Caroline Dinenage
Main Page: Caroline Dinenage (Conservative - Gosport)Department Debates - View all Caroline Dinenage's debates with the Department for Education
(11 years, 2 months ago)
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Elizabeth Truss
Overall, we have increased early intervention funding from £2.2 billion to £2.5 billion. We are also introducing a new scheme for low-income two-year-olds, starting this September and the following September, which will make sure that those two-year-olds access high-quality provision from good and outstanding providers. Let us face the fact, however, that over 13 years of Labour government what we ended up with was the most unaffordable child care in Europe as well as the lowest salaries with staff paid only £6.60 an hour.
Caroline Dinenage (Gosport) (Con)
As the Minister said, child care workers in England are paid barely more than the minimum wage. Does she agree that the present rigid staff-child ratios place a cap on wages and therefore on the quality of staff?
Elizabeth Truss
I completely agree with what my hon. Friend has just said. Let us make it clear that we will allow more flexibility in ratios only for high-quality providers where high-quality staff are being hired. The aim, as advocated by the shadow Secretary of State, is to move to systems such as those of Sweden and Denmark, which have high-quality providers, high-quality staff and more flexibility and professional judgment operated at a local level. Everyone, from Andreas Schleicher of the OECD to Sir Michael Wilshaw, backs that plan to raise quality.