Draft Digital Government (Disclosure of Information) (Amendment) Regulations 2022

Kirsty Blackman Excerpts

Wednesday 19th October 2022 General Committees

[Kirsty Blackman (Aberdeen North) (SNP)]

I appreciate you taking the time to chair the Committee today, Ms Fovargue. I am grateful to the Minister for setting out the intentions behind the regulations. It is disappointing that the Scottish Government do not have the powers to do this ourselves. We do not have the information because we are not in full control of all of these things, including HMRC and DWP. We would certainly have a significantly better social security system than the UK has at present.

As a former local authority councillor—like my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh North and Leith—I can say from experience that local authorities in Scotland are very used to working with a lot of highly sensitive data. They have responsibilities for social care, social work and nursing provision, for example. They deal with all that data in accordance with the law and treat it with the sensitivity with which it needs to be treated.

The regulations are sensible and should be passed, in order to ensure that councils have the information and can say to parents of eligible two-year-olds, “Here is your funded childcare place, please take it up and here is more information about how to access it.” Between September 2020 and September 2021, we saw a 25% increase in the number of two-year-olds taking up those places, and we hope to see that increase further so that all of those eligible can access those services if they choose.

Lastly, the provision of free and accessible childcare is important because it gives parents the opportunity to choose whether to work. I and others like me could not make that decision because we did not have access to the same amount of funded childcare as people across Scotland and, indeed, the UK now have. It has made a significant difference to the lives of families, and I am pleased that this data-sharing agreement will allow even more families to benefit from funded childcare.

[Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)]

I do not intend to delay you, Ms Fovargue, or the Committee for much longer.

I welcome the speech made by the hon. Member for Aberdeen North. The purpose of the regulations is to improve funded childcare in Scotland, but I hope that Scotland will not have the same experience as we have had in England. In 2015, I served on the Childcare Bill Committee, which introduced the funded childcare arrangement. In the 2015 election, my party proposed a funded and costed policy for 25 hours of free childcare. The Conservatives, under the leadership of David Cameron, decided to trump that by offering 30 hours. It was a fine political move, but it had not been costed and they had not thought about it. Even by the time of the Bill Committee—Sam Gyimah, our former colleague, was the Minister—they had no clue where the money was going to come from or where it was going to go.

I am very concerned that we will put these regulations through—my party supports them and is not seeking to block them—but that Scotland will experience the same problems as those experienced by England and, I am guessing, Wales. The problem is that the principle will be agreed to, but without any mechanism or funding.

[Kirsty Blackman]

I reassure the hon. Gentleman that we already provide funded childcare for two-year-olds. These regulations will allow us to address those who do not have the funded places for which they are eligible. The way in which local government in Scotland works means that a concordat is signed between the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities and the Scottish Government about things such as how this will be delivered, and this is being signed as part of the concordat.

[Christian Matheson]

I am really grateful to the hon. Lady for that information, which reassures me a little. I only hope that the Government will now look south of the border to try to improve the provision of childcare in England, which is still chaotic and hit and miss.