Free Childcare

Debate between Rosie Duffield and Ruth George

Thursday 12th October 2017 Westminster Hall

[Rosie Duffield (Canterbury) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend the Member for Batley and Spen (Tracy Brabin), the shadow Minister with responsibility for early years, has just chaired a panel with childcare providers and I have taken down some of the quotes from that meeting: “The system is complex, long-winded and many parents give up”; “It’s not free, so let’s stop calling it free”; “We are making a £5,000 loss every month”; and “This year I have lost 25% of my intake.” Does my hon. Friend agree that such quotes mean that the system is not currently fit for purpose?

[Ruth George]

Absolutely. I am sorry to have to agree with my hon. Friend.

When almost 80% of nurseries have spent time helping families to apply for the 30 hours, and with 14% saying this had taken more than five hours of staff time per week during the summer, it is no wonder that nurseries are struggling. The policy has had a huge impact in my constituency of High Peak. We have seen three nurseries close their doors over the summer as they simply could not make the finances work. Others have lost out significantly, even when taking on additional children from nurseries that have been lost.

A nursery in Buxton reports that it has lost £19,000 through charging for the meals it used to provide over the lunch period and charging for the additional hours that parents took on top of the 15 hours. Deborah from the Serpentine Nursery says:

“Having run my Early Years provision successfully for 35 years we have taken every change ‘on the chin’, risen to the challenge and carried on without any significant recognition except our Ofsted Outstanding. What other businesses are treated in such a shabby way!”

Flagg Nursery School, a very small village nursery just over my border, in a maintained setting, anticipates it will lose £20,000 a year owing to the lunchtime charges it cannot now make and the payment for the additional hours. The headteacher, Sarah, told me:

“Personally I think it is a great idea to offer 30 hours of childcare for working parents. We have always had children who have attended for the full week but in the past there was a charge. I just don’t feel that the hourly rate is sufficient and is not sustainable in the long term.”

In Furness Vale and New Mills, First Steps Nursery, where my daughter did some work experience, is now losing £10.50 per day per child. It says that if a child takes 30 hours a week, it loses £45 a week for each child. No wonder nurseries are worried about the quality of their provision. First Steps says:

“If we are to continue providing quality for children the rate given for funding needs to increase immensely. We offer our children Forest School and swimming lessons but in order to do this safely we have to have a high staff ratio. The amount we are given does NOT cover this and we are subsidising this so that the children can have the best.”

Flagg’s headteacher spoke of the quality of staff they could employ. She says that staff costs are the most important of all their costs:

“I feel that we ought to have experienced, highly qualified staff working in this sector as these are our most vulnerable children. Experience needs to be paid for though and underfunding could lead to children not being adequately cared for.”

Among my local maintained nurseries there was also concern that the extra 15 hours meant they could not offer places to children who qualified for only 15 hours. The head at New Mills nursery said that the initiative significantly reduces the ability to address the needs of the most disadvantaged children, and was a huge missed opportunity; the assumption is that that was overlooked, and that the initiative was driven by the childcare and working families agenda, not by the impact of quality education on the youngest, and some of the most vulnerable, members of society.

The children with the most need, such as the socially disadvantaged, are not eligible for the additional 15 hours of funding. Being good at closing the gap between disadvantaged children and their more advantaged peers is the very thing for which nursery schools have historically been recognised. Social mobility is an important issue that is not addressed by the 30 hours—something that in many ways contributes to increasing the gap between the poorest and better-off families. There are not enough places for all the children with 30 hours as well as those who qualify for just 15.

The headteacher at Hadfield Nursery School in the north end of my constituency says that the Government have underestimated the number of eligible parents and there are not the places to meet the demand. She is trying to signpost parents to other local providers, because her nursery cannot offer the full number of 30-hour places so they are trying to share them with other providers—15 hours each. It is a worry that as those nurseries have in effect to offer full-time places now, the impact has, again, been to reduce the offer of 15 hours. Those anecdotes from my constituency are backed up by the Sutton Trust, which says that the scheme was not adequately resourced, and the new funding formula will divert resources away from state nurseries disproportionately attended by disadvantaged children. Kitty Stewart, associate professor of social policy at the London School of Economics, said:

“To make up some of the funding gap, a new funding formula reallocates resources away from state nurseries disproportionately attended by disadvantaged children, and they may in the future struggle to afford a qualified teacher. To remove this advantage must be expected to have negative effects on social mobility.”

It is not only nurseries, but childminders, who are affected. They are already struggling. There are now 24% fewer childminders than in 2012—a drop of more than 10,000. Childminders often provide vital home-based care for younger children, or children who would struggle in a nursery setting. One of the childminders in my constituency commented:

“I personally feel that as a nation it is presumed that once a parent returns to work they send their children straight to nursery, when there are alternatives that can provide a more nurturing environment for babies and young children; and this needs to be emphasised—it’s not all about nurseries.”

However, such childminders cannot afford to run the 30-hour scheme, and so they lose out with respect to children coming to them.

What about the impact on parents? If they qualify and they can find a place, parents of three and four-year-olds will have a drop in their nursery fees, even if they have to pay some charges; but parents who qualify only for the 15 free hours, and parents of the most disadvantaged children, struggle to find even those free hours. That will be of huge detriment to their children’s life chances individually, and to social mobility as a whole. Parents with younger children will pick up the bill as charges for younger children have had to increase to make up the shortfall with respect to three and four-year-olds. A mum in my constituency, Emma from Buxton, says that her charges have increased by £230 a month for her one and two-year-old children, and she feels it is not worth her going to work any more. That will have an impact on the most disadvantaged children. Having two parents’ incomes, or having a single parent in work, is an important factor in improving children’s life chances. Emma is worried that the nursery will not even be able to stay open until the oldest child is three, because they are struggling so much to get by. She says:

“So in conclusion we are not much better off in the long run because of how the hours are being offered, and right now we are being crippled by the hike in price. Nurseries have to change their pricing policies in order to survive”,

but they cannot do that in the face of the funding situation.

I am particularly concerned about the impact on the quality of employment in early years, as I have mentioned. My daughter has just completed an early years degree, so I know how much goes into that qualification. She has gone on to do a teaching certificate, so I do not feel that I need to declare an interest, but at many of the nurseries where I have had meetings—particularly among the outstanding-rated ones—there is concern that they will not be able to afford to take on the skilled staff they need to maintain their good ratings. A third of the staff considered by the Sutton Trust, working in group-based childcare, lack English and/or maths at GCSE. Those staff are, unfortunately, the only ones that settings struggling with costs and underfunding will be able to afford. The trust’s chair, Sir Peter Lampl, said:

“Good quality early years provision is vital to narrow the gaps that leave too many youngsters behind by the time they start school. But it’s unlikely that the government’s policy to provide 30 hours…will provide this.”

It is a far cry from the high-quality childcare and fully qualified staff envisaged just a couple of years ago by the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, when she was Under-Secretary of State for Education. There seems to be no emphasis at all in the Government’s policies on quality of provision or of staffing, and that must be worrying with respect to children, progress with social mobility, and our future.

Underfunding of a policy that began with good intentions, although it may have been more about votes than quality childcare, is undermining what is needed throughout the country. I urge the Minister to look again, especially at the projected figures for the next financial year, now that the additional costs of business rates and of the living wage are clear. I want to thank all those who have consistently been raising the issue of the problems with funding, and especially those who set up and contribute to the “Champagne Nurseries on Lemonade Funding” Facebook group. They have been tireless champions of the best of champagne nursery provision, and excellent analysts of the impact of the funding levels.

I also thank the nursery owners and providers in my constituency, a rural area on which the policy has had a great impact. In small rural towns and villages, childcare, and the knowledge that children can go to nursery in their community and make friends in their area, without having to travel long distances, is particularly important. I particularly thank Kate Sebire, the owner of the outstanding-rated Sunshine Nursery School in my home town of Whaley Bridge, who has been bending my ear about the issue for many months. I hope that the Minister will meet childcare providers, listen to their concerns, and take heed of them when he visits the Chancellor for his pre-Budget discussions.