given them more flexibility in the hours that they can work, and a small but significant proportion of mothers reporting that the 30 hours had led them to enter work or to increase their hours.

The evaluation report quoted one parent as saying:

“By doing four days now instead of three…my company looks at my development and progression in a way that they wouldn’t if I was only doing three days.”

Some 86% of parents reported that they thought that their child was better prepared for school as a result, and 79% felt that their family’s quality of life had improved. The latest study of early education and development—SEED—report, published last year, also points to the clear evidence of the benefits of high quality early education for the cognitive and emotion development of all children aged two to four.

My hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield (Ben Bradley) asked for a commitment to support the most disadvantaged children, but that has been the driving force behind all our education reforms since 2010. On early years education, more than a quarter of children finish their reception year without the early communication and literacy skills that they need to thrive. The Government have ambitious plans to halve that proportion over the next 10 years. The Department is working closely with the sector to deliver on our commitment to reform the early years foundation stage profile. The reforms are an important opportunity to improve outcomes for all children, but especially to close the word gap between disadvantaged children and their peers. We know that the gaps can emerge much earlier in a child’s life, well before they enter reception. That is why we recently launched a capital bidding round of £30 million to invite leading schools to come forward with projects to create new high quality nursery places for two, three and four-year-olds. Those are the reasons why the Government are investing more than any other in childcare. We will spend around £6 billion a year on childcare support in 2019-20—a record amount.

[Jim Shannon]

In my contribution, I referred to the take-up figure of 91,000. The number that could take up the scheme is 417,000. I asked what the Government are doing to bridge that gap and ensure that people take up the scheme.

[Nick Gibb]

I will come to that point in a moment. We believe that the take-up of all the different schemes has been very high, but we always want to do more to ensure that it continues to increase.

The introduction of 30 hours has been a large-scale transformational programme, and such change can be challenging, but tens of thousands of providers have none the less responded to make it a success, because of their ongoing commitment to helping families. The evaluation of the introduction of the 30-hour entitlement found that three quarters of providers delivering free entitlement places were willing and able to deliver the extended hours with no negative effects on other provision or the sufficiency of childcare places. Almost two thirds of providers offered full flexibility with free choice to parents on when they could take the extended hours. Overall, we are already starting to see how the 30-hour entitlement is making a difference to families across the country.

The childcare market in England consists of a diverse range of provider types, allowing parents real choice in their childcare provision. The supply of childcare in England is generally high quality, with more than nine in 10 providers rated good or outstanding by Ofsted. There are strong indications that supply can meet parent demand for Government-funded entitlements. Nearly 79,000 private childcare providers were registered with Ofsted in August 2018 and more than 7,500 school-based providers, including maintained nursery schools, were offering early years childcare.

While there are some examples of providers closing, as the hon. Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham) pointed out, there is no evidence of widespread closures in the private and voluntary childcare market. The latest official Ofsted data, published in December 2018, showed that the numbers of childcare providers on non-domestic premises is fairly stable over time, showing a marginal 2% decrease compared with 2012. Providers joining and leaving the Ofsted register is normal in a private market and can be due to a variety of reasons. In fact, more non-domestic providers joined the register between 31 March 2018 and 31 August 2018 than left.

Primary Schools: Nurture and Alternative Provision

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Wednesday 13th February 2019 Westminster Hall

[Ben Bradley]

I thank my right hon. Friend for that intervention and particularly thank him and the other members of the Select Committee for coming along today. I absolutely agree—I will touch on this later—that it is important that this is not exclusion from the classroom; it is a nurturing and supporting environment to help the children to succeed.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on initiating the debate. The fact that so many hon. Members have intervened indicates our interest. Like the hon. Member for Mansfield (Ben Bradley), I believe that there is a real need for the short-term, focused intervention that is found in nurture groups for children with particular social, emotional and behavioural difficulties. Does he agree that we need to increase the availability of nurture groups, which will allow individual children to reach their potential, but also ensure that teachers are able to better spread their time and energy throughout classes in which children who are unable to learn in a typical classroom set-up are being taught in a dedicated way that benefits everyone?

[Ben Bradley]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. Later I will touch on some statistics from Northern Ireland that I hope he will find interesting. I agree with him. The reason why the provision at Forest Town, in particular, works is that although it is in a separate building and environment, it is included within the school. That allows the teachers to engage with it and children to dip in and out, and allows the integrated and supported approach that the hon. Gentleman describes. It is incredibly beneficial.

The earlier we can get children and families engaged with nurture care, the better. Children learn best when they have strong self-esteem, a sense of belonging, and resilience. Nurture groups were first developed in London in 1969 by educational psychologist Marjorie Boxall. Large numbers of young children were entering primary school in inner London with severe emotional and behavioural difficulties, which led to high demand on special school places in particular. Marjorie Boxall understood that these children had not received early support and were not ready to meet the demands of primary school. As a response, nurture care was developed, and it has consistently proved to be an effective way of helping disadvantaged children.

Nurture groups tend to offer short-term, inclusive and focused intervention. The groups are classes of between six and 12 children, supported by the whole school—not just by specialist staff for that particular site, but by teachers from across the school and by parents, who are often included in the provision. Each group is run by a couple of members of staff. They assess learning, communication and emotional needs and try to break down the barriers to learning in the mainstream environment.

Crucially, the children who attend nurture groups remain an active part of their main class and their school. They are not excluded; they are not taken off site into alternative provision. They are able to engage in the classroom with their peers wherever that is possible and wherever they are comfortable. I will touch on this again later, but I strongly support programmes that allow children to remain in mainstream schooling to engage with their peers. That is better for the child and for the taxpayer wherever it is possible.

The relationship between staff and pupils in nurture groups provides a consistent and supportive example that children can base their own behaviour on. For so many children, role models are simply vital, and this caring approach can be hugely successful. It engages children with education, giving them a positive and enjoyable learning experience, and it can help where children do not get the same support at home.

Nurture groups have been working successfully for more than 40 years right across the UK. That statement is supported by a number of studies. Last year, in my constituency, I was pleased to meet nurtureuk, which is the national charity supporting this whole-school intervention. Its figures show that this provision works. One school in Kent running a nurture programme saw exclusions drop by 84%, which I am sure that hon. Members will agree is a remarkable figure.

A 2016 Queen’s University Belfast study also supports the effectiveness of nurture groups. It evaluated the impact of 30 such groups in Northern Ireland and found them to be cost-effective. In addition, although 77% of children who entered nurture groups exhibited difficult behaviour, that had reduced to just 20% at the end of the programme.

[Ben Bradley]

I thank the hon. Lady for that intervention. The point that she raises may not be one for discussion now, but it is certainly interesting. There absolutely does have to be a balance. I am a firm believer—having been to a variety of schools, with different atmospheres—in discipline and teaching children the value of that, but equally in respecting the needs particularly of vulnerable children in cases such as these. I do not think that nurture care has to be a formal thing, but I do think that there has to be that flexibility of approach to give a more bespoke experience to children who need it.

[Jim Shannon]

The hon. Gentleman is very kind; he has been most gracious to us all in taking our interventions. He mentioned Queen’s University. I made a contribution in a debate last year and used the statistics to which he referred. When it comes to summing up and integrating all the information from across the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, there are many examples of good practice—the hon. Gentleman has used one from Belfast—and perhaps the Minister could take them on board.

[Ben Bradley]

I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Minister will do that. It is important to weigh up all this evidence when we are deciding where to put our time and energy in education. I certainly think that primary school and the early years environment should be a key priority.

Over the last three years, school exclusions have risen by more than 40%. If there is ever a time to invest in early intervention and nurture care, it is now. This early support, if properly managed, can set children up for their whole lives at school. Some will continue to need help, and it is especially important that those children who have needed this low-level, ongoing support throughout their time at primary school do not then lose all this help when they go to secondary school; that transition is vital. We can be more inclusive, support children to stay in school, and reduce exclusions, but we have to invest in that both financially and with the time and training for teachers.

The links between school exclusion and social exclusion are well known. Children who are excluded from school are far more likely than their peers to have grown up in the care of the state or in poverty, and they go on to have much higher rates of mental illness and are more likely to end up in prison. That cycle needs to be broken somewhere. These children are the most vulnerable in our society and need greater support. We need to do more to provide a supportive environment and to ensure that our education system provides a positive, safe and reliable space for the most vulnerable children.

Nurture care can turn around a child’s life and help secure a stable future in adulthood. This is not a debate about financial efficiency, but I would like to highlight a 2017 Institute for Public Policy Research report, which argued that every cohort of permanently excluded pupils will go on to cost the state an extra £2.1 billion. The Government should support nurture programmes because that is the right thing to do, but I also argue that spending on nurture care is one of the best-value options for education expenditure. It is proactive, preventive support. Just as we are looking at prevention in the NHS long-term plan, so we should be looking at it in education.

Special Educational Needs and Disabilities Funding

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Tuesday 12th February 2019 Westminster Hall

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

Thank you, Sir Gary. It is a pleasure to speak in this Chamber on every occasion, as it has been to hear the wonderful contributions made so far by right hon. and hon. Members. I congratulate the right hon. Member for Twickenham (Sir Vince Cable) on obtaining the debate and giving us the chance to participate.

I am taking part because I take an interest in school budgets and in children. Having been consistently cut, school budgets are unable to deliver in the way they have previously. Classroom assistants are losing hours, and the wait to get a statement for a child is getting longer. Instead of treating the meeting of special needs as an obligation, we should look at it as an opportunity to give such children the best possible education to enable them to overcome difficulties and meet their potential. If that is not something that requires additional ring-fenced funding, I do not what does. I look to the Minister to see what she can do about releasing that funding.

There are 49,000 babies, children and young people with life-limiting or life-threatening conditions in the UK, and the number is rising. Most of those children have complex health needs. They need constant care and support 24 hours a day. Most will also have a special educational need and/or a disability. The success of the system depends on whether there is equitable and sustainable funding for children’s education, health and social care provision. With great respect, that does not seem to be the case.

In the short time I have available, I want to mention a briefing from Together for Short Lives, which says that respite breaks are a part of the system that is not working. Seriously ill children and their families rely particularly on frequent short breaks for respite, which is provided by skilled people, who can meet the children’s often complex health needs. It may be for only a few hours, but it can be overnight or for a few days at a time. It is important because the 24/7 pressure on parents of having a child with a life-limiting condition is immense. Social care is vital to help them relieve the stress, catch up on sleep, spend time as a family and do the things that other families do. Frequent short breaks for respite for seriously ill children combine health and social care. They help to maintain children’s and families’ physical and mental health. Respite care is immensely important. The short breaks provided by children’s hospices can help to reduce stress and mitigate the risk of parental relationships breaking down.

There are some incredible statistics from research involving 17 children’s hospices in England and Scotland: 64% of divorced or separated parents cited having a child with complex needs as a reason for the breakdown of their relationship. Furthermore, 75% had had no access to short breaks, and 74% rated short breaks as having a direct, positive effect. Short breaks are necessary to help families regain some balance in their lives. Couples whose relationships were identified in the research as “non-distressed” were found to have received 43% more hours of short breaks on average from a children’s hospice than those who were in distressed relationships. Quite simply, respite care makes a difference. The facts are clear. If we deal with children’s needs in this way, there will be a lifelong benefit not simply to the child but to the entire family.

Just as they did for adult social care, will the Government review how social care for disabled children in England is funded? Will they address the £434 million shortfall in funding for social care services for disabled children that has been identified by the Disabled Children’s Partnership, by setting up an early intervention and family resilience fund? Intervention at that stage will provide benefits at later stages, and if we invest now to improve the quality of life of those who are most vulnerable and struggling the most, it will be worth every penny.

[Sir Gary Streeter (in the Chair)]

I thank colleagues for complying with the voluntary time limit. It is now time for the Front-Bench speakers, but let us remember to leave Sir Vince Cable one minute at the end to respond to the debate.

Children’s Social Care: Rotherham

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Tuesday 5th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Champion]

Sadly, my right hon. Friend is absolutely right. This was a multi-agency hub for survivors, and the council argued in the strongest terms the need for such multi-agency working, as did the National Crime Agency, but no, the money has not been forthcoming.

Operation Stovewood has placed unprecedented and unbudgeted additional pressures on the authority. The council estimates the investigation is currently costing an additional £4.3 million per year, which is estimated to increase to £7 million next year, yet only £500,000 per annum of additional money has been forthcoming. The decades of sexual abuse in Rotherham and other towns have been a great shame on this nation. If there had been an earthquake affecting the lives of 1,400 children in Rotherham, we would have got emergency funding from the Government to help with their recovery. However, with no such money forthcoming for child abuse, we are largely leaving victims and survivors to get on with the recovery themselves.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

May I first put on the record our thanks to the hon. Lady for all that she does in this sector? It is a very difficult sector to work in—it is very difficult to put forward the stories she puts forward—but she does it admirably well. I think this House is indebted to her, and in particular her constituents should be very proud to have her as their MP.

Does the hon. Lady not agree that social services throughout the United Kingdom are teetering on the brink of collapse? While we are debating this issue in this Chamber, there are children throughout the United Kingdom right now who are sitting in neglected homes, with no one to turn to and no hope as they slip through the net. Does she not believe that it is past time that we secured—we look to the Minister very gently and very honestly as we say this—the additional funding and training to enable the system to handle the vast volume of children who need someone to advocate for them as they scream in silence?

[Sarah Champion]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his kind words, and I completely agree with the points he makes. We are storing up a national disaster if we do not support these children, ideally with early intervention, or with whatever help they need throughout their lives. I ask the Minister: please will he agree to invest additional resources in supporting looked-after children and care leavers—yes, in Rotherham, but also across the country—so that they can get the proper support they need to repair their lives?

Rotherham council is doing the very best it can. Ofsted gave Rotherham high praise in its 2018 inspection report, which I would like to quote. It said:

“Improved identification of risk and continued focus on uncovering and tackling complex abuse have led to increased demands on social care. A recent increase in the numbers of children looked after has placed additional demands on placements. Some of this increase is due to improvements in identifying risk, and to the local authority’s complex abuse work.”

It went on to say that the council had plans in place to address the demand:

“They are not complacent in the approach they take in order to better understand, continue to identify, and address the large-scale serious abuse suffered by children and young people. Managers, leaders and partners are diligent in their ongoing efforts to expose both current and historic exploitation. This is seen in the number of successful prosecutions and ongoing court trials of perpetrators. Support to encourage children and young people who have suffered abuse helps them to feel safe enough to disclose their experiences and continues to develop. This includes services for those who are now adults. The stringent efforts of the local authority and partners to confront large-scale exploitation and abuse will continue to have its challenges, as victims continue to be identified.”

I agree with the Ofsted report.

The council has committed to implementing successful evidence-based programmes and has invested nearly £1 million of its own funding in innovative programmes alone. Recent analysis found that its expenditure on children’s social care has increased 90% between 2010 and 2016, compared with an average of 30% for other English local authorities. But the flip side of providing the level of care needed is the amount of extra funding for children’s social care services that the council has had to find to meet escalating demand. The council increased the children’s services budget by £20 million in 2016-17, but as demand continues to increase further, Rotherham borough council forecasts an overall £16 million overspend for children and young people’s services for the current financial year. That leaves the council yet again in the position of having to find even more funding from its own resources, and it is further increasing the children’s social care budget in 2019-20 by a net £7 million, making a total annual investment of £27 million over and above the 2015-16 budget.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Monday 4th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Nick Gibb]

I certainly want to congratulate Yate Academy on the improvements it has made in the progress of pupils at both primary and secondary phases, and particularly its significant improvement in the proportion of pupils taking the EBacc combination of core academic subjects. We are committed to ensuring that support is available for schools that require it, and teaching schools are strong schools that work with others to provide high-quality training and development for teachers.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

Taking into account the immense pressure that staff are under, torn between a desire to enhance their children’s education through after-school clubs and their obligation to the unions, will the Minister outline what steps the Department is taking to strengthen the teaching profession?

[Nick Gibb]

On 28 January, we launched the teacher recruitment and retention strategy, which was designed collaboratively with the education sector. Its centrepiece is the early career framework, which will underpin a fully funded two-year package of structured support for all teachers in the first two years of their career. We are also building a career structure for teachers who have more experience. It is a very good package, designed to increase retention and help with recruitment.

Maintained Nursery Schools

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Thursday 31st January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell) on setting the scene so well. As always, I want to introduce a Northern Ireland perspective. I know that the title of the debate covers maintained nursery schools in the whole of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, but those who have spoken so far have spoken specifically about England and about their own knowledge. I want to speak about my knowledge of Northern Ireland, and also to speak as a father of three boys who went to nursery schools. I want to talk about the benefits that that experience brought them. That, I think, is in the spirit of the debate, and of what we are trying to prove to the Minister, if we need to do so. I think he is already on our side anyway, and I think he understands the importance of the issue.

The provision of nursery care is essential to the development of children, and also to the sustainability of working families. Without nursery care, maintained or otherwise, many parents would not both be able to work, and so they help to sustain working families, as has come out in this debate. Employers for Childcare, in the findings of its ninth annual childcare costs survey, has revealed that the average cost of a full-time childcare place in Northern Ireland is £166 per week, which is a massive amount of money for anyone and underlines the issue. I am sure it is as much of an issue in other hon. Members’ constituencies, and probably in some cases even more of an issue, although the difference in Northern Ireland is that wages are lower and therefore the cost in percentage terms is greater.

The survey revealed a slight decrease on the previous year, reflecting the fact that many childcare providers sought not to increase their fees, knowing that if they did many people would drift away. That said, affordability remains a critical issue. For two thirds of families, the childcare bill is the biggest or second biggest monthly outgoing, and so maintained nursery schools are critical.

I recently heard two mothers chatting about childcare at an event. One said to the other, “Well, it changes when they get to nursery, so hold on for another two years”. For many families struggling through this time of paying childcare while working the knowledge that they get a paid place for a morning or an afternoon makes a difference. We must ensure this continues in the maintained nursery sector.

The cost of childcare is a concern for many parents. All three to four-year-olds are now entitled to 30 hours of free childcare per week. This free education can take place in nurseries, playgroups, pre-schools or with childminders. The 30 hours are free for 38 weeks in the year—in line with term time—and are essential for families to survive.

Much of what hon. Members have said today resonates with me. The hon. Member for Chichester (Gillian Keegan) referred to the things that happen in nursery schools. They build character and personality. It is imperative that children get the benefit of this time with trained professionals and others with an ability to interact positively with children. Nursery helps to build relationships, not only with children but with adults other than family members, and teaches children to play together and form strong relationships and friendships with other children. Where I live, it enables two communities to move closer together through their children and ultimately to build better relations between adults. I can see important benefits at that level.

Nursery instils social and communication skills and helps with other things such as learning to share and making friends, which go hand in hand. I recommend that hand-in-hand process as a reason for keeping them maintained. Children can begin to understand what sharing is and how to deal with situations by communicating and experiencing those new feelings. As fathers and mothers, we know how children sometimes fight over things they want. Nursery teaches them to share. From an early age, it can implant that thought in a child’s mind.

Research shows that spending time in pre-school or nursery education enhances a child’s development and stands them in good stead for starting school. My three boys attended nursery, and the friendships they built there continued into primary and second school and into their working lives. They are young men now—30, 28 and 25—and two of them are married. The youngest is not. I said to him one day, “Any young girls on the horizon?”, and he responded, “No, not at the moment”. I replied, “If you leave it as long as your dad, you’ve got another seven years until you get married”. He is 25, so hon. Members can work out how old I was when I got married.

Nursery plays an important role in building relationships and friendships that last from the age of three or four right through to the age of my eldest boy, who is 30. All early years education providers follow the early years foundation stage framework, which sets the standards they must meet to ensure children learn and develop well and are kept healthy and safe. Starting this framework in nursery or pre-school helps the next stage of learning when starting school. The EYFS is followed through into primary school and gives children the knowledge and skills needed to be ready for school and to progress through school life.

The benefits of nursery—others have said this, and I am going to say it as well—dictate that we as parliamentarians should prioritise it. There must be funding to secure places for every child in this United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and to ensure that every family has a nursery school at a reasonable distance to give their child a level playing field for starting school. I believe that we must also send the message to working parents that we want to help them to see the benefit of their hard hours of work. This is not just about the children alone; it is about the parents and about building family life as well. I see that as an important part of what I would like to see across the whole of the United Kingdom.

I support the hon. Member for Manchester Central and right hon. and hon. Members in retaining maintained nursery schools, the importance of which cannot be underlined enough. I very much look forward to the Minister’s response.

School Exclusions and Youth Violence

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Monday 28th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Vicky Foxcroft (Lewisham, Deptford) (Lab)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to bring this extremely important debate to the House. As I hope that the Minister and other hon. Members are aware, I am chair of the cross-party Youth Violence Commission. I established the commission in 2016 as a response to an alarming increase in deaths among young people in my constituency, in London and across the country. We published our initial policy recommendations in July 2018.

I have called many times in the House for the development of a public health policy to tackle violence, and I was pleased that the Government and the Mayor of London committed to that approach at the end of last year. The commission is now working hard to ensure that those words turn into action, and I am pleased that the Mayor of London has established a violence reduction unit similar to that adopted in Scotland to develop this approach. I am still waiting to see what the Government are doing. As part of its ongoing work, the commission is starting to flesh out some of its individual policy recommendations. I would like to use the debate to focus on recommendation No. 4 from our report, which is about boosting support in schools. More specifically, I will be examining the relationship between exclusions and violence, and the role of pupil referral units and alternative provision.

This is in no way intended to be an anti-PRU debate. During my time with the commission, I have seen some brilliantly run PRUs that achieve great outcomes for many of their students. However, I believe that we need a radical re-think of how funding is organised so that we can prevent the need for PRUs in the first place.

I hope that the Minister has had time to read the commission’s report for himself, as the hon. Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch) clearly had when she responded to my Adjournment debate on the role of youth services in tackling violence. I was pleased to see in today’s press that she continues to stand up for vulnerable young people by criticising her Government’s delay in introducing a law to make it illegal for sports coaches to have sexual relations with 16 and 17-year-olds in their care.

The number of pupils being permanently excluded from schools is on the rise. Between 2012-13 and 2016-17, the number increased by 67%. Referrals to children’s services when gangs are identified as a factor at assessment rose by 26% between 2015-16 and 2016-17. During the same period, hospital admissions for under-18s who had been assaulted with a sharp object rose by 20%.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

The hon. Lady has brought an important issue to the House for consideration. The stats show that 72% of parents think that when their child is excluded from school they are at risk from youth violence. This suggests that there is real concern among parents about the problems that follow exclusion from school. Does the hon. Lady agree that that concern must be addressed to ensure that there is life and a place to go after exclusion?

Pupil Referral Units

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Chris Green (Bolton West) (Con)]

Pupil referral units perform excellent work in my constituency and across the country in complementing mainstream schools. There are two in my constituency, Youth Challenge and Lever Park, and both are run by Bolton Impact Trust. When I met the trust recently, I was made aware of how vital these units are to the pupils who rely on them and how fantastic they are at delivering the service and support they do to those pupils. Both were rated outstanding in their last Ofsted inspections.

It was a particular delight when I visited to hear of the relationship that Youth Challenge had with local business. It is an important fact about these units that often the experience of children is in vocational work and training and that often those are the kinds of careers they go into once they have finished school, whether that is at age 16 or 18. That transition into mainstream employment is very important. The close relationship that the unit has with local business is very good for local businesses, which increasingly understand the value that these children can contribute to their businesses, and also sets a positive direction of travel and gives the children the opportunity and vision to move into good and productive jobs once they leave education.

The services provided by Bolton Impact Trust really do make a difference. That can come in the form of 1:1 teaching support, which a teacher in a mainstream school, perhaps with a class of 30 or so pupils, cannot provide, but it does others things as well. There is one simple, straightforward thing that it does. Teachers often sit with children at lunchtime, and that engagement between adults and children can produce a useful environment that is more relaxed than a formal classroom setting. It also reinforces the support that referral units give to families. Mums and dads often have a very challenging time. Bringing up any children obviously has its challenges, but the support that these units can give by introducing more stable adult figures to children’s lives is very important.

There is concern about funding, as was confirmed by my visit to Bolton Impact Trust. As the Minister will know, the dedicated schools grant is split into four notional blocks, but I want to focus on the high needs block.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

The hon. Gentleman has raised a vital issue. Given the importance of helping children who are ill, pupil referral units are an essential tool to retaining access to education that is specifically tailored to them. Should that not be protected at all costs?

[Chris Green]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman. Different schools and different parts of the educational structure serve different groups of children. The work done by referral units and, more widely, by specialist schools is very important, and ought to be protected. There will always be a need for these units, and they ought to be reassured that support will continue. Many of the people who work for them are very specialised and highly trained, and we must maintain that continuity in order to maintain that talent.

High needs funding is essential in helping to meet the educational requirements of pupils. The cost of those additional needs can be as much as £10,000 a year, £6,000 more than the normal average of £4,000. As the Minister is no doubt aware, local authorities determine the budgets for referral units and specialist schools on the basis of the number of places that are required before commissioning those places at £10,000 per place per annum, regardless of whether they are taken up.

In that context, it is important to recognise the difference between specialist schools, where there is a certain continuity, and referral units, where the intake can be slightly more erratic. If a place is taken up, the local authority funds a top-up on a daily and weekly basis. That funding model works very well for specialist schools. They normally experience less in-year movement of pupils, which means that forecasting income is comparatively straightforward. The situation in referral units is much more volatile. For example, in September there were 170 pupils on the roll in Bolton, but by the following June the number had risen to 260. There can be a stark contrast between the numbers at one point and the numbers at a later stage.

We need a responsive system. Because specialist schools have a longer-term relationship with children, there tends to be far more clarity about who will be in those schools, and hence more clarity about access to funding. Moreover, the main aim of referral units is to support pupils so successfully that they are able to return to mainstream schools, and an unfortunate consequence of that success is that a unit will lose between £12,000 and £14,000 per pupil per year. The current funding model provides no incentive for a referral unit to deliver successful outcomes. They will of course be focused on delivering successful outcomes, but there is a clear challenge in the funding model. Certain costs, such as for the building and the staff, are permanent regardless of the number of people in the unit, but the income can significantly vary over a period of time. Would it not make more sense to have a funding model that did not disadvantage referral units for successful outcomes, rather than one that could be seen as an incentive to units keeping hold of children? PRUs that are doing very good work, perhaps better than average, must not lose the money that is coming to them more quickly than the average, because that would be a disincentive.

In addition, there is no consistency in how local authorities determine the level of top-up funding for PRUs, and more broadly for specialist schools, when additional funding is required to support challenging behaviours. Often PRUs are unable to determine the level of a pupil’s needs until they have worked with them for a few weeks. At that point, with the pupil’s needs being met, it can be a challenge for the PRU to obtain additional funding from the local authority because the placement has already been made, and naturally, local authorities who are under a great deal of financial pressure, having decided to give a certain amount of funding, would find it challenging to give more funding; there would be resistance to that.

Does the Minister agree that a system which provided greater consistency and security of funding, whereby services are commissioned in a manner which allowed schools and academies to predict their income accurately, would deliver a better service for pupils? That would also lead to a reduction in the degree of friction between local authorities and providers, and allow greater emphasis to be put on educational standards, rather than needing to focus on volatile funding. Often in units much of the management time is spent on asking, “How do we get the money in? How do we get the funding in? How many meetings do we have? How much pressure do we have to apply?” That time ought to be focused more on the needs of the unit itself.

PRUs provide a vital service both locally and nationally, but we must focus on how we can reward units for success. The units in my constituency have been remarkably successful and are deserving of their outstanding status. How can we remove the financial penalty I have described? What steps can the Minister take to address the concerns of referral units and deliver more consistent funding in such an important part of children’s education?

Children’s Social Care

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Thursday 17th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Tim Loughton]

I am giving way to the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon).

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on bringing this issue forward. From my research on the matter, it seems that there are an additional 15,000 children in need in England since 2017, so it is clear that there is pressure on the system. Does the hon. Gentleman agree—perhaps the Minister could also respond to this point later—that the fact that Northern Ireland has the fewest children in care per capita in the United Kingdom indicates that a dialogue should take place with the devolved Administrations, particularly the Northern Ireland Assembly, to see just how those numbers have been achieved?

[Tim Loughton]

First, I am very grateful for your flexibility on timings, Mr Deputy Speaker.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tim Loughton]

I will come on to that. Obviously funding is a factor in this. I remember that in my time Bromley was always an exceptional council. I learned many interesting things about volunteering with children in Bromley. There was a pioneering service where volunteers worked alongside social workers helping children who were the subject of safeguarding plans, child protection plans—or whatever they were at that stage—to stay out of the care system. There has also been some very good work in Bromley by former employers in the Department for Education to help to bring that about. There is a combination of factors, but as I have clearly said and will restate in a minute, there is a problem with resources.

The Education Policy Institute also estimated that at least 55,800 children were turned away for treatment in 2017-18, but that is probably an understatement due to the shortage of data.

I am particularly disappointed by a report from the Institute of Health Visiting, headed by the excellent Dr Cheryll Adams CBE, which states that

“despite the health visiting mandate having been extended, it is apparent that universal services for children continue to bear the brunt of public health service cuts”

The health visiting workforce continues to experience significant reductions, with NHS posts falling from 10,309 in October 2015 to 7,982 by April 2018. The report —it is absolutely right—states:

“It is both astonishing and extremely worrying that the visionary work of David Cameron’s government to increase the number of health visitors across England by 50% between 2012 and 2015 could have been undone so quickly. Especially as the evidence for the importance of the very early years impacting on individuals’ future health and wellbeing is now so strong.”

Health visitors are experienced frontline early intervention professionals who often get into the houses of new parents at an early stage and gain their trust. They have been an early warning system for safeguarding problems as well as offering parenting support classes and other mechanisms that parents so often need. We have allowed their numbers to decline, and that is a false economy. I hope that the Minister might pick up on that. Obviously it is a dual responsibility along with the Department of Health.

As chair of the all-party parliamentary group on the first 1,001 days, which deals with perinatal mental health and the crucial first three years from conception to age two when a child’s brain is developing exponentially, I know how important it is to get that early support, particularly for parents who are lacking in some parenting skills. There are safeguarding issues, and it is a false economy not to be doing it. As our report, “Building Great Britons”, showed, the cost of getting perinatal mental health wrong is just over £8 billion a year, and the cost of child neglect in this country is over £15 billion a year. So we are spending £23 billion a year getting it wrong for new mothers and early-age children. That is a heck of an amount of money to be going on failure, frankly.

To put into perspective the importance of children’s services and the apparently relentless increase in demand, the County Councils Network recently reported that counties are responsible for 38% of England’s entire spend on children’s services, and that the councils in England alone overspent by £816 million on protecting vulnerable children just in the last financial year. The Local Government Association—I am grateful for the research that it has done—is predicting a £2 billion shortfall in children’s social care funding by 2020, as the hon. Member for Lewisham West and Penge (Ellie Reeves) said, and it could be as much as £3.1 billion by 2025.

There is good news. I do not want to be such a doom merchant, because the positive work by councils in helping our children and young people to have the best start in life has been illustrated by the latest Ofsted data on children’s social care. It shows that last year the proportion of council children’s services rated good or outstanding has increased, and that more children’s services departments have come out of special measures. I was delighted to hear in the past 24 hours that Birmingham, which has been problematic for so many years—I spent more of my time there than in any other local authority area—is no longer rated inadequate. There is still a steep hill to climb but there are good signs of progress in that huge authority that has all sorts of challenges.

There is a worrying trend in a recent report from the Nuffield Foundation, “Born into care”. It found that in 2007-08 there were 1,039 babies subject to care proceedings within one week of birth, but by 2016-17 this number had more than doubled to 2,447—an increase of 136%. That suggests to me that we are failing to do enough early to prevent babies from having to be taken into care because their parents are deemed inadequate or a risk to them. If we did more earlier on, those children may be able to stay with their parents.

At this point, I want to pay tribute to the family drug and alcohol courts, which were set up by Nick Crichton, a visionary district judge who did an amazing job of providing support and sensitive intervention services to people—usually single mums—who are at risk of a child or perhaps another child going into the care system and giving them an added chance. It was a tough challenge, but the success of the FDACs more than doubled the likelihood of those children staying with their parents and, more importantly, staying permanently.

That work carries on. There are 10 FDACs around the country, and we hope the Minister will be charitable in extending some funding for the FDAC co-ordination unit at the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust. He has been very helpful in discussions there. Nick Crichton sadly died just before Christmas, but his work has affected the lives of hundreds of children, and I want to put on record our tribute to him.

The Children’s Commissioner found in one of her reports that England now spends nearly half its entire children’s services budget on the 75,420 children in the care system in England, leaving the remaining half of spending for the other 11.7 million children, which includes spend on learning disability. The LGA reports that between 2006 and 2016, the number of child protection inquiries undertaken by local authorities rose by no less than 140%, while the number of children subject to a child protection plan almost doubled. More and more children are being taken into care. As I said, there were 75,420 children in care as of March last year, which is up 4% on the previous year.

Barnardo’s found in its report that 16% of the children referred to its fostering services had suffered sexual exploitation. There is increasing evidence—it is what police, teachers and social workers are saying—that there has been an increase in the number of particularly vulnerable children in the last five years. We have more children coming into the care system, often with more complex problems and requiring more intensive support, but we do not have enough going on—we have much less going on—to intervene early to try to keep them out of the care system. I do not think what I said earlier about a potentially impending crisis is an overstatement.

Barnardo’s also found that in 2010, roughly half of children’s services budgets were spent on family support and prevention, while the other half was spent on safeguarding work and children in care. Now, just under a third is spent on family support and prevention, while the remaining two thirds goes on safeguarding and children in care. We are building up problems for the future by not acting earlier.

[Jim Shannon]

rose—

[Tim Loughton]

Mr Deputy Speaker, you are guiding me to take a further intervention, thereby extending my speech, which I will reluctantly do for the hon. Gentleman.

[Jim Shannon]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way again; he is most gracious. Does he agree that more support should be given to families who are prepared to intervene, to help a child remain cared for by family members and prevent children being taken away from their home and support networks? Does he also agree that foster carers should not have less support and financial help simply because they are not related?

[Tim Loughton]

Again, the hon. Gentleman, who knows this subject well, makes some good points. We need to support foster carers better. We have overhauled the fostering regulations to ensure that foster carers get a better and fairer deal, as well as the foster children themselves. We have also tried to get more people to adopt and take on permanent responsibility for children.

There are also many voluntary organisations. Volunteers can work alongside vulnerable families, particularly where there is an absence of extended family members such as grandparents who, in another family, might be there to support parents or single parents through difficult times. To be fair, the Department for Education’s innovation fund and other funds have supported some really good work in the voluntary sector. We all need to work together on this, and it starts at home, but if some of the things that many of us take for granted are not in place at home, there are other ways of providing them before the state has to step in and become the parent. We need to be more flexible and imaginative. I am going to race through my remaining pages before you say I am out of time, Mr Deputy Speaker, but I am delighted by the extent of interest from colleagues here today.

Crucially, there is a good deal of evidence to show that funding pressures are having a disproportionate impact on some of the most deprived areas. I want to pay tribute to Professor Paul Bywaters of the University of Huddersfield, who gave a lot of evidence to our all-party group inquiry, for the work he undertook together with Professor Brid Featherstone of the University of Huddersfield and Professor Kate Morris of the University of Sheffield. If I may quote from some of his notes to the inquiry, Professor Bywaters said:

“Children in the most deprived 20% of neighbourhoods in England…were over 8 times more likely to be either on a Child Protection Plan or be Looked After in the care system…than a child in the least deprived 20%.”

That absolutely concurs with the all-party group’s finding. He also said that he was worried about the paucity of data to provide solid evidence for what we need to do to address this problem. He said:

“The complete absence of any systematic national data about the socio-economic and demographic circumstances of the parents of children in contact with children’s services is a key problem in analysing the factors that influence demand for children’s services. Collecting such data should be an urgent priority to underpin policy, service management and practice.”

That is one of the key recommendations from the all-party group report.

It is a false economy not to be investing in children’s social care as early on as possible. As I have said, that starts at conception, particularly when there are vulnerable parents who have mental health problems or have had poor parenting experiences themselves. This needs to be addressed in the comprehensive spending review. It is a classic example of investing to save—to save financially, but also to save the social consequences of children growing up and not being fully contributing members of society.

Some children are at higher risk, and disproportionately so in certain parts of the country according to deprivation and, indeed, ethnicity. We need to get the data to research those differentials and start applying the proper solution. We cannot do so until we have the proper information. We need to return to a much more preventive approach. That was why we invented the early intervention fund when this Government first came to power, but I am afraid its effects have been dissipated and the amount of funds diluted.

I ask the Minister to do his best to make sure that the troubled families programme, the funding for which comes to an end in 2020, is renewed. I want to see a pre-troubled families programme that deals with the first 1,001 days, before such families get on to the radar of local authorities, because of the problems that come with that.

We need to go back to the Munro report—I am glad to see in the Chamber my hon. Friend the Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Alex Burghart), who took part in that report—and to the unfinished business around early help. We need to share better practice and share research data better. We need to work smarter and more collaboratively. We also need to look after children closer to home, in familiar environments and friends groups, and use kinship care much better than we are now.

This is not just about resources, but about changing the mindset and getting this back as a Government priority. That is why I absolutely welcome the initiative launched last night in this place by Children First to have a Cabinet-level Minister for children, bringing together all these factors.

This is not just something invented in this place. I am delighted to say that, at the G20 summit in Buenos Aires last year, there was the declaration of an initiative for early childhood development. It said:

“We therefore launch the G20 Initiative for Early Childhood Development, determined to contribute to ensuring that all children—with an emphasis on their first 1,000 days”—

one day short—

“are well nourished and healthy, receive proper care, stimulation and opportunities for early learning and education, and grow up in nurturing and enabling environments, protected from all kinds of violence, abuse, neglect and conflict.”

This is an international priority. We have a great tradition of looking after the welfare of our children in this country, we just need to get back to making sure that we are doing it sooner and earlier, when we can have the most effect and the maximum benefit. I am sure the Minister will want to take up those challenges.

Out-of-area Education: Cared-for Children

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Tuesday 4th December 2018 Westminster Hall

[Gordon Henderson (Sittingbourne and Sheppey) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered cared-for children educated out of area.

It is a delight to see you in the Chair, Mr Hollobone. I should first explain, for those who may know them by another name, that cared-for children are the same as looked-after children—so if I refer to looked-after children in my speech, people will understand who I am referring to.

The use of children as drug mules by “county lines” gangs seems to make the news almost daily. Some might think that this is a new problem, but it is not. A year ago, almost to the day, there was an article in The Times about thousands of children being groomed as drug mules. A couple of days later there were two letters in the same newspaper from headteachers in east Kent, complaining about the number of looked-after children being placed in children’s homes and foster homes in Kent by local authorities from outside Kent, particularly London boroughs. It is outrageous that the most vulnerable children should be sent to one of the most deprived and challenging parts of the country, and of course those vulnerable children are most at risk of falling prey to criminals. There is an acknowledged link between the growth of drug-related gang crime in Kent and the number of looked-after children being sent to the county from London.

Protocols are in place that are supposed to prevent local authorities sending looked-after children farther than 20 miles from their home, and local authorities are not allowed to place a child in foster care without first securing a school place, but the protocols are repeatedly ignored, which means the problem is getting worse. Increasing numbers of looked-after children are being placed in Kent, not only by London boroughs but by counties as far away as Hampshire and Wiltshire. Indeed, only last week Buckinghamshire sent three children to a school in Thanet. That not only places many of the children in danger, but puts pressure on already hard-pressed schools and on Kent’s social services. The problem is made worse because the children are, in the main, placed in areas where there are already pockets of deep social deprivation, such as my constituency, which currently has the largest number of looked-after children from outside the area in Kent.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on bringing the matter to the House. Sometimes it may not be of the utmost importance to many people, but it is an issue of importance to us across the whole of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. I will give an example of how this is happening not just in the hon. Gentleman’s area. The number of children per capita in Northern Ireland is the lowest in the UK, but there is still a lack of available foster carers, which means that children are fostered, and therefore educated, out of their home area. Moving school is incredibly difficult for children. Does he agree that there must be a better way of ensuring that there is as little upheaval as possible, and that kinship fostering should be encouraged?