I shall speak to Amendment 31 in my name. Before I do so, I declare my interest—since it is pertinent to local authorities—both as a councillor and as a newly elected vice-president of the Local Government Association. I concur entirely with the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, about the confusion in implementing free childcare provision if local authorities are responsible for the first 15 hours and the Secretary of State is responsible for the next 15 hours.
However, our amendment focuses on a different aspect. We are asking for a new clause to be inserted into this Bill, to enable local authorities to be a provider of last resort. We do so for a number of important reasons. When I visited the Minister this morning, I noticed a big sign on his door that included the phrase “closing the gaps”. We all know, from our own research and from references already cited by many noble Lords this afternoon, that early years are extremely important in ensuring that children start school on a level playing field. We as a society must do our best to ensure that children who come from less advantaged homes have that gap closed before they start their formal education.
We are concerned that where children are less advantaged, either in homes where they are vulnerable or in areas where there is considerable deprivation, it is much less likely for vibrant private sector provision to be established, particularly when there will be 30 hours of free childcare. We already know, from evidence provided at Second Reading, that many private providers rely on additional funding, outside those free hours, in order to make their businesses financially viable. We need to give special focus to those areas of the country and those families that many Members of the House are already most concerned about, to ensure that children in those areas and families have the same opportunities and access as children from more advantaged areas. In those places where there are no viable providers from either the private or the voluntary sector, the local authority should be given the opportunity to close that gap to enable children to take advantage of the 30 hours that would be on offer. One of the reasons for doing this is because, sadly, many Sure Start children’s centres are either closing their doors or decreasing the number of hours that they are open for children from these very families. In many cases the buildings are there and could be used by local authorities by commissioning from the voluntary or private sector, but certainly provision should be made for children from less advantaged backgrounds.
As we have heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, local authorities already have a duty of sufficiency. Enabling local authorities to bridge that gap would give them the opportunity to ensure that there is a sufficiency of places for all children in our country to take advantage of the additional 15 hours of free childcare—or “early years care and education” as I am going to start calling it. As we heard in the debate on the previous group of amendments, that is probably the most important thing we can do: to focus on children who come from less advantaged areas and vulnerable families and give them the right start in life. Let us really do what it says on the Minister’s door and do our best to close that gap.