Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Melanie Onn and Sam Gyimah

Tuesday 7th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gyimah]

I thank the Chairman of the Select Committee for that question. We will take every action necessary to make sure that we deal with the scourge of drugs in our prisons.

[Melanie Onn (Great Grimsby) (Lab)]

After a constituent of mine residing in HMP Lindholme was seriously assaulted when other inmates had access to keys to their cells while he did not, is it not abundantly clear that the people who are in charge of our prisons are not governors, and certainly not the Secretary of State, but the prisoners?

[Mr Gyimah]

That is certainly not the case. We do recognise, however, that by recruiting more staff and strengthening the frontline we will make it much easier for staff to challenge and support prisoners. That is why we have announced new investment to recruit 2,500 new officers for our jails, and we are also enabling a caseload of one prison officer per six prisoners, so that they can support our prisoners in the efforts to rehabilitate them.

Early Years Development and School-Readiness

Debate between Melanie Onn and Sam Gyimah

Tuesday 12th July 2016 Westminster Hall

[Mr Gyimah]

All I can say is that we want to provide that as soon as possible, because we understand the need for providers to prepare so that they can deliver the full 30 hours in 2017—it is in the “urgent” in-tray at the moment.

I will develop my points further and answer some of the questions that have been asked. On take-up, we will publish a workforce strategy shortly. Speech and language is absolutely important. If a child arrives at school and cannot communicate or recognise that those squiggly things on a page are words, and that words are used to form sentences, they have got a problem. One of the things the early years pupil premium is there for is for those disadvantaged kids to get extra funding—about £300 a head—and the nurseries can make a discretionary decision on how to spend that to ensure that those kids do not arrive at school already behind.

[Melanie Onn]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mr Gyimah]

I will not take any more interventions, because of the time.

We have introduced reforms to improve the standard of literacy in the early years, which has included awarding grants, for instance through the National Day Nurseries Association’s literary champions programme, which supports practitioners to provide a high-quality, literacy-rich experience for all children. In 2015, 80% achieved the expected goal in communication and language, compared with 72% in 2013.

All of that sits in the broader context of life chances. School-readiness cannot be divorced from the broader discussion of life chances. Earlier this year, the Prime Minister set out his vision for improving life chances, and the Government want to transform the life chances of the poorest in our country and offer every child who has had a difficult start the promise of a brighter future.

We are already transforming lives. Since 2010, there are 449,000 fewer children living in workless households. The early years foundation stage framework is improving the quality of early education and care for young children, and our most recent results show that 66% are achieving a good level of development at that stage. A number of hon. Members touched on that point. It is worth noting that 66% is an increase of 14.6 percentage points in the past two years. The quality of settings continues to improve, with the highest proportion ever—86% of settings—judged good or outstanding in their most recent Ofsted inspections.

We know that some of the poorest children are already behind their peers by age three, before they start school. Such children miss out in the number of words they speak, as my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston and Surbiton pointed out, although the proportion of school children eligible for free school meals who achieve a good level of development is increasing—it was 51% last year, compared with 45% the year before. However, I will be the first to admit that we still have a long way to go.

Obviously, in considering school-readiness and life chances we also need to take into account what happens in the health sector. A number of hon. Members touched on that. All children aged from two to two and a half are offered a universal health and development review by a health visitor, which includes checking a child’s communication development and referring families to more specialist support if necessary. One thing that I introduced when I became the Childcare Minister was an integrated review for children who are not in early years settings, so that health visitors could recommend and introduce parents to other support services that they might need.

To touch on a point raised by the hon. Member for Southport (John Pugh), we also published “What to expect, when?” so that parents know what they can do to support their children’s development in the early years. It is easy for Government to think that we have all the answers, but children, especially in their early years, spend a disproportionate amount of time at home with their parents, so parents need to understand what good development is and what they can do to influence it. That is what our guide is meant to achieve.

Childcare Bill [Lords]

Debate between Melanie Onn and Sam Gyimah

Monday 25th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gyimah]

The Government will be spending £6 billion a year from 2019-20 on early years and childcare. The suggestion that we will be doing that without measuring or evaluating it is simply not true. The question is where we carry out this evaluation and whether it needs to sit in primary legislation. Had the hon. Gentleman been listening, he would have heard me explain that we currently have a survey following 8,000 two-year-olds across England, so what he is asking for is already under way. We do not need primary legislation to evaluate the impact of the important investment to achieve very important goals in this sector.

The latest early years foundation stage profile data reveal that an increasing proportion of children are achieving a good level of development at age five—66% in 2015, compared with 52% in 2013. That is an impressive 14.6 percentage point increase over the past two years. I know that there is more we can do to understand the impact of this extended entitlement. However, as drafted, the proposed amendments are not workable. They call for an evaluation of the impact of discharging the Secretary of State’s new duty within 12 months of the Act coming into force, which is far too soon to make any judgment about impact. That would not be adequate time to collect the data, assess the impacts and produce a report.

[Melanie Onn (Great Grimsby) (Lab)]

Many kinship carers of young children are pensioners, so they will not meet the work thresholds to access the 30 hours of free childcare, despite arguably being in greatest need of support and respite. Does the Minister plan to take any steps to address the needs of these unsung carers in our nation?

[Mr Gyimah]

Every three and four-year-old is entitled to 15 hours of free childcare. The question is who is entitled to the second 15 hours. [Interruption.] If Opposition Members will bear with me, I will answer the question. Lone parents are entitled to it, as are self-employed parents and parents looking after disabled children. I will seek inspiration from the officials’ box specifically on kinship carers. But the issue is that everybody gets the first 15 hours if they work, and the second 15 hours is a work incentive. If people are not working, they do not need that amount of childcare.

[Mr Gyimah]

Under the current regime, kinship carers will get three hours of respite care a day for five days of the week. Is the hon. Gentleman seriously arguing that he wants more than three hours of respite care a day? If so, why was that not in the Labour party’s manifesto?

[Melanie Onn]

I thank the Minister for being so generous in giving way. I want to echo the sentiment expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham), and reinforce it by pointing out that many kinship carers are pensioners who cannot work and cannot meet their thresholds. When it comes to respite care, children often need additional educational or emotional support, which takes an incredible toll. Those carers are saving the state huge amounts of money, because they are not foster carers.

[Mr Gyimah]

Again, the hon. Lady has made a very good point. If the children of kinship carers need additional care, the early years pupil premium that was introduced by the Conservative-led Government will ensure, to the tune of £50 million, that any additional educational needs are funded. That is a completely different issue from that of how many hours of childcare are needed.

[Melanie Onn]

Does the Minister not think that it would be more appropriate for very young children to be in settings where there are mixed social and accessibility needs, so that if they have special educational needs, there is no division between them? Such children will not require access to the additional funding that the Minister has mentioned, but they will need socialisation in those early-years settings.

[Mr Gyimah]

The hon. Lady is now asking a very different question. If a disadvantaged child has additional educational needs in a mixed setting, there will be additional funding for that child. In response to the hon. Lady’s original question, I can say that a kinship carer who formally takes parental responsibility for a child will be able to access the 30 hours of free childcare.

New clause 1 concerns evaluation. While we are committed to monitoring and collecting data on the impact of the Act, assessing all the issues together would not be feasible, or the most effective way of evaluating the policy. As I have said, the Department has already begun to consider the feasibility of conducting an impact evaluation, and to consider what data would be necessary effectively to monitor the take-up and impact of the new entitlement. I assure Members that the implementation of the extended entitlement will be tested before roll-out. It will be introduced a year early in some areas, from September this year, which will provide an important opportunity to test it and to show that it can be rolled out in a way that meets the needs of working parents. I am pleased to say that local authorities and providers expressed a strong interest in taking part in the early implementation phase, and that the successful candidates will be announced shortly.