Childcare Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Massey of Darwen and Baroness Tyler of Enfield

Wednesday 14th October 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Massey of Darwen (Lab)]

My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendment 11, which is part of this important group of amendments relating to the quality of childcare.

In Committee, I tabled an amendment which proposed that in all dealings with children, the welfare of the child should be paramount, in accordance with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. The Minister mentioned “paramount” earlier today. I do not recall the term coming up in any previous government document or discussions, but I stand to be corrected.

The amendment I am discussing is based on ensuring quality childcare, which means having good staff-to-child ratios, staff who are trained in childcare at level 3 or above, or who are in training for that, and a member of staff qualified to care for children with SEN or a disability. Funding, of course, affects all this and I share my noble friends’ concerns about funding expressed earlier.

I know that some of my dear friends round the Chamber are concerned about the qualifications issue. I am not knocking their comment that you do not necessarily need to have high-level qualifications to undertake childcare. However, I am not talking about having a PhD in physics; I am talking about people aspiring to better their childcare qualifications, thereby improving their ability to deal with child development. That is all I am saying.

The third point of the terms of reference for the Department for Education’s review of the cost of providing childcare in England does indeed speak of sufficient quality of childcare. The fifth point refers to,

“the need to secure value for money for the taxpayer, and for the entitlement to be affordable to the public purse”.

In my view, the quality of care for children far outweighs value for money for the taxpayer. I understand accountability but I maintain that the first duty of childcare is quality for the child. Without that quality, all efforts to provide childcare are useless. Quality also impinges on parents going to work. Quality impinges on social mobility. No parent is going to place a child into poor-quality early years care or education. Indeed, surveys show that the top two requirements for parents are, first, location and, second, quality.

I note that many organisations share my concern. The National Association of Head Teachers states that the failure to address funding—the important issue raised earlier today—will compromise quality and that early years education, not just childcare, is essential in order to have an impact on child development. The Local Government Association talks of the danger of an underfunded system. The National Day Nurseries Association in its excellent analysis of this Bill is concerned about the threat of low pay and about recruitment and retention of staff. It suggests looking over the long term in a cross-departmental way at childcare funding and the development of a workforce strategy to improve quality. I agree.

The Special Educational Consortium has pointed out that 60% of parents with disabled children do not believe that childcare providers can cater for their child’s disability. It proposes that the Childcare Bill be amended to require the largest childcare centres to have an early years special educational needs co-ordinator. The Association for Professional Development in Early Years states that in relation to sufficient provision, quality of staff and the development of the health care and education plan is vital.

The importance of staffing could not be clearer. Skill and confidence in caring for and educating children with special needs are vital for the confidence of parents and the well-being of the child. In small settings, area special educational needs co-ordinators could be in place to advise parents and plan for health and education needs.

I hope that the Government will respond sympathetically to this group of amendments and ensure that quality of childcare is reflected in all their deliberations.

[Baroness Tyler of Enfield (LD)]

I speak to Amendment 23 standing in my name. In so doing I give my broad support to Amendment 11 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, that covers similar ground. The policy statement on this Bill that we recently received stated that the workforce is the key driver of high-quality childcare. I agree—we probably all agree with that. I welcome the Government’s commitment to exploring career progression routes in 2016 and look forward to hearing more about these plans from the Minister. However, more needs to be done to support new entrants to the sector. This is the primary purpose of my amendment on minimum workforce qualifications.

The Affordable Childcare Committee felt that it was crucial to increase the proportion of staff qualified at a higher level in the private, voluntary and independent sector in order to drive up overall quality and improve outcomes for children. Setting a minimum qualification level for working with young children at level 3 was suggested by Professor Nutbrown during her review of early education and childcare. This would help to level the playing field and to ensure that where children grow up and live has much less of an impact on the quality of care and education that they receive than, sadly, is sometimes the case at the moment. It is telling that new evidence from Ofsted has identified that settings that have at least 75% of their practitioners qualified to level 3 achieve better inspection results. Indeed, the Nuffield Foundation recently reported on a strong relationship between the level of staff qualifications, the quality of provision, as judged by Ofsted and, most importantly of all, outcomes for young children.

The second part of my amendment is around disabled children. There is overwhelming evidence that parents of those children are struggling to access their current entitlement to childcare. Indeed, in 2014, the Department for Education found that only 40% of parent carers believe that the childcare providers in their area can cater for their child’s disability. Last year, the parliamentary inquiry into childcare for disabled children concluded that lack of staff skill and confidence was often the reason for parents,

“being subtly discouraged or simply turned away by a provider”.