Free Childcare Entitlement

Lucy Powell Excerpts

Wednesday 6th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Goodwill]

I thank my right hon. Friend for her question. This is indeed a manifesto pledge that is being delivered. It is no secret that there were some technical problems with the IT system and, indeed, my right hon. Friend the Financial Secretary is in his place listening to what we say. About 1% of cases that applied online were stuck—that is, for a technical reason those cases were not processed. Another group of cases could not have been processed online, and we refer to those as amber cases. Let me give an example: a person who applies for childcare on the basis of a job offer rather than a track record of earning in that job. If we were not to have a manual system as back-up, we would have a Catch-22 situation in which the person could not apply for childcare because they did not have a job but could not get the job because they did not have childcare. In such situations, there is a manual system.

When the Secretary of State wrote to my right hon. Friend, I think 2,200 cases were stuck. The figure I now have is 1,500, but they are many new cases, some of which have only been on the system for about a week. I am sure that the Financial Secretary to the Treasury will write to my right hon. Friend with regards to compensation. A small number of people were affected by the system. The system was operational 93% of the time during which people could apply.

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

Has the Minister read the report that I published last week with the Social Market Foundation? It shows that, of the extra money that the Government are pumping into early years over the course of this Parliament, 75% is being spent on the top 50% of earners and less than 3% will go towards the most disadvantaged. This comes at a time when the Government’s own evaluation of the two-year-old offer shows that good-quality early education is life-changing for the families who receive it. Is he happy with this distribution of expenditure? What more is he doing to ensure that low-income and disadvantaged families are accessing this high- quality education?

[Mr Goodwill]

I did read the hon. Lady’s report and some of the press coverage. She is absolutely right that the attainment gap needs to be closed between those from a disadvantaged background and those from other families. We are making progress in closing that gap, which is being closed at a faster rate in London than elsewhere. The 30 hours of childcare is for working families. However, many families cannot get into work because they cannot get childcare, so we will be pulling families out of poverty who currently cannot work because of the extortionate cost of childcare compared to their income. Of course, we still have the offering of 15 hours for the most disadvantaged two-year-olds and the early years pupil premium, which is specifically aimed at helping families most in need—the most disadvantaged families—because we need to close the attainment gap.