Finance (No. 2) Bill

Debate between Siobhain McDonagh and Bob Stewart

2nd reading
Wednesday 29th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Siobhain McDonagh (Mitcham and Morden) (Lab)]

I wanted to start by saying a few words about the late Baroness Betty Boothroyd, because I think I may be the only Member currently in the Chamber who was here when she was Speaker. She was an extraordinary, indomitable, wonderful, tough and completely terrifying person to a new young MP—one of the 101 Labour women elected in 1997. She smashed her way through every glass ceiling that ever stopped her. She was a working-class woman, proud of her roots and of who she was, and she would let nothing get in her way.

Betty led a very different House of Commons. When you came here in the morning, you did not know what time the House would go on to in the evening. You would be terrified to get one of the invites to her many social occasions; you had to be sure you had the appropriate outfit on the back of your door in case she did invite you. Woe betide anyone who did not respond to her invites within 48 hours, because the invite would be promptly withdrawn. I do not know whether it is apocryphal, but rumour had it that she stood at the door of her social evenings and watched you come in, and if you were not appropriately dressed, you were asked to leave.

I have one last story about Betty. It was an extraordinary time in 1997, and we were all invited by Queen Elizabeth to go to Buckingham Palace. I do not know whether my right hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster Central (Dame Rosie Winterton) recalls it, but we arrived terrified. I walked into a room and I saw Betty Boothroyd. I knew that I knew her, so I could talk to her. At that point, another Labour MP who is no longer in this House turned to the Duke of Edinburgh and asked him to take a photograph of me, Betty and himself. I thought I was going to die—at least, I thought I was going to stop breathing. Everybody was silent, until Betty opened her arms and sprang into a rousing chorus of “A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square”, while one of the Duke’s aides took him away so that he would no longer be offended. She was a character, and we all came along behind on her coattails.

Just because Betty achieved, it does not mean that everybody could achieve. We know that the number of working mothers in our economy is in decline in the 21st century. At a time when we know that we need more people in the workforce, mothers are not entering it because they cannot afford to do so, even if they want to carry on working to develop their skills, they hope for a better career in the future or they simply need the money.

Something that makes all of our constituents cynical about politicians and Government is when much is promised and little is delivered. When my friend Natasha and her husband Pete were watching the Budget, hoping for help with childcare costs for their two-year-old son Noah, they found none. They pay more in childcare than they pay on their mortgage. There will be many women who, as my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell) said, find nothing in these proposals that is going to assist them, because they really click in in September 2024 and September 2025. We could cynically ask whether those dates have been arrived at because they will be after the general election and the current Chancellor may not have to deliver on the promises.

More worryingly, the Sutton Trust has found that only 20% of the poorest third of families will benefit from the proposals. Those are the women and the families who need to work to improve their chances. We all agree that working is the best way out of poverty, or at least that it should be. In September 2024, there will be 1,369,000 children between the ages of nine months and two years. This scheme benefits only 600,000 of them, and more—729,000 of them—will have no benefit from these proposals.

However, it is not just the mums and the families who are going to have a problem. The nurseries—the providers themselves—already have problems. We know that 5,400 nurseries have closed since 2021, because they simply could not make up for the increasing cost of gas, electricity and staffing or for the fact that the current free hours are not free to the provider. It costs about £7.49 an hour to keep a child in a nursery, but that is only subsidised to the tune of £5.50 by the Government’s plan. Promises have been made that the difference will be made up to prevent more nurseries from closing.

The money offered by the Government for the current proposal is £240 million, but the Women’s Budget Group says it will cost £1.8 billion, and that famously Trotskyist organisation the CBI reckons it will cost £1.6 billion. The Women’s Budget Group believes that the total cost in September 2025 will be £9.4 billion. The amount paid by the Government will be £4.2 billion, so it will need more than half as much again to make the scheme work. We are either going to collapse the nurseries that currently exist because they will not have anybody to cross-subsidise with, or the places will not be there for those children.

It is not about the mums and it is not about the nursery, so is it about the staffing? Our childcare works on the back of very young women being paid very little. One in eight of the staff in our nurseries is paid £5 an hour because they are too young for the national living wage. That is how nurseries manage to keep going.

[Bob Stewart]

I entirely endorse what the hon. Lady says. A lot of nurseries in my constituency are coming to me saying, “The people we employ are just not getting enough money and we can’t afford to give them more. Please, please help.”

[Siobhain McDonagh]

I completely agree with the right hon. Gentleman. I am sure that, like me, he gets emails from parents who are absolutely desperate because nurseries are closing at short notice and no alternatives are available. We think we have a problem in outer London, but the problem in Newcastle is even tougher.

Some 90,700 staff have left the profession since 2018. The Women’s Budget Group—we thank it for all its efforts in getting these details—believes that for the Government to meet their plan, they need 38,000 more childminders and nursery workers. That does not happen by magic. It requires intervention. It requires the intervention of the businesses, but also the intervention of Government. We know, and we have known for years, that children benefit from the most well-qualified and well-trained staff. Well-qualified and well-trained staff need to be paid properly. Childcare should not be the service that is provided on the back of the least well educated and the least well paid.