Child Care

Lucy Powell Excerpts

Tuesday 19th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

I thank my hon. Friend for his point about children’s centres, which have been a massive success under this Government. Record numbers of parents are using them, we have improved them by focusing them on outcomes and they are really achieving.

[Lucy Powell (Manchester Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

You’re having a laugh.

--- Later in debate ---

[Elizabeth Truss]

I thank my hon. Friend for that point, which illustrates the problem with the child care voucher system.

Let me further point out to Labour Members that in the ’80s and ’90s, when we had a working mother in charge of our country, England was ahead in respect of maternal employment, but we fell behind other countries such as France and Germany under Labour’s watch. Maternal employment rates are rapidly rising under this Government. As Edmund Burke pointed out—the shadow Education Secretary is clearly a big fan—“those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it”, and if he has not learnt the lessons that people in the previous Labour Government learnt at the time, he will fail, should he ever get the opportunity to be in office. That is why we are reforming the child care system: we are reforming the hopeless legacy that Labour left.

The signs are that what we are doing is working. We are seeing prices stabilising, more places being made available in school nurseries and a revival in childminding. We want parents to have a good choice of options, including nurseries, schools, childminders and children staying at home with parents, or a combination of those. We are introducing much simpler funding and creating a regulatory structure to support modern working parents.

We are determined to reverse the decline in the number of childminders. From this September, good and outstanding childminders will be able automatically to access funding for early education places for two, three and four-year-olds. That means that an additional 28,000 childminders will automatically be funded. I think that addresses the point raised by the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier) about ensuring high-quality childminding.

[Lucy Powell]

Perhaps the hon. Lady will explain why there are 2,423 fewer childminders than there were in 2009.

[Elizabeth Truss]

That is a continuation of the fall in the number of childminders under Labour. We have reversed the policy, starting this September, and the Department for Education is already getting a lot of positive calls from childminders who are keen to offer early education places. There is a great deal of support for that; it helps parents to combine their child care and early education requirements. From this September, we are trialling childminder agencies, which will enable more childminders to join the profession, and they will be fully up and running in September 2014. They will provide training and support, and will be an easy way for parents to access home-based care. We are at the beginning of making significant changes to the way childminders are regarded in our system. What we want to see is an increase in independent childminders and more agency childminders, as well.

We want to expand the level of school-based care, too. As opposed to Labour’s child care mirage, we are allowing real schools to offer real facilities. We are encouraging schools to use their nursery facilities to offer full-time day care rather than just be open for part of the day. We are allowing schools automatically to register two-year-olds, and I saw some brilliant provision for two-year-olds at the Oasis school in Hadley, which opened in January.

We are seeing 8-to-6 schools blossoming. The Norwich free school has a squirrels club, which means it is open from 8 am to 6 pm, 51 weeks a year. I know that the shadow Education Secretary thinks that free schools are a “dangerous ideological experiment”, but I think schools like the Norwich free school are giving hard-working parents the support that they need.

Another example is the Harris chain of academies, which has promised that every new school it opens will operate on an 8-to-6 basis. I am hugely in favour of 8-to-6 provision. It supports working families and helps to increase children’s attainment, but we must do that in a way that is realistic and sustainable for schools. That means making the necessary regulatory changes, aligning the requirements after the school day from within the school day and making it easier for schools to collaborate with outside providers. We do not get anywhere by making false promises that cannot be realised. We are also reforming child care funding so that parents see more of their money, rather than see it wasted. This means that all working parents will get up to £1,200 per child towards child care costs and the provision of 15 hours for three and four-year-olds.

All that is in the context of what the Government are doing to help families with the cost of living: a £705 income tax cut, thanks to our increases in the personal allowance; a £1,000 saving on mortgages because rates have been kept low; £364 saved on petrol for those who top up their cars once a week; and £210 saved thanks to our council tax freeze. This Government have real policies, helping real working parents to manage their lives—not the dodgy numbers, unfunded promises and gimmicks we have seen from the Labour party today.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lucy Powell (Manchester Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am grateful to the many colleagues across the House, especially so many male colleagues, who have spoken in this important debate. This is my first outing at the Dispatch Box, and I am absolutely delighted to be winding up on an issue of such importance to so many families across the country.

Labour has a proud record on child care. It was the Labour Government who put child care on the political map and oversaw a revolution in child care provision. My hon. Friend the Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier) gave a passionate account of our record. Ensuring that we have good, affordable and flexible child care is critical not only for families facing a cost of living crisis, but for the economy as a whole, as my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester South (Jonathan Ashworth) rightly said.

Unfortunately, things are going backwards under this Government. They are presiding over a child care crunch and failing to support families in work. Under this Government we have seen a child care triple whammy of rising costs, falling places and cuts in support to help parents. Since 2010 the number of child care places has fallen by over 35,000, including 2,423 fewer childminders on the Minister’s watch, all at a time when a rising birth rate is putting greater demand on the system. The failure to supply enough places is impacting on costs for families. The problem of insufficient child care supply is hurting the economy and making balancing work and family life a nightmare for parents.

Many Members have spoken about cuts to their local Sure Start centre. The Government’s own figures show that there are now 578 fewer centres than there were in 2010. That figure is calculated from the Government’s own publicly available records, and I must say that it resonates much more with what we hear is happening on the ground. Let us take the Prime Minister’s back yard as an example. Of the 44 centres in Oxfordshire, 37 are due to close. He once famously said that he would back Sure Start, but for many in his constituency that is yet another broken promise.

I agree with the hon. Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom)—I have a great deal of respect for her and for the work she has done on early intervention—that the issue is not just about the fabric of the buildings; it is also about capacity. I wonder whether Ministers can tell us what progress is being made in increasing the number of health visitors by 4,200 by 2015, which is critical in delivering the Sure Start model.

The crisis in places is leading to price hikes that are making it increasingly unsustainable for parents to make ends meet, as the very powerful account from my hon. Friend the Member for Barrow and Furness (John Woodcock) made clear.

[Mr David Ward (Bradford East) (LD)]

Is the hon. Lady aware that Naomi Eisenstadt, who can be regarded as the mother of Sure Start, told the Education Committee that there were too many Sure Start centres and that phase 3 was spreading them far too thinly?

[Lucy Powell]

I was not aware of her comments, but I completely disagree. As hon. Members have said, this is a very popular service that people raise with us on the doorstep, unlike many other Government policies.

[Andrea Leadsom]

rose—

[Lucy Powell]

I will plough on and give way later.

Under this Government, average weekly part-time nursery costs have increased by 30%. Put another way, child care costs have risen five times faster than wages. In the past year alone, they have risen at more than double the rate of inflation. It is typical of the Government to pretend that things are going well when the reality is that many parents are finding it an incredible struggle to find and afford the child care they need. On top of the crisis in places and hikes in costs, parents have also seen their support fall. Families with two children have experienced a reduction of about £1,500 a year in tax credits, hitting low-income families the hardest. At the time of the 2010 spending review, the Office for Budget Responsibility warned the Government that cuts to child care support would have a negative impact, saying that they would

“affect the hours worked and participation in the labour market”.

Yet the Government have taken no notice and parents face an increasingly difficult child care crunch.

[Mr Marcus Jones]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Lucy Powell]

I am going to make some progress.

Let me turn to the Government’s response. They may have deleted reference to it from their website, but the Prime Minister once promised that they would be

“the most family-friendly Government…ever”.

Yet they have wasted three years doing very little. The Minister’s flagship agenda on ratios has been abandoned; the nursery offer for disadvantaged two-year-olds is being met with delivery problems; and their tax break scheme is too little, too late and benefits the richest the most. On child care ratios, the Deputy Prime Minister agreed with us that changing ratios could even increase prices. He said that the evidence was “overwhelmingly against” changing the rules on ratios, and went on to say:

“I cannot ask parents to accept such a controversial change with no real guarantee it will save them money—in fact it could cost them more.”

While we welcome extra support for disadvantaged two-year-olds, one in three councils tell us that they do not have enough places to meet this policy.

Childminder agencies are up in the air, with no clarity about how they will work or what they will do. The Minister is running 20 pilots across the country. So far, we know that at least two of those pilots will charge, although we do not know who will bear the cost. Will Ministers give us a guarantee that childminder agencies will not push up prices for parents?

The Government’s tax-free child care policy is too little, too late for parents. The extra investment in child care the Government are promising is dwarfed by the £7 billion a year of cuts they have already made for families with children. The scheme does not start until 2015, and it excludes families with children over the age of five. It benefits families earning up to £300,000 a year, helping the richest the most while leaving low and middle-income families struggling to make work pay, particularly for second earners. This policy will do nothing about costs.

By contrast, Labour has a plan to tackle the child care crunch. Our policies will make a real difference to mums and dads, get our economy moving, and help parents to tackle the logistical nightmare they face. As my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell) rightly pointed out, seven out of 10 mums said they would work were it not for the high costs of child care. Expensive child care is acting as a drag on our economy. If our employment rate for mothers moved up to the average of the world’s top five nations, 320,000 more women would have jobs and tax receipts would rise by £1.7 billion a year. The Government gloat about their record, but most of the jobs they have created for mothers returning to work are part-time, low-paid jobs. Over 1 million of those people want to return to full-time work, but the full-time jobs do not exist.

Labour Members take the child care crunch seriously; we are not as complacent as Government Members. We would expand free child care for three and four-year-olds from 15 to 25 hours per week for working parents. That is worth over £1,500 a year. This is a fully costed Labour commitment. We would pay for this policy by ensuring that the banks pay their fair share, increasing the bank levy to an extra £800 million a year.

For school-aged children, many parents increasingly struggle to find decent before and after-school child care. The Government abandoned our extended schools programme. We will set down in law a guarantee that parents can access wraparound child care through their local school if they want it. This will stimulate innovation and collaboration to meet the logistical nightmare described by Members today.

Child care is at the heart of the cost of living crisis for many families. While parents cry out for action from this Government, all we have seen is in-fighting and prevarication while costs have soared and provision fallen. Our offer of 25 hours free child care for working parents of three and four-year-olds will make a real difference to families struggling to make ends meet. I hope colleagues on both sides of the House will support our motion.