My Lords, of course we very much welcome the basis of this Bill, which is the additional 15 hours a week of free childcare for three and four year-olds whose families are in work. However, as the noble Baroness has just said, the devil is very much in the detail of this offer. I have four broad areas of concern: funding—there must be sufficient funding allocated to cover the cost of a high quality offer; flexibility—to really help working families, there must be flexibility built in to the offer; focus—childcare provision must be primarily for the benefit of the child; and fairness—this provision must be of equal benefit to low-income and higher-income families. Our concerns are the four Fs—funding, flexibility, focus and fairness. I want to expand on each of these issues.
On funding, one of the key concerns is that the Government provide adequate levels of funding for the scheme. On this, sadly, the Bill is completely silent. However, we know that the manifesto commitment was for an additional £350 million. I hope that this is one manifesto pledge that will be broken. Even combined with the estimated lower demand for the tax-free
childcare and a transfer of any of those savings, the scheme appears to be grossly underfunded. This potentially underfunded proposal is then subject to the unfair vagaries of the early years funding element of the local government grant. Consequently, some council areas will have the double hit of the combination of an inadequate funding package that is then unfairly divided. This leads to private providers making up for losses incurred on the free offer by charging highly inflated rates for hours outside of the scheme. One parent told me that he pays £8.36 an hour for these extra hours for a non-London nursery. The Government are undertaking a funding review which may report before the end of the year. However, that does not help us in our consideration of the Bill or, more to the point, the parents and children who will want to know what quality of childcare will be provided.
The second concern I have is flexibility. The needs of parents and carers who are working are many and varied. Many women, particularly, often have two, three or even four short-hour jobs in cleaning and catering. Their needs are often for childcare to meet early-morning shift working and for after-school cleaning jobs. Often jobs in this area of the labour market are unstable both in terms of hours worked and in length of contract, so having a flexible offer is vital for both the child and the parent. Then there is the constant pressure on parents to find childcare in the school holidays. This can be very expensive. One mother of three children has told me that it costs her £2,000 in childcare during the six-week holiday. Even with the tax-free childcare, her costs will be £1,600. I have asked parents to let me know their comments on the flexibility provided—or not provided—in the Bill. They have said that being able to spread the 30 hours per week over 52 weeks rather than the 38-week school year would be of enormous benefit. I urge the Minister to consider that proposal.
I have considerable concerns about the Bill’s focus, which seems to be on providing the means to encourage more women into the workforce. That in itself may be a laudable aim, but these are children’s lives we are dealing with and the primary focus of attention must be the impact on their lives, not just an economic argument about the labour market. I urge the Government to make adjustments to the Bill so that it becomes child centred. Making that change would change the thrust of the debate towards focusing on the quality and type of provision. We know that poor-quality childcare can actually damage a child’s development. An underfunded scheme may well result in lower quality, but the thrust of any childcare provision, especially that funded by the Government, must surely be to provide care of the highest quality. Focusing on the needs of children would force consideration of the effect of spending 30 hours in an institutional setting and thought about the potential benefits of childcare being shared between different providers. Wraparound care also needs to be thought through. A parent who may well need care from, say, 8 am until 6 pm will need more than provision that is just school based. Private providers are understandably reluctant to provide care just for an hour or so each side of the school day. It does not add up, for them, to a successful business model.
I hope the Minister will be able to give us categoric assurances that the Bill will put the needs of the child first and foremost.
Finally, fairness needs to be at the heart of the Bill, and I am not convinced that it is: fairness to parents trying to juggle work and parental responsibilities, when they are in jobs that may last only a few months; fairness in defining the eligibility, so that parents in education or training also qualify; fairness to the child in ensuring that the free childcare is of a high quality; and fairness for children with disabilities and from dysfunctional families through actively encouraging their take-up of any offer which is adjusted to meet their specific needs. It is, therefore, only when we see the detailed regulation and, importantly, the funding package that we will be able to be certain that this measure will be positive both for children and their carers.
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