My Lords, I also have an amendment in this group. Part of it follows from what the noble Baroness was saying. Cross-subsidy—or top-up fees, as it would be more honest to call them, although we pretend that they do not exist—is a problem. As has been established in this Bill so far, that will be a problem if 30 hours becomes the limit and you cannot charge below that for the settings in question.
I am actually really interested in another thing, which is not just money. I do not believe all the problems in the world are solved by money. One of my objections when I saw this Bill published arose when somebody said, “Here’s a great idea. We’ll throw an unspecified amount of money at it and the world will be a better place”. It is not quite as easy as that and what matters are real people, real places and things that actually happen on the ground. This is a fantastically diverse sector, as both my noble friends on the Front Bench have rightly recognised. Of course, I am biased, because over the last 30 years I have come to know hundreds of people who work in the informal education sector, in nursery care, for whom I have huge affection and admiration. They are good educators; women with vocations; people who are passionate about children; but maybe those settings do not all live up to the standards you might want if our country had been erased and you were rebuilding it—they would not be like that. But they are there—in the little church halls, the village halls and parish halls up and down the land—and they are small settings. It may be nine or 10 people who work hard, and the skilled and dedicated principal and manager does not have all the time in the world to fill in forms.
What this amendment is getting at is something that I think is so important. I know my noble friend says that he wants to address this issue—I appreciate what he said both inside and outside the Chamber—and does not want to cause problems for this sector, but a huge number of providers simply could not provide 30 hours of childcare a week, because the constraints of where they provide it do not allow for it. We really should understand, as I ask in this amendment, how many nursery and childcare providers operate in rented premises or private places. These are the people who are under threat. What proportion of nursery and childcare providers could not offer this wonderful 30 hours a week that we talk about in this House and which we would all love to see?
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There is another very important interest group, which is the other part of the big society—the village halls, parish councils, community buildings, sports clubs, community clubs and other groups that offer those premises. Very often those schools, nursery providers and settings are a hugely significant part of their revenue. If the good old state comes lumbering in and says, “These people won’t be able to provide 30 hours, so we’re going to go and provide support for somebody else”, some of those places will begin to shrivel and wither on the vine, and may disappear. Not only will the richness and diversity of nursery education be threatened but so will part of the warp and weft of society in the villages and local communities across the land.
I may be unnecessarily worried, but I know that a lot of providers out there are worried about this, and we should cherish and nurture them. There is nothing about that in the call for evidence. Who will speak up for the church halls and places like that? There is nothing about the impact of hours and the possibilities with regard to settings. I urge that we use this extra time to consider this very carefully.
I did a small test and looked at the family information service of four councils taken at random, because I could get to them quickest on the internet. I did not mention 38 weeks in my amendment, which is the other thing that was mentioned. If you look at the PVI sector in each of those four councils, more than half of them were not providing either 38 weeks or 30 hours. If you then look further, you find that they are a church hall or parish hall, and it is very easy to infer that it was not possible—it probably was not because they did not want to do it. I did not look at my own authority, but I bet that if you did that would also be true.
This is perhaps my one opportunity to make this plea, which I mentioned briefly at Second Reading—I apologise for trespassing for so long on your Lordships’ time at this hour. These are good people, good settings, some of the things that bind society together and which bring hope to people. Let us understand, when we make policy, the reality of life on the ground—the people who go on buses in the morning to get to these little centres, the people who open them up, those who book the halls and have to balance the time they give to their choir against what they can give to the nursery school. This is the reality of life in our land, and how the voluntary world and the informal world make good education happen. Please may we take that into account?