It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Sharma. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard) on securing this important debate and on all the work he does to advocate for children and families in his constituency. I was delighted to visit Plymouth in November to meet care leavers and those who support them. It was absolutely clear the important role my hon. Friend plays as a strong voice for his constituency.
I am grateful to all the hon. Members who spoke in the debate. Many highlighted the problems experienced in the south-west, but many of those problems are common across the whole country. My hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport spoke about the problems with recruiting staff, which were also recognised by the hon. Member for Congleton
(Fiona Bruce) and other hon. Members. My hon. Friend also spoke about the rising bills that providers face; funding that does not meet the costs of delivering the provision under the entitlement; the increasing number of families looking to go back to work or to extend their hours; and low pay in the sector.
Hon. Members, including my hon. Friend and the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse), mentioned the extreme challenges faced by parents of children with special educational needs and disabilities, including the additional and often hidden costs that parents are forced to pay as a consequence of a broken funding model.
Hon. Members also mentioned providers’ inability to plan when the funding rates are not published in a timely manner. The hon. Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster) mentioned issues with the recruitment of staff in his constituency, and the hon. Member for Bath mentioned the unique opportunity, during those crucial early years, to intervene positively and influence the rest of a child’s life with high quality early education and childcare.
Children’s earliest years are crucial to their development and life chances, and many of the factors that contribute to the education attainment gap are already present by the time children start school. Early years education should be focused on ensuring that families have the early support they need to give their children the best start in life, and we should deliver affordable childcare to enable parents to work. I pay tribute to everyone who works in early years education and childcare. They are a skilled and dedicated workforce, who all too often are under-recognised and underpaid for their work. They fall victim to the current hours-based model of childcare funding, which is fundamentally not working for providers or families. For families, it is inaccessible and complex. It does not reflect the reality of their lives and working patterns, nor does it deliver affordability. At the same time, 4,800 providers were forced to close their doors last year due to rising costs, so the current model is not working for them either.
Parents have seen rising costs year on year and growing childcare deserts, where they cannot access the childcare they need. There are now two children for every Ofsted-registered childcare place in England, creating a barrier to parents, particularly women, taking on employment. Both women of childbearing age and women who are grandparents are leaving the workforce because they are being priced out as a consequence of the cost of childcare. As we have mentioned, it is parents of children with special educational needs and disabilities who find it the hardest of all to find childcare places.
The Government have delivered a triple whammy: the most expensive childcare in Europe, an unviable financial model for providers and significant childcare deserts. It is a colossal failure for both families and the skilled professionals who work in early years education. It is clear from speaking to many different people who work in the sector that the policies that the Government have introduced in response to the crisis will not fix the problems. Additional funding is really welcome, but pumping it into a system that is already broken will not deliver the change that families need.
Childcare providers have made it clear that, as things stand, they cannot deliver the expanded entitlement. A survey of 800 providers by the Early Years Alliance found that only 20% of providers that currently offer
places to two-year-olds plan to deliver additional places under the expanded entitlement. Another 33% said that they were unsure whether they would deliver any places at all under the new scheme. That is because the expansion was a pledge without a plan to expand the workforce in order to deliver the increased entitlement in a sector already struggling to recruit and retain staff. There is no plan for premises, for which there are rightly strict requirements in the early years sector.
It leaves parents likely to face problems in accessing the places that the Government have promised them. Even the Secretary of State admits that there are problems, although sometimes it is difficult to work out what she thinks. She is unwilling to commit to a guarantee that parents will be able to access the places that they have been promised by the Government from April, so I hope the Minister will at least admit that the Government’s plans are in chaos. It is families who will be let down as a result.
Childcare must be about more than just minding children while their parents work; it should be able to provide every child with a high quality early years education. A Labour Government will be driven by our mission to break down the barriers to opportunity at every stage, including by boosting child development, with 500,000 more children hitting the early learning goals by 2030. Labour is determined that childcare should offer more flexibility, better availability, and high standards for children and families. We will draw on best practice internationally to drive an ambitious and coherent programme of reform, with higher standards in early education, better availability, stronger regulation of providers’ financial sustainability and a clear strategy for the childcare workforce. We have commissioned the former Ofsted chief inspector, Sir David Bell, to undertake a full review of the early years sector and help to develop the detail of our early years plan.
A Labour Government will work with the early years sector to build capacity. We will also work with the sector to ensure that there is a plan for the early years workforce that offers more opportunities through high quality training and recognition for the skilled work of early years practitioners. We recognise that childcare does not end when children start school. We will deliver fully funded breakfast clubs in every primary school to help parents work, provide opportunities for children to play, learn and socialise at the start of the school day, and ensure that every child can access a healthy, nutritious breakfast and start the school day ready to learn.
The most expensive childcare in Europe; childcare providers closing their doors; childcare deserts across the country—that is the Government’s record. That is the experience for communities in the south-west, and it is true for communities across England. This Government have always regarded children as an afterthought and, in doing so, they have failed children and their families. After 13 years, their sticking-plaster solutions will not fix things now. A Labour Government will deliver a childcare system that works for children and their families from the end of parental leave to the end of primary school. We put children at the heart of our programme of Government from 1997 to 2010, and we will do so again.
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