Childcare Bill [Lords]
Debate between Sam Gyimah and Tristram Hunt(8 years, 5 months ago)
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Tristram Hunt
I do know that fact, but if I were an SNP representative I would certainly not defend its role in further education. The SNP has supported higher education at the expense of further education, hammering the poor. I am being dragged away, however, from the Second Reading of the Childcare Bill.
As the shadow Secretary of State suggested, we can all welcome the Government’s policy of extending free childcare for three and four-year-olds to 30 hours a week for working families. This builds on the Labour party offer at the last general election of 25 hours of free childcare, which we were told was unaffordable and could never be delivered. More importantly, it builds on decades of work by hon. Members on both sides of the House in making the case. Any legislation that aims to tackle the childcare crisis, to increase maternal rates of employment and to generate long-term growth has to be welcomed, but over the last five years the Government have made it much harder for parents to find the childcare hours they need. Compared with 2010, there are more than 40,000 fewer childcare places, and six in 10 councils report that they do not have enough childcare available for working families—not least in Oxfordshire, where I know the Prime Minister is leading the anti-austerity movement.
At the same time, childcare prices are crippling families that are already under pressure with parents spending more than £1,300 extra on childcare than they did in 2010. In Stoke-on-Trent, costs have increased by almost 73%, so anything that attempts to redress those impacts on families is to be welcomed. The question, I think, is how it is to be funded.
I welcome the Chancellor’s announcements today of the £300 million of additional funding for the scheme to increase the hourly rate childcare providers will receive, once this measure is introduced from 2017-18, alongside the £50 million of capital investment to create additional places in nurseries to be brought in from the same year. As my hon. Friend the Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry) will explore in her incisive speech, however, the figures do not quite add up. We can reflect again on the irony that we were told during the election campaign that 25 hours was wholly unrealistic and could not be done, while the Government have now come up with some completely different figures. I am sure Chairman Mao would have had a witty aphorism about that.
This ignores the massive childcare places crisis that is hitting the sector now. As the shadow Secretary of State suggested, the Government’s free childcare policy is already vastly behind schedule. Today, Ofsted is announcing an 11,000 fall this year in the number of childcare places provided by nurseries. We are actually seeing a drop in the course of this year, which is leading to many providers having to close, resulting in a further shortage of places. In my own Stoke-on-Trent constituency, there are 74 fewer registered providers than in 2009, which is evidence that the underlying infrastructure needed to deliver the Government’s announcements today is creaking to breaking-point.
The Institute for Public Policy Research has warned in its recent report on the Bill’s implementation that if more childcare providers close it will drive down childcare quality, with poorer outcomes for children and less choice for parents as the market shrinks. In the face of increasing demand and decreasing provision, it is likely that the Government will have to deregulate childcare or weaken childcare ratios—we can go back to that old debate—to make the plan sustainable.
Tristram Hunt
I am delighted that this is probably the third or fourth U-turn of the day—it is hard to keep up—but it is important, when we think about this question, to focus on not only the economics, but the quality of early years provision. As the shadow Secretary of State said, there is strong evidence for a link between a judgment of “outstanding” for childcare provision and the presence of better qualified staff. It is vital that practitioners and settings are appropriately funded.
The Education Committee clearly set out in its excellent report that poor childcare is worse than none and can be detrimental to a child’s development. It is always a depressing moment when one sees young women—it is usually women—who struggle with their own educational attainment working with young children from disadvantaged backgrounds. All the challenges in oracy and early childhood development show that high quality of provision is essential.
Mr Gyimah
Is the hon. Gentleman aware that we are doubling the entitlement, but not necessarily the demand? Many parents already buy more than 15 hours, which is the current free entitlement, of childcare. The policy changes who pays for it. All the scaremongering about reduction in quality does not stack up.
Tristram Hunt
I am arguing not about reduction in quality, but for an improvement in it. I understand the point about doubling the provision, but when there is such ingrained inequality in our society and such disadvantage in so many communities, surely the quality of provision needs to improve.
We know that investment in the early years is about more than just announcing more childcare. The Government have repeatedly ignored, cut and deprioritised a huge part of the infrastructure for early years education. Time and again, children’s centres, a huge part of this country’s early years architecture, have come under assault from the Government. The previous Labour Government tried to make Sure Start centres and early years an essential part of the welfare state. This Government’s ambition to dismantle the welfare state means stripping away one of the elements that are such a civilising part of our society, with more and more centres being forced to close and drastically cut back their services owing to inadequate funding.
There were no announcements today for funding for children’s centres or support for the early intervention grant. According to the Children’s Society, when the early intervention grant, which funds children’s centres, was introduced, its total value was around £3.2 billion in today’s prices. However, by 2015, the value of the grant has been more than halved to around £1.4 billion. By the end of 2015-16, the allocation provided to local authorities through the revenue support grant will have been cumulatively reduced by £6.8 billion compared with funding for comparator services before the Budget in 2010.
Overall, local authorities in England reduced spending on children’s centres and young people’s and family support services by some £718 million in real terms between 2010-11 and 2014-15. That amounts to cumulative spending reductions of more than £1.5 billion. With local authority budgets coming under extra pressure, the outlook for children’s centres is bleak.
The Government do not like this figure, but over the past five years more than 700 centres have been closed. We know that effective early intervention does not begin at the age of three, but with antenatal classes, drop-in health clinics and open access provision. It begins with teaching parents the importance of bonding and attachment. If anything, those first years of a child’s life are the most important for child development. The more we discover about neurological development and the growth of the brain in those early months and years, the more startling it is that the Government have piled on the cuts for the earliest years. They are not serious about tackling disadvantage and inequality. If they were, they would not be making all the cuts in that area. It is no wonder that great charities like Teach First say that poor kids do worse under this Government, and it is no wonder that we see the effects of that in our education system. The Government’s record on protecting the architecture and delivery of early-years education over the past five years is wholly lamentable.
The Labour Government protected the entire education budget, including the crucial early intervention grants that were part of our election promise. This Government protected only schools. Today’s announcement about sixth-form and further education is welcome, but it really means an 8% cut in those budgets over the coming five years. Despite the global financial crash, and with the help of the Sure Start architecture, we slashed child poverty by 900,000 during our time in office. That is what Labour Governments do: that is what progressive Governments do. On the basis of the latest figures from the Resolution Foundation, we know that we shall see child poverty rocket under this Government. Time and again, the early years have been deprioritised.
Labour Members have an enduring commitment to the emancipatory power of early-years education. We believe that it is the most effective way of narrowing the achievement gap so that no children are left behind when they take their first steps inside a reception classroom. We are—I am—supportive of working families—
Higher Education Policy
Debate between Sam Gyimah and Tristram Hunt(13 years ago)
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Tristram Hunt (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab)
First, I declare my interest as a part-time lecturer at Queen Mary, university of London. I therefore take a keen interest in universities and know slightly more about their workings than some Government Members who have contributed.
I am privileged to represent Stoke-on-Trent Central, in which Staffordshire university sits and many students from Keele university reside. In the university libraries of those great universities sits a book by Tony Travers and Andrew Adonis called “Failure in British Government: The Politics of the Poll Tax”. That wonderful text tells one how not to make Government policy from beginning to end. I am going to write to Andrew Adonis and Tony Travers to suggest a second volume on the introduction of the tuition fee fiasco that we see before us.
Higher Education Fees
Debate between Sam Gyimah and Tristram Hunt(13 years, 4 months ago)
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Mr Gyimah
May I develop my argument, please?
I listened to the Secretary of State’s argument. I like the fact that he has wrestled with his conscience, flirted with a graduate tax and finally come to the decision that the fairest policy is a graduate contribution. That is in stark contrast to the Opposition, who say that they had the fairest and most balanced solution to the student problem when they did not. What is unfair about the university system they have left us with is that for many people, the costs of going to university outweigh the benefits. That is why graduate unemployment is at 6% when it should not be.
Tristram Hunt
We are having the astronomical rise in fees because of the 80% cut in the teaching grant. We are dealing today with an assault on the entire ethos of the British university.