Oral Answers to Questions

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Thursday 6th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Vince Cable]

Yes, there is a high level of confidence, and it is reinforced by fact. Indeed, the output and spending figures are reinforcing the trend that the hon. Gentleman describes. There is, however, a continuing problem regarding credit to the small and medium-sized business sector. We are not complacent about that, and the interventions we are making will help.

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

Many businesses in my constituency tell me that their biggest problem is the withdrawal of overdrafts, and they are sometimes offered big and unwanted loans instead. Is the Secretary of State monitoring that trend, to ensure that banks are not fiddling the system to benefit themselves, and to attack small businesses that have cash-flow issues but do not need big loans?

[Vince Cable]

One positive thing is that we are now getting a growth of specialist institutions that provide small businesses with a type of finance—Aldermore provides asset-based financing or new kinds of invoice financing to deal with cash flow or investment as required. However, the hon. Lady is right to say that there is a particular problem in that area of the market.

Oral Answers to Questions

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Monday 10th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Matthew Hancock]

If I recall correctly, my right hon. Friend—my boss—said that we would shortly be publishing further statutory guidance, and we will.

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

My Big Career is a charity that provides face-to-face careers advice in Hackney schools, and is already making great strides in improving the present position. It has also uncovered the fact that, as was pointed out by my hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne), young people are not always pushed enough towards the right vocational training and qualifications. Will the Minister visit Hackney to observe the work that My Big Career is doing in schools, and see for himself the benefit of that face-to-face careers advice?

[Matthew Hancock]

Absolutely: I should love to visit Hackney with the hon. Lady. What is happening there is part of a wider drive to ensure that it is real employers who mentor and support young people and give them inspiration. It is part of a culture change that is starting to come about, and I look forward to working with the hon. Lady in that connection.

Education Funding for 18-year-olds

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Tuesday 28th January 2014 Westminster Hall

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Williams. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) on securing this important debate and other colleagues for laying out some of the challenges. I will make my comments brief.

There are two issues here: the cut itself, and the unfairness of it—not just the £700 per student, but the impact on individual institutions and the manner of its introduction, which has not been particularly mentioned and which I will discuss in a moment. The Government’s own impact assessments says that the measure will hit further education colleges disproportionately, much worse than schools. I quote from the impact assessment:

“Fewer than one in five of 16 to 18-year-olds funded by the EFA are aged 18 at the start of the academic year, although clearly this will vary by institution”,

which is one way of glossing over the issue.

As has been highlighted, the measure clearly hits vocational students much worse than academic students, due to the need to stay longer on vocational courses. Critically, it hits London worse than other regions, including Hackney community college in my constituency, which has imaginatively gone with the flow of many funding changes over the years but is once again being penalised for doing excellent work with 18-year-olds. Only last week I visited the college, meeting three students who had had difficulty achieving at GCSE level but had found at the college—one was becoming a chef, one went into painting and decorating and another was on a fashion course—vocations that worked for them and gave them the opportunity to achieve and secure jobs. However, they were over 18.

Areas with high numbers of black and minority ethnic pupils and disadvantaged students are particularly hit, which is a double whammy for Hackney South and Shoreditch and other disadvantaged areas. I take the Government at their word about their desire for greater social mobility—I represent an area where that is an important issue—yet I say to the Minister that I cannot see how the measure will help social mobility. It is disadvantaged students who need a second chance sometimes, as highlighted by the hon. Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes), or who often just choose a different path of study that does not fit within the traditional tramlines for 16 to 18-year-olds. In further education environments, particularly Hackney community college, classes are very mixed, so it is not abnormal for 17 and 18-year-olds and much older pupils to be there. Sometimes students in a class range from mid-teens to late adulthood, as the painter and decorator to whom I talked last week highlighted, so 18-year-olds will often be in a class among other people.

I said that I would discuss the manner of the announcement. It was made very late, at the end of last year, with little, if any, discussion and no time for colleges to prepare. Colleges plan their academic studies ahead. Suddenly shifting course at such short notice is challenging. They will have made commitments to teachers and lecturers and tried to secure students through recruitment routes. Although they can often adapt at short notice, it is ridiculous and not very sensible for a major education sector—one that is within the Minister’s purview—to have to cobble things together in that way. It is not as though it were a great surprise that the Government are trying to manage the budget in this way and by taking such measures, so a little bit of forethought would have been a good thing.

By hitting colleges as it does, the measure goes against the policy intent and last year’s moves to equalise school and college funding. Can the Minister clarify one particular point? If a child is 18 years old on 1 or 2 September—old for their cohort, but within the normal cohort—will their funding be cut? I imagine not, but it would be good if he were explicit about it. I also point out that as others have said, this debate is well attended for Westminster Hall. MPs from around the country and from all parties have come. We are not bleating; we are raising a serious concern.

I know that the Minister is a thoughtful man, so I am sure that he is listening, but I am sure that he will also listen to the Secretary of State for Education who, when challenged by the Chair of the Select Committee on Education to push for even a one-year intervention to smooth things over, said:

“Let me have a look at that. It is a very fair-minded and generous suggestion”.

I appeal to the Minister to be fair-minded and generous, to follow the lead of his Cabinet colleague and to take a different approach. One alternative to a smoothing budget might be a flat-rate reduction across 16-to-18 funding, which would halve the effect on London colleges and be a fairer spread, allowing colleges to plan better. We recognise the challenge in funding, but this way is the wrong way.

Oral Answers to Questions

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Thursday 23rd January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

Two able pupils at a Hackney secondary school in one of the most deprived parts of my constituency have been offered a place at a good university on condition that they secure two As and a B in their A-levels. The university is willing to negotiate on those grades, but will not discuss their C grades in GCSE maths: they will need B grades. If they were foreign students, they would be given coaching by the university. Will the Minister meet me, and some of the people in Hackney who are concerned about the matter, to discuss how we can tackle it and ensure that there is proper social mobility in this country?

[Mr Willetts]

I should be happy to meet the hon. Lady to discuss the matter, but let me make two things clear. First, universities decide their own admissions criteria, which is right, and secondly, as we increase the number of students and remove artificial caps, it will be possible for universities to recruit all the students who are qualified to benefit from going to university.

Oral Answers to Questions

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Thursday 5th December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Vince Cable]

This distinction between big business and small business is seriously unhelpful—most big businesses have supply chains—and we should support both.

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

Many small and medium-sized enterprises in my constituency—including in Shoreditch, which the Prime Minister calls tech city—are keen to bid for Government contracts, thereby growing, employing more people and becoming larger businesses. What is the Department doing to support them, because they face many hurdles in trying to become Government contractors?

[Vince Cable]

The hon. Lady will find that the trend in Government procurement is very much on track to meet the 25% target for small business. It is much more difficult with devolved bodies, such as health authorities and local government, but we are working on that with the relevant Departments.

PISA Results

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

If Hackney schools’ results were extrapolated nationally, we would be about third in the international league tables. That is a direct result of inspired Labour local political leadership, collaboration between excellent head teachers, and the right sort of Government support. What is the Secretary of State doing to make sure that such collaboration is nationalised—to use his word—so that children of all abilities and backgrounds across the country are achieving as they are in Hackney, where the poorest children are progressing as well as the richest?

[Michael Gove]

I have often had the opportunity in the past to draw attention to how well Hackney performs and, indeed, how effectively Hackney is represented in this House by its two MPs when it comes to educational matters. As both the hon. Lady and her parliamentary neighbour acknowledge, it is an emphasis on academic excellence and, indeed, the growth in academy schools that has driven Hackney’s improvement. It is really important that she keeps her Front-Bench colleagues honest by making sure that they back academic excellence and the spread of academisation.

Child Care

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Tuesday 19th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Tristram Hunt]

Part of Labour’s programme for schools includes creativity and innovation, and that was an extraordinarily creative way of moving from child care to separatism. I will not follow the hon. Gentleman down that route because we are looking at the Conservative party’s past on this issue.

What did the Education Secretary say while grubbing around for votes before the last general election? He said:

“I personally believe we need to do more to provide affordable childcare”—

by which, of course, he meant less. On a Mumsnet webchat, he told “Singalong mum and others”,

“gotta go in a second but on surestart we won’t cut funding”.

No wonder the Government wanted to wipe all records off the internet. No wonder the Education Secretary is too frit to come to this Chamber to defend his appalling record.

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

When the Education Secretary talked about more child care, did he perhaps just mean more cheaper, lower quality child care, rather than the quality child care that we support?

[Tristram Hunt]

My hon. Friend makes an incredibly important point. We are not interested in the warehousing of children. We are interested in the growth, the creativity and the education that comes from high-quality child care provision. Unfortunately, with this Government, it is a record of broken promises, misinformation and double speak. Thankfully, the memory of the British people is longer than that of the Tory party’s web server, and they will not forget such a shoddy past.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Elizabeth Truss)]

I am afraid that after three years in opposition, Labour Members seem to have learned nothing. First, they have learned nothing about how they got the country into a financial mess, as they seem to think that the answer is more spending and more borrowing; and secondly, they seem to have learned nothing about child care and how nurseries work. Despite the highfalutin’ rhetoric by the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt), he seems to have failed to grasp the numbers behind child care. I will say more on that in a moment. First, let me remind hon. Members how we got here.

The Labour party left the biggest budget deficit among advanced economies and we were borrowing £1 for every £4 we spent. When we came into office, we were spending £110 million just servicing the interest on Labour’s debt. Despite that terrible inheritance, we have successfully cut the deficit by a third, and prioritised families and children. Total spending on child care and early education is increasing from almost £5 billion to more than £6 billion. We have increased the number of hours of free early education for every three-year-old and four-year-old, from 12.5 hours to 15 hours a week. We have extended support to two-year-olds from low-income families, with 92,000 two-year-olds already benefiting. From 2015, tax free child care worth up to £1,200 per child will be available to working parents. We are providing real help for hard-working families in tough times, not empty promises and unfunded spending commitments from Labour. That is what this coalition is delivering.

[Meg Hillier]

Childminders in my constituency would like to take on more two-year-olds, but the funding provided by the Government does not cover their costs. Does the Minister expect them and other providers to subsidise Government policy?

[Elizabeth Truss]

We are funding the two-year-old offer at an average of £5.09 an hour, and the average rate paid for that age group is £4.23 an hour. We are therefore funding at considerably above the market rate, and we have been very successful at getting places for two-year-olds. [Interruption] It is an average.

Let me now turn to some of the spurious claims made by the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central. Labour claims that more than 500 children’s centres have closed. That is simply not true. Forty-five centres have closed since 2010—just 1% of the total—and some new centres have opened, including one in Ipswich. Centres are joining networks so that they can be run more efficiently, but the same buildings are open to the same parents to use services. We are seeing a record number of parents and children using children’s centres—more than 1 million. I do not understand why the hon. Gentleman does not want to celebrate the success of children’s centres, rather than constantly talking them down week after week. Children’s centres are doing a better job than ever under this Government. Let us not confuse children’s centres and child care providers. Children’s centres provide less than 1% of child care places.

Labour claims that costs have risen by 30%. That is based on figures from the Family and Childcare Trust. Despite the impression given by the Opposition, those figures were published before 2010. If the Opposition used the pre-2010 data, they would have found that the previous Labour Government were a catastrophe. Between 2002 and 2010, the cost of a nursery place rose by 46%. That is £1,200 a year more for a part-time nursery place for a child over the age of two, but we did not see the hon. Gentleman jumping around then, did we? Labour has, not for the first time, been cherry-picking statistics and ignoring the research. On 30 September 2013, Laing and Buisson published an in-depth report on the child care nurseries market in the UK. The report said that 2012-13 was the second successive year in which the price of full-day care in nurseries had been flat in real terms. In 2012-13, average nursery fees rose by 2.6%, which was the same as inflation. In 2011-12, average fees rose by 2.7%, compared with 3% inflation. In June 2013, the National Day Nurseries Association published the UK nursery insight report, which said: “58% were freezing fees”.

There we have it: the figures Labour cite actually show how the previous Government drove up costs with their confused funding and complex regulation, while independent research shows that costs have stabilised under this Government.

--- Later in debate ---

[Elizabeth Truss]

I thank my hon. Friend for her points and I note her consistent support for home-based child care and the important help it can offer.

[Meg Hillier]

Childminders in my constituency are very pro what they do and also pro the fact that they provide good-quality child care. They tell me that the bad childminders were run out of town so that parents such as me can rely on a childminder to look after their children, as I do for my daughter, and be sure that there are good-quality, properly inspected childminders. That puts my mind at rest as a working mum, as it does those of other working mums in my constituency.

--- Later in debate ---

[Fiona Bruce]

That is absolutely right, and I am glad to have this chance to put on record that it is a profession that deserves respect. Many childminders do not want the burdens of having to set up and run their own business. They do not want to have the burdens of complying with regulations and training requirements; they simply want to care for children. Let us release them and set them free to do that by supporting this new initiative of childminder agencies that the Government are setting up.

[Meg Hillier]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Fiona Bruce]

I am going to make some progress now; I have taken several interventions.

The Government’s childminder agency initiative is an excellent step, not least because it will mean that families will have a local resource that they can access to find a childminder they can have confidence in—a childminder who has been through the appropriate training, and who is from an agency that they know is maintaining proper standards. The agencies will also provide for occasions when the childminder falls ill, which can cause a great deal of stress to parents; there will be additional cover to provide someone else at short notice when they need that.

The Government’s provisions to build up the number of childminders should be supported, therefore, and the agencies will also help to promote take-up of Government funding for two to four-year-olds. At present fewer than 10% of childminders are funded through Government funding. I am sure that a lot of early-year place provision is being missed out as a result of that.

I support the Government’s proposals. They will enable childminders to concentrate on delivering high-quality education and care, which is what they want to do, and not be driven out of their profession simply because they do not want to face the regulations and red tape they have had to deal with until now. They will be able to benchmark themselves against the highest standards. They will be able to access the new framework of training and support and ongoing improvement, and concentrate on giving the best provision to families.

We should remind ourselves of the support that the Government are giving families in meeting the costs of child care. Some 70% of the child care costs of those on tax credits are covered by the Government and an additional £200 million of support for lower-income families will be available within universal credit from April 2016, to take the proportion to 85%. Parents of all three and four-year-olds can access free child care. As we have heard, the Government have increased early education for three and four-year-olds from 12.5 hours a week to 15 hours a week so that what amounted to 475 hours a year of free child care in September 2010 now increases to 570 hours a year. I certainly would have greatly appreciated that when my boys were younger.

The Government are extending the offer of 15 hours a week of early education to two-year-olds from low-income families, which will benefit about 260,000 two-year-olds from September 2014, costing £760 million a year by the end of this Parliament. Just four weeks into this Government’s scheme that offers free child care to the most disadvantaged two-year-olds, 92,000 children are already benefiting, which is a huge increase on the 20,000 two-year-olds who accessed early education in 2010. Looking at share of GDP, this Government are spending £5 billion on early-years child care and are spending more than 40% above the OECD average on child care for children under three.

The early-intervention grant replaces a number of centrally directed grants in supporting services for children and young people and families. It has allowed local authorities greater flexibility and freedom at the local level. I want to highlight some of the ways the local authorities in my area have used that funding to support a wide range of services for children, young people and families. There is targeted mental health support for young children through the charity Visyon in my constituency, of which I am a patron, and additional support is being given for fostering and adoption—and I pay tribute to the Under-Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mr Timpson), my constituency neighbour, who has done excellent work in increasing take-up in Cheshire. There is also the funding for such projects as Let’s Stick Together run by Care For The Family.

--- Later in debate ---

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

For me, as for many people in the Chamber and up and down the country, child care is not an academic issue but something we grapple with every single day of the year, including today. I believe that child care is an area of public policy that, if we get it right, can transform the lives of millions and build a stronger economy. I think that so far I would have cross-party agreement.

I know that it is fashionable for some members of my party to apologise for things that Labour did in office, but we should make no apology whatsoever for what Labour did on child care. Our record is incredibly strong. Labour introduced the free entitlement to 15 hours a week of child care for every three and four-year-old in the country and Labour introduced Sure Start. When I was out on the doorsteps as a candidate before 2005, Sure Start was a policy that mothers were talking to me about. It is very rare that voters talk to us about policies by name. It was exciting, it was progressive and it has made a difference.

The three and four-year-olds coming through the system at the millennium are today 16 and 17, a generation of young people whose lives were enhanced under a Labour Government but are now blighted by the prospect of unemployment under the coalition Government. The latest evaluation of Sure Start, published by the Department for Education in June last year, showed many positive impacts of Sure Start on young children and their parents. The one I want to highlight is the greater improvement in life satisfaction among lone parents and workless households. We know that being unemployed is tough, and being a lone parent is one of the toughest things in the world. This programme demonstrably improved life satisfaction among those groups in our community. That is why we should be angry that Sure Start centres are closing or being watered down. Our blood should be boiling with indignation; mine certainly is.

We should nail the myth about Sure Start centres. Some may still be open, but what range of services are they providing? Many are no longer providing child care. Others have been subsumed into their sponsoring school.

[Andrea Leadsom]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Meg Hillier]

I am sorry, I do not have time to take interventions.

The assault on Sure Start by this Government is surely their greatest act of vandalism—an assault on the future of the poorest and most vulnerable children and parents. We know that—

[Andrea Leadsom]

rose—

[Meg Hillier]

I regret not having the chance to debate, but I have three and a half minutes left—a very short time in what we thought would be a longer debate.

The “pile them high, teach them cheap” policy promoted by the Under-Secretary of State for Education, the hon. Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss) is another example of the Government’s attitude to child care. I want to focus on three areas—first, that child care is not a peripheral issue, a soft issue or even a women’s issue. Quality child care goes to the heart of our society, our economy and our country’s prosperity. No policy matters more. As we see, with a squeeze on living standards throughout the country, people are looking at costs. We see the challenges.

For example, research from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation shows that the cost of necessities required to give a child a decent standard of living increased by 4% in the past year alone. A recent OECD report found that the UK has some of the most expensive child care in the world. I will not repeat the arguments that colleagues have made, but we know that a further 1.3 million women want to work more hours. 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 crucially tax receipts would rise by £1.7 billion.

Secondly, we need to be bold. I urge those on my Front-Bench to be even bolder. We should be proud of our record, but in the past progress was sometimes slower than it should have been. It was sometimes piecemeal. I do not speak for my Front Bench, but I would like to see a child care Bill in the first Queen’s Speech, announcing our aim to move towards universal child care. The Institute for Public Policy Research think-tank has shown that a decent universal system of child care pays for itself in the long run. More parents working, paying taxes and not claiming tax credits and benefits more than pays for the state’s investment in child care. We know from Scandinavia that that increases women’s participation in the work force, so we need to be bold.

The third area that I have a brief moment to flag up, as I know we are running out of time, is the idea of sustainability and ownership. I am a proud co-operator, and there must be a greater role for co-op and mutual models when it comes to child care. Many of the original Sure Start centres were run by boards of parents. I worked among them as my own older children were growing up and saw the empowerment that that gave many of those women. These community assets should not be at the command of Ministers of any party. They remain under threat if Ministers do not care about child care. Parents know best. I would like to see more co-operative ownership, including childminding co-ops, rather than the agencies that the Government are promoting, which would cream off a profit and remove the parent relationship with their own childminder, which would be a great mistake.

In my final minute, I give way to the hon. Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom).

[Andrea Leadsom]

I just want to say that the hon. Lady is making a big mistake by turning child care into such a political issue. She knows as well as I do that Sure Start centres are doing brilliant work in our society. There is so much potential from the Sure Start movement. She should be proud that Labour introduced it and that this Government are building on it. Opposition Members should stop trying to frighten parents into thinking that it is all going pear-shaped.

[Meg Hillier]

But we know that services are being watered down. The great thing about Sure Start centres is that they were open to all and a range of services were provided. It was a one-stop shop. It will always be a challenge to decide what services should be provided when money is tight, but Sure Start was a great unifier, a great starting point, a great melting pot, a great mix. I am glad to hear from the hon. Member for South Northamptonshire that she is a champion of it on her Benches. It is a shame that the Government are not, and their funding cuts to local authorities are putting Sure Start under threat. I am not being partisan for the sake of it. Our record is strong, and parents and child carers in my constituency worry about their future under this Government.

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

I follow my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier) by agreeing with her about the cuts to Sure Start and the effect that that has had throughout the country. The Minister confirmed that the figures have fallen from 3,631 in 2010 to 3,053—a reduction of 578 in the number of Sure Start centres. That is the reality.

I take the Minister back to her evidence to the Education Committee in reply to a question from me on this subject. She did not deny that that was the situation. She claimed that, where the centres were still being used, they had moved to a hub and spoke model. We heard in evidence that sadly, far too often, instead of the delivery of the service, a part-time member of staff hands out leaflets, signposting parents to a service that may exist somewhere else. That is not the same thing as delivering the service that was there previously. That is what has happened with these closures. We have seen a drastic reduction in the quality of the service. When I asked about that in the Select Committee, the Minister ignored the point and moved on to something else. I have the transcript here if she wants to check what she said. She failed to give me an answer when I put that point to her. According to Government figures, 7,200 fewer staff work in Sure Start centres throughout the country. That has to mean a lower level and lower quality of service. I am sorry to say this, but that was the evidence given to the inquiry.

I am proud of our record on Sure Start. My son was three when he came to live with us, and we were fortunate in that the Sure Start centre where we used to live opened about a week before then. It was linked to a school, so there was a nursery, and he benefited from the brilliant staff working there. We as a family benefited from the support of Sure Start. Talking to other parents there and to parents who used other Sure Start facilities, it was clear that Sure Start transformed their lives and the lives of the children who benefited from those services. It made an enormous difference to their development and school readiness. That could be seen when looking at older children who had benefited from going through that system and the quality of child care and support for families that resulted from what the last Labour Government did. The Labour party is right to be proud of our record on Sure Start. I have confirmed that with the Sure Start centres in my constituency. Having children who are school ready makes all the difference. In the deprived areas that I serve in Crosby, children whose parents have benefited from Sure Start are school ready while others from the same estates are not. There is a marked difference in school readiness and the outcomes that schools can achieve for those children.

The Select Committee went to Denmark earlier this year and looked at the Danish experience. That is the quality of care to which we should aspire. We do not spend as much as they do in Denmark or in a number of other countries, particularly those in Scandinavia, and that explains the difference. The Minister shakes her head, but her Department has produced a report, which was evidenced in the Select Committee, in which a thorough analysis of the figures showed that spending levels here are not on a par with those in Denmark, and that explains the difference overall.

[Meg Hillier]

Does my hon. Friend agree that there is real muddle from the Government about exactly what they do spend? They come up with different figures depending which Minister is asked at which time of year or day. Do we not need some clarity on this in order to inform the debate?

[Bill Esterson]

Absolutely. The Government should look at their own officials’ reports, as I was just saying in relation to the OECD comparisons.

The Government quite rightly want more women in the work force as a long-term driver of growth. In Denmark, 84% of working-age women are in work, whereas in the UK the figure is only 67.1%—we are rated 16th in the OECD in that regard. Denmark has wraparound care from 8 am to 5 pm, and from six months all the way up to age 10, and the maximum contribution an individual can make is 25%. There are highly qualified and well-trained professionals, mostly educated to relevant degree level, working in its child care settings. It is that massive level of support from the public purse that enables so many more women to go to work. They have a choice, of course, but many of them choose to take that opportunity. As a result, the system is supported by parents, politicians and the Danish equivalent of the CBI, so business likes that system.

My hon. Friends on the Front Bench are right to propose moving in that direction in the motion on the Order Paper, with wraparound care from 8 am to 6 pm. We certainly need to increase the number of hours in nurseries, so 25 hours is a great step in the right direction. We certainly need to follow the Danish system, and I hope that Members will support the motion.

Secondary Schools (Accountability)

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Monday 14th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Public Accounts Committee has been calling for greater financial accountability of schools and it is not clear from the Minister’s statement whether the new data portal will include that, or how open the data will be. Will he come to Shoreditch and allow some of our tech businesses to work with him and the Department on that data so that we have a telephone app that tells parents about the quality of the schools they are choosing?

[Mr Laws]

I am happy to pursue the issue further with the hon. Lady. I have already promised a visit to Birmingham, so I am not at this stage ready to promise a visit to Shoreditch. I would, however, certainly like to engage with her on this topic. [Interruption.]

Oral Answers to Questions

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Monday 24th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend is right. That is why I am so pleased that Lord Nash and Sir Michael Wilshaw are working together to raise the quality of school governance.

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

Further to the question from my hon. Friend the Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Jonathan Reynolds), both the think-tank Reform and the Treasury have raised questions about the efficacy and value for money of teaching assistants. Will the Secretary of State give his view?

[Michael Gove]

I respect teaching assistants. I am also very interested in what Reform has to say, but above all I obey what the Treasury tells me.

Children and Families Bill

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Tuesday 11th June 2013 Commons Chamber

We have therefore heard from the Government that there is no proposal to change ratios, which I welcome. They are also putting in the key change, which the Minister has gone out and fought for, of more financial support in coming years for child care, and I welcome that, too. Therefore, I will not support any of the Opposition amendments, but I am happy to support the Government new clauses.

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

On new clause 10, the Minister made great play of introducing tax-free child care, but she should be clearer in her closing remarks about what exactly that means, as I fear she is misdescribing something. What she seems to be proposing is that after people have passed through many hoops, including having both parents working and receiving certain levels of income, 20% is paid, which is not tax-free for the higher rate taxpayer. I want her to clarify this point: she talked about those paying additional tax not qualifying, so will she explain what tax threshold this will and will not apply to, so people who might be affected can know about that?

Amazingly, this scheme has managed to unite The Daily Telegraph and the Labour party in criticism. That is some achievement, and I applaud the Minister on it, but it shows that there is a degree of muddle. The scheme is for couples or single parents where both work, but there are many other questions about it—I look forward to the regulations being laid so we can get to the details. What about where one partner was working but is unemployed or sick and unable to work, perhaps for a long period, or is retired, which is not beyond the bounds of possibility? Does the Minister have any plans to extend this as a general policy to parents of over-fives? A chef in my constituency on £15,000 or so a year raised with me the challenges of getting child care out of hours, a situation faced by many people, both with over-fives and with under-fives. I hope that she will give us some indication of her thinking on this matter. Will she tell us when she is planning to lay regulations on this issue, so that we can all be alert in order to tackle that?

On new clauses 6 and 7, I will be generous to the Minister. She said that the fact that she has lost support—perhaps could not corral support across Whitehall—is not stopping her push for “affordable, quality child care available to all.” On that last sentence she and I are united as one, but, sadly, I disagree with her approach. If that really was what was being proposed, I would be a greater supporter of hers, but I am concerned about misrepresentation: little ideas presented as big solutions. We need a longer-term vision about child care provision for our under-fives and our older children, and we must ensure that we see that as an investment in those young people and, in particular, in women, in enabling them to work. However, this is not the time to get into that debate.

On childminder agencies, I am not going to get into the issue about ratios, because my hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) raised it very effectively. The proposal was never popular. I was even stopped in the street about it in my constituency by parents and carers who were very concerned about it—it was that much of a worry. I echo what my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham) said about that worry being something that Ministers need to think about when proposing ideas that have not been agreed properly within their own Government, let alone anywhere else.

I have some concerns about the proposals on agencies for childminders, and I have referred to the parallel with older people’s care, where private agencies came in and reduced the quality of care. That is a legacy of the late Lady Thatcher’s years in government and it has not improved in all that time. I do not want private companies to come in, cream off a profit and cut the income of the childminders, who, in my area, consider themselves as small businesses. The number of childminders has reduced because a lot were on the list for local authorities but were not active, so as soon as that list was tidied up they dropped off it. A number of those to whom that happened were poor quality and did not want to have the scrutiny of Ofsted or any other authority, because they were the “pile ’em high, stack ’em cheap” sort of childminder that the Minister seems to favour.

Hackney childminders, a very professional group, are united about the achievements that they have personally brought about and the benefits for young people in my area, and about the fact that the bad childminders have been run out of town. We do not want to go back to those bad old days. I am a mother of three and I know that I can stand here in the House now only because of my excellent child care. Over the years it has not always been so good, but there are times when one really worries, and one cannot work while worrying about children not being in a safe place.

[Andy Sawford (Corby) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend speaks passionately about childminders in Hackney. The Northamptonshire Childminding Association was also clear that it thought that this proposal would reduce quality and increase cost, so that experience is consistent with hers.

[Meg Hillier]

That is my worry. What exactly is an “agency”? We hear one description from bits of government and other descriptions from some of the organisations outside, including Ofsted. If the Minister is saying, as she has indicated, that some part of this move is about sharing professional experience and providing support to professional colleagues, I can tell her that my childminder network in Hackney does that very effectively in any case, so does it count as an agency? I have suggested that it thinks about setting one up. If it was to work in collaboration with the local authority or with the local Sure Start centres in smaller areas, would it then count as an agency? In the attempts to trial some of the elements, is the Minister being prescriptive or is she allowing 1,000 flowers to bloom? If it is the latter, what is to prevent the bad, rapacious private agencies from coming in, taking over, dominating in an area and becoming a local monopoly? There is a real concern about that. Will childminders have to join? The position on that is unclear, so perhaps she will give us some information on it. There is some benefit to professional experience sharing and professional support, but not at the costs that I have outlined. Will the Minister tell the House the timetable for the regulations, which she said would be coming very soon?

I will leave my comments there, but this is an important issue. My constituency is one of the youngest in the country; over a fifth of residents are under 16. I think I speak with some authority on their behalf. For them, the Bill, and these changes, make a very big difference.

[Elizabeth Truss]

We have had a wide-ranging debate on the various child care issues, but one point that I think we can all agree on is that there is an urgent need for high-quality, affordable child care in this country. At the moment, many working families are struggling to afford their child care, and I can assure the House that the Government are fully committed to improving the situation. Tax-free child care, which is the key policy that we have been promoting in the Bill, will contribute to that.

I would particularly like to thank the hon. Member for North Cornwall (Dan Rogerson) for his very constructive comments, particularly on the point about our tax-free child care scheme. I want to reassure the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier) that “tax-free” refers to the 20% that parents will benefit by. The critical point is that it is open to many more families.

I understand the hon. Members want to move on to the next debate so, without further ado, I shall finish.

Question put and agreed to.

New clause 10 accordingly read a Second time, and added to the Bill.

New Clause 3

Regulation of child performance

‘(1) In section 37 of the Children and Young Persons Act 1963 (Restriction on persons under 16 taking part in public performances, etc.) the words “under the compulsory school leaving age” shall be inserted after the word “child” in subsection (1).

(2) After subsection (2) there shall be inserted—

“(2A) In this section, “Performance” means the planned participation by a child aged under the compulsory school leaving age in a public entertainment production, unless that participation—

(a) involves risks that are no greater than the risks faced by that child in the ordinary course of his life and does not require the child to be absent from school or requires an absence from school of not more than four days in a six month period and such absence is authorised by the school;

(b) involves the child doing that which he would do in any event in the ordinary course of his life; or

(c) involves the creation of audio-visual content where there is an overriding public interest in the child’s participation.”.

(3) Subsection (3)(a) of that section shall be repealed.

(4) After subsection (5) of that section there shall be inserted—

“(5A) Regulations under this section shall provide for the local authority to give reasons for any refusal of a licence under this section and shall specify any mitigating action which would be required to allow a licence to be issued.

(5B) A refusal of a local authority to grant a licence may be reversed on appeal.”.

(5) Subsection (6) of that section shall be repealed.

(6) After subsection (7) the following shall be inserted—

“(7A) A licence granted by a local authority shall be transferrable to another local authority if the child moves residence from one local authority area to another.”.

(7) Section 38 of the Act (Restriction on licences for performances by children under 14) shall be repealed.

(8) After section 39 of the Act, there shall be inserted—

“39A Presumption that a licence should be issued

(1) There shall be a presumption that a licence shall be issued unless there is identifiable potential harm that cannot be mitigated by any other action.

(2) For the purposes of this section—

(a) “identifiable potential harm” shall be any outcome that acts adversely against the wellbeing of the child;

(b) “mitigated” shall mean such reasonable action that secures the safety of the child from the impact on their wellbeing; and

(c) “wellbeing” includes the physical, mental and emotional condition and interests of the child.

39B Guidance

‘(1) The Secretary of State shall issue guidance to local authorities on the criteria for issuing licences and the conditions which shall apply to them; and this guidance may make different provision for children falling within different age bands applicable to their development age.

(2) Guidance shall include a requirement for the local authority’s decision to be based on an assessment of the risks involved in the child’s participation in the performance.

(3) Guidance shall include the safeguarding arrangements which shall be made in regard to participation in sporting activities; and in drawing up this guidance the Secretary of State shall consult sports governing bodies.

(4) Guidance shall require the local authority, in considering the terms on which a licence is issued, to have regard to the number of days actually worked spread across a particular period.

(5) Guidance shall require local authorities to provide for on-line applications for licences, to deal with all licences in time if submitted at least 10 days before they are to come into effect, or five days in respect of a repeated application.

(6) Guidance shall provide for local authorities to inspect sites where children taking part in performances are to be accommodated, if they will be residing alongside unconnected adults.

(7) Guidance shall provide for local authorities to disregard absence in connection with licensed performances in school records for authorised absences.

(8) Guidance shall provide that local authorities shall require that matrons or chaperones shall operate under standards accepted by the appropriate advisory bodies.

(9) Guidance shall also include the circumstances in which it is appropriate to authorise a body of persons to organise a performance for which licences will not be required by virtue of section 37(3)(b) of this Act, including where the performers are of 13 years or upwards or if the body is an amateur body and has a nominated child protection person who has received appropriate training and is independent of the chaperone.

(10) Guidance under this section shall be laid before Parliament and shall be subject to annulment in pursuance of a resolution of either House of Parliament as if it were contained in a statutory instrument subject to such annulment.”.

(9) Clause 42 of the Act (Licences for children and young persons performing abroad) shall be amended by inserting after subsection (1)—

“(1A) Licences under section 25 of the principal Act in relation to performances as defined under this Act shall be issued by local authorities rather than as specified in the principal Act.”.

(10) In subsection (2) of that section the words after the word “granted” shall be replaced by the words “regardless of the age of the child”.

(11) In the Children (Performances) Regulations 1968 (SI 1968/1728)—

(a) In Regulation 8 (Medical examinations) in paragraph (2), the words “performance taking place within a period of six months from the date of the said medical examination” shall be replaced by the words “later performance”.

(b) At the end of Regulation 10 (Education) there shall be inserted—

“(6) The child’s parents or guardians must inform the child’s school of any days on which the child will be absent by reason of taking part in performances.”.

(c) In Regulation 12(3) (maximum number of other children a matron shall have charge of), “eleven” shall be replaced by “nine”.

(d) At the end of Regulation 12 (Matrons) there shall be inserted—

“(7) A matron in respect of a performance organised by an amateur body who is unpaid shall not require local authority approval provided that he or she is CRB-checked and is independent of the nominated child protection person.”.

(e) Regulation 17 (Further medical examinations) shall cease to have effect.’.—(Tim Loughton.)

Brought up, and read the First time.