My Lords, over the years my experience in this place has been working to add principles to the face of complex Bills. This is my first experience of a Bill that is a principle with little other substance, and the contents do not even address the issues and concerns outlined in the report of the Select Committee on Affordable Childcare. The Bill does not meet the government objectives of coherence of the various policies nor explain how the tension between the two central policy planks—improving child outcomes by narrowing the attainment gap and facilitating parental employment—will be addressed. Nevertheless, together with many of my colleagues, I welcome the central objective and principle of the legislation to secure 30 hours of free childcare for working parents. I hope that, in specifying the descriptions of such childcare, the Government will ensure not only that there are enough places but that they are in flexible packages and it is good childcare—points made by noble Lords time and again during this debate. No parent wants to leave their child in a placement that is less than satisfactory, but some parents are desperate enough to do so.
Again, we have heard time and again that to provide a level of excellence is not cheap—unless, of course, you are paying below the minimum wage to some of your staff. That is an issue that needs to be seriously addressed. The Select Committee report quotes evidence to suggest that money allocated for free care policy and distributed by local authorities does not even cover the cost of delivering the free hours. Indeed, the Local Government Association, of which I am a vice-president, points out that the present system is seriously underfunded. I welcome the Government’s promise to review, and the pilots, which I hope will bring some
answers to all this. However, I understand why the Government want to get on with it and perhaps do these two things in tandem.
Instead of going through what everyone else has said, I shall mention a couple of other areas that need to be teased out. Clause 1(2) states:
“‘Qualifying child of working parents’ means a young child who … is under compulsory school age … and … is of a description specified in regulations”,
whatever that means. The Government have said separately that, to be eligible for the additional hours, both parents should be in work or be a lone parent in work. Where does this place the families of disabled children in terms of eligibility for the extra hours? In addition, could the Government clarify the continuing role of local authorities in delivering this cost? How will that work together with education—otherwise there will be a further level of confusion? Sometimes those who work for local authorities feel that the whole package is being squeezed into something that looks like a school curriculum rather than a package of childcare for children.
As my central plank, I raise a specific problem in the voluntary sector, where to ensure the development of children in specialist settings, particularly those with disability, even greater flexibility, imagination and funding are required. Under statutory guidance, providers are not allowed to charge top-up fees for extra time. When this is for extra help for a child with special educational needs, it seems that local authorities vary in how they respond to this guidance. I have direct experience of this problem as a patron of a charity called TRACKS autism, and I declare an interest. It provides specialist early intervention for children aged two to five with an autistic spectrum condition. These children are challenging in the extreme, but there is clear evidence that early intervention yields significant long-term benefits which enable many of them to integrate into mainstream education with obvious benefits to the state which does not have to provide places in special education settings.
In the case of TRACKS autism, more than 58% of the children attending have been able to receive ongoing education in a mainstream setting, which is a pretty good track record. Autistic nursery-age children need extra staff with extra training, ideally one to one, to provide the necessary level of care, education and safety. This works with demonstrable long-term benefits, but it needs to be paid for. The same principle applies to most children with special needs.
Many parents and carers of these children are invariably hard pressed, and although in many instances they receive extra state funding because of their child’s special needs, they are prevented from spending it on the extra level of care their child needs in a nursery setting. This is unjust and illogical, just as it is to expect nursery providers to have the extra levels of staff and care required for special-needs children without access to extra funding. The original legislation, which I was involved with in 2006, was intended to prevent private providers adding costs to increase profit, and it has had unintended consequences. We need to take this opportunity to correct the wording of the legislation or the regulations to ensure that parents are able to
choose to pay for extra levels of nursery care where the top-up charges clearly and solely relate to a child’s special needs and to providing the appropriate level of staffing such children require where it is not paid for in a local authority grant. What would be best would be for the local authority to pay the proper charges for these children and meet the total cost.
TRACKS autism has an outstanding Ofsted rating, but more than one in four two year-olds—28%—is attending settings delivering free entitlement to early education that have not been judged good or outstanding. We do not know how much this is due to continual funding problems, but early education and childcare provision should be of a quality to narrow the gap for the most disadvantaged. According to the briefing from the National Children’s Bureau, 60% of parents of disabled children do not believe that childcare providers can cater for their child’s disability. How will the Government ensure that providers can provide not only the hours but the quality to enable a parent to go to work without anxiety about what is happening in the placement? Will the Government be developing a strategy for expanding and improving the quality of provision as well as its numbers?
I hope there will be enough time in Committee to look at how the 30 hours will be packaged. The noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham mentioned that there is a variety of need. We need childminding, wrap-around hours and out-of-mainstream hours and to see how the needs of each child will be met. A mum goes to work at eight and gets home at six at night and therefore will need more than one provision during the day. Babies and two year-olds will need to be placed where they can get sleep and rest, so we will need different kinds of training.
Giving parents the right to work at any cost to a child’s development is simply unacceptable, but to take away financial burdens and give parents childcare choice and quality would make a real difference to the lives of working families, which is why I support the Government’s intention and will work as best I can with the Minister to ensure that this legislation goes forward.
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