Free School Meals/Pupil Premium: Eligibility

Ruth George Excerpts

Tuesday 6th February 2018 Westminster Hall

[Ruth George (High Peak) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson), who has done great work on child poverty and school meals. I am proud to be standing here on the anniversary of women’s suffrage. This debate is on exactly the sort of issue that women were given the vote for and to stand in Parliament to speak on. The issue hits children most of all, but women primarily and in particular single parents.

I was shocked to read the consultation document, having worked on universal credit for many years. One of the best things about universal credit was the fact that all children on universal credit were entitled to a free school meal. I applaud the fact that the coalition Government legislated for that. It would be a backwards step to look to take that away and introduce a cliff edge at just £7,400 a year of earnings, which is equivalent to just 18 hours a week on the minimum wage. Under universal credit, someone loses 63% of everything they earn. If someone on a low wage is only getting 37% of what they earn back into their pocket and is losing free school meals for their children—those are worth on average £429 for one child and £858 for two children—that is a huge disincentive to work.

I urge the Minister to look into the work of the Children’s Society. It has calculated that a single parent with two children would need to earn £11,000—that is, £4,000 more—to overcome that cliff edge under universal credit. That is no incentive to work, and a million children in poverty will not gain the free school meals that they need. A family in poverty cannot afford to feed their children to the best nutritional standards, as they would want to do. A free school breakfast would help.

[Michelle Donelan]

I agree with the hon. Lady about those in poverty, but those moving from working tax benefits on to universal credit could be earning up to £40,000 as a household, if not more. Is it appropriate that we give those households free school meals, or is that a misuse of resource?

[Ruth George]

The vast majority of parents moving from tax credits on to—

[Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)]

Order. I call Stephen Lloyd.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mike Kane (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)]

I welcome the Minister to his place in his new Department. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson). She is a tireless campaigner as the chair of the all-party group on school food and she has shone a light for many years on this issue. She is also the first Sharon in the 100 years of women being elected to this place, so I congratulate her on that, too. I heard her on Radio 4 a few weeks ago when she was campaigning on secondary ticketing. Unfortunately, the grammar school and private school-educated kids could not get around the fact they were talking to a Sharon. Anybody who was in the Chamber on Friday when she gave her personal testimony in the debate on the registration of stillborn children will know that I have heard nothing more powerful in this place for many years. I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate.

I doubt that anyone would dispute the importance of a benefit as wholesome as school meals. As a former primary school teacher, I saw the difference between those kids who got a full school meal and those who brought the rubbish in the packs—the chocolate and the drinks. I actually saw the impact on the difference in attainment during the afternoon. Governments have worked—together with Jamie Oliver—to improve nutritional values in school meals. We know that the provision of free school meals helps to reduce health inequalities, focuses attention in the classroom and brings benefits to attainment. As I said, I have seen it in my own experience.

The Government cannot deny that 1 million children living in poverty in working families are on these benefits. Those both in and beyond this place have outlined the conundrum carefully. By setting a net earnings threshold of £7,400 per annum to determine eligibility for free school meals under universal credit, the Government are contradicting their own stated aim of universal credit, which is to make work pay. If a household is earning just under £7,400 and has the chance to earn slightly more money, the Government are presenting working families with a cliff edge. There are clear questions the Minister needs to answer.

[Ruth George]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the example in the consultation document of a parent gaining free school meal eligibility is misleading? When they transfer from tax credits to universal credit, they will lose £1,600 a year. Those are not the children who should not be getting free school meals.

[Mike Kane]

I cannot agree more with my hon. Friend. We talked about cliff edges. What assessment has the Minister made of the cliff edge issues? In particular, how many children will be affected and how much will it cost families to make up the shortfall?

A second and connected issue has been flagged in the debate: the pupil premium. Pupil premium is additional funding targeted at raising the attainment of disadvantaged pupils. It is currently targeted at children registered as eligible for free school meals, looked-after children and children who have had a parent in the regular armed forces at any point since 2012. Since the introduction of universal infant free school meals, schools have been missing out on that vital additional resource, as parents do not need to register for free school meals, which is the basis on which pupil premium is calculated. For schools already experiencing real-terms cuts to their funding, that is a vital additional resource that they can ill afford to miss out on.

Oral Answers to Questions

Ruth George Excerpts

Monday 29th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Nadhim Zahawi]

I wholeheartedly welcome the report, and I know that the Secretary of State is visiting my hon. Friend and her colleagues on Wednesday, as she said. I look forward to meeting and discussing the report fully with them.

[Ruth George (High Peak) (Lab)]

My county of Derbyshire is about to cut almost £3 million from children’s services, including almost £400,000 from special needs and disability services to support children. Schools are already struggling, so how on earth will these cuts help, and how will the Government ensure that support for special needs children is improved?

[Nadhim Zahawi]

No local authority needs to cut those services. There is actually over £9 billion being invested in children’s services because, as in the case of Hackney, for example, it is seen as a priority, so there is no reason for a local authority to do that.

Childcare for Fostered Children

Ruth George Excerpts

Tuesday 19th December 2017 Westminster Hall

[Lisa Nandy]

It is not very often that I am speechless, but I am extremely pleased to hear that. My hon. Friends and I will await the Minister’s speech with great interest.

The Government’s policy has created a terrible disparity. Under the scheme, foster carers have been able to claim for their birth children but not for the foster children in their care, meaning that of two children growing up in the same household, one can attend nursery and one cannot. A common thread running through the stories that children tell about the pain of growing up in care is the feeling of being marked out as different from other children. The exclusion of foster children from the scheme enshrines that difference and discrimination in Government policy. As the Chair of the Select Committee on Education, the right hon. Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon), has rightly said, that is indefensible.

[Ruth George (High Peak) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent argument. Does she agree that one of the serious problems with the exclusion of foster children from the scheme is the impact on relationships within a family, between the foster child and the other children? The foster child may get to spend more time with the parent, which can exacerbate tensions with the other children.

[Lisa Nandy]

My hon. Friend makes a powerful and important point about the problem with treating foster children as different from other children in a family unit. I know she is very aware of the issue as a result of her previous experience and her constituency work.

For children who have experienced trauma and upheaval, the early years are critical. Some children’s best interests are served by being at home with their foster carer, but others—particularly those who have had limited social interaction—absolutely thrive around other children of the same age. The Children Act 1989 makes it very clear that a child’s best interests must be the primary consideration in all decisions affecting them. At the moment, the policy simply does not meet that test.

One foster carer from Norwich expressed it very well when he said that

“we currently foster the youngest two siblings from a large family. They came from a chaotic background where their only examples of behaviour and relationships with peers were those experienced in a very poor home environment. The youngest is now attending Pre-School, but anything over 15 hours has to be funded by ourselves, whereas a child from any other home would have 30 hours free. It is essential that he experience as much contact with his peers as he can comfortably manage, to enable him to learn how to behave appropriately before he starts school in September next year. To this end we are increasing his hours at our expense over the next few months which eats into the allowance we receive to feed, clothe and generally look after him.”

Such hardship is a common story among foster carers, as the GMB has highlighted. Foster carers are under immense financial pressure; barely 10% earn the equivalent of the national living wage.

Free Childcare

Ruth George Excerpts

Thursday 12th October 2017 Westminster Hall

[Ruth George (High Peak) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the effects of 30 hours free childcare.

I am here now, Mr Rosindell—thank you.

We are all here because we want all our children to get the best possible start in life and to be as ready for school as they can be, and because we want working parents to know that they can rely on high-quality childcare in a fun, friendly and caring setting that is nearby. Those factors are important to ensure not just that our children are school-ready, but that they are happy and relaxed and make friends.

I have four children, aged between eight and 25. As a mum who has worked all my adult life, I can vouch for how important it is for a child to be happy with their nursery or childminder. There is nothing worse than having to leave a child when they are crying or unhappy. That happens with almost all young children in the first few days, but they soon settle down, trust the staff, make friends and have a great time. The only thing worse than leaving a crying child is getting back at the end of the day and finding that they have been unhappy all day.

I have been lucky in the rural area where I live to have had excellent and friendly childcare nearby for all my children. We all welcome the consistent work to drive up standards in early years, so that 95% of providers are now judged by Ofsted to be good or outstanding. We all want good-quality, affordable and sufficient childcare. Although the policy of 30 hours of funded care for three and four-year-olds aims to increase the affordability of care, the lack of Government funding has raised doubts across the country about affordability, quality and sufficiency.

Why has that policy been so underfunded? At the Conservative party’s childcare campaign day on Monday 15 April 2015, in the run-up to the general election, David Cameron said that he would create an extra 600,000 free childcare places if he was returned to power. That was certainly a popular policy. The weekend before that announcement, the Conservatives had been behind Labour in every poll, but the day after the announcement—16 April—they were ahead in every poll, except one that was tied. At the time, the BBC reported that Labour described the policy as “another unfunded announcement”. BBC political correspondent Carole Walker said that Mr Cameron was “likely to face questions” about how the Conservatives would ensure that sufficient childcare places were available. She was right about the questions, but not about the person who would be questioned.

The Conservatives said that the 30-hour offer would result in more than 600,000 extra 15-hour childcare places every year from 2017, and that it would be funded by reducing tax relief on pension contributions. However, when those changes to tax relief were announced in the 2015 summer Budget, we were told that they would fund Conservative cuts to inheritance tax, not childcare, so the extra 15 hours of supposedly free childcare for 600,000 children were left without any specific funding. It is no wonder that the number of places has reduced to a third of what was promised in 2015 and that providers have been left wondering where all the money has gone.

Concerns were raised as soon as the projected funding levels were announced. Some 62% of all early years providers surveyed by the Pre-school Learning Alliance in March 2017 said that the funding they will receive in 2017-18 is less than the hourly rate they charge parents and less than the hourly cost of delivering a funded place. It is not surprising that more than half—58%—expected that the 30-hour offer would have a negative impact on their businesses, and just 17% predicted a positive impact.

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend mentioned the Pre-school Learning Alliance. Some Government Members say that they have had enough of experts, but does she agree that they should listen more to groups on the ground, such as my constituent Jane Reddish and her group What About The Children? Its excellent report on the 30-hours policy raises many of the same concerns as my hon. Friend, specifically pertaining to the special developmental needs of nought to 36-month-olds. The Minister would be well advised to meet that group, as the shadow Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Batley and Spen (Tracy Brabin), soon will.

[Ruth George]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention.

A survey of local authorities by the Family and Childcare Trust in February 2017 found that only a third thought that there would be enough childcare for three and four-year-olds using the 30-hour offer, while a third did not know whether there would be a reduction in care quality as a result of the offer’s roll-out. Some 44% of those local authorities said that the 30-hour offer would reduce the financial sustainability of some settings, so some childcare providers would go out of business. The survey found that the extension of free hours could compromise things that parents thought were priorities for high-quality childcare. That is important, because only high-quality childcare helps to boost children’s attainment and close the gap between disadvantaged children and their wealthier peers.

It was good that the Government introduced pilot schemes in September 2016 to see what would happen. The Minister has claimed that those pilot schemes were a great success. In response to the urgent question on 6 September from my hon. Friend the shadow Minister, when we were finally given some figures on the number of children registered for places, the Minister said:

“If we look at the pilot areas that have been delivering for a year now…we can see that 100% of their providers are delivering and 100% of the parents who wanted a place found one, despite some reservations being put on the record…at the very beginning. The pilots have demonstrated that we can deliver and we are delivering.”—[Official Report, 6 September 2017; Vol. 628, c. 163.]

However, some nurseries that were involved in the pilot tell a very different tale. The owner of Polly Anna’s Nursery in York, the only area on the lowest level of local authority funding—£4.30 an hour, of which £4 went to providers—said that he wrote to the Minister to say that although he was in favour of any Government measure to reduce the cost to families of their child’s early education and care and of any improvement to quality and staff qualifications, £4 an hour would represent an increase of only 2% a year in the 10 years from 2010, at a time when costs will have increased disproportionately.

[Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)]

Does the hon. Lady recognise that an independent study put the cost of providing childcare for three and four-year-olds at about £3.72 per hour, whereas the average amount that goes to a council is £4.94—significantly more?

[Ruth George]

I accept that a study was done in 2015. That was before we knew the outcome of business rate increases and before we had seen the impact on the sector of the national living wage policy and of auto-enrolment. All those things significantly increased the cost of nursery provision and were not known at the time the study was done, so it is erroneous to use those figures for funding projections up to 2020.

[The Minister for Children and Families (Mr Robert Goodwill)]

I thank the hon. Lady for giving way. The review of childcare costs was described as “thorough and wide-ranging” by the National Audit Office, so we believe we can base our costings on those figures. Does she disagree with the National Audit Office’s judgment?

[Ruth George]

In 2015, when those figures were done, they may well have been up to standard, but they do not represent the increase in costs that nurseries have seen in the past two years and certainly will see even more with the increase in auto-enrolment costs and the increase in the national living wage that will be ongoing up until 2020. They figures are utterly at odds with all the evidence that comes from local authorities and from the childcare provision sector, who have given ample evidence about their costs and the amount that they have to pay for the provision. In fact, a provider from the Minister’s own constituency wrote to tell him:

“I ask myself do I really want to continue working as a childcare provider when my wage will now match that of a supermarket worker without the responsibilities of a childcare provider, the paper work, Ofsted and book work. I am sad it had come to this.”

The fact that the Minister claimed he had not heard a peep from providers about their problems, either in the pilot areas, or with the full roll-out, has annoyed many of them. Hundreds of providers have peeped to the “Champagne Nurseries on Lemonade Funding” Facebook group to say that they certainly have peeped.

[Mr Goodwill]

May I suggest the hon. Lady looks at the record of what I actually said? I was listing the pilot areas and referring to Members of Parliament in the House and the fact they had not raised those issues with me during the period of the trial.

[Ruth George]

I am afraid I have copies of the emails from the providers in York and Scarborough that were sent during the pilot. They wrote to the Minister about their concerns to do with the pilot that they were participating in, so there seems to be a discrepancy there.

Despite numerous concerns being raised from the pilot areas, national organisations, local authorities and the sector itself, the Government have pressed ahead with the roll-out. My parliamentary questions in July asking for figures on the number of parents registered and on those who had successfully obtained a place went unanswered. Local authorities were forbidden from giving the figures for their own areas, even in response to freedom of information requests, so we had a total lack of information on what was happening up until September, except for reports from parents that they were struggling to register on the website. We heard from nurseries that they were unable to provide the 30 hours and from parents that they therefore could not find places.

In September, in response to an urgent question from my hon. Friend the Member for Batley and Spen (Tracy Brabin), we were told that 152,000 parents had secured a place, 71% of those who had registered. Despite the contrast with the 600,000 places that were promised originally by David Cameron when this vote-winning policy was announced, we were told that this was a great success. But that great success story still involved nearly a third of parents who had registered not having secured a place at the start of term in September. Some 64,000 children missed out on the important start-of- term activities where children learn to settle into their nursery or childcare place. When they start late, they always feel as if they are catching up, as routines are already established and friendships made. I hope the Minister will now update us on how many of those 64,000 children have now secured their place, albeit late.

Nurseries are struggling. They have seen huge increases in costs in recent years, as I mentioned earlier in response to Government Members. Until June I was on the board of a non-profit-making childcare provider, so I have seen the costs for myself. I set up the pension scheme that sees employers making contributions for their full-time staff. Those contributions are just 1% at the moment, but they will increase to 2% and then 3%, on top of wages. As a trade unionist, I also advised on a wages policy to properly reward all the staff and give incentives for attaining extra qualifications as well as making sure we always paid at least the national living wage.

Paying better wages is an excellent policy, but it needs to be funded, and the funding calculations simply do not take into account the fundamental cost and the increases for every childcare provider. That goes alongside the business rates, where most nurseries have seen a huge hike. It is no wonder the National Day Nurseries Association, from its survey in September, said that the 30-hours policy was in chaos. It said more than half of nurseries had had serious worries about having to increase fees for paid-for hours to unacceptable levels, and even about staying in business at all.

Nearly 300 nursery managers and owners completed the survey, which found that four fifths of those offering 30 hours were having to make additional charges for food and special sessions such as language or sports classes, or trips out. More than half of the respondents said parents understood additional services and were happy to pay, but a quarter said they were finding parents did not want to pay.

[Rosie Duffield (Canterbury) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend the Member for Batley and Spen (Tracy Brabin), the shadow Minister with responsibility for early years, has just chaired a panel with childcare providers and I have taken down some of the quotes from that meeting: “The system is complex, long-winded and many parents give up”; “It’s not free, so let’s stop calling it free”; “We are making a £5,000 loss every month”; and “This year I have lost 25% of my intake.” Does my hon. Friend agree that such quotes mean that the system is not currently fit for purpose?

[Ruth George]

Absolutely. I am sorry to have to agree with my hon. Friend.

When almost 80% of nurseries have spent time helping families to apply for the 30 hours, and with 14% saying this had taken more than five hours of staff time per week during the summer, it is no wonder that nurseries are struggling. The policy has had a huge impact in my constituency of High Peak. We have seen three nurseries close their doors over the summer as they simply could not make the finances work. Others have lost out significantly, even when taking on additional children from nurseries that have been lost.

A nursery in Buxton reports that it has lost £19,000 through charging for the meals it used to provide over the lunch period and charging for the additional hours that parents took on top of the 15 hours. Deborah from the Serpentine Nursery says:

“Having run my Early Years provision successfully for 35 years we have taken every change ‘on the chin’, risen to the challenge and carried on without any significant recognition except our Ofsted Outstanding. What other businesses are treated in such a shabby way!”

Flagg Nursery School, a very small village nursery just over my border, in a maintained setting, anticipates it will lose £20,000 a year owing to the lunchtime charges it cannot now make and the payment for the additional hours. The headteacher, Sarah, told me:

“Personally I think it is a great idea to offer 30 hours of childcare for working parents. We have always had children who have attended for the full week but in the past there was a charge. I just don’t feel that the hourly rate is sufficient and is not sustainable in the long term.”

In Furness Vale and New Mills, First Steps Nursery, where my daughter did some work experience, is now losing £10.50 per day per child. It says that if a child takes 30 hours a week, it loses £45 a week for each child. No wonder nurseries are worried about the quality of their provision. First Steps says:

“If we are to continue providing quality for children the rate given for funding needs to increase immensely. We offer our children Forest School and swimming lessons but in order to do this safely we have to have a high staff ratio. The amount we are given does NOT cover this and we are subsidising this so that the children can have the best.”

Flagg’s headteacher spoke of the quality of staff they could employ. She says that staff costs are the most important of all their costs:

“I feel that we ought to have experienced, highly qualified staff working in this sector as these are our most vulnerable children. Experience needs to be paid for though and underfunding could lead to children not being adequately cared for.”

Among my local maintained nurseries there was also concern that the extra 15 hours meant they could not offer places to children who qualified for only 15 hours. The head at New Mills nursery said that the initiative significantly reduces the ability to address the needs of the most disadvantaged children, and was a huge missed opportunity; the assumption is that that was overlooked, and that the initiative was driven by the childcare and working families agenda, not by the impact of quality education on the youngest, and some of the most vulnerable, members of society.

The children with the most need, such as the socially disadvantaged, are not eligible for the additional 15 hours of funding. Being good at closing the gap between disadvantaged children and their more advantaged peers is the very thing for which nursery schools have historically been recognised. Social mobility is an important issue that is not addressed by the 30 hours—something that in many ways contributes to increasing the gap between the poorest and better-off families. There are not enough places for all the children with 30 hours as well as those who qualify for just 15.

The headteacher at Hadfield Nursery School in the north end of my constituency says that the Government have underestimated the number of eligible parents and there are not the places to meet the demand. She is trying to signpost parents to other local providers, because her nursery cannot offer the full number of 30-hour places so they are trying to share them with other providers—15 hours each. It is a worry that as those nurseries have in effect to offer full-time places now, the impact has, again, been to reduce the offer of 15 hours. Those anecdotes from my constituency are backed up by the Sutton Trust, which says that the scheme was not adequately resourced, and the new funding formula will divert resources away from state nurseries disproportionately attended by disadvantaged children. Kitty Stewart, associate professor of social policy at the London School of Economics, said:

“To make up some of the funding gap, a new funding formula reallocates resources away from state nurseries disproportionately attended by disadvantaged children, and they may in the future struggle to afford a qualified teacher. To remove this advantage must be expected to have negative effects on social mobility.”

It is not only nurseries, but childminders, who are affected. They are already struggling. There are now 24% fewer childminders than in 2012—a drop of more than 10,000. Childminders often provide vital home-based care for younger children, or children who would struggle in a nursery setting. One of the childminders in my constituency commented:

“I personally feel that as a nation it is presumed that once a parent returns to work they send their children straight to nursery, when there are alternatives that can provide a more nurturing environment for babies and young children; and this needs to be emphasised—it’s not all about nurseries.”

However, such childminders cannot afford to run the 30-hour scheme, and so they lose out with respect to children coming to them.

What about the impact on parents? If they qualify and they can find a place, parents of three and four-year-olds will have a drop in their nursery fees, even if they have to pay some charges; but parents who qualify only for the 15 free hours, and parents of the most disadvantaged children, struggle to find even those free hours. That will be of huge detriment to their children’s life chances individually, and to social mobility as a whole. Parents with younger children will pick up the bill as charges for younger children have had to increase to make up the shortfall with respect to three and four-year-olds. A mum in my constituency, Emma from Buxton, says that her charges have increased by £230 a month for her one and two-year-old children, and she feels it is not worth her going to work any more. That will have an impact on the most disadvantaged children. Having two parents’ incomes, or having a single parent in work, is an important factor in improving children’s life chances. Emma is worried that the nursery will not even be able to stay open until the oldest child is three, because they are struggling so much to get by. She says:

“So in conclusion we are not much better off in the long run because of how the hours are being offered, and right now we are being crippled by the hike in price. Nurseries have to change their pricing policies in order to survive”,

but they cannot do that in the face of the funding situation.

I am particularly concerned about the impact on the quality of employment in early years, as I have mentioned. My daughter has just completed an early years degree, so I know how much goes into that qualification. She has gone on to do a teaching certificate, so I do not feel that I need to declare an interest, but at many of the nurseries where I have had meetings—particularly among the outstanding-rated ones—there is concern that they will not be able to afford to take on the skilled staff they need to maintain their good ratings. A third of the staff considered by the Sutton Trust, working in group-based childcare, lack English and/or maths at GCSE. Those staff are, unfortunately, the only ones that settings struggling with costs and underfunding will be able to afford. The trust’s chair, Sir Peter Lampl, said:

“Good quality early years provision is vital to narrow the gaps that leave too many youngsters behind by the time they start school. But it’s unlikely that the government’s policy to provide 30 hours…will provide this.”

It is a far cry from the high-quality childcare and fully qualified staff envisaged just a couple of years ago by the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, when she was Under-Secretary of State for Education. There seems to be no emphasis at all in the Government’s policies on quality of provision or of staffing, and that must be worrying with respect to children, progress with social mobility, and our future.

Underfunding of a policy that began with good intentions, although it may have been more about votes than quality childcare, is undermining what is needed throughout the country. I urge the Minister to look again, especially at the projected figures for the next financial year, now that the additional costs of business rates and of the living wage are clear. I want to thank all those who have consistently been raising the issue of the problems with funding, and especially those who set up and contribute to the “Champagne Nurseries on Lemonade Funding” Facebook group. They have been tireless champions of the best of champagne nursery provision, and excellent analysts of the impact of the funding levels.

I also thank the nursery owners and providers in my constituency, a rural area on which the policy has had a great impact. In small rural towns and villages, childcare, and the knowledge that children can go to nursery in their community and make friends in their area, without having to travel long distances, is particularly important. I particularly thank Kate Sebire, the owner of the outstanding-rated Sunshine Nursery School in my home town of Whaley Bridge, who has been bending my ear about the issue for many months. I hope that the Minister will meet childcare providers, listen to their concerns, and take heed of them when he visits the Chancellor for his pre-Budget discussions.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

--- Later in debate ---

[Andrew Rosindell (in the Chair)]

Does the hon. Member for High Peak wish to exercise a short right of reply at the end?

[Ruth George]

Yes, if there is time.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ruth George]

I thank all my colleagues who have made such excellent speeches and good points. I simply ask the Minister to revisit the costings and meet providers to learn from them, especially those in outstanding settings employing graduate and fully qualified staff in order to provide the best-quality childcare.

Free Childcare Entitlement

Ruth George Excerpts

Wednesday 6th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Goodwill]

Dorset was indeed one of our 12 early delivery areas, starting in April 2017. I am hearing great news from Dorset and I am sure that my hon. Friend will keep me posted.

[Ruth George (High Peak) (Lab)]

Is the Minister not concerned that more than 60,000 children whose parents applied for a funded place do not have one? How is he going to deliver the policy for those parents, who may have been relying on that funded childcare place in order to take up an offer of employment or to extend their hours at work? This is particularly important in rural areas such as mine. The largest chains of nurseries are better able to spread the costs, but three nurseries in High Peak have had to close their doors over the summer. They are all small, independent nurseries that cannot see a way forward on the funding levels that have been set.

[Mr Goodwill]

That was not the experience in the pilot areas, including areas very similar to that of the hon. Lady. Indeed, we have seen areas where 100% of the providers were delivering and 100% of the parents got places. We are only six days into the school term. I heard that, on Tuesday alone, 8,000 parents got their codes validated with a nursery. Parents will still be looking around and deciding in which nursery to get a place. Indeed, many nurseries will now be considering taking on additional staff to provide more places in those nurseries, given the increased demand.

Education and Local Services

Ruth George Excerpts

Tuesday 27th June 2017 Commons Chamber

[Ruth George (High Peak) (Lab)]

I am honoured by the support of people from across High Peak that has enabled me to stand here today. As someone commented on my Facebook page:

“I can’t believe that one of our school run mums has been elected to Parliament.”

Well, I have four children and have been a school run mum for over 20 years, and I am proud to bring the views of school run mums to Parliament. As the first woman to represent High Peak, I will bring a different perspective from that of my predecessors. I pay tribute to my immediate predecessor, Andrew Bingham, who served as the MP for seven years and as a borough councillor before that, and I wish him well for the future.

I always said that I would only ever seek to be an MP if it was for High Peak. This north-western tip of Derbyshire, 90% in the Peak District national park, is extremely beautiful, but it is also my home and where I have brought up my children. There is nowhere I would rather live. Between and within the wild expanses of picturesque moorland nestle towns and villages that are vibrant, close and friendly. At the heart of each of those communities are their schools and nurseries. At school, children learn how to make friends, how to stay friends, how to work together, and how to plan and create things together. Those lessons apply not just to the children but to us parents as well. They mean that we school run mums can turn our hand to just about anything. We can organise play dates, childcare, fundraisers and parties, and we can organise campaigns to change things. Our schools and nurseries are not just factories for exam certificates; they create communities.

As I am sure that Members on both sides of the House who represent rural communities will agree, our schools are especially important in preventing rural isolation. That is why so many people across High Peak are very concerned about the enormous cuts facing our schools and our nurseries. The Government may say there is record spending, but when our excellent local schools in High Peak are about to lose over £4 million a year and our children are already in classes of 34 or more, it does not cut much ice to say that we could have lots of money for a free school if we want one.

We have outstanding schools already. Combs Infant School, where my two youngest boys went, will lose over £20,000 under these proposals, equivalent to one of its two teachers. Chapel-en-le-Frith High School is set to lose nearly £600,000, equivalent to 15 teachers. It seems that under this Government schools are punished rather than rewarded for their success, and nurseries too.

The underfunding of the promised 30 hours of free childcare is causing several nurseries in High Peak to consider whether they are able to keep going at all. In Gamesley, where the outstanding nursery’s fully qualified staff contribute so much to the life chances of children in this area of high deprivation, each place costs £5 an hour to run, but funding is being cut to just £4 an hour. It does not add up. No wonder more than half of nurseries are saying that they cannot afford to provide the 30 free hours. I urge the Government to have an urgent rethink of nursery funding before September, before we end up with fewer nursery places, rather than more; fewer children able to get the best start for school; and fewer parents able to work.

The fate of our schools and nurseries was so important to my constituents that they chose to elect a school run mum as their MP. And this school run mum will not fail to stand up for them, and for our schools and nurseries and the communities that need them so much.