It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I thank the hon. Member for Winchester (Steve Brine), the right hon. Member for Chipping Barnet (Theresa Villiers) and my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey) for securing this important debate and for being officers of the all-party parliamentary group for childcare and early education. I was proud to be the first chair of the APPG when it started three years ago, and I have just about forgiven the hon. Member for Winchester for upstaging me at every opportunity as the new chair, because the APPG has gone from strength to strength. It has played a vital role in the pandemic and I thank its members for all the work they have done.
There have been some really important contributions in the debate today from all sides. It has been a very sophisticated debate, which is not always the case in politics. Not only did I learn a lot, but I was reminded how important the early years sector is for our country, for our economy, and for women—a point that was made by the hon. Member for Wycombe (Mr Baker) and others. I will highlight some of the contributions that will stay with me.
My right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms) spoke powerfully about how fragile the sector is. I think everyone recognises that it has been very fragile since long before this pandemic hit. I have first-hand knowledge of that, both from having small children of my own and because of all of the work I have done in my constituency with early years providers. He also spoke passionately about how the group-based providers are at threat of closure. That has certainly been my experience as well, and we need to take some dramatic action if we want to stop that threat of closure. I pay tribute to Sheringham Nursery School,
which is in my right hon. Friend’s patch, and the work it does to help families who have children with special educational needs. I know Sheringham well, and my family friends have benefited greatly from it, so I join him in paying tribute to it. I understand how anxious its staff are feeling about what is happening during the pandemic.
My hon. Friend the Member for Luton North (Sarah Owen), who told me that she had to leave before the end of the debate, spoke passionately about her constituency, and about the role of early years providers in this pandemic and their exclusion from covid funding. That is one of the things I will be picking up on in this debate, because I feel very strongly that those providers have been left behind during the pandemic. She spoke about the baby groups, which were a lifeline for both of us. We both have first-hand experience of them. Their significance is often overlooked, but they are important for those who have a small child and have not been in that situation before. I see some Members nodding; such groups were probably important for them as well.
My hon. Friend the Member for Luton South (Rachel Hopkins) talked about maintained nurseries and Hart Hill Nursery School in her constituency. She highlighted not just the educational benefits of those nurseries, but the health benefits—I have seen that at first hand—and the safe environment they provide for all our young children. The hon. Member for Wycombe spoke about lower taxes if we invest in education. That is probably not the first thing I would go to, but investment in early education is something I passionately believe in, and I believe that Members who have spoken today have made some very powerful cases for how important that investment is.
My hon. Friend also talked about the necessity of long-term planning for maintained nurseries and the long-term funding settlement, both of which I agree with. I know that the Minister’s door is open to me when it comes to discussing policies, which I really appreciate. I hope she also meets with my hon. Friends the Members for Luton North and for Luton South. I think we can agree that they have made a powerful case for their area today, and I hope the Minister will find some time to engage with them and listen to them about what is going on in their area.
One of the things I wanted to talk about is the lack of support for early years providers and all the things they have missed out on due to not being schools. Back in March, as everyone knows, childcare providers were asked to stay open for vulnerable children and the children of key workers. They were assured that they would be able to access the furlough scheme in full, even when they received local authority funding. But just three days before the scheme opened, that position was reversed, forcing providers to tear up their plans and suffer huge losses. Ever since then, early years providers have been overlooked for support, and I wanted to highlight just some of the struggles they have had to put up with during this pandemic.
For a start, early years providers have never been able to claim any of the funding for the additional costs of making their settings covid-secure that schools have been able to claim, which strikes me as ridiculous considering that when we go into a nursery, we see small children running around everywhere. I am not quite sure why they did not qualify for that.