Cost of Child Care

Lucy Powell Excerpts

Wednesday 20th November 2013 Westminster Hall

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

It is a pleasure to be here under your chairmanship, Mr Hood. I had hoped for my first outing as a Front-Bench spokesperson to be in this Chamber, but we had a similar debate in the main Chamber yesterday. I am hoping that today will be slightly less boisterous than some of our exchanges then.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Houghton and Sunderland South (Bridget Phillipson) for securing this extremely important debate. I declare, as she did, an interest—in fact, our children play together at the same nursery, here in the House of Commons. Many Members present share such an interest, in that our children are in child care. Over the past few days, we have seen how important the issue is for many of our constituents, as a debate is now raging throughout the country.

For the record, the Labour party is proud of what we achieved on early years during our time in office, but there was still much to do when we left government. There is no silver bullet or panacea to resolve such difficult and complex issues. The point, however, is the direction of travel, which under the Labour Government was positive and in the right direction, but under this Government has turned back. Ensuring that we have good, affordable and flexible child care is not only critical to families and to closing some of those inequality gaps, but to the economy as a whole, as we have heard from Members today. That is why we need to do more about it.

Instead of repeating the arguments that we had yesterday, I want to take the opportunity to discuss further some of the issues that have been mentioned. We heard from my hon. Friend a cogent argument about the triple whammy facing families: rising costs, falling places and cuts to support.

Since 2010, the number of child care places has fallen by more than 35,000. As the Minister agreed yesterday, we now have 2,423 fewer childminders than in 2009, so places are going down under this Government. We had some debate about Labour’s record on childminders, but I want to put on the record at least once a quote from the chief executive of the Professional Association for Childcare and Early Years, when she gave evidence to the Children and Families Bill Committee:

“The statistic…often…quoted…is not one we recognise in terms of the scale of downsizing of registered childminders in the period that the Minister talks about”—

when Labour was in government.

“Pre-Ofsted registration, childminders were managed by local authorities and registered locally”,

and,

“when Ofsted took over that registration, there was a clearout of a lot of data on individuals who were not practising childminders.”––[Official Report, Children and Families Public Bill Committee, 7 March 2013; c. 99, Q208.]

The Minister also asked why we were not discussing school nursery provision, but we are very much doing so. First, Labour policy is to extend nursery provision to three and four-year-olds for 15 hours a week, which is leading to school nurseries being able to offer that to parents. Members present today, such as my right hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton South East (Mr McFadden), mentioned the provision of offers for three and four-year-olds in school nurseries. Our policy pledge is about extending that offer further still.

The figures that we were talking about are for childminders and child care places, but if the Minister wishes to take some credit for Labour’s policy for three and four-year-olds, I am happy for her to do so.

[Elizabeth Truss]

My specific point was that the 35,000 figure cited by the hon. Lady is only that from the Ofsted early years register; there are also nursery places on the schools register for Ofsted, which have not been counted in her numbers. The claim was that there are 1.3 million child care places, but there are actually 2 million, because the two registers were not added together by the Opposition; Labour used only one of the registers in its analysis, so its numbers are wrong.

[Lucy Powell]

I do not want to get into a stats war with the Minister, but the point is that families up and down this country know that it is getting harder and harder to find childminders and quality early-years provision. As the Minister knows, there is also massively increased demand: the birth rate has been rising by more than 125,000 year on year while the Government have been in office. The sector is therefore facing significantly increased demand as well.

On Sure Start, my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell) rightly asked the Minister about the figures. The Department for Education’s own press release from June 2010 stated that there were 3,621 Sure Start centres; recently, the Directgov website showed that there were only 3,053. That is where our figures come from—they are the Minister’s own figures. The point being made today, however, is that the issue is not only about the numbers, but about the services being offered, because many Sure Start centres are being downgraded.

I do not want to confuse matters, because there are two separate issues: Sure Start centres and their provision for early-years intervention work; and Sure Start and child care provision. The Policy Exchange paper showed that, in the poorest areas, child care provision is of the poorest quality—that is why the Sure Start provision of child care is of particular importance. It has focused on some of the most deprived areas, where child care quality is at its worst. That is where it is most needed. We still need Sure Start centres that are able to provide child care.

On the model more broadly, the early intervention grant, which provides the funding for children’s centres, will be halved between 2010 and 2015, going from £3 billion a year to £1.5 billion a year. That is what is having such an impact on the services that Sure Start centres are able to provide to new mums. Those centres play a critical role.

I asked a further question about the Sure Start model yesterday, which I hope the Minister can answer today. It was about another critical component of delivering that essential support for new mums—the role of health visitors. The Prime Minister said before the election that we would have 4,200 new health visitors by 2015. Will the Minister update us today on what progress has been made?

I will skip past some of my other points, but I will repeat the request for an answer to the questions asked by my hon. Friends the Members for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) and for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin) about universal credit and its impact on whether the lowest-income families can meet child care costs. Will the Minister also answer those questions?

The Government response seems to have been to do little in their time in office—[Interruption.] I am sorry, but the Minister’s own flagship policy on child care ratios has now been resoundingly dumped by her colleague; we welcome the extension of the free offer to two-year-olds, but delivery problems remain; and childminder agencies are an unknown quantity and an experiment. We will see how they pan out.

The Government’s main flagship policy now seems to be the tax-free child care policy, but that is too little, too late. The scheme is not coming in until the autumn of 2015, and the people who will benefit most from it will be the highest paid—the more people spend on child care and the more they earn, the more they will benefit. It will do absolutely nothing about cost. In fact, there is evidence to suggest that the scheme—putting so much into the system on the demand side, rather than on the supply side—will lead to costs going up further still. I hope for reassurance from the Minister on that today.

Labour has new policies to extend the three and four-year-old offer from 15 to 25 hours a week and around guaranteeing wrap-around care—welcome policies that are a step in the right direction and will help families to meet the child care crunch that they face. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton South East so eloquently put it, such policies are only steps in the right direction—as a country, we face a big challenge, and we will need bigger and bolder policies to address it. Under this Government, we are going in the wrong direction.

--- Later in debate ---

[Elizabeth Truss]

I am sorry, but I will not be able to take interventions at the moment because I want to try to answer all the many questions hon. Members have raised.

Labour claims that costs have risen by 30% since the Government took office. The study that was mentioned also suggested that costs had risen by 50% under the previous Labour Government. Child care costs have been rising year on year, but other recent studies suggest that those costs are now stabilising and have been flat in real terms for the past two years. Across the political spectrum, we need to analyse why we put the same amount of money into our child care system as countries such as France and Germany but parents in those countries pay a lot less—they pay about half the costs that parents here pay. It is not just about the money that the Government are putting in; it is about the efficiency of provision, competition in the child care market and how that market works. I have spent a lot of time thinking about that as a Minister, and some of my plans are aimed at addressing those specific issues.

[Lucy Powell]

Will the Minister give way on that point?

[Elizabeth Truss]

I will briefly, but I want to try to answer all the questions raised.

[Lucy Powell]

I appreciate that the Minister is being generous in giving way. On the basis of the analysis that she has just given, how does she think that giving a tax-free child care offer will address the costs?

[Elizabeth Truss]

That offer will help parents to pay towards the costs of child care. Our reforms to encourage more childminders, more school-based care and more private and voluntary nurseries are aimed at expanding supply. Those two policies go hand in hand.

The hon. Member for Houghton and Sunderland South is not right in her analysis that after-school clubs have declined. In fact, our most recent study shows that they have increased by 5%. One of the issues with the extended schools policy that Labour had before the election was that schools could simply put a link to a child care provider on their website, or something like that, and that would count as providing an extended school place; the school had ticked the box, but there was not really any all-day provision. We are working on aligning requirements during the school day and afterwards, as well as making it easier for schools to collaborate with outside providers, so that they can provide real care on the school site.

It is important that schools are encouraged to use their assets better. It helps children to learn more and supports working parents. We are working hard to encourage more schools to do that. I am pleased to say that, for example, the Harris academy chain has agreed that all its new primary schools will have a school day of 8 am to 6 pm. We need to make provision in a sustainable way that enables schools to mix and match with their school day, so that children have extra learning and extra opportunities for creativity, sports and after-school activities. We are keen to encourage that approach.

A lot of claims have been made about children’s centres. As I said in the debate in the House yesterday, the figures on the Department for Education website are about the management structures of children’s centres. There have been only 45 outright closures. A lot of management structures have been merged but with the centres remaining open. In fact, a record number of parents are using children’s centres—over 1 million this year. That shows the success of those centres.

I wanted to respond briefly to the excellent comments that the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton South East (Mr McFadden), the hon. Members for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin) and for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell) and my hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey) all made about the importance of quality in early-years provision. I could not agree more. We need more highly qualified people in that area. That is why we have developed the early-years educator qualification and are offering bursaries this year for early-years educators—that is, young people with good qualifications who wish to enter the professions of child care and early-years education. We have also matched the entry requirements for early-years teachers to those for teachers. This year we have seen an increase of 25% in registrations on our early-years teacher course because of the higher profile that it has had. That will encourage more good people into early-years education.

This year, we have also started Teach First for early-years provision. For the first time, we have high-quality graduates going into the Teach First programme and working with three and four-year-olds. Some will be working with two-year-olds as well, as those places are rolled out in schools. For example, starting in January, the Oasis academy in Hadley is offering 40 places for two-year-olds with a Teach First early-years teacher. Exciting things are happening in schools to get highly qualified people working with our youngest children. Of course, that is being done in an age-appropriate way; when I visited the class of two-year-olds based there already, they were having their feet painted then running around, and doing other things like that. It is certainly not about two-year-olds studying trigonometry. Some of Baroness Morgan’s comments on the matter have been misinterpreted: the aim is to develop early language skills.

The Opposition have proposals on child care places for three and four-year-olds. My hon. Friend the Member for Norwich North covered those proposals well when she said that the Opposition have already spent the bank levy 11 times. There is no magic money tree for policies such as that one. We have to make sure that we use our existing assets better. We are using schools better and giving new planning freedoms, so that shops and offices can be converted into new nurseries.

We also particularly want to see a revival in the number of childminders. I agree with the hon. Member for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell) that we need more high-quality childminders. One issue is that new people have not been joining the childminding profession and the average age within it is gradually rising. We need good ways to attract new people into childminding. Childminding agencies are one of the ways in which we will be able to do that. The hon. Lady will be interested to hear that we are working on involving children’s centres in our attempts to increase childminder numbers, because we think those centres can help to provide a network and training for childminders. We must also make sure that we use nursery facilities and school nursery facilities better.

The hon. Member for Scunthorpe asked a lot of questions about universal credit. I will reply in writing to him, as I do not think I will be able to answer them in the 15 seconds I have left to speak. But there is a lot of common ground in this debate, and I am happy to share more of the figures and details on this matter with the Opposition to make sure that we are debating on the same terms.