It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington North (Helen Jones), who opened the debate, for all the work she has done in raising the importance of the issue we are debating. She said at the beginning of her speech that she was not very savvy about technology, but she has done an amazing job, not just by having web chats but by engaging a record number of people on Facebook—mothers and fathers from across the country. It is not just about social media, however; it is about the number of face-to-face meetings she has had, the amount of research she has evidently done and the personal experience, as a secondary schoolteacher, that she has brought to the House. There are lots of people in Government who might not believe in experts but I believe in listening to them, and it is evident from my hon. Friend’s speech that she knows what she is talking about.
This is the first debate I am responding to as shadow Minister for early years, but I do not need to have that role to recognise that to give every child the best start in life, nothing is more important than the care they receive in the first few years. High-quality childcare is critical for our economy, as has been mentioned over and over by Members on both sides of the House. The biggest barrier for parents and carers returning to employment is the cost of childcare, and parental employment is vital to lifting families out of poverty.
I grew up in London in the ’80s and I remember the struggles my parents had when it came to providing childcare. We did not have grandparents around—something other hon. Members have mentioned. Before 1997, access to childcare, as well as its quality, varied enormously, and it is not a secret that Labour revolutionised the sector by introducing universal free childcare. Every three and four-year-old became entitled to 15 hours’ free childcare a week for 38 weeks of the year, which was a life-saving opportunity for parents. The measure was a huge success, with more than 90% of children aged three and four benefiting.
Another thing I benefited a lot from—as I am sure parents on both sides of the House have too—were the Sure Start centres, which were also created by a Labour Government and which served every family in the community, regardless of how much money they had. Labour expanded school nurseries and more than doubled the number of childcare places. Most importantly perhaps, we extended maternity leave from 12 weeks to 12 months, increased maternity pay and introduced paternity leave. It is shocking that it took so long, but it happened. We made childcare a key part of our plans to support families and to make work pay, but today’s debate, in 2016, shows that huge challenges remain.
Make no mistake, the petition speaks directly to the failure of the Government’s childcare policy over the past six years. Nevertheless, it is clear that hon. Members on both sides of the House, of different political colours, feel they have shared ambitions for childcare. Even if we believe in different ways of achieving those ambitions, we agree that childcare is a priority that needs to be addressed. The Government’s response to the petition fails to recognise, I am afraid, the effects of chronic underfunding on providers, but it at least acknowledges that childcare costs profoundly affect parents across the country. Labour agrees with the Government that
disadvantaged two-year-olds are less likely to access formal early education than their more affluent peers and that they therefore deserve the support that will level the playing field. Further, we do not believe that we should pit those out of work, often because of circumstances beyond their control, against working parents struggling to afford childcare. We believe a distinction needs to be made between work incentive schemes and policies that must be pursued to give equal opportunities in life to impoverished children, and also to children who are disabled—a point made movingly, over and over, by my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern).
The Government should also be frank about the fact that those out of work are not receiving the free childcare to which their two-year-olds are entitled, with only 42% of families in England who qualify receiving it, which compares with the uptake of Flying Start provision for two-years-olds under the Labour Administration in Wales, which stood at 86% in 2015.