Oral Answers to Questions

Robert Flello Excerpts

Monday 4th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Matthew Hancock]

The crisis would be if we did not improve the quality of apprenticeships, because they are vital in getting people into good jobs and ensuring that there is training in jobs. We took out some low-quality provision, which inevitably had an impact on the numbers, but that is a vital part of ensuring that apprentices are seen to be high quality and are regarded as such and that they are an attractive option for young people, adults and employers.

[Robert Flello (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Lab)]

10. What plans he has for early intervention and child care provision; and if he will make a statement.

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

The affordability and availability of child care are a concern for many working parents, yet staff wages are often too low to support high-quality provision. “More great childcare” outlined reforms to improve quality and availability. We will introduce rigorous new inspection, new qualifications for early years teachers and new flexibilities to enable providers to deliver what is best for children. Childminder agencies will reverse the decline in the numbers of childminders.

[Robert Flello]

Stoke-on-Trent has been hit harder than almost any other local authority in the country, including by a massive hit to early intervention funding—despite it being one of the most deprived areas facing the greatest need. If the Minister expects her claim to want to improve the quality of child care to be taken seriously, perhaps she will tell us what arguments she has had with Ministers in her own Department and indeed in the Department for Communities and Local Government to tackle these pernicious cuts?

[Elizabeth Truss]

Overall, we have increased early intervention funding from £2.2 billion to £2.5 billion. We are also introducing a new scheme for low-income two-year-olds, starting this September and the following September, which will make sure that those two-year-olds access high-quality provision from good and outstanding providers. Let us face the fact, however, that over 13 years of Labour government what we ended up with was the most unaffordable child care in Europe as well as the lowest salaries with staff paid only £6.60 an hour.