Childcare Bill [HL]

Lord Nash Excerpts

Wednesday 1st July 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord True]

The answer is yes.

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

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 10. While I understand the noble Baronesses, Lady Pinnock and Lady Tyler, would like working parents of children between ages one and two to be entitled to additional childcare, the elected Government’s manifesto commitment is to increase the hours of free childcare to working parents of three and four-year-olds.

There is already support for childcare put in place by the last Government. We have increased the child tax credit entitlement to £2,780 per year for families with one child, £480 more per year than in 2010. We have legislated for tax-free childcare, which will save about 1.8 million working families with children under the age of 12 up to £2,000 per child a year.

The Government are also committed to increasing childcare support within universal credit by about £350 million to provide 85% of childcare costs from 2016 when a lone parent or both parents in a couple are in work. This is up from 70% in the current working tax credit system and current universal credit system.

This package of support for childcare as a whole provides help for parents with children between ages one and two and represents significant public investment. These are, however, difficult economic times, and the Government have to make hard choices. We know that more parents use childcare as children move towards school age. We are, therefore, focusing on where there is the greatest demand for childcare. Alongside this, two year-olds in low-income families also receive 15 hours a week, offering both high-quality early education and the opportunity for their parents to move into work.

I hope, for these reasons, that the noble Baroness is persuaded to withdraw the amendment.

[Baroness Pinnock]

The response from the Minister is predictable because of the cost to the public purse of providing free childcare in this gap year. I refer, however, to the comment I made earlier about the motif on the door of the Minister’s office, which says, “closing the gaps”. Here is a big gap that I would like closed. If we can edge towards this by saying, “What we would really like to achieve for early years care and education is a planned approach which includes provision from age one to four,” I would welcome that. At the moment, we have a more or less ad hoc approach to extensions; first it was to everyone—the universal offer—now to only those with working parents, and to some two year-olds from disadvantaged families. It seems that we ought to be able to extend this to one and two year-olds, especially to those from disadvantaged families who would qualify at age two. As I and many of the Members of this House have said, if we can help the most vulnerable children in the most disadvantaged homes, it helps not only those children but also the rest of society as they grow into adulthood.

I hope that, at some point, perhaps on Report, there could be an approach to help bridge that gap. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

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[Lord Sutherland of Houndwood (CB)]

My Lords, I promise to be very brief and offer one comment and one suggestion. The comment is that there is a huge range of possible needs under SEN and we need to unpick them at some point. This is not the time to do that, but it leads to my second point. Many of the issues covered by these amendments are of a practical nature and I wonder how far study of them could be incorporated into the pilots that are proposed to be set up.

[Lord Nash]

My Lords, this group includes Amendments 12 and 16. I remember well the excellent debates we had during the passage of the Children and Families Bill, and it will be no surprise that I sympathise with the intentions of the noble Baronesses, Lady Jones, Lady Tyler and Lady Pinnock, and the noble Lord, Lord Touhig, in their desire to ensure that the new entitlement is implemented in a way that meets the needs of children with SEN and disabilities.

We know that families with disabled children too often experience challenges and financial pressures in getting the service they need. That is why we have already acted—or will be taking steps—to address the issues highlighted by the proposed amendments. There is a strong legal framework in place to support children with SEN and disabilities. The Equality Act requires local authorities and other public bodies to promote equality of opportunity for disabled people. Early years settings, schools and colleges must make reasonable adjustments for disabled children, including the provision of auxiliary aids and services, to ensure that they are not at a disadvantage compared with their peers.

The Children and Families Act introduced significant reforms to the way children with special educational needs and disabilities are identified and supported. The improvements they will bring will be for all children, including those who receive childcare. Local councils will now commission support across education, health and care jointly with their health partners, publish a clear, local offer of services for children with SEN and disabilities and provide comprehensive information and advice to parents on these matters. New 0 to 25 education, health and care plans for those with more complex needs will replace the current SEN statements.

We want every family to have access to flexible and affordable high-quality childcare. We are monitoring take-up of the entitlement for two year-olds closely. In 2015, there were 2,450 two year-olds with some form of SEN or disability who took up a place within the current entitlement, compared to 1,300 in 2014. We can be confident that this is high-quality provision since the majority of children—85%—are attending settings that are currently rated good or outstanding by Ofsted. As the entitlement for three and four year-olds is universal, we do not currently collect information on why children take up a place. However, we know that 94% of three year-olds and 99% of four year-olds in England are taking up funded early education.

We are funding a number of projects to increase the number of good-quality and flexible childcare and early education places for disabled children: for example, 4Children’s project to build on the success of childcare hubs and Family Action’s work to support more school-based childcare for children under five with SEN and disabilities. We are also building on the Family and Childcare Trust’s parent champions and outreach work to increase the number of flexible early education and childcare places for disadvantaged families.

The Government are committed to building a highly skilled workforce for all children. All early years childcare providers must have in place arrangements to support children with SEND under the accountability framework that they are assessed against. The current early years teacher standards require that all new early years teachers have a clear understanding of the needs of children with SEND and are able to use and evaluate distinctive approaches to engage and support them. Similar arrangements apply for schoolteachers.

To ensure that providers and local authorities are equipped to deliver the expectations of the new code of practice, we are funding a number of projects to better equip the early years workforce to support children with SEND responsibilities. These include: funding the National Day Nurseries Association to build on local systems for self-improvement through SEND champions; the Pen Green Centre, which supports a model of peer-to-peer training; and the Pre-School Learning Alliance, to build mentored workforce development networks. More broadly, the SEND gateway, established by the National Association for Special Educational Needs, provides information and training resources for education professionals across early years, schools and further education. Through our voluntary and community sector grants programme, we are also funding the NASEN to develop online learning to help practitioners effectively to identify and meet the needs of children with SEN.

To make sure that we fully understand the issues that families face, we will engage with parents and providers to find out more about how they currently access and deliver childcare. We want to hear their views on how the extended entitlement could best meet their needs. I am pleased to say that we have already received a number of responses from groups representing and supporting disabled children and their parents, offering to host consultation events for parents and providers. We will continue to work with providers to identify what more can be done to ensure that early years settings are building inclusive and accessible services for parents with disabled children. I shall take back the idea put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, of making sure that providers for disabled children and the needs of disabled children are factored into the pilots.

As the Committee has heard, funding and affordability is a significant issue for many parents of SEND children. Local authorities must have the flexibility to provide support according to the circumstances in their area. They are able to set higher funding rates for provision that involves additional costs, including costs for children with SEN or disabilities, and can use their high-needs budgets to fund provision for children with additional needs, including those in specialist settings. Some in the sector have expressed concerns over the higher costs of supporting children with SEN and disabilities. The funding review will, of course, consider the additional costs, funding and support required for children with SEN and disabilities. We would welcome any evidence that the Special Educational Consortium can submit to the review on this issue and we will be happy to work with it—indeed, my officials have already met its representatives.

I am in agreement with the noble Baronesses, Lady Jones, Lady Tyler and Lady Pinnock, and the noble Lord, Lord Touhig, about the need for concentrated action to ensure that the Government implement the new entitlement effectively for children with SEN and disabilities. As I have described, much of this is either in hand or about to take place. However, in view of the importance of ensuring that there is equal access to the new entitlement, I would welcome a conversation with noble Lords outside this debate.

I hope that I have reassured noble Lords, and therefore urge the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for suggesting that we can have a further conversation about this, and that may be the way forward, because I think that there are some issues that still need to be explored. I think that there is a problem with saying that we already have a legal framework in place, and that therefore there is no problem, per se. It is one thing to say that you have a legal framework and another to look at the practicality of what is happening on the ground. We have to marry those up in some way—so, if we have a legal framework but parents of disabled children are not accessing it, we have a problem, and we really need to get to the heart of why that is the case.

I am pleased to hear that the funding review will consider the issue. As I said in opening the debate, the call for evidence does not explicitly say that we want to hear from parents of disabled children. I think the noble Lord is saying that that will be done as a separate exercise or a parallel exercise. If that is the case, I am very pleased to hear that. Rather than just assume that parents of disabled children were responding to a general call for evidence, we need to go and seek them out in a more targeted way.

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This is perhaps my one opportunity to make this plea, which I mentioned briefly at Second Reading—I apologise for trespassing for so long on your Lordships’ time at this hour. These are good people, good settings, some of the things that bind society together and which bring hope to people. Let us understand, when we make policy, the reality of life on the ground—the people who go on buses in the morning to get to these little centres, the people who open them up, those who book the halls and have to balance the time they give to their choir against what they can give to the nursery school. This is the reality of life in our land, and how the voluntary world and the informal world make good education happen. Please may we take that into account?

[Lord Nash]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 14, 30 and 32 regarding the review of the cost of childcare, the funding rate to deliver early education places and the impact of the additional entitlement on providers.

I appreciate the concerns that the noble Baronesses and the noble Lord are trying to address through Amendments 14 and 30. I agree with them that a review of the cost of providing childcare is needed and that providers should receive a fair funding rate to deliver early education places. This is particularly important as we move forward to extend the free entitlement to 30 hours for working parents of three and four year-olds. In order to do this, as we discussed, we are conducting a thorough review. The review will report in the autumn and will inform our decisions on the level of funding that providers require to deliver quality childcare, and as I said, we will report on these findings by Report.

The Government have committed to a funding rate that is fair and sustainable for providers and meets the needs of a diverse market—we were the only party that committed to increase the rate. The findings from the review will inform what that rate should be. This is a complex issue which will be looked at both by experts across government and by an external team of experts. Their role will be to support the review process and validate their findings. A call for evidence is already under way, and as I have said, we have already received more than 500 responses. With regard to how we will pay for that, it will be funded by restricting tax relief on the pensions of higher earners.

The noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, talked about the scale of the increase facing us. We have introduced an offer relating to two year-olds and raised the offers for three and four year-olds from 12 to 15 hours, and the sector has coped well with that. However, the increase is nothing like the 50% that she spoke about. Many children will be in reception classes in primary schools at the age of four and many will already be taking up the offer—parents will be paying for it themselves—so the challenge is not as great as it might appear at first blush. As I say, we are confident that the sector will be able to respond. I hope that the noble Baronesses and the noble Lord will agree that the Government’s firm commitment in respect of the review and funding for early education addresses their concerns. I therefore urge them not to press the amendments.

Amendment 32 is in the name of the noble Lord, Lord True. I understand the noble Lord’s concern that the additional provision may have a negative impact on some providers, many of whom will provide a valuable service to their local community. As I mentioned earlier, I am happy to confirm that we do not envisage that any provider will be forced to provide places. While the number of providers offering places under the existing entitlement continues to grow, it is true that some choose not to do so. Parents may choose, as some do already, to receive their free entitlement from more than one provider. The existing entitlement of 15 hours per week for disadvantaged two year-olds and for all three and four year-olds will of course remain. We will keep all aspects of the delivery of the new entitlement and all the different types of providers under observation and careful consideration but it seems to us that a report such as that suggested by the amendment would be wholly disproportionate. It would be very intrusive into the private business affairs of providers. I hope that this gives the noble Lord the reassurance that he seeks and I therefore urge him not to press the amendment.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch]

I thank the Minister for that response. The difficulty is, I think, that there is a great deal seemingly riding on the funding review and we are all trying to piece together what will be in it. Originally we were referred to the call for evidence, which we have of course looked at, but it does not give a great deal away and, as I said earlier, the evidence that it is calling for is very generalised. There are some quite specific issues that we want the funding review to look at, such as capital funding, the historic disparities between local authorities and where the money will come from—I note that the Minister said that it would be paid for by the tax relief but, if it turns out that it costs more than the original assumption, where will that extra cash come from? I give those issues as examples.

This is the last opportunity that we will have to talk about the funding review before we see the findings—according to the timetable now, we will see the findings on Report—and our last chance to influence what is in the funding review. Given that, it would have been, and still would be, helpful to see the terms of reference so that we know exactly what is in them, what is being looked at and what is excluded

I was very taken with the examples given by the noble Lord, Lord True. You cannot assume that some of these providers will find their way to us if we do not ask them to give us the evidence to help get a full picture. I am pleased to hear that there are experts in and outside of government, but I would love to know exactly what they will be doing. I do not want everything dotted and crossed, but a bit more of the flavour of what exactly is going on with the funding review would be really helpful while we still have a chance to encourage people to participate in it and before we finally get a chance to debate the outcome in October. We have moved a little way forward but I think that we still have a way to go on some of these issues. In the mean time, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 14 withdrawn.

Amendments 15 to 17 not moved.

Amendment 18

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[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch]

My Lords, this is one of the many clauses about which the Delegated Powers Committee was scathing. Regarding the proposal for the establishment of a body corporate, it said in its report that the government memorandum,

“explains little about why a new body might be thought necessary or about the nature of its proposed functions”.

I am rather glad that it said that because our inquiries at Second Reading received a similarly blank response.

Since then, there have been some developments. I am very conscious that the Minister said before we started this debate that the Government had had some second thoughts on the amendment. I could spell out in more detail why we thought that the measure was not a sensible idea but I am sure that the noble Lord has something useful to say about it. Therefore, rather than pre-empt that, I should be interested to hear what he has to say.

[Lord Nash]

As I said earlier, we are very happy to accept this amendment.

Amendment 18 agreed.