Nursery Provision: South-west England

Luke Pollard Excerpts

Tuesday 6th February 2024 Westminster Hall

[Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered nursery provision in the South West.

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Sharma. Every parent in the south-west should be able to access affordable nursery provision for their children, but childcare bills have rocketed to eye-watering levels, all during a cost of living crisis. Some families cannot even access childcare in the first place, as more and more nurseries in the south-west buckle under financial pressures because of a shortage of available staff. There are some marvellous childcare providers in Plymouth and across the west country; I want to thank all those who work in the sector.

Despite the promises and Government rhetoric around childcare, the gap between those promises and the reality is growing bigger. My worry is that the rhetoric hides a really dangerous situation for our nurseries. Spiralling costs and a retention and recruitment crisis mean fewer places, more expensive places and a deepening crisis. All that is inflamed by the geography of the south-west, the challenges of attracting new workers to the far south-west, especially down the peninsula, the rural nature of many of our communities, the higher than average levels of deprivation and a worsening housing crisis, which means that childcare workers often cannot afford to live in the communities where they are needed most.

[Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)]

I am listening carefully to all the causes that the hon. Gentleman has cited for the difficulty that childcare providers have in recruiting staff in his region. Not all of them apply to my constituency in Cheshire, but providers are finding some of the same problems. The community needs such provision, yet it cannot be fulfilled because the sector cannot recruit.

[Luke Pollard]

I am grateful to the hon. Member for that intervention. We have a concern that is not party political: it is simply about Members of Parliament reflecting the reality that in their constituencies there is a shortage of available staff. That means that there are not enough places in nurseries, so families who want to take up Ministers’ offer of free childcare places are unable to do so. That is the nub of the problem. Nationwide, there are communities experiencing very similar problems.

[Fiona Bruce]

It is not only nurseries. Before and after-school clubs are experiencing exactly the same recruitment challenge.

[Luke Pollard]

I agree. It is a real problem with delivering on the promises that politicians have made. Setting an expectation that parents will be able to access a certain amount of free childcare, as well as wraparound school provision, is a worthy aim to shoot for. The problem is that the delivery is not working in the way it ought to. With big changes only a few weeks away, there is a real concern that promises and delivery are getting further and further apart.

In the south-west, because of our geography, the situation is harder. In the west country, it is harder to recruit every single type of professional—from nuclear engineers to social workers, from teachers to sewage workers. Unbelievably, it is harder because of our geography. Our geography—the beaches, the moorlands, the countryside—is what makes the south-west beautiful, but the rurality, the coastal communities and the distance often work against us when it comes to recruiting the people we need, especially those who work on the frontline, often in roles that are not paid as well as they should be, when we have high prices that make it hard for people to live there.

Last summer, I raised the issue in the House with the Education Secretary and subsequently secured a meeting with her to warn about the childcare crisis in the west country. I brought with me Cheryl Hadland—the owner of Tops Day Nurseries, one of Plymouth’s largest childcare providers—to explain the financial strain that nurseries are under. I have visited many Tops nursery sites across Plymouth, as well as lots of other providers. I have seen the importance and value of play-based learning and have spoken to the brilliant staff and to parents.

Nurseries are a lifeline service. They are a catalyst for parents to return to work and a great start for young children, who learn through play, interact with other children and learn social skills, which are even more important when we look at some of the consequences of covid. Since my meeting with the Education Secretary, yet another nursery in Plymouth has been forced to close, leaving 100 families without childcare, and others tell me that they are on the brink.

The closure of nurseries especially impacts poorer communities. Time is running out for nurseries in those communities. Plymouth is not alone in that respect; this is a problem felt across the south-west and, as we have heard, across the country.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I commend the hon. Gentleman, who is absolutely right that Plymouth is not alone in this. I will make the case for Strangford, if I can. The average cost of a full-time childcare place in Northern Ireland is now £10,036 a year, an increase of 14% on 2021. Day nursery costs are more expensive: they average £229 per week and are increasing faster than inflation. With the Northern Ireland Assembly returned, does the hon. Gentleman agree that the Minister, as a matter of urgency, should undertake discussions with the Education Minister back home to tackle these costs to support the development of children and ease the pressure on families? Quite simply, we cannot go on. If nothing is done, we lose it all.

[Luke Pollard]

I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s intervention; I have the same concerns for people in Plymouth and the south-west that he has for his constituents. There are structural issues that mean that nurseries share the same concerns no matter what postcode they are in. Across the United Kingdom, it is important that those structural issues are addressed. The best way of doing so is through collaboration, first to identify the issue and then to work out what the solutions could be. I hope the Minister has heard the matter that the hon. Gentleman raised and will respond to it.

Nursery providers face a perfect storm, with rising bills, free childcare funding that does not meet the cost of providing childcare, and a drive for parents to return to work to pay bills in the middle of a cost of living crisis, All the while, nurseries are experiencing a shortage of trained staff, who, with the qualifications and skills that we require of them, can often earn more elsewhere. That is simply an unsustainable position for our nurseries.

I want the Government to act urgently before any more nurseries in the south-west close and before any more children lose their places at nursery. That is why I secured this debate: to put the issue in the public domain and to ask the Minister for more action from his Department to deliver for parents who are desperately short of nursery provision.

During the cost of living crisis, the cost of childcare is hitting families in the south-west hard. It now costs a staggering £15,000 a year on average for a child under two to receive full-time nursery care in Britain, according to analysis by the children’s charity Coram. In fact, parents in Britain spend among the highest proportion of their income on childcare in the OECD.

For some parents, childcare is simply unaffordable. Others have been forced to cut down their work hours because an extra day’s childcare is costing them more than an extra day’s wage. How can that be right? One mother, Shelly, told me that she can only afford to put her two-year-old in childcare part-time, which means that she can only work part-time and she is falling behind on her bills as a result. The Women’s Budget Group network says that 1.7 million women in England would do more paid work if they had better childcare. Finding the economic growth for which we are so desperate in this country comes from better childcare. Childcare is often most expensive for those who need flexible provision, like Tracey, a nurse at University Hospitals Plymouth who got in touch with me.

All the while, families in the south-west are having to contend with rising costs of energy and food, as well as a housing crisis. This matters, because when parents cannot afford childcare, there is a greater strain on their family. It hits children who do not have access to outdoor space at home and prevents a level playing field for children starting school. The Sutton Trust says that the lowest-income children are 11 months behind their peers by the time they start primary school. They do not have a fair start.

We cannot make childcare more affordable unless nurseries are financially viable, but nurseries in the south-west, not least in Plymouth, are struggling to stay afloat. A staggering 886 childcare providers in the south-west had to close in the last year alone. That is a sign not of a market working well, but of market failure. What that means for each family is disruption, worry and probably the extra cost of securing their child a place if they can find other provision. The Roundabout Nursery in Cattedown in Plymouth has just announced that it will shut its doors for good at the end of March, leaving more than 100 families without childcare. I know it did everything it could to stay open, like nurseries across the board facing the same challenges.

This is one of the issues that genuinely keeps me awake at night. The system is not working, and there is no recognition that it is failing. My inbox has been flooded with messages from worried parents who are rightly concerned about finding childcare elsewhere. That area of Plymouth has already suffered other closures. St Jude’s Church Pre-School closed in the face of the same financial pressures that closed the Roundabout Nursery. Staggeringly, parents tell me that they cannot find a place anywhere in the city.

The closure of provision in rural communities can leave parents without childcare options altogether. Melanie, who lives in the rural south-west, writes:

“There is a two-year waiting list for my local nursery. They are so full they won’t even take names on that list.”

How did we end up in this mess?

Nurseries face not only spiralling costs, but a retention and recruitment crisis. Dr Simon Opher in Stroud has been working with a good local playgroup in Uley that has been forced to close because there are no qualified staff in the area to employ. In Filton and Bradley Stoke, Claire Hazelgrove has been in touch with a local mum called Kate. She did everything right. She knew she would be going back to work, so she got a nursery place sorted early on, and everything was set. That was until she heard, just five weeks before her son was due to go to the nursery, that his start date had been pushed back by four months because of a lack of staff. That is an issue right across the south-west.

Again, I stress that it is not the fault of the staff who work in our nurseries. I have never met a more dedicated, warm and generous group of people. They care passionately about the children they care for. The system is not delivering on the objectives Ministers are setting it, so nurseries are facing real struggles to survive.

Another headache for nurseries is that the Government do not provide enough financial support for the free—Government-funded—childcare. The Early Years Alliance says that it is “financial suicide” for nurseries to sign up to provide more free childcare places. Some nurseries in the south-west are now reportedly asking parents for voluntary donations to cover the shortfall in Government funding for free places, and sometimes that donation is compulsory.

[Sarah Dyke (Somerton and Frome) (LD)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for securing this important debate. He is making a really strong speech. Yesterday, I spoke to Sue Place, the chief executive officer of the Balsam Centre in Wincanton, which runs Conkers Community Nursery. She has seven infants with special educational needs in her care, but one-to-one funding for just one place. She told me that

“we end up subsidising the state because the Government relies on nurseries to meet these additional costs”.

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that we need more ringfenced funding for education, health and care plans for very young children to avoid nurseries being forced to hike their prices to survive, putting them out of reach for many hard-working families?

[Luke Pollard]

I am grateful for that intervention. The hon. Member raises a really important issue, which I think all Members across the House will be familiar with. One group of children for whom nursery provision is most essential are those with special educational needs and disabilities, but parents with SEND children often struggle the most to access childcare. According to a BBC report from January, only one in five councils has sufficient childcare available for children with SEND, and one third expect fewer SEND places to be available after the Government’s proposed childcare roll-out than before it. That is not right, and it shows that the roll-out is having a perverse, unintended consequence. I genuinely do not believe that the Minister wants to cut the number of SEND places in nursery provision, but that is the effect that the roll-out is having on some nurseries.

We need to ensure that the message is sent out loud and clear that a child with SEND should have the support to fulfil their full potential. That means not only support in nursery but support in primary and secondary school to ensure that they can be properly assessed for their needs and properly provided for. If the consequence of the changes the Government are rolling out is that fewer SEND children will get the support they need, we are failing more SEND children and failing the families of more SEND children. The consequences of that will be felt not just for the next few years or in the next spending review period, but for the child’s entire lifetime. That is something we should reflect on to see whether this policy is working, because I do not think it is working for parents of SEND children, in particular.

One concern I have is about an inequality in the effect on parents with different income levels. Those who can afford to pay are often in a more favoured position than those who cannot. I do not believe that that was the intention of the Minister or his predecessor when this was originally rolled out, but that is the consequence—effectively baking in an inequality because Government-funded childcare does not cover the cost of the place. That means compulsory top-ups—no matter whether they are framed as voluntary or as being for a certain product—that parents have to pay to secure the place. That means that parents need to have the money to pay for their nursery—pay for that top-up—and that is not right. It means that the very people we should be encouraging back to work, who would benefit most by being back in employment, are struggling most to access the childcare to deliver that opportunity for them and their families.

Nurseries have been left with huge uncertainty because of the extended free childcare roll-out. Bambinos childcare in Plymouth has told me that the funding rates for the new scheme, launching in April, have not yet been released, leaving it with no ability to plan its staffing requirements or speak to parents. One area I would like the Minister to look at is how he can provide certainty for the sector. We know that there is a feeling of vulnerability and of uncertainty and worry, not just from parents but from the people who run the nurseries, who cannot plan their workforce or train people to offer the right provision, because they do not know how much money will be coming in. That uncertainty is really crippling when it comes to having a vibrant and successful sector.

Before I conclude, may I ask the Minister four questions? I would be grateful if, in his response, he could set out what he is doing to stop nurseries closing in the south-west. Are there levels of intervention that his Department can be making to support nurseries in the south-west? Can he guarantee that the Government will deliver on their free childcare promise for every child in the south-west? I note that the Education Secretary rowed back on that promise in the media this week. I would be grateful if this Minister could provide some clarity on what is actually being delivered, because and nurseries need certainty as to what is coming in only a few weeks’ time. Can the Minister set out what he and his Department are doing to reduce the eye-watering cost of childcare for families? Finally, what steps is he taking to tackle the lack of provision in some areas—especially the poorest areas in our region—where nurseries are struggling to survive?

A good local nursery is a lifeline service for families in the south-west, but just as with access to a GP or to an NHS dentist, it is harder for the poorest in our communities to find a good, local, affordable nursery. I know that this is at odds with the language that the Minister uses, but I am raising the issue again today because the people I represent are experiencing real challenges in accessing the help the Minister is claiming to offer. It is not enough to say that free childcare is available if it is not actually available and if, when parents access it, the viability of the nursery is put in doubt. We know that childcare will be an election issue because the system we have is not working well enough, especially for parents on low incomes and those who cannot afford to pay for top-ups.

I genuinely look forward to this debate and hon. Members’ contributions. I know that this concern is shared by not just Labour MPs, and I hope to hear from Conservative MPs as well. I also know that the particular geography of the south-west makes things harder and compounds some of the structural problems that have been experienced nationwide. I hope the Minister will look at our geography to see what support he can offer nurseries in the south-west, in particular.

--- Later in debate ---

[Luke Pollard]

I am grateful to all Members who have spoken in the debate. The hon. Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster) and I double-act on this issue, because it matters cross-party. The hon. Members for Bath (Wera Hobhouse), for Somerton and Frome (Sarah Dyke) and for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) have also contributed to the debate. I am also grateful to the Minister and the shadow Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes).

This is a genuine concern, and it is only getting worse. I am grateful to the Minister for setting out all the methods and initiatives he is rolling out, and I am interested to see if any of the 20 pilots that he has announced are in the west country—perhaps he could write to me with that information. But the gap between the lived experience of many providers in the south-west and what the Minister has set out is quite stark. The route to finding a solution matters. It is something I wish him well on, because I want a solution that happens almost immediately, given the crisis that people are facing, not one that matters only after a general election.

I encourage the Minister to listen to the experiences of the providers, who are genuinely saying, notwithstanding the words he has said, that they are facing collapse and cannot afford the provision he is saying they offer. That will have a consequence for parents who are looking for childcare to deliver a better life for their families. Where we are united is in wanting everyone to have a good start in life. Where we differ is in our understanding of where this issue is today, so I encourage him to continue to listen. He would be welcome to come to Plymouth and see what the challenges are in the west country. I look forward to continuing to make the case for all our nurseries and that all our children deserve a good start in life.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered nursery provision in the South West.