Free Childcare: Costs and Benefits

Tracy Brabin Excerpts

Tuesday 19th February 2019 Westminster Hall

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

It is an absolute pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies. May I begin by saying how apt it is to be discussing childcare and early education this week when many Members and, perhaps more unfairly, the staff who work in this place will have had to organise last- minute and probably premium-cost childcare because of the late-notice recess cancellation? I am pleased to see the Minister stepping in for the Under-Secretary of State for Education, the hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Nadhim Zahawi). Perhaps he is not here because he has a childcare problem, or perhaps, as the papers suggest, he is skiing. We wish him well and hope he comes back in one piece.

I want to pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol North West (Darren Jones), who secured the debate and is a young father himself. I congratulate him on the fantastic news that another baby is on the way. It has been great to hear submissions from parents in all parties who have talked about their own childcare arrangements and how valuable those are in enabling them and their partners to do their jobs and fulfil their potential.

I will summarise some of the excellent contributions. My hon. Friend the Member for Bristol North West had a passionate and humane approach to what childcare is all about: creating happy, fulfilled families so that children can grow up in brilliant homes where they can fulfil their potential while feeling safe and secure. The extra £1,000—£20 a week extra in pay cheques—would bring happiness and flexibility to families. That money is vital for some families, certainly families on the breadline. For them, if a washing machine breaks down, that £20 could mean going to a food bank or not. It is absolutely imperative that we also look at the wider economic situations for some of the poorest families.

The idea of families selling their cars to pay for childcare is distressing. My hon. Friend’s focus on equality and families having to decide who goes part time and who loses out in their career progression was incredibly powerful. I was also interested to hear about Flamingo Chicks and would like to know more if he will meet me. Also, the focus on gender and class is really powerful. We know that the gender pay gap starts at the beginning when a woman has her first child. Women often never recover from that. In the creative industries—my previous career—we see the awards season and more men than ever winning awards, but why is that? Because women have to make a choice about stepping out of their careers. Then it takes forever to try to catch up. Some never catch up and they just step out permanently.

[Alex Cunningham]

The disadvantage to women is not only in their earning power through the years, the loss of the opportunity to work and everything that means but in the effect on their pensions—they lose many years’ pension contributions and are more likely to be in poverty in retirement.

[Tracy Brabin]

I absolutely agree and I will probably pick up later on the idea that, despite the welcome alignment of men and women’s pension age, some women are coming to me and saying, “I can’t look after my daughter’s children, so she can’t go back to work, and I’m having to continue working.” Women Against State Pension Inequality has a case to make about the fact that the inability to find cost-effective childcare is impacting on their families.

We have heard some fantastic contributions. I value the work that the hon. Member for Mansfield (Ben Bradley) is doing with the Education Committee. Let me take a moment to thank him and his colleagues on that cross-party Committee for their report, “Tackling disadvantage in the early years”, which was published last week. I will flag up to the Minister, although I am sure that he will comment on it, the Committee’s observation that the Government’s own policy on 30 hours of funded childcare is

“entrenching inequality rather than closing the gap”,

and the Committee’s recommendation that the Government

“resurrect their review of children’s centres and…explore promoting family hubs as a wider model for provision of integrated services.”

The Committee’s work is absolutely invaluable in trying to close that disadvantage gap.

I welcome the contribution from the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), including his personal stories about his workforce; his member of staff who sends speeches at 1 am deserves a medal. He, too, mentioned older women who are unable to look after their children’s children.

My hon. Friend the Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham) celebrated childcare staff, and talked about nursing bursaries and nursing trainees. It is absolutely vital that we enable those people, who are going into incredibly stressful jobs—jobs that we absolutely need—to get the support they need to study, rather than their having to worry about getting a part-time job. My daughter is working in a bar at the moment and she is working alongside a nurse who is working there to top up her salary, in order to work at night. That cannot be conducive for training, can it?

My hon. Friend the Member for Bristol West (Thangam Debbonaire) was, as always, a fantastic champion for the single parent, for gender equality, and for childcare. Childcare for those who are training, volunteering or going to job interviews, and for entrepreneurs who are starting up, is absolutely vital. For example, 95% of notonthehighstreet.com businesses are run by women and were often started at their kitchen table. They need support, to help them to get their businesses up and running. There is also the magic of Sure Start—we have all said that, have we not?—with that confidentiality, and that opportunity to go in and get support.

My hon. Friend the Member for Ogmore (Chris Elmore), who is no longer in his place, made an intervention. It has been very interesting to hear what Wales and Scotland have on offer; I also welcomed the contribution by the hon. Member for Glasgow East (David Linden). The number of childminders is falling off a cliff and it is really important that we pull that back, and find really great strategic ways to support childminders, because they are the ones providing the wraparound care.

I thank everyone for their contributions today. It goes without saying that free or affordable childcare is fundamentally a good thing. It gives families autonomy over their own decisions; parents, especially mums, can go back to work and work the hours they wish to, within a timeframe that suits them. We know that so often the greatest barrier to accessing childcare is the cost, so we should always applaud efforts to bring the costs to parents down.

Free and high quality childcare has an incredibly positive impact on children. A child’s brain grows at an extraordinary rate in their first few years of life, and it is so important that children have access to stimulation and learning. Our collective aim should be that as many children as possible receive high quality early years education.

However, all is not well. The Government have introduced 30 hours of free childcare, a flagship policy in this area, but there are problems. The 30-hour policy excludes children whose parents are out of work. Those people’s children, many of whom would benefit the most from free childcare, are exactly the children who are being cruelly excluded from accessing it, through no fault of their own. I believe that is a fundamental flaw in the policy, and we may not understand the repercussions of that decision for a long time to come.

This term, more than 200,000 three and four-year-olds will receive that free childcare; that is 200,000 children who are entitled to double the support of their future classmates. They will arrive at school potentially having received hundreds more hours of learning than their more disadvantaged peers. We would not accept such exclusion in primary, secondary, or any other form of education, and I would like it to end for early years too.

Maintained nurseries are one part of the early years sector that does incredible work with children from disadvantaged areas. There has rightly been a huge amount of recent debate and discussion about those schools, because they are often the standard bearers for the sector. Wherever they are present, standards across the board are improved. I know the Minister realises how essential it is that those schools receive news about their funding as soon as possible. We have been told not to expect that news until the next financial review, but chatter suggests that an announcement could be made as soon as the spring statement. I do not expect the Minister to announce the funding today, but if he could shed some light on when the Department expects to make that announcement, I, Members, schools and concerned parents would be extremely grateful.

According to Members, charities, settings, think-tanks, Select Committees—just about anyone other than Ministers—the 30-hours policy needs more investment to work how we want it to. Local authorities are given an hourly rate that is set by central Government and passed on to providers for the hours that they look after eligible children. Regrettably, in too many circumstances the funding falls short of what is required to provide good quality childcare. Sector analysts Ceeda estimate that there is currently a £616.5 million shortfall in the private and voluntary early years sector. Providers are caught between a rock and a hard place. They are struggling and sometimes unable to make ends meet, so they pass on extra costs to parents in other ways.

Since the policy was introduced I have consistently warned of the havoc facing providers, but it has never felt as if those concerns have been taken seriously by the Department. The weight of evidence is becoming undeniable. The Early Years Alliance—formerly the Pre-school Learning Alliance—published a survey of more than 1,600 early years practitioners in September 2018, in which four in 10 childcare providers said there is a chance that they will have to close their setting in the next academic year due to the funding—or under-funding—of 30 hours’ free childcare. Eight in 10 providers said that there will be a somewhat or significantly negative impact on them if the funding rate stays the same next year. It has since been confirmed that only two councils will receive an increase in funding in April 2019. Thirteen will see a decrease, and the rest will have no change.

Will the Minister, when he responds to the debate, say whether any cross-Government discussions are taking place to increase funding for providers? What assessments are being carried out to ensure that parents are not paying for supposedly free hours of childcare through the back door? If those conversations are not happening, is he willing to facilitate a committee of providers—not just the big names, but childminders and small providers—to examine the day-to-day problems they face?

I am running out of time and I wish to give the Minister and my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol North West an opportunity to respond to the debate. Briefly, however, let me mention a part of the sector that I am interested in—co-operatives. As Members will know, I sit as a Labour and Co-operative party MP. I have visited a number of co-operatives, and I am convinced we need to support them further. Co-ops allow time-rich but cash-poor families to contribute. They invite parents’ skills into the setting, and in return, parents get a say in how that setting is run. Those settings have huge potential, and in the spirit of co-operation I will conclude by saying that I will happily work with the Minister and his colleagues if he would like to explore ways of supporting co-ops.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nick Gibb]

I will come to that point in a moment. We believe that the take-up of all the different schemes has been very high, but we always want to do more to ensure that it continues to increase.

The introduction of 30 hours has been a large-scale transformational programme, and such change can be challenging, but tens of thousands of providers have none the less responded to make it a success, because of their ongoing commitment to helping families. The evaluation of the introduction of the 30-hour entitlement found that three quarters of providers delivering free entitlement places were willing and able to deliver the extended hours with no negative effects on other provision or the sufficiency of childcare places. Almost two thirds of providers offered full flexibility with free choice to parents on when they could take the extended hours. Overall, we are already starting to see how the 30-hour entitlement is making a difference to families across the country.

The childcare market in England consists of a diverse range of provider types, allowing parents real choice in their childcare provision. The supply of childcare in England is generally high quality, with more than nine in 10 providers rated good or outstanding by Ofsted. There are strong indications that supply can meet parent demand for Government-funded entitlements. Nearly 79,000 private childcare providers were registered with Ofsted in August 2018 and more than 7,500 school-based providers, including maintained nursery schools, were offering early years childcare.

While there are some examples of providers closing, as the hon. Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham) pointed out, there is no evidence of widespread closures in the private and voluntary childcare market. The latest official Ofsted data, published in December 2018, showed that the numbers of childcare providers on non-domestic premises is fairly stable over time, showing a marginal 2% decrease compared with 2012. Providers joining and leaving the Ofsted register is normal in a private market and can be due to a variety of reasons. In fact, more non-domestic providers joined the register between 31 March 2018 and 31 August 2018 than left.

[Tracy Brabin]

Will the Minister accept that in order to keep the lights on, some smaller nurseries have had to ask parents for top-ups, such as baking birthday cakes and selling them, or even taking in ironing in order to keep their business going?

[Nick Gibb]

These issues are always raised. While there are some examples of providers closing, there is no evidence of widespread closures in the private or voluntary childcare sector. As important as the availability of places is, I am pleased that the quality of childcare providers remains high, with more than nine in 10 rated good or outstanding by Ofsted. In January 2018, more than 1.2 million children under five were receiving funded early education in settings rated good or outstanding. We continue to support growth in the childcare sector. As part of that, we have allocated £100 million in capital funding to create extra high quality childcare places.

Maintained nursery schools were mentioned in the debate. They provide high quality early education and support some of our disadvantaged children. I have seen that for myself in my constituency. In order to allow the hon. Member for Bristol North West to make some final remarks, I take the opportunity to again thank him for securing this debate. High quality childcare provides crucial support for children’s development and prepares children for school. The free childcare entitlements being provided by so many impressive providers are backed by record levels of Government spending.