Childcare Bill

We support the amendment, as the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke) has shown again that she shares our approach to these matters. It is worth noting that the phalanx of class-war dogmatists has scarpered now that we are dealing with serious technical matters to do with the quality of child care. The fact that their interest has waned rapidly says a lot about their presence earlier, and reveals their limited interest in what the Bill is trying to do. Amendment No. 9 centres on the use of the rogue word ““taught””. We concur that it is completely inappropriate for very young children, especially those aged between nought and two. I shall not rehearse Professor Bowlby’s attachment theory, which the Committee considered in some detail, but it is clear that very early years children must be treated very differently. Whether or not the term ““schoolification”” is apt for the attempt to impose curriculums on them, the approach itself is simply not appropriate. I draw some comfort from the more enlightened contributions made by Labour Back Benchers, and I welcome what the hon. Member for North-West Leicestershire (David Taylor) said a moment ago. Alas, the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman) is no longer present, but in Committee she supported our case. She spoke at length about peek-a-boo games, but also about children. She said:"““I have a great deal of sympathy with the points made by Opposition Members about the use of the word ““taught”” . . . However, if we concentrate on taught literacy, we risk turning off small children.””—[Official Report, Standing Committee D, 15 December 2005; c. 251–252.]" The first two years of a child’s life are especially important, but too often the Government seem to want to rush to push young children through a regimented school system. They want to tick the boxes about children’s ability to read, write and add up, but they do not give those children enough time and space to grow up and become sociable, well ordered and normal kids. That is the problem, and I fear that talking in the language of school curriculums does nursery-age children a big disservice. The Minister may say that ““taught”” is only one word, but it is a very important one whose use, we feel, sends out all the wrong signals. The hon. Lady said presciently that if the Minister did not accept the amendment that we proposed in Committee she would be realistic and seek on Report to change the word ““taught”” to the phrase ““experienced by””. Well, hey presto, the hon. Lady’s word is our command. Our amendment would do exactly that, because we feel that the phrase ““experienced by”” is much more sympathetic to the social development that should be going on in those child care environments, rather than a mini school curriculum, which is what the Government run the danger of being perceived as trying to thrust on them. We had an interesting debate in Committee on the issue, with some excellent contributions from my hon. Friend the Member for Putney (Justine Greening), with her great tales about ““The Very Hungry Caterpillar””, on which she is the House’s leading authority. Amendments Nos. 51 and 53 seek clarity and to add transparency to the Bill. I do not know the conditions under which exemptions should be conferred by the Secretary of State, such that the learning and development requirements need not apply or can be modified. We are in danger of ending up with a bit of shambles unless we have a clear steer from the Minister as to what the exemption offer is trying to do and in what terms and on what occasions it might be used. The amendments request clarity and transparency in the Bill and seek to ensure that if any exemptions or disapplications are made, the reasons must be set out clearly and published, so that everybody can understand them and be sure that we are all acting on a level playing field or whether the fear of a two-tier system is justified. We support the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole on amendment No. 9, which concurs with the intention of amendment No. 8. If she does not choose to push that amendment to a Division, I hope that the Government will nevertheless reflect on the point again in the other place. We all share the same intentions and the Minister’s response to my pronouncements on the merits of attachment theory suggested that she concurred with our view on what we should be trying to achieve in those early years. However, the language that the Bill uses will be adhered to by local authorities and child care providers when they seek to do what the Government want them to do. They are in danger of throwing baby out with the bath water, by trying to make baby grow up rather faster than baby needs to, because baby needs to learn about how to be a decent child before getting into a school curriculum. The word ““taught”” smacks of schoolification.