I thank all noble Lords for their contributions to this debate. I will try to pick up a few of the points raised in relation to the government amendments.
The noble Baroness, Lady Twycross, asked what else the Government are doing to support childminders. She will be aware that the Government have made a number of announcements in this regard. We have already boosted the funding rates paid to early years providers because we are keen to try to bolster the workforce ahead of the additional entitlements to working parents coming in. In the autumn, we will launch the childminder start-up grant, which is worth
£1,200 for all childminders who have joined the profession since the Spring Budget. In August, we announced plans to consult on reducing registration times to around 10 weeks, and to ensure that childminders are paid monthly by local authorities.
The noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, asked about the suitability of premises, particularly for very young children. There will not be any change to the approval that childminders need to get from Ofsted, so they will continue to need to get Ofsted approval, either from Ofsted or their childminder agency, so that they can operate from non-domestic premises. The issues she raised about safety will be addressed by that route.
The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, raised the issue of private equity. I am not aware of private equity being an issue in the childminder area of the market. I hope the noble Baroness would agree that we need significant investment in this area and to bolster the numbers of childminders. Unlike the noble Baroness, we would hope that childminders can run profitable businesses, otherwise they will not be sustainable.
Before I come to the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Russell, for giving me sight of his questions. My department has liaised with the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities and prepared responses. I will provide detailed responses to him in writing.
On the monitoring of developer contributions, the Bill aims to provide a flexible framework to allow infrastructure levy charging authorities to determine what their priorities for spending the levy are in each area. Of course, this can include capital funding for new childcare facilities. We already require local authorities to publish their infrastructure funding statements and set out how they use CIL and Section 106 funds. Under the infrastructure levy that will go further, as I think the noble Lord is aware—maybe we discussed it in the smallest room with the largest number of people. It will require them to set out infrastructure delivery strategies so that local authorities show how they propose to spend the levy revenues, as well as report on them.
On the questions specifically for my department about the expectation as to whether spare school capacity would be repurposed for early years services, I can confirm that there is no government expectation that spare school capacity will be repurposed in this way, although local authorities can, of course, work with schools and academy trusts to consider this as an option and, again, include contingency plans if the space were to be required for school use again in the future.
Many schools already include nurseries, and all new primary schools are expected to include a nursery ancillary to the main use of the site as a school. Developer contributions can be used to expand or create these facilities on school sites when necessary, although it is unlikely that developer contributions would be required for repurposed space within existing schools, as this is utilising existing educational infrastructure rather than creating new facilities. I will set all that out and respond to the noble Lord’s other questions in a letter.
Amendment 276, tabled in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, would remove any restrictions on local authorities providing childcare. Under the powers contained in the Childcare Act 2006, where local authorities identify a childcare need that cannot be met by other means or they deem more appropriate to provide themselves, they are already able to establish their own provision. As the noble Baroness, Lady Twycross, mentioned, we discussed this when we met last week. We have endeavoured to speak to a number of local authorities to try to understand a bit better whether there is a real issue here.
As I am sure the noble Baroness knows, almost 1% of providers overall are local authority-run outside maintained schools in the way that this amendment would allow for. From our conversations with local authorities, we know that this relates to both general—or what you might call universal—daycare and free entitlement provisions, such as is the case in Barking and Dagenham, but also applies where there is a particular need of specialist support for children with special educational needs, disabilities or complex medical needs, and my understanding is that that is the case in Durham. Obviously, we are grateful to all providers for the work that they do in this area. We found examples where both general provision and specialist provision exist.
When we speak to local authorities—which obviously the department does very regularly—they are not telling us that they want to set up their own childcare provision and they are not raising concerns with us about the powers they currently have to do this. We are not aware of any local authorities which want to set up their own provision but have been unable to do so because of the current legislation, so we are really not clear what problem this amendment is seeking to resolve and are not convinced that it would make a material difference to childcare availability, which I know the noble Baronesses opposite and the Government are all concerned about. We do not believe that is the case in either a general sense or in relation to specialist cases, where local authorities play such a critical role in supporting vulnerable children. In addition, some of the most successful local authority-run provisions, such as maintained nursery schools, are unaffected by this legislation.
The noble Baroness suggested that the Government do not trust local authorities, and I think used the words that we are “trying to tie their hands”. I would like to set the record straight: that is absolutely not the Government’s view. We believe that local authorities’ principal role is managing and shaping the overall childcare market in their area. The provisions in the Childcare Act help prevent an actual or perceived conflict of interest for local authorities as both market shapers and direct providers of childcare.
I think the House is in wide agreement that childcare is an incredibly important subject, and that is why we are moving the government amendments today. We want to maintain parental choice by making childminding more attractive to existing childminders, by helping them to expand and grow their businesses, and by supporting more people to become childminders by
removing barriers to registration. We have also consulted on changes to the early years foundation-stage framework that aim to reduce known burdens on providers and offer them more flexibility.
Therefore, I wish to press the amendments in the name of my noble friend Lady Scott of Bybrook and I hope that the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, will not move her amendment when reached.