Childcare Entitlements
Stella Creasy Excerpts(1 week ago)
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David Johnston
I thank my hon. Friend for raising some important issues. He is right that certainty and increasing those rates have been some of the most important things that the sector has asked for. It was very warmly received that we were providing that certainty for 2025-26 and 2026-27, which we think will help the sector. According to various reports that have been carried out, it will help them to unlock private sector investment and capital to help them expand, because that was the biggest thing they felt might be holding that back. It is part of a doubling of the amount that we are spending on childcare, from £4 billion to £8 billion. I will continue to work with my hon. Friend in ensuring we address the sector’s needs.
Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)
I start by declaring an interest as a parent of a two-year-old child. What all of us parents are talking about is the cost of childcare, and the Minister did not address the cost. The survey clearly showed that over half of all nurseries and pre-schools say that the funding does not cover the cost of providing the service in the way that the Government are asking them to provide it. It does not take a rocket scientist to work out that somebody’s got to pick up the bill—a toddler could do it.
The estimate before the Government announced the new hours was that fees would rise by 8.5%. Every single parent of a child in a nursery in my local community who has come to me has said that their fees have gone up as a direct result of this policy, because that is how nurseries are trying to stay open and make ends meet. Will the Minister prove me wrong? Will the Minister commit to publishing the data on the fees that parents of all children under five in nurseries and pre-schools are paying in this country, prior to and post the changes in hours?
David Johnston
We have a survey of 6,000 parents and 9,000 providers to set our rates based on exactly what they are paying. The hon. Lady must have missed my saying that our rate for under-twos is over £4 more per hour than that paid by a parent privately. I know that she does not like these facts, because they are at odds with her narrative. She asked me to prove her wrong; this month, we have just done so.
Oral Answers to Questions
Stella Creasy Excerpts(1 month, 2 weeks ago)
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Damian Hinds
I join my hon. Friend in congratulating Ruislip High School and Hillingdon Council’s children’s services team. Nearly 90% of schools in Uxbridge and South Ruislip are now rated good or outstanding by Ofsted, up from under 70% in 2010, following the great work of teachers and our relentless focus on improving school standards.
Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (David Johnston)
To ensure high-quality childcare for children with special educational needs, we are investing hundreds of millions of pounds to increase hourly funding rates and the amount of dedicated additional SEND funding, such as the disability access fund, for all eligible children, and funding the training of early years special educational needs co-ordinators.
Stella Creasy
To the surprise of no one who looked at what the Government were proposing, my inbox, like those of many other MPs, is full of emails from parents who cannot get the 15 free hours in April without paying for a massive hike in their fees. One group in particular that is struggling is parents of children with special educational needs or a disability. That was entirely predictable, because the Government’s own impact assessment said explicitly that changing the ratios could have a “negative impact” on the provision of places for children with special educational needs.
The Minister stood at the Dispatch Box on 22 January and pledged to me that every parent who wanted the 15 free hours for their eligible two-year-old would be able to get a place. Can he restate that pledge today explicitly for parents of children who have special educational needs, and pledge that they will not have to pay a higher fee—yes or no?
David Johnston
I appreciate that it must be very frustrating for the hon. Lady, who genuinely cares about childcare, to be in a party that cannot be bothered to come up with a plan for it and has had to ask someone else to write it one because it cannot think of one. On her specific issue, as I said, we are working with every local authority to ensure that they have the places that they need for all children.
Funded Childcare
Stella Creasy Excerpts(3 months, 1 week ago)
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David Johnston
My hon. Friend is right that it is the biggest expansion of childcare provision in history. By the time the roll-out is complete in September 2025, it will save the average family up to £6,500 a year in childcare costs.
Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)
Many of us tried to warn the Government that this would be like Help to Buy, pushing up demand without tackling supply. Numbers matter in this sector, and it is 313 days since the policy was announced and just 70 days before it is due to be implemented. There have been 30 separate questions in this place about the staffing shortfall, and none of them has been answered. There are two children chasing every registered place, and only two local authorities have actually agreed the rates. It is little wonder that parents are frustrated. Will the Minister set out, here and now, the staffing shortfall in terms of delivering the two-year-old offer in April? Will he tell us what it is, and will he tell us when he expects to close it?
David Johnston
As I have already said, the roll-out is based on—
David Johnston
The hon. Lady cites the figures for September 2025, not for April. I am confident that, in April, she will see that we have the staff available for the roll-out.
Oral Answers to Questions
Stella Creasy Excerpts(6 months, 1 week ago)
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Robert Halfon
I say to the hon. Gentleman, whom I respect enormously, that 70% of apprentices are at level 2 or 3. I hoped that he would be getting up to celebrate the 10,130 apprenticeship starts in Birmingham, Selly Oak since May 2010.
Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (David Johnston)
We are investing over £4.1 billion to expand the current free childcare entitlement offer to eligible working parents of children aged nine to 36 months. We are also increasing the hourly rates for childcare providers for the existing entitlements, and funding rates will be confirmed in the autumn.
Stella Creasy
The Government’s proposals will lead to thousands more families expecting to access childcare, so we might expect to see more childcare opening. However, in the past year some 600 nurseries have already closed, and in my constituency of Walthamstow there are now three children chasing every childcare place. Why does the Minister think that is the case, what will he do about it, and how will we ensure that in April parents who are not already accessing childcare can do so?
David Johnston
Part of the reason why we are staggering the entitlement is to ensure that we have the staff in place to deliver it. In the next few weeks we will announce changes to the processes for recruiting people. We will launch a big campaign of recruitment in the new year to increase the workforce, and I have every confidence that we will meet the commitment.
Reinforced Autoclaved Aerated Concrete in Education Settings
Stella Creasy Excerpts(7 months, 4 weeks ago)
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Gillian Keegan
The reason that we have deliberately spoken to and worked with three portacabin or equivalent providers is to avoid just that problem. If my hon. Friend gives us the details, we will follow up on that.
Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)
I fear that the Secretary of State will rue her boasts about her good understanding as a hostage to fortune in what is going on today. Late on Friday evening, she wrote to me to say that Walthamstow School for Girls was being surveyed for suspected RAAC. That was a source of deep frustration to my local authority, which, when it saw that there were national incidents, spent its own money surveying every school in our borough and then paid for the remedial works. It has told the Department for Education about that not once, not twice, but three times. When there is this little grip on what is going on, how can any parent, pupil or school staff member have any confidence? If the Secretary of State wants to know why people are laughing rather than saying that she is doing a good job, she needs to look in the mirror.
Gillian Keegan
I will take the hon. Lady’s advice and look in the mirror later. It is the responsible body’s job. If it has already gone ahead—as per the warnings we issued in 2018; we told everybody what they needed to do—I am delighted that it got on and did that work.
Childcare: Affordability and Availability
Stella Creasy Excerpts(1 year, 2 months ago)
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Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)
There is a simple problem here. For some families, having childcare is the difference between being able to work or not. What should those families do with a child that is perhaps between the ages of six months and two years when there is no support at all? A six-month-old baby could be left in a cupboard at work, I guess, if that is the logic behind this. By the time they are one year old and they are crawling and walking around, that is not feasible, yet the subsidies kick in only at two years old. It makes no sense at all.
Ruth Cadbury
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I could not take my babies around to meetings and so on after about four months. At that point, I needed either not to attend and not to go to work or to make sure that they had childcare.
Research in this week’s Guardian shows that there are fewer places in less affluent parts of the country. The settings are also more likely to be lower quality.
If I might add to my hon. Friend’s point, one woman wrote to me saying that she is a high earner and that when she got pregnant she worked out she could just about afford to go back to work—until she discovered she was expecting twins. Because of the cost between six months and the two or three years when funded provision comes in, which would help her a bit, she was in a desperate state.
The cost to parents and providers is rising, the funding for the free entitlement does not cover providers’ costs, and the current system of Government support is complex and leaves many gaps. There is also a quality gap affecting less well-off areas and poorer families. This crisis has been fuelled by 13 long years of this Government not acting. Before I finish, I want to ask the Minister a few questions.
Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)
Thank you for coming in at short notice to chair this debate, Ms Fovargue. It is hugely appreciated, I suspect, by the thousands, if not millions, of mums who are just fed up. Because we are: we are fed up. For generations, we have debated this issue in Parliament as though people are talking Klingon—as though it is something that is beyond our reach or our capacity to resolve. I think the dads are pretty fed up, too, because they are not getting to be with their kids. Outside this place, that is the norm: parents want to spend time with their children and find ways of working that allow them to do so. Our childcare system, unlike those in many other countries, militates against that.
There is no other area of public policy where we accept—nay, celebrate—the idea that there will be a struggle and a juggle. Nowhere else do we think that if people are not struggling and having a miserable time—unless they are incredibly wealthy and have multiple nannies and people to stay at home with them—they are doing it wrong. Let us change that; let us have a different debate in this place. Let us come together across political parties to say that is it not enough to keep talking about this and worrying about extra hours here and there. I agree with the hon. Member for Stroud (Siobhan Baillie) opposite that tinkering around the edges will not do. It is time for a fundamental rethink of how we do childcare in this country, not least because of the impact on children themselves. That was pointed out by my hon. Friend the Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Ruth Cadbury), who secured this debate, for which I thank her.
The very simple question we all need to ask ourselves is: at what age do we think children start learning? When I look at my 18 month-old son and what he can do with an iPad, I know that it is very early on. We invest in children because they are our future, and yet our system does not reflect that thinking. We cannot solve the cost of living crisis unless we solve the cost of childcare. As we know, multiple families are now spending more on childcare than on their rent or mortgages. The number of women in this country who are economically inactive because of caring responsibilities is increasing; it has risen by 53,000 in the last year alone. Those women cannot get the decent childcare they need to be able to make it work for their families, and the economic impact of having them out of work is felt by us all.
That is the argument we need to take to the Treasury. With the greatest respect to the Minister, who I have no doubt is doing that, I want to see Treasury Ministers here, explaining why we are not investing in economic infrastructure—because that is what childcare is. Just as good roads get people to work, so too does good childcare. Yet, too often, we act in this country as if the opposite is true; as though we are doing mums a favour by providing childcare, giving them a couple of hours to go to baby yoga, rather than recognising that it is about how families balance their different commitments.
That is why I encourage the Minister to support the amendment that is being supported by Conservative colleagues of hers in the Lords right now, to make sure that we treat childcare as infrastructure and that local authorities are able to invest in it. Over the last five years, only 0.06% of developer contributions have been spent on childcare—that is just £1 in every £1,167 spent —yet we all know that when we build new flats, we are going to bring in new families. What are we supposed to do with them?
I encourage the Minister to take up the point made by the hon. Member for Stroud about the eight separate schemes. Of course, there is money there that could be better spent. I think of the 1.4 million children who are eligible for 20% off their childcare via the tax system but for whom it is not claimed. I do not think that is just because the system itself is completely bonkers; it is because so many families who want the help the most cannot afford to stay in childcare to the point where it is subsidised.
Of course childcare should kick in when a child is born, so we need to reform our maternity provision, but we also need to look at provision for children from six months on. We need the system to be universal, because that is when it pays for itself. The evidence from other countries makes it incredibly clear that it can help more families to stay in work, and it can help more women to keep their career and keep their caring commitments.
Some 85% of providers of childcare in this country are operating at a loss. This is not an industry that needs us to tinker around the edges. It needs investment to get us to a point at which there is a return. There is no area of economic policy in which investing leads to saving so clearly as in childcare, yet in this country we still act as if it were an optional add-on to an economy that is already struggling with productivity issues.
The fact that there are 5,500 fewer providers than a couple of years ago attests to how the system is not working for anybody. It does not work for the industry: these wonderful people caring for our children are professionals, so we should value their professionalism rather than playing it down. It does not work for the mums and dads who are looking at astronomical costs. It does not work for our economy. It certainly does not work when we tinker around with ratios or when the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions sends a letter to women who are out of work, telling them they really ought to think about going back.
What works is investing early. The £2.8 billion that is sitting unused and unclaimed in the Treasury’s coffers, just for the tax-free childcare system, could be spent right now on childcare. It could be invested in getting early years right so that in the next five to 10 years we will have a universal system that matches those of our economic competitors.
I say thank you to Pregnant Then Screwed and Mother Pukka—to the people who have refused to let politicians take the issue off the agenda. During the pandemic, when we were patting parents on the back but investing in potholes, the message from those mums was, “Up with this we will no longer put.”
In my final 15 seconds, I want to let Ministers know that “This Mum Votes” is not just the name of a campaign; it is a statement of intent. If we do not get this right, mums and dads around this country will not forgive the political party that has yet again put childcare in the box marked “Too difficult to deal with”. Children who deserve the best future need us now to stop messing around and start investing.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Claire Coutinho)
It is pleasure to serve under your very welcome chairmanship, Ms Fovargue. I congratulate the hon. Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Ruth Cadbury) on securing a debate on this important subject. It is genuinely a pleasure to come to these debates. I see the faces who come here regularly, who bring interesting information, and I genuinely like taking part in these debates.
I know how important the early years are. I have worked on families policy for a long time. Not only are the early years crucial for children’s development, we also want families to benefit from the childcare support they are entitled to, both from a cost of living perspective and in enabling parents to work. I spend a lot of my time visiting the sector, and I recognise that it is a challenging time. It has been a privilege to spend so much time there. I am always impressed by the dedication of staff, who work absolutely tirelessly to give our children the best start in life. It is a credit to them and this country that 96% of providers are rated as good or outstanding. My hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson) mentioned Becky at Imagination Nursery. It was just wonderful to see the dedication of Becky and her wider staff, and the brilliant environment that I know his daughter is enjoying.
I will start by talking about funding, which has been mentioned multiple times. It is fair to say that it was a Conservative Government who increased funding. Not only did we expand the offer for three to four-year-olds, we also introduced a specific offer for disadvantaged two-year-olds. We have also looked at other things to give wider support, such as family hubs or holiday activity schemes, which I will talk more about later.
We have invested more than £3.5 billion in each of the last three years on our early education entitlement. We know that the sector, like many sectors in the country, is facing economic challenges. We announced additional funding of £160 million in 2022-23, £180 million in 2023-24 and £170 million in 2024-25, compared with the ’21 settlement, for local authorities to increase the hourly rates paid to childcare providers. I want to assure everyone that we continue to look at the matter. How we can improve the cost, choice and availability of childcare is important to me and to the Government.
As well as supporting families, it is also important that we help early years providers continue to do what they do best, which is educating and developing young children. From 2023-24, we are investing an additional £20 million in early years, on top of the £180 million announced at the spending review, to help with national living wage costs. These funding increases will take place across England, so I am pleased to say that in the constituency of the hon. Member for Brentford and Isleworth, the funding rate for two-year-olds will increase by 10% to £6.92, up by 63p per hour. We have also announced an additional £10 million for maintained nursery schools’ supplementary funding from 2023-24 and are introducing a minimum and maximum hourly rate that local authorities can receive for their maintained nursery schools to create a fairer distribution of the funding.
I want to talk about families. We know that childcare is a key concern, as ably raised by many hon. Members today. We recognise that cost of living pressures are affecting families across the country and we have been looking at a range of measures to directly support households. One of our key areas of support has been the 30 hours’ free childcare entitlement. It was introduced in 2017 and has helped countless working parents. Nearly 350,000 children were registered for a place in January 2022, which saved those families up to £6,000 per child per year. That is making a real difference. Our 2021 childcare and early years survey of parents found that 73% of parents reported having more money to spend since they started using the 30 hours and 38% thought that without those 30 hours, they would be working fewer hours. We also remain committed to that universal 15 hours of free early education, which is helping more than 1 million children this year.
Government support for childcare is not just for three to four-year-olds. In 2013, the coalition Government introduced 15 hours of free childcare for disadvantaged two-year-olds and in January 2022, 72% of eligible two-year-olds were registered for a free early education place and more than 1.2 million children have benefited since its introduction. I think I heard the hon. Member for Edinburgh West (Christine Jardine) say earlier that the take-up in Scotland was about 46%. Clearly, we want to do more and I urge all hon. Members to encourage all their constituents to take up places where possible. In September 2022, we also extended eligibility for the entitlement to children in households where no recourse to public funds applies.
On the low-income household point mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Leigh (James Grundy), we have introduced two things. The first is the holiday activity fund schemes, and the data that shows children using the scheme for the first time and saying that that is the first time they have accessed some kind of activity scheme in the holidays has been buoying. The second is family hubs, about which I am passionate and on which I worked before becoming a Member of Parliament. We are rolling them out to 75 local authorities in the most disadvantaged parts of the country. I have visited several of them and they are doing very good things.
My hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon and the hon. Member for Brentford and Isleworth mentioned another matter that is, again, dear to my heart: SEN. I see more of that when I go to nurseries, and when I talk to providers, they are worried about both the aftermath of the pandemic and having the right skillset to make sure they deliver for those children. We are training 5,000 early years staff to be special educational needs co-ordinators and I will also bring forward SEN reforms in the near future that will help with setting out what people can do. Recently, I was talking to Julian Grenier at Sheringham Nursery School and looking at some of its schemes, such as talking time, which will help with some of the speech and language challenges that have come out in the aftermath of the pandemic. It is an area that is very important to me.
It is crucial that as well as being affordable, childcare is easily accessible. We constantly monitor the sufficiency of childcare places and at the moment, local authorities report that they are fulfilling their duty to ensure sufficient childcare. However, we continue to monitor that carefully. I acknowledge that one of the things I hear a lot when I talk to providers is the challenge around recruitment and retention, and I am keen to focus on that.
My hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Siobhan Baillie) also mentioned childminders. The majority of people that have come out of the system are childminders. I have been very privileged to shadow childminders and see the work that they do. Often, people do not realise that their outcomes are just as good as those of nurseries. They do a tremendous job and it is important to me to look at the reasons that they are leaving.
The majority of early years childcare places in England are provided by private, voluntary and independent group-based providers. I pay huge tribute to their work. The hon. Member for Upper Bann (Carla Lockhart) gave a very moving tribute to her children’s own childcare providers. I can see her smiling now at the work that they do. I reiterate my thanks to those in the sector. They work so hard day in, day out in challenging circumstances to ensure that they provide children with the best start in life.
I thank the hon. Member for Brentford and Isleworth for securing the debate. The early years sector is an integral part of our economy and education system, so my Department treats any changes to the system carefully. Our childcare offer is co-ordinated with other Departments to give parents a range of options, depending on whether they want to receive childcare in a formal, nursery-style setting or from a childminder in a home.
Stella Creasy
On that point, I think the Minister is starting to talk about one of the challenges: where money has been set aside for childcare, but has not been spent. She spoke earlier about the not-100% take up from those who are entitled. Since the scheme began to give parents 20% off their childcare costs, an average of £2 billion to £3 billion a year has gone unclaimed. Given that it started in 2017, we are talking about a possible £17 billion that could go into tackling these challenges with the cost of childcare. Before she sits down, what conversations has the Minister had with the Treasury about getting our £17 billion of tax that parents have paid into the system back, so we can put it into paying those who care for our children properly?
Claire Coutinho
The hon. Lady will know that underspends in government do not sit there and pile up; there is not £17 billion in a pot somewhere that has not been used. It has gone into lots of things, whether that is increasing hourly rates or the massive overall increase to the education budget of £2 billion over the next two years alone.
I talk to the Treasury regularly about tax-free childcare. I agree that it is not used enough. Many parents could be benefiting and we want them to benefit. We started the childcare choices campaign last year. The uptake of tax-free childcare has actually been quite good. I think it is about 30% from memory, but I will go away and double-check the figures. Of course, we need to do more and, of course, I would love to see more parents use that.
Finally, I reassure all Members present that my Department continues to evaluate what more can be done to help parents access a childcare place that not only suits their working arrangements and family circumstances, but gives their children the best possible start in education. I look forward to working with the hon. Member for Brentford and Isleworth in the future to hear her further thoughts about making our childcare system the best it can be.
Oral Answers to Questions
Stella Creasy Excerpts(1 year, 10 months ago)
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Nadhim Zahawi
The purpose of the important package announced today is to ensure that parents on universal credit, or the tax-free childcare element, claim what is rightfully theirs. We are spending between £4 billion and £5 billion on helping parents with childcare.
Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)
Ministers keep telling us that it is important for parents to claim the tax breaks for childcare. Last year the Government spent just £150,000 on advertising them, saving the Treasury £3 billion. What additional funding has the Department secured for advertising child tax credit spending?
Will Quince
The hon. Lady and I have discussed this before. Today’s announcement was all about increasing accessibility, availability and affordability. We want to see an increase in tax-free childcare. There is going to be a big comms campaign, so watch this space.
Children’s Education Recovery and Childcare Costs
Stella Creasy Excerpts(1 year, 10 months ago)
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Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)
I thank the Minister for giving way. The point that my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell) makes is apposite because we know that the vast majority of families picking up on the tax credits to be able to use early years are from wealthy households, and that a lot of families are being priced out of early years childcare because of the cost. I am sure the Minister would agree that the fact that nearly £2.8 billion-worth of tax credits were unclaimed last year is a problem; if there is a subsidy for childcare, we should encourage parents to take it up.
Does the Minister understand how perplexing the situation is? If it was a priority for the Government, we would see them investing in telling parents about it. For example, the Government spent £35 million on adverts about Brexit in last year, but they have spent £150,000 in total on telling parents where they can get tax credits to cover the cost of childcare. Does he understand the concern about that disparity, and what is he going to do about it?
Mr Walker
The hon. Lady makes a fair point. We do want to see better take-up of the offers coming in, and the Under-Secretary of State for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Will Quince), has been working hard on that. Perhaps he will say a bit more about it in his closing remarks, but I recognise the issue. Of course, we also provide a lot of direct funding to the disadvantaged through the two-year-old offer, as I think the hon. Lady will recognise.
We know that the covid pandemic has caused considerable disruption to the education of our nation’s children and young people. Evidence shows that that has been significant for all people, in particular the disadvantaged, reversing the years of progress we had seen in closing the attainment gap. The gap between disadvantaged pupils and their more affluent peers had narrowed, both at primary and secondary levels, between 2011 and 2019, following the introduction of the pupil premium. Despite the impact of covid-19, the latest pupil progress data published at the end of March 2022 shows that we are now seeing good progress for many pupils, but we know that certain groups and age groups need more help.
Since 2021, the additional gaps in attainment created by the pandemic appear to have reduced in primary maths and secondary reading. Evidence shows that, on average, primary pupils recovered around two thirds of progress lost due to the pandemic in reading and around half the progress lost in maths. To mitigate the impact on secondary pupils in key stage 3, we committed to doubling the rate of the recovery premium for secondary schools for the next two academic years from 2022-23. That will help schools to deliver evidence-based approaches to support the most disadvantaged pupils, from small group support in reading and maths to summer schools.
We know that literacy is fundamental to children’s education. As mentioned in the schools White Paper, since 2010 the Government have placed the effective teaching of phonics at the heart of the curriculum, introducing the annual phonics screening check in 2012 for pupils at the end of year 1 and incorporating phonics into teacher standards.
Mr Walker
I am happy to do that, and if it would be helpful, I would be happy to meet the hon. Gentleman to follow up and talk through that case in a separate discussion, because it sounds like an important case.
To ensure that schools are able to put in place whole-school approaches to mental health and wellbeing, we are providing £10 million to extend senior mental health lead training to even more schools and colleges. That training will be available to two thirds of eligible settings by March 2023 and to all state schools and colleges by 2025.
The Government are expanding and transforming mental health services for all, with additional investment of £2.3 billion a year through the NHS long-term plan. As part of that work, we are funding mental health support teams to provide specific support, to make links to other health provision and to help to support school staff to deal with issues. Because of the £79 million boost to children and young people’s mental health support that was announced in 2021, some 2.4 million children and young people now have access to a mental health support team, and more teams are on the way, with numbers set to increase from 287 teams today to more than 500 by 2024.
I recognise that people throughout the country are worried about the impact of rising prices, with many households struggling to make their income stretch to cover the basics. Although we cannot insulate people from every part of cost rises, we are stepping up to provide support, as we did during the pandemic. This year alone, we are increasing core schools funding by £4 billion compared with 2021-22. That is a 7% per-pupil boost in cash terms that will help schools to meet the pressures that we know they face, especially in respect of energy costs and pay.
I recognise the strength of feeling when it comes to our childcare system. We want families to benefit from the childcare support they are entitled to, thereby saving them money and helping them to give their children the best start in life. I am proud to be part of a Government who have extended access to early education and childcare to millions of children and parents over the past decade.
In 2013, the Conservative-led coalition Government introduced 15 hours of free childcare for disadvantaged two-year-olds. So far, this has helped more than 1 million children to get a much-needed boost to their early education. To ensure that all children are ready for school, all three and four-year-old children continue to be eligible for 15 hours of free early education a week, and nine out of 10 took up the entitlement last year.
In 2017, the Conservative Government announced 30 hours of free childcare for working families, to save families up to £6,000 a year. Because of that, thousands of parents have been able to return to paid work or increase their hours, while saving thousands of pounds a year. We have also introduced tax-free childcare, which provides working parents with up to £2,000 of support to help with childcare costs for children under the age of 12. With universal credit, parents can claim back 85% of eligible childcare costs, compared with 70% under the old system.
We invest a significant amount of funding in early education and childcare, including more than £3.5 billion in each of the past three years on early education entitlements for two, three and four-year-olds. In 2022-23, we have increased the hourly funding rates for all local authorities—by 21p per hour for the two-year-old entitlement and, for the vast majority of areas, by 17p per hour for the three and four-year-old entitlement.
Stella Creasy
Many parents listening to the debate might have a simple question for the Minister: what does he expect them to do with a child who is under the age of two, so that we do not see women in particular having to leave the workforce because no employer is going to wait two years for them to have childcare?
Mr Walker
The hon. Lady raises an important point. As the parent of a nine-month-old, I definitely recognise the challenge. [Interruption.] The Under-Secretary of State for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester, refers to the support that is available through tax-free childcare and universal credit, but of course we recognise the challenge. I have to say that I do not see anything in Labour’s plans that would fix it.
To support childcare for families with school-age children, the Government are investing more than £200 million a year in our holiday activities and food programme. The programme provides free holiday club places, with healthy meals, enriching activities and free childcare, to children from low-income families, benefiting their health, wellbeing and learning. Last summer, our programme funded free holiday places for, in total, more than 600,000 children and young people in England, including more than 495,000 children who were eligible for free school meals. That means that hundreds of thousands of children from low-income families are benefiting from healthy food and extracurricular activities, thereby helping to level up children’s educational outcomes, provide better nutrition and improve their wellbeing, behaviour and social skills.
The Government are continuing to invest more than £200 million a year in the holiday activities and food programme, with all 152 local authorities in England delivering the programme. We are also committed to continuing support for school breakfast clubs. The Department for Education is investing up to £24 million to continue its national school breakfast programme until July 2023. This funding will support up to 2,500 schools in disadvantaged areas, which means that thousands of children from lower-income families will be offered free nutritious breakfasts to better support their attainment, wellbeing and readiness to learn. The enrolment process is still open to schools that wish to sign up to the national school breakfast programme.
We recognise that we must ensure that childcare works the best it can for families’ lives now. The Government are committed to continuing to look for ways to improve the cost, choice and availability of childcare. With safety and quality at the heart, as a first step we will consult on ratio requirements by the summer to give providers more flexibility and autonomy to make decisions about their settings and the needs of their children. We will continue to work across Government to ensure that parents are given the information that they need to access support from tax-free childcare, universal credit, and other entitlements. We will actively consider how we can ensure a sufficient supply of childminders, giving more parents access to an affordable and flexible type of childcare, as well as creating further flexibilities to enable parents to be able to spend Government funding on childcare that best meets their need.
The Government are committed to helping families and giving every child the best start in life, and we back that with significant investment at the spending review. We are investing £695 million in the Supporting Families programme to provide targeted support to 300,000 of the most vulnerable families. We are also providing a further £600 million for activities and healthy food for children in the school holidays, and we are delivering on our manifesto commitment to champion family hubs. Family hubs bring together services for children of all ages. We will invest £302 million to transform Start for Life and support local authorities to create the network of family hubs in 75 local authorities across England.
I am proud of our record in supporting children and young people both before and during the pandemic. The Government have ensured that supporting our children and young people is at the heart of our recovery plans, with the latest evidence suggesting that real recovery is taking place. Those on the Labour Front Bench have no plan other than to keep promising more of other people’s money. Nowhere in their proposed plans are detailed costings of their proposed interventions on childcare. We will continue to follow the evidence and provide investment where it makes the greatest difference.
Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)
I am delighted that we are having this debate today, because, frankly, it is long overdue. Indeed, in the past couple of years, this place has debated wind turbines more than it has debated the future of childcare in this country. We can all make the jokes about hot air, but the reality is that our children deserve better.
I want to focus my remarks particularly on this question about childcare costs. According to the TUC, one in three parents with pre-school children are spending a third of their pay on childcare. The cost of a full-time nursery place for a child under two—those children whom we do not seem to know what to do with—has risen £1,500 over the past five years. The honest truth is that these challenges are not about the pandemic. They pre-empted the pandemic; they have been exacerbated by the pandemic.
Our childcare system is more dysfunctional than the Home Office. We have to ask ourselves what we can do to fix it. Having the debate is the first step. Again, I want to declare that I am a big fan of the “Derry Girls” and “Countdown”, but we have spent more time, particularly in the Queen’s Speech, thinking about privatising Channel 4 than we have about sorting out childcare.
Childcare in this country does not work for the children, especially if they are aged under two, because they do need more than a packet of crisps and a pint of coke during the school holidays. Parents face bills running to hundreds of pounds a week for at least the first two years, often pricing all but the wealthiest out of the workplace. Children from disadvantaged backgrounds feel the pinch most of all. They are already 11 months behind their peers when they start primary schools because many of them cannot be in childcare to get that early years learning that we all said is so important. We know that that has got worse during the pandemic, with 76% of schools reporting that that cohort of children—the children from the poorest backgrounds—needed additional support compared with the pre-pandemic cohorts.
Even when the Government do invest in childcare, it does not get any better, particularly if parents have a child who might need care during the school holidays. Parents are spending over £800 a year more for after-school care than they did in 2010, with the average family spending more on these activities than they do on their weekly shop. Little wonder that this childcare system does not work for parents or for employers, who are losing talent from our economy at a rate of knots. Some 40% of mothers have said that they had to work fewer hours than they would have liked because of childcare costs, and that figure rises to more than half of women in households on incomes of less than £50,000.
This weekend alone, we saw evidence of a jump of 13% in women aged 24 to 35 not working in the past 12 months. It does not take a rocket scientist to work out who those women are, but it does take a Government who want to prioritise families—I say families, because we know that dads are getting a raw deal too. The mums are disappearing and the dads cannot be there for their kids as they want to be either.
The uptake of paternity leave in this country has dropped to a 10-year low, with only one quarter of new dads choosing to take it. Let us be clear what they are taking: two weeks. Anybody who has had a new-born knows that it takes a lot longer than two weeks to work out what on earth to do with it. Just 27% of eligible fathers are taking up that offer of just two weeks’ paid leave, down from 170,000 in 2021, compared with 650,000 women who took maternity leave, although many of them then faced the discrimination of not being able to return to work. That is a loss of 100,000 men compared with those who took paternity leave in the previous year. The number is falling.
A separate study by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development showed that more than three quarters of men feel there is a stigma to taking just those two weeks to care for their children, let alone asking for flexible working. Where does that stigma come from? I do not know. Maybe somebody could leave a note on my desk to tell me why caring for children and wanting to have a career is a bad thing.
Employers want to be able to offer these things, because employers and businesses are ahead of the Government here. They know that offering flexible working, helping families to work and have a career but also be able to care for their children, is one reason why many of their employees stay with them.
The current situation does not work for Government or those running nurseries—those heroes we all know who look after our children. National Day Nurseries Association data shows that the Government is the biggest purchaser of places, but they are frankly short-changing the industry hand over fist. Providers are making a loss of £2 an hour on every Government-funded child they take, forcing them to cut their margins, underinvest in staff and overcharge other families to try to make ends meet.
Even when childcare is subsidised, it does not work. The estimated shortfall in funding for a three or four-year-old is more than £2,000 a year, and it is nearly £895 a year for a two-year-old. Little wonder so many nurseries are going out of business and childcare is increasingly becoming an indulgence of the middle classes, rather than part of the infrastructure of an effective economy.
In this debate, it is parents who we do not hear from in this place most of all. I pay tribute to the amazing work that Joeli Brearley and Pregnant Then Screwed, and people such as Anna Whitehouse at Mother Pukka, are doing in giving a voice to real parents. These are genuine comments I have had in the past week alone:
“Nursery fees for two kids cancel out my whole wage. My employer is consistently in the top 10 global best employers (they are great) so if I can’t make it work, god knows how others do.”
“All my wage goes on childcare for two days a week, which works out at the same price as rent for a flat.”
“I’m a teaching assistant. My monthly nursery fee for 4 days a week is £300 more than my entire monthly salary—I’m lucky to have a supportive family who help me with some of the cost, otherwise I wouldn’t be able to work. I’m trying to complete my teaching degree, make a career for myself and support my child, but my god do this government make it so hard!”
“£1870 a month for 5 days a week for me to pay childcare to return to work. More than I earn!”
“This summer it’s going to be a nightmare trying to work and find affordable childcare for an 11-year-old, 5-year-old and 3-year-old.”
“I attempted to re-enter the workforce once my twins were in reception—I had to give up as there was no childcare provision during the summer holidays of 2021. I wasn’t expecting to still be at home when the children were 7.”
“No one warns you or helps you pay £2,400 per month in childcare so that you can go back to work. I’ve always been a career woman, so why should we have to choose?”
“I have returned to work 4 hours a week to fit around my partners working hours. If I returned to my normal hours I would take home less than £10 a day, minus the cost of petrol. Totally ridiculous that there is no help until the age of 3.”
“Cheapest nursery I found within walking distance of my flat was £1603 a month!”
“The worst thing about this is that it is seen as the status quo. A justification for pregnancy and parental discrimination. So we get hit twice. No career and blamed for it too. I now work freelance and when I was hired by a client in the same profession for private work, they had assumed I had left an office to start a family.”
The truth, though, is that those experiences are not the worst thing—the worst thing is that investing in childcare is not a loss leader; it is a benefit to our economy because of the increase in tax take, the lower universal credit that is paid, and the equality, prosperity and productivity it brings to us all. Free universal childcare from the end of parental leave to the start of school would bring £25 billion extra funding into the Exchequer through those factors. That would cover 90% of the additional cost outright. But instead of investing, we have a Government murmuring about trying to cut corners by tweaking childcare ratios. I say to the Minister—he and I have children of a similar age—that, if he wants to take five kids of that age at the same time, I will happily lend him mine so that we can see just how possible that is. Our economic competitors recognise that this is the wrong way round as well. Some people claim that they have higher ratios, but we already have higher staff to child ratios than other similar countries. We have 13 children for every staff member in pre-school compared with six children in Sweden and eight in the Netherlands.
As I said, there is money to spend on childcare, but this Government are not spending it. It is our money as taxpayers. Those tax credits could be a valuable part of helping parents to make ends meet when it comes to childcare. The Government are not telling people that they are entitled to tax credits, yet the Government got back £2.8 billion alone last year in unclaimed childcare tax credits. If the Minister needs people behind him to go to the Treasury to demand that money back, I am with him, because that money alone would pay for 500 million hours of childcare as a first step towards having a universal system. But I do not hear any evidence that the Department is going to claim our tax money back so that our children can have that childcare.
The truth is that we cannot solve the cost of living crisis without solving the cost of childcare. We cannot have a productive economy unless every single talented person can make the right choice for their family about working life. A party cannot claim to be the party of the family when it is abandoning particularly mums but dads too. The Minister knows that he could have support to do this, but we need it to be a priority, even more so than saving “Derry Girls” and putting up the wind turbines.
Will Quince
I may not agree on that particular point, but where I do agree with the hon. Lady is that the take-up of tax-free childcare is far too low. I am looking very closely at that and at what more we can do as a Government to promote it. I would certainly encourage all Members from across the House to promote our childcare offer more generally, of which tax-free childcare is only one part.
More broadly on the point about childcare, I will say this: I have two young children, and I get it. They have both been through nurseries and childminders, and I understand the costs. I know that many parents up and down our country are paying as much, if not more, than their rent or their mortgage on childcare costs. We are very much committed to ensuring that all families get the support they need when they need it.
We are already supporting families and investing to support the cost of childcare. We are offering free childcare to every three and four-year-old—that is the 15 and then the 30-hour offer. We are providing free childcare to disadvantaged two-year-olds—that is the 15-hour offer. We are cutting the cost of childcare for working parents through our tax-free childcare offer, which I have just mentioned to the hon. Lady, and of course paying up to 85% of the childcare costs for those on universal credit, supporting the families who need it most. In total, that comes at a cost of £5.1 billion.
Stella Creasy
Obviously, “Frozen II” has many lessons that we all need to follow, but one is not just to “Let It Go” but to be truthful to yourself, so can the Minister clarify this? He said he did not agree with the figures I cited from the National Day Nurseries Association, which has been looking at the impact of the subsidy, but he has just said how much money it costs.
Obviously, many parents would say to him that 15 hours’ or indeed 30 hours’ free childcare is not the childcare they need in order to maintain their jobs. Is he saying that the Government believe that the money they are currently providing fully covers the cost of childcare? If he does not think there is a £2,000 differential between the cost of childcare for a three-year-old and what the Government are paying, what does he think the gap is?
Will Quince
I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention, and I will come on in just one moment to exactly the funding we are putting into childcare. However, in total, it is £5.1 billion. On the free entitlements alone—the entitlements the hon. Lady references—it is £3.5 billion.
I know that there is more we need to do, and that is why I am working across Government to take a renewed look at the childcare system, finding ways to improve the cost and availability of childcare and early education for families across England. We do have some of the very best early years provision in the world, and I will continue to be hugely ambitious for working parents, ensuring flexibility and reducing the cost of childcare wherever we can.
A number of hon. Members across the Chamber during this debate have raised international comparators, which are of course important. So far, I have visited the Netherlands, and I will be visiting Sweden and France. I hope to visit more because it is very important that we take an evidence-based approach to this issue and look at the international comparators. [Interruption.] On day trips, I hasten to add, on the Eurostar—these are certainly not jollies. We are very much looking at the evidence and ensuring that we get it right. It is a hugely complex issue.
Coronavirus: Education Setting Attendance and Support for Pupils
Stella Creasy Excerpts(2 years, 7 months ago)
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Alex Burghart
I thank my right hon. Friend for his question, and I look forward to working with him in his role as Chair of the Education Committee and as a venerable defender of the needs of children and of the voters who follow.
It is extremely important that schools follow departmental guidance. I am sure that my officials will have heard the example that my right hon. Friend has just given. The message is clear: the best place for children is in schools and there are very clear criteria that tell us when children should be there.
Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)
The Minister rightly recognises the toll on the mental health of children in this country over the past year. In Waltham Forest, many schools dug deep and paid for external counselling services for the children and are now facing big gaps in their budgets. Having said how important it is that no school in this country should be out of pocket, will the Minister commit today to fully reimburse those schools for the cost of counselling over the past 18 months to help our children get through the pandemic?
Alex Burghart
I thank both the hon. Lady for her question and the school in her constituency for the work that it has done to look after its pupils; it sounds as though it has gone above and beyond. As I said in answer to the shadow Secretary of State a few moments ago, the Department has invested considerable amounts of money in supporting children’s mental health. There has been £79 million across the piece, and £17 million for training for mental health and wellbeing in schools. We are fully aware that this is one of the lasting consequences of the pandemic, and we will step in to support schools every inch of the way.
Childcare
Stella Creasy Excerpts(2 years, 7 months ago)
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Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)
It is an absolute pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger, and to have this debate. I am grateful that you gave me an opportunity to put my jacket on because, like any parent of an under-two-year-old, I have snot and Weetabix on the back of my clothes. I have accepted that having two children means that I will be permanently sticky for the next 18 years. Because I have two children under the age of two in London, I also accept that I will probably never be able to go out because the cost of childcare is so prohibitive.
We have one of the most expensive systems in the world, but high cost does not necessarily mean high impact. The TUC found that, for parents with a one-year-old child, the cost of their child’s nursery provision has grown four times faster than their wages, and more than seven times faster in London. In communities such as mine, which has the 10th-highest level of child poverty, families are already choosing between eating and keeping a roof above their heads. Affordable childcare, like affordable housing, is an illusion. I thank Pregnant Then Screwed, the Early Years Alliance, the Women’s Budget Group, the Fawcett Society, the National Day Nurseries Association and the all-party parliamentary group on childcare and early education for their refusal to let this be the new normal. Childcare is something that everybody needed during the pandemic and nobody got.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell) pointed out, during the pandemic the Government found time to make the case for infrastructure investment. They found £27 billion for roads and for 50 million potholes, money for new railways and stations, and even £5 billion for broadband. What did our children get? Well, the Chancellor did say that mums everywhere were owed a debt of thanks for juggling childcare and work. That pat on the back shone a light on how this Government think about working parents. This is an infrastructure issue, and as a result of failing to see it that way, we are losing tax revenue, losing women from our workforce and hampering equality in our society.
We have already talked about the lack of childcare provision prior to the pandemic—30% of local authorities accept that they did not have enough places, and only one in five said they had enough places for children with special educational needs—but it has become a lot worse during the pandemic. The consequences for families are clear: 75% of children in this country living in poverty are in working households, and childcare accounts for 56% of the overall costs of children for working couples.
Nothing about this system makes any sense. I am a parent of two children under two, but why on earth do we think that when children hit two or three, they are special? What am I supposed to do with these children until then, when it comes to childcare? Frankly, the people who will leave the workforce because they cannot afford childcare will already have done so by the time a child is two, and those of us who can afford childcare will be able to afford it after the age of two.
The Minister will no doubt point to the universal credit system, but it does not make sense in the real world either, because it expects parents to pay for childcare up front and then recoup the cost, as if parents on universal credit have spare cash to begin with. The Minister might say that the flexible support system is there, but only a few have used it on childcare. Anyone who has tried to get childcare in London knows that universal credit, which has been frozen since 2016, means that for most parents it is not a runner.
Failing to invest in childcare is baking inequality into our system for parents and children alike. We know that the vast majority of people using the 30 hours of funded childcare are from the top income earners. We know that the parents of 240,000 children aged two to four could potentially access childcare, but do not because of the cost of it.
We know that this issue is hitting gender inequality, too. My hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North is right to point out that the burden of childcare too often falls on women. Only 2% of new fathers take any parental leave: that is because we ask them to pay for it, rather than recognise it as the investment in the child’s development and in the family that it represents. Almost 870,000 stay-at-home mums who want to work cannot do so because of the cost and availability of childcare, and those problems have got a lot worse during the pandemic. Some 46% of mothers who have been made redundant said that a lack of childcare was a factor in their selection for redundancy. When furloughing ends, many more will not be able to go back to work because the childcare will still not be available: the loss of places during the pandemic means that many more will be out of work. That means that we will not get the tax revenue from those mums’ work, and it means that their families and their careers will suffer.
The crazy thing about this is that investment in universal childcare from the age of six months pays for itself. When we provide that, not only do we get an income from the sector—and, by God, we should be paying these people a lot more to look after our children—but we get the income from the higher number of women who can be in work. There is an army of mums out there who are mad as hell that they are being ignored and expected to take on childcare at short notice, and I tell the Minister that mums can multitask too, and they can vote. We have to get this right, because we owe it to every child and every mum in this country to see them right.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Vicky Ford)
It is an absolute pleasure to serve again under your chairmanship, Sir Roger. I would like to begin by congratulating the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell) on securing this important debate on childcare. Every parent wants their child to have the best possible start in life, and high quality, accessible childcare is a really important part of that. Many right hon. and hon. Members have taken time this afternoon to thank childcare workers, and I agree with them: childminders, playworkers, and each and every member of our early years staff deserve our admiration, our gratitude and our thanks. I also thank Joeli Brearley for having started the e-petition that prompted this debate. Parents such as Joeli value the strengths and opportunities that our childcare sector delivers, and my Department is committed to maintaining a sustainable network of early years providers.
I recognise the strength of feeling about our childcare system, and the Government will continue to consider ways of making childcare more accessible for parents. Many right hon. and hon. Members have pointed out the special importance of childcare to women—to mothers—and as someone who once had three children under the age of four, boy, do I remember that juggling balance that so many Members have mentioned. It has been particularly impressive to hear so many fellow women MPs speak with such passion today. However, I would also like to thank the male colleagues who have taken time to join us in this debate, because it is vital that we all stand together.
I also recognise the importance of the quality of our early education and childcare. Earlier this summer, I visited the Guildford Nursery School and Family Centre and saw how committed its staff are to giving children the best start in life, like so many other hard-working nursery staff and childminders across the country. It has been a true delight to hear so many Members of Parliament mention providers in their constituencies.
Access to high quality early childcare is important because it has such positive benefits for a child’s educational and life outcomes. As we know, childcare is important in helping parents to be able to work. I am proud to be part of a Government who have extended access to early education and childcare to millions of children and parents over the past decade. In 2013, the Conservative-led coalition Government introduced 15 hours of free childcare for disadvantaged two-year-olds. That has helped more than 1 million children to get a much-needed early boost to their education. I encourage all hon. Members to encourage families from lower-income backgrounds to take up that offer, because when they do so children do better at school and it gives them vital skills that set them up for life.
Back in 2017, the Conservative Government announced 30 hours of free childcare for working families, which enabled hundreds of thousands of parents to return to or take up paid work, and many of those families have saved thousands of pounds. Working families can also get help from the Government’s tax-free childcare scheme, which offers a 20% contribution towards their childcare fees and is worth up to £2,000 a year for children aged up to 11 or £4,000 for children aged up to 16 if the child is disabled.
Vicky Ford
I will give way to the hon. Lady, but before I do so I want to congratulate her on her beautiful baby. I hope she is getting a bit of rest.
Stella Creasy
I would get even more rest if this place moved with the times and the law and provided proper maternity cover.
The Minister is talking about the take-up of the 30 hours of free childcare. As has been said, the evidence shows that the vast majority of people taking it up—70%—are from the higher-earner income bracket, and that just 13% of eligible families from the bottom third of the income bracket are taking it up. Why does she think that is the case? Does she recognise that the way it is funded at the moment means that we are excluding some of the poorest families because they cannot afford the rest of the cost of childcare? What does she think is happening?
Vicky Ford
I thank the hon. Lady for her question. When it comes to the take-up of the two-year-old offer, which is particularly targeted at disadvantaged backgrounds, there is a huge discrepancy between different parts of the country. For example, there are parts of London where up to 70% of families have taken it up, and other parts where it is far lower. That is why I encourage Members to get in touch with me if they want and I will tell them about the take-up in their area. As I said, there are areas where seven out of 10 families are taking it up and are continuing to do so. I will talk more about disadvantaged families later.
As the hon. Lady is aware, the Government can also help with 85% of childcare costs for universal credit claimants even if they work only a few hours a week. I know it can be challenging to claim, but it is important to recognise that it is there. In my own jobcentre, the job coaches are working closely with parents to help them with making a claim that so that they can get back into work.
Wraparound childcare is also important as it not only supports parents so they can work but can benefit children and young people’s mental health and wellbeing, and their educational and social development. I was absolutely delighted to go around the country this summer looking at our holiday activities and food programme, which has ensured that thousands of school-aged children on free school meals have had access to childcare as well as exciting activities and food. I thank all Members who visited their HAF programmes this summer. It is the first time that we have ever had anything like that type of project for our children. Of course, we piloted it for three years, but this year it has been all across the country, and local authorities are already setting out their plans for Christmas.
The Government invest a significant amount in early education and childcare, including £3.5 billion for each of the past three years on funding our entitlements for two, three and four-year-olds. In November 2020, the Chancellor announced another £44 million investment for this financial year to help local authorities increase their hourly rates paid to childcare providers. All local authorities have seen an increase of at least 8p an hour in the two-year-old entitlement. The vast majority of areas have had an increase of 6p an hour for three and four-year-olds. Significant increases were also made for hourly rate entitlements funding in 2019.
Several hon. Members from London constituencies mentioned the cost of childcare in London. It is important to note that we pay a higher funding rate for those entitlements in areas where business costs are higher. The average hourly funding rate for a three or four-year-old across all of England is £4.91, but the equivalent for London is notably higher at £6.11. The hon. Member for Hampstead and Kilburn (Tulip Siddiq) may be interested to know that in her constituency, the amount we pay to Camden is one of the highest in the entire country at £8.51.
My hon. Friend the Member for Winchester (Steve Brine) mentioned the spending review. As hon. Members know, we are already working on a multi-year spending review. In the Department for Education, we are absolutely continuing to press the importance of early years care and education right across Government as part of that spending review. Given that we are in the middle of spending review negotiations, it would not be appropriate to launch a separate independent review of childcare at this time because the outcomes of such a review would not be able to feed into the speeding review that is happening right now. We expect the outcome of the spending review to be announced later this year. My hon. Friend also mentioned closures.
Catherine McKinnell
I thank the Minister for that response, but I fear that the more than 112,000 petitioners who signed the petition would disagree with her assessment that there is not a problem to address. Indeed, Joeli Brearley of Pregnant Then Screwed and the 12 organisations that supported the in-depth research and survey of the parent and provider experience of the childcare system would disagree with the Minister’s assessment.
The petition is very reasonable. It is not asking for a specific amount of funding. It is not even diagnosing exactly what should happen. The petition is asking the Government to hand over to experts for a full assessment of what we want our early years and childcare sector to be and to provide.
I agree—I think hon. Members in all parts of the House who spoke in this debate agree—that we need to get the best out of the funding that goes into the sector. I agree that it should not be a party political issue. The way to ensure that that money is spent in the best way possible, however, is not just to turn down the petitioners’ request for an independent review, but to take it away and consider it.
I appreciate what the Minister said: that this does not fit with the current Budget and spending review schedule. However—I implore her again—the petitioners are not asking for a specific amount of money; they are asking for a wholescale review. We can keep going on, sticking plasters over the cracks, pumping some money here or there, or putting a funding pot in place, but in reality we have a postcode lottery, a family lottery, and parents crying out for more help and support. We have many people silently falling out of the workforce, a productivity problem and a crisis point for many families, with many in the most deprived families just not being heard or supported at all.
Stella Creasy
My hon. Friend is making a passionate plea for why we need the review. One issue that the review could settle is the Minister’s claim that the country has not seen the closure of any places, although the evidence from the National Day Nurseries Association is very clear: in 2019-20, there was an increase of 300 nurseries in this country; but in 2020-21, there was a net minus of 400 nurseries. The Minister is shaking her head, but does she recognise that at the very least, an independent review could get to the bottom of that, so that we as parliamentarians could make informed decisions and have informed debates, because she seems to think something completely different from what the sector is telling us?
Catherine McKinnell
I very much agree with my hon. Friend. With the greatest of respect, I think that petitioners listening to the Minister’s response will feel that hers is an alternative reality, an alternative universe, from the one that they are living in. Parents and providers are struggling. Early years staff are undervalued and underpaid. Childcare is becoming a big political issue, and it will not go away any time soon.
I urge the Minister to take away the petitioners’ request. I appreciate that the answer today is no, but I say, “Don’t close the door on this,” because it needs to be looked at. Not only are parents and providers being let down; ultimately it is the children who would benefit from getting the best early years and childcare system in the world—not just the most expensive, and we are nearly there, but the best in world. Let us aspire to that, and let us ask the experts to guide us in a cross-party way on how we can best achieve that.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered e-petition 586700, relating to funding and affordability of childcare.