Steve Brine
Main Page: Steve Brine (Conservative - Winchester)Department Debates - View all Steve Brine's debates with the Scotland Office
(1 year, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Robin Walker (Worcester) (Con)
It is great to see you back in your place, Madam Deputy Speaker. Both you and the late Baroness Boothroyd have demonstrated amply, on International Women’s Day, that a woman’s place is in the Chamber and preferably in the Chair of the Chamber.
I am very grateful to the Backbench Business Committee for approving this very important and timely debate, and to all colleagues across all parties and across the House who supported my bid for it. I would also like to pass on my thanks to the Liaison Committee, under whose auspices these estimates day debates take place. I pay tribute to the work that the Petitions Committee has done in this area. I have come hot foot to this Chamber from a meeting of the Petitions Committee, as has my hon. Friend the Member for Winchester (Steve Brine) and the all-party parliamentary group for childcare and early education which he chairs.
The departmental estimates briefing from the House of Commons Library shows education as the second-biggest winner after health in absolute terms when it comes to changes in day-to-day spending—the so-called resource departmental expenditure limits line in estimates—and a minor loser on capital DEL. The welcome increase in the former, however, is dominated by the impact of the revaluation of the student loan book.
As a former schools Minister, I cannot begrudge the fact that the largest proportion of the £3.9 billion increase in the education resource budget is going to schools, and I am in no doubt that the extra funding of £2 billion in each year of the next two years announced in the spending review is needed in the schools system. Nor do I in any way regret that the second-biggest winner in the education space is high needs. As we heard on Monday, the Government have overseen a 50% increase in spending on high needs since the 2019 election, which I very much welcome and support.
However, I am concerned. As the House has heard many times, early intervention is money well spent and the case for early intervention, early identification of need and early education is stronger than ever. In that context, it is deeply concerning that the only line in the departmental estimates that is clearly focused on childcare or the early years is a £52 million increase in resource DEL. That increase in spending on the early years is tiny in comparison to the overall increase in the Department’s budget, a rate of increase across the piece of just 1.4% when compared to the same line in the 2022-23 main estimate. That breaks down into an increase in early years funding for schools of £35 million, a rate of increase of just 1% and an increase of £17 million for early years funding through the families budget, a slightly more reassuring 14% annual increase.
Such numbers without context might sound very significant, but the context, as we are often reminded by the Front Bench, is that the Government spent nearly £20 billion on childcare and the early years over the last five years, and are currently spending around £5 billion a year across the various different Government Departments that support it. I do not claim to be an accountant. I do not claim to be the greatest living authority on the departmental estimates process and—pace the Prime Minister—I did not complete an A-level in mathematics, but I do know that an increase of £52 million on a budget of billions is not a big deal. In fact, the House of Commons Library’s very helpful briefing for this debate confirms that the Department for Education’s resource DEL for early years is being increased by just 1.4% from £3,781 million to £3,833 million. At a time when inflation is running at around 10%—even if we hit the Prime Minister’s laudable ambition of halving it we will be running above 5%—that does not feel like anything close to a real-terms increase.
In evidence to the Education Committee, the Institute for Fiscal Studies highlighted the problem. It submitted written evidence in November 2022, headed:
“Funding for the early years is likely to fall by 8% up to 2024 as a result of faster-than-expected cost rises”.
It set out that
“The early years sector in England received a significant uplift to its budget at the last Spending Review in 2021…but higher-than-expected inflation means even that increase will not compensate for rising costs. We estimate that childcare providers’ costs are likely to rise by 9% in total between this year (2022-23) and 2024-25. Judged against these rising costs, total funding for the free entitlement will be 8% lower in real terms in 2024-25 than it is this year.”
Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)
I welcome my hon. Friend’s speech and I welcome his Select Committee conducting an inquiry into childcare and early education. We can talk about entitlement as much as we like, but if the settings are not there, we have a problem. The private voluntary independent sector is losing numbers. I have seen two closed in my constituency in the past six months. This is a problem. We have a supply side problem. Does he agree that achieving parity on business rates between the PVI sector and the maintained sector where an early years setting is in a school would help significantly with its in-year budget problem?
Mr Walker
My hon. Friend demonstrates his considerable knowledge and expertise in this space, and his all-party parliamentary group has gathered evidence from across the sector. I will come back to that point, because it is one of the many things we could be doing to help.
In fairness to Ministers in the Department, I know very well that they have been doing hand-to-hand combat with the Treasury year in, year out for more investment in every phase of education. In recent years, those battles have borne fruit, particularly for schools and for the high needs pupils in them. I also recall starting this year at the launch of the IFS’s very interesting report into education spending, which confirmed that over the last decade the early years has been the fastest growing area of Government spending in education and, unlike in the schools space where current increases in funding are making up for previous years of real-terms cuts, the early years budget has grown faster than any other phase of education in real terms under the Conservative Government.
By contrast, and before we hear too many speeches on Labour’s proposals for an all-singing, all-dancing £20 billion childcare offer, we should remember that it left a system with a single 15-hour offer and Department for Education spending on childcare and the early years at roughly a third of what it is today. That is the backdrop to the disappointing departmental estimate that underpins the debate.
The House will be aware, and as my hon. Friend the Member for Winchester mentioned, that I started my term as chair of the Education Committee with a call for an inquiry into childcare and the early years. I am very grateful to all the people, across parties, who elected me to that position and to all the members of the Committee who unanimously accepted that call. The inquiry is now well under way. We have heard loud and clear from the nurseries, childminders and the wider early years sector about the challenges they currently face—challenges my hon. Friend alluded to—the pressures they are feeling, and, as the IFS confirmed, the very real inflationary pressures being felt by the sector. We have heard time and again the case for more investment in this crucial sector. Although it is too early for me to pre-empt the findings or recommendations of our inquiry, I believe passionately that there is a strong case for more Government investment in this space.
Mr Walker
I want the Government to listen to many groups across the whole sector and see the case for investment. I will come later to the different elements of the case for investment, to which the hon. Lady rightly refers.
Childcare affordability is a crucial part of the argument. To date, our inquiry has heard about a perfect storm facing the nurseries and childminding sector, of parents struggling to pay the costs required to make the so-called “free hours” work, of rising employment costs and greater than ever competition for staff, and a high burden of bureaucracy. For the vast majority of providers run by the independent and voluntary sector, there is also the challenge of business rates, as my hon. Friend the Member for Winchester mentioned, which are increasing at an alarming rate, and of having to pay VAT on their investments when neither of those costs is felt by their direct competitors in school-based provision.
The National Day Nurseries Association has published figures that suggest that despite the very welcome increase in funded hours for parents, the Department—perhaps more accurately the Treasury—has knowingly underfunded the free hours so that there is a clear and increasing burden on parents and on settings themselves to cross-subsidise the two-year-old and 15 and 30 hours offers. The Sutton Trust has pointed out that 75% of childcare providers said that funding provided per hour for the 30 hours entitlement did not meet their costs, forcing them to apply charges to better-off families, including extras such as nappies, sunscreen and lunch. They say that that undermines the intention of the 30-hour policy as a free entitlement.
We have heard concerns from parents that the myriad different offers and support systems across early years are confusing, and from providers that the use of “free hours” terminology causes conflict with their customers. The reality is that these are subsidised hours, for which the state bears only a share of the cost burden. We have heard concerning statistics about the underspend in both the Department for Work and Pensions and the Treasury schemes to support childcare, because the need for up-front payments out of net income deter both parents on universal credit and those who should be benefiting from tax-free childcare from using the Government schemes. That is both part of the problem and, in my view, part of the solution. There is money that the Treasury has already approved to support childcare in the early years that is not getting spent. That money needs to be put to work to support the very real needs of parents and children.
That brings me to the fundamental point about the case for investment. The Prime Minister rightly said that education is the closest thing to a magic bullet that we have. Investing in education is a good thing and something that I have dedicated most of my time on the Back Benches to supporting. Early intervention usually pays dividends, and that is especially true of education. Many Members across the House, mostly notably my right hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Dame Andrea Leadsom), have repeatedly made the case for investment in the first 1,000 days of children’s lives. They have pointed to the strong scientific evidence that investment in this period has more impact on the way minds develop than any other.
The Nuffield Foundation has said that there is a strong case for additional investment in the early years, as a “foundational stage” of early development. It states:
“Given that lifelong inequalities have their roots in early childhood, this would be investment in social and individual well-being in the long term.”
An interesting research summary of “The Lifecycle Benefits of an Influential Early Childhood Program” by the Heckman Equation, states:
“Every dollar spent on high-quality, birth-to-five programs for disadvantaged children delivers a 13% per annum return on investment.”
Others have pointed to the huge productivity gains to be made from providing childcare that supports parents, particularly mothers, to continue in or return to work.
On International Women’s Day we should recognise the substantial benefits of closing the gender pay gap and allowing more women to realise their full potential, focusing not only on participation levels but on the quality of participation in the workforce. According to a PwC report published in March 2021 on women in work:
“There are large economic benefits to increasing the number of women in work.”
It estimated that the UK could gain £48 billion per annum from
“increasing female labour force participation rates to match those of the South West – consistent top regional performer for female participation in the UK index.”
A report by CBI Economics and the Recruitment & Employment Confederation from July 2022 entitled “Overcoming shortages - How to create a sustainable labour market” stated that if unaddressed, labour and skills shortages could see the economy lose £30 billion to £39 billion annually. Gingerbread has said:
“Successive research that we have undertaken pinpoints the cost of childcare as the biggest barrier to single parents in finding and staying in work as well as in progressing in their careers.”
Sometimes, including in the evidence provided to our inquiry, it has been suggested that there is some conflict between the two objectives. In reality, investment in the early years and in childcare should be a win-win. It should be good for the children, who are better stimulated, supported and prepared for education, and better for parents, who know that they can engage in work with confidence, knowing that their children are getting that stimulation in a safe setting that meets their needs. A recent report by the Centre for Progressive Policy think-tank has suggested that the economy stands to gain a staggering £38 billion, or 1% of GDP, if a fully effective childcare system could support more women to continue in careers and reap the benefits of returning to work. Others, such as Onward, have pointed to the clear desire of parents to have access to affordable and flexible childcare, and the benefits of both parents being able to deploy help from the Government effectively.
As Schools Minister, I often heard concerns from primary schools about the challenges of children arriving in schools less school-ready than they had been previously, and the greater range of measures and extra support needed to prepare them for life at school. Having children stimulated by excellent early years provision would address that challenge far more effectively and in a more timely manner than interventions or catch-up funding spent in the school years. In the noble quest of ensuring that more children leave primary school able to read, write and do maths, investment in the early years when they learn basic communication—their letters and numbers—should be a no-brainer.
Laura Barbour of the Sutton Trust told the Select Committee:
“In primary schools, 93% said that they recognised that time spent in an early years setting prior to attending primary school made a significant difference when they arrived in school, particularly for children from more disadvantaged families.”
Steve Brine
My hon. Friend is making such an important point, which is one of the reasons why the all-party group that I lead is called “on childcare and early education.” It is important that we flatten the distinction in taxation terms between early years settings and early years carried out in school. The people who run those settings—I declare an interest because my wife works in one—are early years educators. All too often society does not see them as that. I know that the Minister does, as have all previous Ministers, but all too often the discourse is about just childcare. It is not—it is early education.
Mr Walker
My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I am glad that he has declared his family connection in that respect. We should all value the contribution of the early years and the people who work in what we might describe as childcare but is early education, early simulation and support of children. The steps that the Princess of Wales has taken to draw attention to the importance of the sector are very welcome.
Dame Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con)
May I say what a huge pleasure it is to see you back in the Chair, Madam Deputy Speaker—and what better day to be discussing this topic than International Women’s Day? I wish all the women—and men—in the Chamber a happy International Women’s Day. Is it not wonderful that there are so many of us now? It is indeed wonderful to see so many women in politics, making a contribution and debating these issues. On behalf of all of us, I want to encourage every young woman, of whatever party, who has political interests and ambitions to get stuck in. We will help you. Come and join us; you will be most welcome.
Let me begin by paying tribute to my hon. Friend the Minister, who has been such an advocate for what, as I think everyone in the House knows, I am so passionate about: giving every baby the best start in life. The lovely thing about that is that I am, so far, not alone. Every Member I talk to, in every party, is incredibly supportive, because we all know from bitter experience of constituency cases, from what we have read, and from what we have learned as politicians and in our own lives, how critical it is for every single baby to have a chance of the best start in life.
Let me give the House some statistics. We know from a study conducted by the Early Intervention Foundation in 2016 that the cost to our economy of late intervention is about £17 billion a year. Almost a third of that is the cost of looked-after children. The children who have some of the worst outcomes in the country are those who are removed from their families and taken into care, and it is shocking that so much money is spent on achieving such poor outcomes. Huge parts of that £17 billion are spent on dealing with domestic violence, and young people who are not in employment, training or education and whose life chances have been hampered by their not being given the best start.
My hon. Friend the Member for Worcester (Mr Walker) has already mentioned the work of Professor James Heckman in analysing the rates of return on human capital investment. It says very clearly, “If you do not care about human happiness, just look at the money—follow the money!” A pound, or a dollar in the professor’s case, invested during the antenatal period will pay exponentially more, in terms of the return, to the human potential of the child—and will lower the later cost to society—than a pound, or a dollar, spent further down the line, when that child is already in the realms of youth crime or perhaps mental illness. Financially, prevention is not much kinder but so much cheaper than cure. Across our United Kingdom, and indeed across the world, there is a growing wealth of evidence for that.
I pay tribute to the Princess of Wales for her amazing work through the Royal Foundation Centre for Early Childhood, observing the struggles of parents and the number of parents who do not feel confident about knowing what their baby needs. I have talked to consultant paediatricians as part of my work as the Government’s early years healthy development adviser, and one of them said to me, “I am supposedly an expert in this field, but when my wife and I had our baby, we were like, ‘Aargh! What do we do with this?’” That is the challenge. It is not about the nanny state, or about interfering; this can happen to any us. I had three babies, and by the third time I thought I had it sussed, but my 19-year-old still gives me hell!
When you first have a child, you do think, “What am I supposed to do with this?” You take that beautiful, squeaky new baby home, and once you have got over the stitches and the other horrific unspeakable things that befall women in these circumstances, you find yourself trying to focus on the fact that you have had no sleep, which is an effective torture, is it not, Madam Deputy Speaker? We all know what it is like if we have had no sleep, and your baby, like my first, does not sleep for more than two hours at a time. In the one antenatal class that I just vaguely recalled, I was asked, “What is your 24-hour clock like now?” We all said things like, “Between 11 pm and about 7 am, I am fast asleep.” Then we were asked, “What do you think it will be like once you have had the baby?” We all said, “Well, I don’t really know, actually.”
It is so difficult, having a baby. You can be as rich as Croesus, you can be happily married, you can have all the support and the nannies in the world, you can have maternity nurses, and it is still difficult. Actually, I pay tribute to the Netherlands, where 95% of babies are born at home and you get a free maternity nurse, on the state. I would do that trade any day of the week—hands up those who would not! To have someone who will take the baby off you so that you can get a few hours’ sleep—that is extraordinary. However, I hope I am not freaking out anyone who is thinking of having a baby: it is the most glorious thing we ever do, and I welcome the fact that so many of our colleagues in the House have young children. I was proud as Leader of the Commons to introduce proxy voting for baby leave, because, oh my goodness, we cannot just sit at home and watch everyone voting and hope that our slip is going to be adhered to. We need to continue our lives.
So, for many women, and men, this is the most difficult thing they ever do, but what is so appalling is that we are really not allowed to say that. When I had my first child I was working at Barclays and I had just been appointed senior executive—one of only eight women; it was an absolute badge of honour—and they said, “We will do this appointment if you will come back after 10 weeks.” I know that seems extraordinary. They could not legally do that now, but in those days they could. And I said yes, which was really stupid. In hindsight, why on earth did I say yes? Anyway, there ensued two miscarriages, postnatal depression and awful trauma, and I left. It was not a happy experience. I say that because we are never allowed to say when things are difficult and we are really struggling, but we really want to keep our career. We do want to have it all, and that is understandable, but at the moment we really cannot.
We absolutely have to focus on the incredible investment in the early years. Again, I pay tribute to the Under-Secretary of State for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for East Surrey (Claire Coutinho); to the Prime Minister who, as Chancellor, funded this incredible project; and to the Chancellor, who as a Back Bencher and Chair of the Health and Social Care Committee was absolutely supportive of the best start for life. I also pay tribute to Opposition colleagues. One of my earliest friends in this place was the wonderful Lord Frank Field—if I may use his name since he is no longer an MP—and the even more wonderful, if that is possible, Dame Tessa Jowell, both of whom have been such advocates for giving every baby the best start in life.
What the Government are seeking to do is to provide support. My hon. Friend the Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare), who is no longer in his place, talked about the importance of early years settings to build families’ capacity to be parents. In those settings, parents can chat to others and ask, “What size nappies are you using? Have you weaned yet? What are you feeding your baby?” We do not get a manual, do we? We should, but we do not. Another thing we do not get, which we should, is an on/off button. Don’t you agree, Madam Deputy Speaker? I am sure Matthew would agree. When Madam Deputy Speaker’s son used to sit in his sitting room opposite mine and play my music in my flat from his Bluetooth, I wanted an on/off button then. He was a bit older.
That is one of the challenges that we have as parents: there is no manual. So how do we get that information? We have the Government’s programme of rolling out family hubs across England. I wish we could roll them out across the UK, and we will be working with our colleagues in the devolved Administrations to make that the case. In Scotland, they have got parenting mental health absolutely sorted but they do not have family hubs. Talking to some colleagues who are Scottish parliamentarians, I know that they would be keen to follow what we are doing here. I think we can learn from each other all around the world. In Chile they have the most wonderful support for new mums that we do not currently have here, but we are starting to roll out the family hubs across England.
Most importantly, we are rolling out the best start for life, which involves six universal services. People who go to a family hub will be able to get antenatal midwifery checks, to chat to a health visitor, to seek support for their mental health issues or those of their partner or any member of their family, or for their relationship with their baby. They will also be able to get breastfeeding support. This is another ridiculous thing: we are all expected to know how to do that, aren’t we? How on earth do you breastfeed a baby? Who knows? Hands up, any of the men? No. We do not get a manual for that either, and actually women need a lot of support. You would not give your five-year-old a two-wheel bicycle and say, “Right, off you go, darling.” You hold the back of the seat until they have got the hang of pedalling. Our breastfeeding rates are among the worst in western Europe and that is because no one gets any help—
Dame Andrea Leadsom
My colleague is going to tell us how to breastfeed, ladies!
Steve Brine
I have never name-checked them in this House, but Auntie Jane and Auntie Jenni ran the BABIES breastfeeding support group at Lanterns nursery, which still exists in Winchester, and I remember going to them one morning after we had had a dreadful night with our first, Emily—who is 15 now and still a challenge—and we were just desperate. The only thing that got us through to daylight was knowing that we were seeing Auntie Jane and Auntie Jenni in the morning. I remember taking my wife and Emily down to see them, and they provided amazing support, as do support groups all over this country. So, Auntie Jane and Auntie Jenni, thank you.
Dame Andrea Leadsom
That is lovely, and I pay tribute to the thousands of volunteers who provide breastfeeding support. My hon. Friend highlights perfectly one of the great challenges of becoming a new parent. When we are really struggling, there is a high correlation with mental health issues. When there is not enough support for women who want to breastfeed their babies but find they cannot do so, they suffer from feelings of guilt and feeling that they have failed and they are not good enough, and that lends itself to the problems of postnatal depression that are only too prevalent right across England.
So, to recap: midwifery, health visiting, mental health support, breastfeeding support, safeguarding support and disability support will be universally available in family hubs to help every family to give their baby the best start in life. Not only that, there will be universal-plus support for the most tricky and challenging issues such as the prospect of domestic violence. We know that up to 30% of domestic violence starts in pregnancy because of the partner’s feeling, “This person is going to love the baby more than they love me.” All these challenges that are brought out by pregnancy are quite desperate to be solved. We know that if we can get the hang of giving every baby the best start for life, that will transform our society.
I mentioned that the cost to our economy of late intervention is about £17 billion a year. The Maternal Mental Health Alliance’s study has shown a cost of around £8 billion a year for every new cohort of births as a direct result of the cost of poor maternal mental health in the perinatal period. The all-party parliamentary group on conception to age two—the 1,001 critical days—has demonstrated that school readiness results in a reduction in later problems such as the propensity of children to get into gangs, to have poor mental health and to fail to learn and do well at school. The 1970 cohort study showed, significantly later on, that only 18% of children in the bottom 25% academically at age five get one or more A-levels, compared with 60% of those in the top 25% at age five. What happens to a child in their earliest years follows them throughout their life, and the more we can do in that earliest period, the better, so the Government are totally on the right lines.