Children and Families Bill

Andrea Leadsom Excerpts

Tuesday 11th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

There are, of course, various reasons, many of which relate to the history of how child care systems have developed in different countries. France, for example, has a long tradition of the école maternelle, which involves structured, teacher-led learning from an early age. That has been shown to improve outcomes for children, particularly those from the lowest income backgrounds. Our reforms seek to make sure that high quality, highly qualified professionals go into early years, and to try to adjust the differential between early years and primary school salaries. I will come on to that later.

Parents need to know that they can access high-quality care. The research is clear: high-quality early learning experiences boost children’s attainment throughout their education. There are many excellent nurseries that provide stimulating, structured learning opportunities for young children, which help them to prepare for school. However, there is much more to do.

Anyone who works with children needs a wide range of qualities, not all of which can be quantified by degrees or diplomas. However, that does not undermine the case for greater skills and better qualifications. In future, there will be two qualified roles: early years educator and early years teacher. Graduate leaders are already having a positive impact. Almost 12,000 early years professionals are trained to deliver high-quality early education and care for pre-school children. Building on that legacy, early years teachers will be specialists in early childhood development who are trained to work with babies and young children. We want to see more crossover between teachers in primary and early years so that there is a continuum of education, rather than two separate silos.

The training programme for early years teachers begins this September. Trainees will have to meet the same requirements as primary school trainee teachers. They must have a degree and will need to pass the English and maths tests. The National College for Teaching and Leadership has consulted on the new teacher standards for early years, which will be published in July.

We are extending the reach of Teach First, which has been successful in bringing talented new people into schools. From this September, it will include teaching three and four-year-olds for the first time. Teach First attracts some of the most talented and ambitious graduates in the country, many of whom might not otherwise have considered working with young children. They can make a big contribution, especially in areas of disadvantage.

We also want to raise the standards of practitioners who do not have degrees. Early years educators will be qualified at level 3. Early education qualifications have been far too diffuse and lacking in rigour, and there are hundreds of existing and historical early years qualifications. We are addressing that failure. The National College for Teaching and Leadership has consulted on new criteria for level 3 qualifications and will publish them shortly. Using those criteria, awarding organisations will develop high-quality qualifications to be introduced in September 2014. The minimum entry standard for the qualifications will be grade C at GCSE in English and maths.

Apprenticeships will offer a high-quality route to becoming an early years educator. They will last 20 months on average and combine employment with study towards recognised qualifications through various routes, including further education colleges.

[Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con)]

Will the new qualifications, particularly those for early years educators, include training in early infant brain development and the crucial importance for childhood development of a secure early bond?

[Elizabeth Truss]

I thank my hon. Friend for that contribution. The new qualifications will include the study of early brain development and attachment theory to ensure that early years educators and teachers are up to date with the latest research and practice when they go into the profession fully.

We have just announced a £2 million apprenticeship bursary scheme for apprentice early years educators. Up to 1,000 bursary places will be available to people who aspire to a career in early education. Each bursary will be worth £1,500 and an additional £300 will be available for further training. I am encouraged by the view of David Pomfret, the principal of the college of West Anglia, that the bursaries will make it easier for people to begin a career in early education. The college has seen more people taking up such courses in recent years and we want to encourage more young people into this important profession.

In addition to improving the supply of early years educators and teachers into child care, we are reforming child care funding. The tax-free child care scheme will provide 2.5 million families with financial support towards their formal child care costs. That is an expansion on the current system and, in the majority of cases, will provide a more generous amount.

Unfortunately, under the current employer-supported child care voucher scheme, which was introduced by the previous Government, the question of who receives support is arbitrary. It is also highly inefficient, with 33% of the total amount being spent on overheads. At present, only 5% of employers offer employer-supported child care, and only a fifth of employees are eligible for it. Those who are self-employed do not have access to it, and whether a parent can or cannot get it is a lottery. Strangely, as more than one parent can claim employer-supported child care, in some cases there are two claimants for one child. That means that the costs for one child could be covered more than for a single parent with several children, and that is neither a sensible nor fair way to continue.

Our new tax-free child care scheme will resolve those anomalies. It will be available to any working family, except where one or both earners pay the additional rate of income tax. It will be on a per-child basis and include the self-employed and those on the national minimum wage. Tax-free child care means that around 2.5 million families will now have access to support. That support will be worth the same as the basic rate of income tax at 20% of costs, making child care costs effectively tax free. It will mean that the average family with two children will receive up to £2,400 each year. Those on lower incomes will continue to have 70% of their child care costs paid through tax credits and, in future, universal credit, and there will be an additional £200 million to help those in receipt of universal credit ensure that work always pays.

We are not introducing the tax-free child care scheme now. The Government have been in discussions with interested parties since the announcement of the scheme, and will launch a formal consultation document shortly. The consultation will last 12 weeks, and the Government will proactively engage with those affected by the changes to discuss the issues. New clause 10 has been tabled to enable HMRC to start developing the scheme. Although we will consult in full on its details, the basic tenets have been set out. To ensure that the scheme is in operation by the autumn 2015 target, work on its foundations must commence now.

[Elizabeth Truss]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question and HMRC will consider that issue in its new consultation on this subject.

Much of the work required is based on IT development because we want all parents to be able to access the service online. As with paving legislation before it, the new clause will enable officials to start high-level discussions on IT and other development, and such discussions could not take place without the new clause. The provision will not affect HMRC’s current operations or impede the development or scrutiny of the tax-free child care scheme, and there is no immediate cost of the scheme that must be funded.

This is a short and self-explanatory new clause that merely allows the Government to begin preliminary work ahead of the final design of the tax-free child care scheme. The Bill is similar to those used by previous Governments, and takes no greater powers than in those cases. Furthermore, the Government are clear that any changes required in primary legislation will receive appropriate scrutiny. The new clause is minor and technical in nature, and I look for support across the House to enable HMRC to start working on one of the Government’s priorities.

In addition to reforming child care funding we must also increase the supply of quality child care. The number of childminders has almost halved over the past 15 years, limiting parental choice in a flexible affordable form of child care. Many parents want home-based care, especially in a child’s youngest years—I know my hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom) is a great advocate of that. The Bill enables the introduction of childminder agencies, which I believe will help to increase the number of childminders in the market by removing barriers to entry and offering an alternative to working completely independently. Agencies will drive up quality—they will be required to support the training and development of childminders—and make it easier for parents to access childminders and be assured of high-quality and flexible provision.

[Andrea Leadsom]

Will children’s centres be encouraged to become childminder agencies? That would link two of the most critical structures available to support parents. Childminders often believe they do not have access to training or to the camaraderie of others in their field, so that could be a perfect combination.

[Elizabeth Truss]

I agree with my hon. Friend and will mention the types of organisations that could be involved in childminder agencies in due course.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andrea Leadsom]

Surely this has been Parliament at its best. It has been a huge privilege to be involved with the Bill Committee, and I really think that life is about to get a whole lot better for some of the most vulnerable young people in our society. On that point, I pay tribute to all those who have worked so hard to make this such a non-partisan and co-operative experience for us all.

I draw the Minister’s attention again to the point about the opportunity to introduce the registration of births in children’s centres, and specifically to Bench Hill children’s centre in Manchester, which has been offering registration of births for 10 years. As a result, its access to all new families in that area has improved exponentially, not just in offering services but in the re-engagement rates of families with those services. That is incredibly important, and I pay tribute to the Under-Secretary of State for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mr Timpson) for providing the resources in his Department to investigate how offering birth registration in children’s centres can make a fundamental difference to the support offered to new families.