My Lords, like many noble Lords today, I welcome the intent of this Bill to extend free childcare from 15 to 30 hours a week for the three and four year-olds of working
parents. I am hopeful that this policy will help to achieve the important aim of supporting more parents in returning to work. In particular, it may help single parents return to work or add more hours without being out of pocket by having to pay for additional hours of childcare. I am also pleased to see that the Bill will improve parents’ access to information about available provision in their area as this will allow them to make more informed decisions about childcare. I add my thanks to the Minister for making his time available for a valuable briefing session yesterday.
I had the privilege of sitting on the Lords Select Committee on Affordable Childcare, about which we have heard much this afternoon. Noble Lords will hear a little more from me. It was very ably chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, who has already spoken compellingly today. He made it clear that one of the committee’s primary finding was that, for some years, childcare policy in England has sought to achieve and reconcile multiple and sometimes conflicting aims, with the result that policy has sometimes felt quite muddled and confusing. The goals to which the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, and others alluded essentially are threefold: namely, to promote child development for all children; to help narrow the attainment gap between advantaged and disadvantaged children; and to enable more parents to work. Those are all laudable aims but can often pull in different directions. As so many noble Lords have said today, the Bill appears to address only the last aim.
I was proud that the Select Committee, which comprised Peers from all Benches, as Select Committees do, agreed that the overriding priority should be given to providing high-quality early education to disadvantaged children as they are the most likely to receive the greatest benefit, and that this priority should be reflected in the way in which resources are allocated. That is where I shall focus my remarks today. There is tremendous potential for high-quality childcare to help disadvantaged children achieve better educational attainment and greater lifetime earnings, and to help break the cycle of intergenerational poverty.
The Select Committee’s report states:
“High quality early education has a crucial role to play in helping disadvantaged children to reach their full potential … Greater value for money in terms of child outcomes is obtained by investing in early education for this group, than for all children”.
Given this, I am concerned that, in focusing on the aim of supporting working parents, the Bill fails to address these critical issues. Its silence on these matters raises many questions, which have already been covered. However, I will briefly give my thoughts on them. What will be the impact of the extension of hours on the quality of early education provision and child development? What are the implications for the early years workforce? How much money will be needed to ensure that all hours, including the existing 15 hours, are properly funded and where will that money come from? Will additional resources be offered to the disadvantaged, as recommended by the Select Committee, or will this be a flat-rate scheme that, in effect, favours the better off?
If the Government really want to support child development and improve outcomes for disadvantaged children—I am certainly not suggesting that they do
not—surely they must ensure that the Bill not only leads to more childcare, but provides early education provision of a higher quality than is currently provided. As things stand, disadvantaged children are particularly likely to receive childcare of an insufficiently high quality. For example, 28% of disadvantaged two year-olds taking up their free entitlement attend settings that have not been judged “good” or “outstanding” by Ofsted. As we have heard, this is largely because private, voluntary and independent childcare providers in deprived areas are less likely to be rated “good” or “outstanding” by Ofsted than equivalent settings in more affluent areas. We know that disadvantaged children are very likely to receive their entitlement from these very providers. Indeed, 60% of three year-olds and 96% of disadvantaged two year-olds access their entitlement through a PVI setting.
As the Select Committee report said very clearly, it really is a false economy to provide these children with early education but fail to ensure that the care that they receive is of sufficiently high quality to achieve those better outcomes. Hence my concern, which is shared by so many other noble Lords, that the Bill is silent on what will be done to ensure that early education entitlement will be of sufficiently high quality. I say “sufficiently” because I recognise the trade-offs that need to be made between affordability, availability and quality—again, other noble Lords have referred to that.
It is important to make it clear that PVI settings often struggle to provide high-quality childcare largely because they are currently underfunded. As we have already heard, the Pre-School Learning Alliance has estimated that private, voluntary and independent providers currently face a total funding deficit of £177 million. Given the underfunding of the existing 15 hours, some organisations, such as the National Day Nurseries Association, have expressed concerns about how the Government propose to fund the additional hours. According to the National Children’s Bureau—I declare an interest as its president—the figure widely reported in the press of £350 million of additional funding, while welcome, will not be enough.
In view of those substantial concerns about funding, echoed by so many noble Lords, I genuinely welcome the Government’s plan to review funding arrangements with a view, as I understand it, to increasing the hourly rate to providers. That will be very welcome. I sincerely hope that that will allow us to make progress towards ensuring that all settings are properly funded. In particular, it will be critical that the current underfunding of the PVI sector is not in any way exacerbated by the increase in hours. I hope that that gap is reduced.
The Bill is curiously silent on how the Government will ensure that the early years workforce has the qualifications necessary to deliver high-quality provision. Disadvantaged children are especially likely to receive their entitlement from staff with lower qualifications. Although graduate leadership is widely acknowledged as the key factor helping to narrow the gap in quality between settings in advantaged and disadvantaged areas, we know that in the 30% most deprived areas only 10% of early years staff working in the PVI sector are at a graduate level. That compares with 35% of those working in nursery schools.
It is welcome that qualifications in the sector as a whole have been steadily rising—a point that the noble Lord, Lord Nash, made in his opening remarks. However, the additional pressure of the proposed extension of hours may make it difficult for the sector as a whole to recruit and train qualified employees. Therefore, and echoing the recommendations of the Select Committee report, I urge the Government again to consider implementing the recommendations of the Nutbrown review to help support the sector in raising qualifications over time. I ask the Minister to say something about this in his concluding remarks. Specifically, will he commit to develop an early years workforce improvement plan as part of the programme to expand the free childcare offer?
Given all these factors, if the Government really aim to improve outcomes for disadvantaged children through their childcare policy, they will surely need to take additional steps to ensure that this happens in practice. It is clear that a flat-rate scheme will not do enough to make up for the hurdles that disadvantaged children already face. The Bill does not make any special provision for disadvantaged children. Without going into any detail—I accept that a funding review will take place—will the Minister say whether in principle the Government intend to direct additional resources to the most disadvantaged children?
The Bill does not address how it will ensure that all children are able to access their full entitlement with regard to the availability of childcare places. Many local authorities are still struggling to provide an adequate number of places for disabled children. In fact, only 28% of local authorities reported that they had sufficient childcare for disabled children. My concern here is that the current funding of the universal hours fails to take into account the additional costs of caring for disabled children, and the pressures already imposed on the childcare workforce make it difficult for them to gain the skills necessary to work well with disabled children. As a consequence of this, we know that too many parents who would otherwise like to return to work cannot do so. Eighty-eight per cent of parent carers of disabled children who do not work said that they would like to return to work and 83% said that the lack of suitable childcare was their main barrier. Therefore, what provisions are being made to ensure that all children, particularly disabled children, will be able to access their full entitlement?
To conclude, I welcome the Bill’s stated intent but, as has been made abundantly clear in today’s debate, many crucial questions remain unanswered. There will be much work for this House to do in its detailed scrutiny to ensure that the Bill addresses head on the questions of funding, quality, workforce development, capacity in the sector and, indeed, flexibility—a point made very cogently by my noble friend Lady Pinnock. That adds up to the overall workability of the Bill. From where we start today, with what I politely call a very slim Bill, I feel that that is a big ask. However, the Minister has a very strong track record in improving Bills out of all recognition from the shape in which they started their parliamentary passage. His skills will be much needed on this Bill.
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