Maintained Nursery Schools

Tracy Brabin Excerpts

Thursday 31st January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Tracy Brabin (Batley and Spen) (Lab/Co-op)]

This is my first time winding up a debate, and what an important debate it has been.

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell), who is such an extraordinary supporter of maintained nursery schools and the early years sector more widely. Her campaigning and stewardship of the all-party group on nursery schools, nursery and reception classes so often leads the way—keeping us all informed, connected and up to date on the plight of maintained nursery schools. I have to say that some of the biggest meetings I have ever attended have been meetings that she has organised with campaigners from far and wide across the country.

My hon. Friend’s contribution raised some extraordinary and well-made points, but a couple stood out for me. One was her passion for change. She also said that this was

“social vandalism of the worst kind”,

that we must support the holistic approach delivered by the maintained nurseries sector and that it would be a “crying shame” to see it disappear.

We also heard from some passionate and dedicated MPs about their own communities, and about the sense of pride they felt when they visit and witness what goes on in maintained nurseries in their constituencies. The hon. Member for Chichester (Gillian Keegan) talked about risk taking, creativity and art, and how they build resilience in young people, but also about how the potential loss of staff is deeply concerning. My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg) talked about “Stay and Read”, the food that children take home and the work on speech and language. The right hon. Member for Chipping Barnet (Theresa Villiers) mentioned that the situation is very grave.

My hon. Friend the Member for Heywood and Middleton (Liz McInnes) had great pride in seeing how children have blossomed. My right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms) mentioned local links, the development of professionals and PVIs locally. A passionate speech was made by my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner), who was, rightly, very angry. He highlighted the staffing pressures, given that the current rate is £4.04 per hour, and the uplift of 1p an hour seems derisory.

I really enjoyed the contribution of the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton), the former children’s Minister. He talked about attachment and how important it is, the support for the troubled families programme and the work he does on fathers. I have also been working on fathers—trying to get more men into the early years sector, to bring men into nurseries and to get more involved with their families.

As always, my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey) gave an extremely passionate and emotional speech, which moved a number of us to tears. He talked about a desperate mother with her two little boys getting support from the maintained nursery sector. He has done extraordinary work with campaigners and their fantastic petition. I know it has been sent to lots of Members, who I hope are sharing it. I also want quickly to mention my hon. Friends the Members for Lincoln (Karen Lee) and for Reading East (Matt Rodda), who both talked about the need for sustainability and the educational challenges. I thank all Members who made short interventions.

One thing that really stands out across the whole House is the strength of feeling about and our faith and belief in the maintained nursery sector. It has been a pretty consensual debate, but I accept that Members feel deeply passionate and angry about the situation— for good reason, I would say. Since becoming shadow early years Minister, I have been lucky to visit many places, including in Greenwich and Bradford. I know the Minister also makes many trips around the country to look at nurseries, including maintained nurseries. I am continually impressed by the passion, vision and leadership of the educators, the diversity of the pupils, and the quantifiable impact the nurseries have on children, primarily on those who have special needs and those from the most disadvantaged backgrounds.

Maintained nursery schools are not the only section of the early years sector to do tremendous work—PVIs and childminders up and down the country also do fantastic work—but we are here today to discuss maintained nursery schools, so it is worth reiterating their many merits. They are often viewed as the crème de la crème of early years and many Members have said exactly that in this debate. As my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester Central said, 63% of the schools are rated outstanding by Ofsted and the rest are good. The majority of maintained nursery schools are in the 30% most deprived areas in England. Their pupil selection policies support those in greatest need and tend to work hand in hand with local authorities, an element that has become more important as other services funded by local authorities have declined and local authority budgets have been slashed to the bone. In Kirklees alone, we have lost 60% of our funding since 2010.

That has an impact on SEND provision, which is becoming a greater challenge for the early years sector. Maintained nursery schools employ SENCOs, which mean they can provide for children what other settings simply do not have the resources or expertise to provide. A report by seven local authorities in Yorkshire and Humber found that each school supports as many as 15 children with SEND, with many requiring education and healthcare plans. The same report found that the schools are increasingly accommodating children with complex life-affecting conditions who would usually attend a specialist setting. When maintained nursery schools become good at that, they find themselves supporting clusters of children with those particular needs, as well as those with extra needs. In short, where communities have maintained nursery schools, the quality of provision is improved either directly or through training networks. There are genuine hidden benefits that ease the pressures on other costly public services. Indeed, it is disappointing that so many communities are without these support networks. I would like to see more, but sadly at the moment it is more common to see a school under threat than it is to see a new school open.

Since 2010, we have lost about one in 10 maintained nursery schools; the number has fallen from 428 down to 394. To repeat what my hon. Friends have said, it is a crying shame that we are losing maintained nursery schools across the country. That is a loss to communities which impacts on other public services. I would be interested to hear from the Minister when he is on his feet whether any assessment has been made of the cost to the public purse when a maintained school closes its doors. Many of the benefits these settings deliver are hidden benefits. For example, one case from East Riding of Yorkshire found that closing four maintained nursery schools would mean four additional social workers would be needed to provide the equivalent preventive work alone.

The crux of what we are discussing today is the funding of maintained nursery schools. I would call it a funding crisis, because brilliant provision comes at a cost: wonderful premises; education for free; risk taking; work on communication, literacy and language; support for parents and children; qualified teachers in the classroom; work that goes beyond the walls of the maintained nursery into the community; providing food after school for children whose parents are struggling; children with additional needs supported; and parents helped with their parenting skills. None of that comes cheap. We have seen 1,000 Sure Start centres across the country close, and the maintained nursery sector is picking up a substantial amount of that slack. I know that the Department for Education and the Minister have acknowledged that. They understand the crisis in maintained nurseries and they provided the supplementary funding block to help these nurseries stay afloat. I am adding my voice to those of the hon. Members who have spoken today. To refuse to give a funding commitment until the spending review later this year—until after the schools will need to set their budget for the coming years—is a disaster waiting to happen.

The Minister has said a number of times elsewhere and in this place that local authorities should not make premature decisions about the future of maintained nursery schools. That is welcome, but the sector is being asked to wait for the spending review, without a date or a commitment about whether it will be for one, three or five years. With Brexit looming, it is no surprise that the sector is deeply worried. How can he reasonably expect schools to commit to paying staff and to promising families that they will educate their children if they literally do not know whether they will be able to afford to meet that commitment, as funding could be cut mid-year? Should we not put this piecemeal approach to funding to one side? Should we not sit down with the maintained nursery schools and come up with a package that gives them financial confidence, not just for the next 12 months but for the next 12 years?

We are not talking about some sort of hypothetical financial calamity in the future. Maintained nursery schools are already struggling. In 2010, 3.5% of schools were in deficit to the total amount of just under £600,000. Since then, 34 schools have closed their doors and 20.3% of schools are now in deficit to the total amount of £4.8 million. More concerning still is the fact that 64% of them expect to be in deficit by 2020, even before the current funding settlement runs out. Sadly, the Government’s current report card says, “Plummeting numbers and soaring deficits.”

Be in no doubt that the threat to these schools is serious. The culture of disregard has been felt across the whole of the early years sector in recent years. Since the introduction of the 30 hours of so-called free childcare, all types of settings have been continually warning of financial difficulties. The Government’s own figures show that 53% of private nurseries in England have put up their fees since the introduction of the policy. Early years settings are trying to make do with less, but costs are rising all the time. It feels like they are often left standing against an oncoming tide. We cannot forget, either, that the minimum wage is rising again this year. We all support that, but early years is a low-paid profession and this rise affects it disproportionately. So I encourage the Minister to review the funding settlement, please. We want quality early years staff, but to get quality we need to pay them properly. Something has to change.

This debate has been informative, enjoyable, passionate and moving in parts. I and many Members in the Chamber look forward to what the Minister has to say. In conclusion, let me be clear: what we need and expect today is a clear funding plan. There has been praise for these services and schools, the things they provide for our communities, and encouragement of local authorities not to make premature decisions. It is good but it is not good enough. We need a commitment. These families and children are relying on the Minister to do the right thing. We need to fund the schools properly and give them certainty.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nadhim Zahawi]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for that intervention. That message has come across loud and clear today, and this is something that we are very cognisant of.

[Tracy Brabin]

I would like to steer the Minister towards some fantastic research—if he has not seen it already—from the Yorkshire and Lincolnshire maintained nurseries. It contains empirical evidence about the value to local authorities of maintained nurseries and the impact of their closure. It provides clear evidence that we need to solve this funding crisis today.

[Nadhim Zahawi]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for that. As I have said, we will be publishing our own research very soon. I know that this is later than we had originally hoped, and I apologise for that, but it is a complex piece of work and it is important that the researchers take the time to ensure that the findings are as robust as possible. If we are going to make those arguments, we are going to need that data. It will be a helpful contribution to the discussion, and I am prepared to look at any data points that colleagues can offer.