Childcare

Lord Nash Excerpts

Tuesday 30th June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to ensure the effective monitoring of childcare places by local authorities.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Lord Nash) (Con)]

My Lords, the department’s statutory guidance is clear that local authorities should report annually to elected council members on how they are meeting this duty and make the report available and accessible to parents. We know that the childcare market is thriving. The latest figures just published show that 99% of four year-olds and 94% of three year-olds are accessing the Government’s free childcare offer.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply. He will have seen the recent Family and Childcare Trust report entitled Access Denied. It highlights a huge disparity in childcare places across England. For example, 49 local authorities have a shortage of free places for two year-olds in deprived areas, and while some local authorities are proactively managing the shortfall, others are not even bothering to collect the statistics, so the offer and the quality vary considerably from place to place. How can we be sure that future expenditure will be targeted at the families who would benefit the most from this money when we seem to be faced with a lack of nursery places in the most deprived areas?

[Lord Nash]

The noble Baroness is quite right to say that the recent report is concerning—and we are concerned. Local authorities of course must publish certain information, but only to a limited extent, so the new Bill will go further to ensure that we have better information. I can assure her that we are very focused on deprived areas, and indeed there has been a substantial increase in full daycare places in those areas over the past five years.

[Lord Laming (CB)]

My Lords, following on from the question of the noble Baroness, does the Minister agree that this requires much more than putting a roof over the head of any child who has had a terrible start in life? It requires a robust and effective care plan to be devised for each child in order to help them overcome their difficulties. We have only a very few years in which to get that into operation.

[Lord Nash]

I agree entirely with the noble Lord, who is very experienced in this area. We all know that these are the most important years in a child’s life, but I am encouraged that of the providers who have been inspected under the early years inspection framework, which is a more rigorous one, we now have some 85% of them being found to be good or outstanding, up from 69% five years ago.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that the problems of undercapacity in the childcare sector will not be resolved unless hourly rates for the free places are substantially increased? The hourly rate is dependent on the vagaries of the early years funding element in the revenue support grant to local authorities. We need to address both concerns if the rates for free places are going to be increased, as well as problems around capacity in the childcare sector if the increase to 15 hours a week is to be provided.

[Lord Nash]

The noble Baroness is quite right to be concerned about these points; that is why we have a funding review and a task force, and will be entering into a consultation. However, we have to strike a balance between value for money and quality.

[Baroness Massey of Darwen (Lab)]

My Lords, the Minister will be aware of the Select Committee report on affordable childcare. The report indicates that many parents find the provision of the current childcare system difficult and complex. What would the Minister advise a parent to do when they are seeking high-quality childcare for their child?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Nash]

The system can sometimes be complex for parents; that is why we are conducting this review. However, holiday care and after-school childcare have expanded substantially in the last few years, and it is important that we continue this flexibility.

[Lord Sutherland of Houndwood (CB)]

My Lords, the Bill before the House could well expand educational expenditure in this area to over £6 billion annually. What steps are the Government taking to be sure that this money is well spent, and that it benefits those most in need in terms of increasing their educational opportunities?

[Lord Nash]

We will be looking at this closely in the coming review. We have of course been extremely focused on providing for those most in need through the early years pupil premium, the pupil premium, universal free school meals, free childcare for 15 hours for two year-olds, and of course expanding the three and four year-old offer from 12 hours to 15 hours.

[Baroness Andrews (Lab)]

My Lords, has the Minister seen the devastating report that came out earlier this week from the Delegated Powers Select Committee? If he has, what is his response to its conclusions that the absence of any detail in the Bill and the inappropriate delegations of considerable significant powers make it practically impossible for this House to have a meaningful debate on it? Does he not think that he owes it to the House to enable us to do our job in terms of the proper scrutiny of a very important Bill that we would all like to support?

[Lord Nash]

The noble Baroness is quite right; I have seen that report, and I am very grateful for it. We will have the opportunity to debate it in great detail tomorrow in Committee, when I will be saying more about that. We will be considering the report extremely carefully and making any necessary appropriate amendments.

[The Earl of Listowel (CB)]

My Lords, is the Minister aware of the decline in numbers of the highly regarded nursery schools attached to primary schools? Is he looking at how those numbers can be increased in order to develop capacity in high-quality early years provision?

[Lord Nash]

I am not entirely sure that the noble Earl is right about declining numbers; I will clarify that for him. I think that provision has in fact been increasing, and we have been making every effort to expand that high-quality provision. We know that it is of the highest quality and tends to have higher-quality staff. We have reduced the bureaucracy to enable primary schools to open nurseries, and we have now allowed free school applicants to apply to open nurseries attached to their primary places. We have been working with a number of schools that are already doing this to learn from the practice so that we can share that practice with other primary schools that want to open nursery provision.