Children and Families Bill

Debate between Meg Hillier and Andy Sawford

Tuesday 11th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[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.

Probation Service

Debate between Meg Hillier and Andy Sawford

Wednesday 13th March 2013 Westminster Hall

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

It is a pleasure, Mr Crausby, to serve under your chairmanship. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds East (Mr Mudie) on securing this important debate. I have spoken several times in the Chamber to raise concerns about the Government’s latest reform proposals, and I am pleased to have this opportunity to speak further about them.

It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland Central (Julie Elliott) who made some incredibly important points, and highlighted the performance of her probation trust. We are discussing a high-performing part of the public sector and the criminal justice system. We are not saying that the probation service could not be better, and we all agree with the hon. Member for Witham (Priti Patel) that we want it to be better, but the core of my argument, which my hon. Friends are also making, is that we should build on what is good and successful in the service and not disrupt it as the Government’s proposals will.

[Meg Hillier]

The hon. Member for Witham (Priti Patel) talked about not making assumptions, and not dissing the idea that the voluntary sector and others might play a part. The Opposition are not doing that. In fact, changes made over the years introduced other players to work alongside the probation service. My concern is that there will be a wholesale sloughing off of people with talent and of local co-ordination. Nothing in the hon. Lady’s speech identified what the future would look like under the new model; it was about hope, rather than evidence. Would my hon. Friend like to comment?

[Andy Sawford]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I want to talk about how such local organisations are working to good effect in Northamptonshire and about my concern that that will be disrupted. As my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds East made clear, our concern is that payment by results in the criminal justice system is untested. The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice, the right hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling), was responsible for the Work programme, which is, as my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland Central has said, a contradiction in terms. Will the Minister explain why the Government are rushing headlong into the changes and ignoring the pilots, rather than learning from them and developing reforms from them?

Our probation service does a good job in difficult circumstances and on stretched budgets, and the Government rated the performance of every probation trust as good or exceptional in 2011. After the proposed changes, probation will deal with an extra 60,000 offenders a year. Will there be additional funding or will the current money be spread even more thinly, as my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds East suggested? Poorly resourced support for rehabilitation will not effectively help to reform offenders, and that poses a serious risk to our constituents’ safety.

The proposals have been strongly and widely criticised. The National Association of Probation Officers said that they were

“being rushed through without proper thought to the consequences.”

NAPO pointed out:

“Although these offenders are deemed medium and low risk of harm, they include…offenders at high risk of reoffending, such as prolific burglars, chaotic drug users and gang members…who require professional expertise in their management.”

In Northamptonshire, such offenders currently receive that professional expertise. The Howard League for Penal Reform calls the proposals “untested and opaque.”