Clause 6 - Duty to secure sufficient childcare for working parents
Childcare Bill
9:45 am
David Amess (Southend West, Conservative)
A large number of amendments have been tabled, so there will not be an opportunity for a stand part debate. Hon. Members should bear that in mind and make their points as we discuss the amendments.
Ann Coffey (PPS (Rt Hon Alistair Darling, Secretary of State), Scotland Office; Stockport, Labour)
I am not sure whether this is a point of order, but most things in this place qualify as one. The document giving notice of the amendments is helpful because it gives the amendments in numerical order so that one can find them, but I cannot find the document that follows on from the one that I had on Tuesday, which ends with amendment No. 234. Am I totally confused?
Tim Loughton (Shadow Minister (Children), Health; East Worthing and Shoreham, Conservative)
It is on the Table.
Ann Coffey (PPS (Rt Hon Alistair Darling, Secretary of State), Scotland Office; Stockport, Labour)
Thank you very much.
David Amess (Southend West, Conservative)
That was a point of order. If, when we adjourn at 10.25 am, the hon. Lady would kindly quietly have a word with the Clerk, he will be able to help her.
Tim Loughton (Shadow Minister (Children), Health; East Worthing and Shoreham, Conservative)
I beg to move amendment No. 279, in page 4, line 7, after ‘must’, insert ‘using all appropriate resources.’.
David Amess (Southend West, Conservative)
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following: Amendment No. 224, in page 4, line 7, leave out
‘, so far as is reasonably practicable,’.
Amendment No. 89, in page 4, line 8, after ‘of’, insert
‘good quality, accessible and affordable’.
Amendment No. 90, in page 4, line 8, after ‘is’, insert ‘, and remains,’.
Amendment No. 76, in page 4, line 13, at end insert
‘, or
(c)to assist with children with disabilities or other special needs.’.
Amendment No. 232, in page 4, line 13, at end insert
‘or,
(c)to sustain caring responsibilities.’.
Amendment No. 3, in page 4, line 15, after ‘authority’, insert—
‘(aa)must actively monitor the demands from families to ensure that provision is responsive to their needs,’.
Amendment No. 230, in page 4, line 16, leave out paragraph (a) and insert—
‘(a)must have regard to the needs of parents in their area—
(i)who are eligible for the childcare element of the working tax credit,
(ii)who are eligible for the maximum entitlement to the child tax credit,
(iii)for the provision of childcare which is suitable for disabled children, and
(iv)from black and minority ethnic communities’.
Amendment No. 79, in page 4, line 17, leave out sub-paragraph (i).
Amendment No. 195, in page 4, line 20, at end insert—
‘(iii)the provision of a diverse range of childcare, and
(iv)the provision of childcare which is accessible to black and other minority ethnic groups.’.
Amendment No. 83, in page 4, line 22, at end insert
‘and to the affordability of such childcare’.
Amendment No. 84, in page 4, line 22, at end insert
‘and to the sustainability of such childcare’.
Amendment No. 99, in page 4, line 22, at end insert—
‘(e)must have regard to existing childcare operated by private and voluntary independent providers.’.
Amendment No. 100, in page 4, line 22, at end insert—
‘(f)must establish an appeals process for providers who wish to challenge the basis on which the provision of childcare is deemed to be sufficient in this section.’.
Amendment No. 125, in page 4, line 22, at end insert—
‘(g)must have regard to the quality of any childcare provided.’.
Amendment No. 126, in page 4, line 22, at end insert—
‘(h)must have regard to childcare provision for workless households, pursuant to its duties under section 1(1).’.
Amendment No. 4, in page 4, line 22, at end insert—
‘(2A)In carrying out research to comply with subsection (2) above, local authorities shall ensure compliance with guidance provided by the Market Research Council and the British Polling Council.’.
Amendment No. 127, in page 4, line 24, at end insert
‘, which will set out the factors that local authorities may consider in assessing—
(i)whether local childcare provision is sufficient, and
(ii)what constitutes reasonably practicable steps.’.
Amendment No. 239, in page 4, line 33, leave out ‘16’ and insert ‘18’.
Amendment No. 80, in page 4, leave out lines 35 and 36.
New clause 9—Appeals mechanism—
‘An English local authority must establish an appeals mechanism to enable parents unable to access childcare under the terms set out in section 6 to require the local authority to reassess the sufficiency of the provision of sufficiency.’.
Amendment No. 249, in clause 22, page 11, line 6, after ‘of’, insert
‘good quality, accessible and affordable’.
Amendment No. 250, in page 11, line 6, after ‘is’, insert ‘and remains’.
Amendment No. 253, in page 11, line 11, at end insert
‘or
(c)to assist with children with disabilities or other special needs.’.
Amendment No. 254, in page 11, line 13, at end insert—
‘(aa)must actively monitor the demands from families to ensure that provision is responsible to their needs.’.
Amendment No. 255, in page 11, line 15, leave out sub-paragraph (i).
Amendment No. 261, in page 11, line 22, at end insert—
‘(c)must have regard to existing childcare operated by private and voluntary independent providers.’.
Amendment No. 262, in page 11, line 22, at end insert—
‘(c)must establish an appeals process for providers who wish to challenge the basis on which the provision of childcare is deemed to be sufficient in this section.’.
Amendment No. 257, in page 11, line 22, at end insert—
‘(2A)In carrying out research to comply with subsection (2) above, local authorities shall ensure that relevant guidance provided by the Market Research Council and the British Polling Council is complied with.’.
Amendment No. 263, in page 11, leave out lines 35 and 36.
Amendment No. 200, in clause 98, page 49, line 24, at end insert—
‘(aa)an order under section 6,’.
Tim Loughton (Shadow Minister (Children), Health; East Worthing and Shoreham, Conservative)
Halfway through that diatribe I shouted “house”, but it went unnoticed. I had hoped, Mr. Amess, that in your announcement before the list of amendments you would say that the grouping was a complete nightmare and that you had decided to reorder the amendments. With the greatest respect to the Chair and the Clerk, it is not easy to deal with a group of amendments that includes no fewer than 30 amendments and a new clause, and which covers different clauses and different subjects. There is a great deal of commonality between some amendments—clearly, they should be grouped together—and some provisions that pertain to Wales mirror those that pertain to England, but many others are on a different subject. It would have been easier for the Committee if they had been separated out.
Annette Brooke (Shadow Minister, Education & Skills; Mid Dorset and North Poole, Liberal Democrat)
I concur with the hon. Gentleman. It will be difficult to structure the discussion, as five or even six major issues are contained in the group. I hope that we will be able to work together to facilitate the discussion.
David Amess (Southend West, Conservative)
Order. I have heard what both hon. Members have said and will reflect on their points as we progress further in the Bill. However, I have no doubt at all that they will be able to cope more than adequately with the challenges that they face.
Tim Loughton (Shadow Minister (Children), Health; East Worthing and Shoreham, Conservative)
You spoil us, Mr. Ambassador, as they say. I will try to keep some semblance of order and go through the amendments as they appear on the list. I would like hon. Friends to elaborate on certain amendments, so I will deal in detail with some but leave the others for them. I shall just touch on some of the Liberal Democrat amendments, as I have no doubt that the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole will go into them in more detail.
Amendment No. 279 is not of particular import but just happens to come first in the group. There are others that I want concentrate on more. This probing amendment, which would insert the phrase “using all appropriate resources”, goes to the heart of the dilemma that we and the Local Government Association raised in respect of proper and sufficient funding of the provisions. The Secretary of State made it clear on Second Reading that, in her view, there were no unfunded commitments in the Bill. We do not agree. Given the complexity of new duties and structures that local authorities will be responsible for, and all the other competing obligations, duties and structures that they must undertake as a result of the Children and Adoption Bill, the 2004 Act and the restructuring of children’s services departments, we have serious concerns about whether local authorities will manage with their available resources.
Justine Greening (Putney, Conservative)
Does my hon. Friend agree that the Bill will be expensive to implement successfully in some areas? My constituency includes Southfields, which has been termed locally “nappy valley” because of the high proportion of families with young children. The Bill will have a huge effect on the local authority of Wandsworth.
Tim Loughton (Shadow Minister (Children), Health; East Worthing and Shoreham, Conservative)
My hon. Friend makes a good point. Her constituency and that part of south-west London have transient populations. The demographics of particular areas must be considered. She is in an area that is growing younger. I represent Worthing, which used to be an area that was growing older. I am happy to say that it is now growing much younger as new developments and new families come in. It is difficult to ascertain, on the basis of long-term projections, whether local authorities will have sufficient resources. There is a question mark over the placing of a clear duty on a local authority that it “must secure”. The provision needs a rider; we have proposed “using all appropriate resources”.
Stephen Hesford (PPS (Rt Hon Baroness Amos, President of the Council), Privy Council Office; Wirral West, Labour)
I know that the hon. Gentleman said that this is a probing amendment, but if it were taken at face value, would it not be a get-out clause for local authorities that do not do their duty? They could simply make up some story about not having enough money. I do not accept his opening gambit that the provisions are unfunded.
Tim Loughton (Shadow Minister (Children), Health; East Worthing and Shoreham, Conservative)
I take the hon. Gentleman’s point, but there are all sorts of other checks and balances concerning how the local authority accounts for itself that would make that difficult. We do not want to give local authorities an excuse for not doing something that they should be doing and that the Bill intends them to do.
However, by the same measure, representatives of local authorities and the Local Government Association would say that if they do not have the resources, various things will have to give. The LGA, for example, wants to highlight that
“without extra investment, meeting these duties will either result in making childcare even less affordable to parents, or place additional, and unacceptable, pressures on Council Tax bills.”
It is not an either/or option. If the resources are not there, it will not happen and, despite the best endeavours to institute every dotted “i” and crossed “t” of this Bill, it still may not happen because cost pressures have increased. That is particularly true in south-east England because demographic changes have meant that the constituency those measures are aimed at has increased in size all of a sudden.
Despite best endeavours, if the resources are not there, child care is either not going to happen or quality, affordability or various other factors are going to have to give. I want a rider so that local authorities can say, “We’ve done everything that we were required to do and more, using all the appropriate resources we have at our disposal, but despite that, there may be some failings.” In such cases, the Government have to recognise that either those authorities are doing something badly and they need assistance to do it better or that their funding resources do not match up to their service obligations. That is the point of my amendment, and this is the only appropriate point at which the issue of funding can be addressed. It might be useful for the Committee to spend some time on it.
Amendment No. 224 deals with the phrase “reasonably practicable”. That is a big concern: what on earth is “reasonably practicable”? We need more finely honed definitions because that phrase could be more of an example of the sort of get-out clause mentioned by the hon. Member for Wirral, West (Stephen Hesford) than my proposed safeguard. However, I shall not steal the thunder of the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole by going into detail about her amendment.
Amendment No. 89 is key because it goes to the heart of the issues of quality we were debating earlier. The amendment would add the proviso that child care should be good quality, accessible and affordable. We have said this before, but it is no good simply creating a lot of additional child care places for the sake of it if they are not very good places or they are not sustainable. In doing so, we might actually drive out some better quality ones. I cannot see how the Government can object to such helpful additions. The Minister mentioned that quality is important; we want “quality” included in the Bill rather more than it is.
Accessibility is key. It is no good setting up a structure if parents from certain backgrounds or areas cannot access it. It is one thing to be able to say that child care places exist, but if people cannot access them for a whole host of reasons, that is not much good to those who are missing out. Affordability is also key. There is nothing to say that local authorities have not achieved their responsibilities if they produce child care places that are beyond the pocket of an awful lot of people. Again, that would be entirely self-defeating, given what the Bill is trying to achieve.
Annette Brooke (Shadow Minister, Education & Skills; Mid Dorset and North Poole, Liberal Democrat)
Does the hon. Gentleman share my concern that it will be incredibly difficult to provide affordable, much-needed places for children with disabilities if the local authorities do not have additional resources for that purpose?
Tim Loughton (Shadow Minister (Children), Health; East Worthing and Shoreham, Conservative)
The hon. Lady raises a good point and perhaps we will discuss it in more detail in the context of some of the later amendments tabled by the Opposition, which deal with disability. That is a key area. Inevitably, child care places for children with disabilities or special educational needs will require more specialised provision, which will inevitably be more costly. Her point is quite right.
Amendment No. 90 relates to sufficiency. Again, we might need to question the term “sufficient”. Providing child care places is a dynamic process. We can all say that we know exactly how many children under the age of two—or whatever it might be—we have in our constituency or in a local authority area now, but in nine months’ time that figure will have changed. Given the drastic changes in demographics and the birth rate that are starting to feed through, and given that many nurseries are being set up on what is usually a five-year funding plan, it is essential that the idea of sufficiency applies not to the present, but to the foreseeable future. Forward planning is needed because, otherwise, in a short space of time, what was sufficient turns out to be woefully inadequate or to constitute over-provision, in which case there are competitive pressures and various nurseries may go out of business.
The amendment is intended to be helpful. The addition of the words “and remains” makes it crystal clear to local authorities that they must plan with at least a five-year horizon in mind and that they must be able to convince people of the sufficiency of the provision not now, but over the next few years, as the plans are rolled out.
The next amendment—we are only one sixth of the way through—is amendment No. 76, which touches on the issue of disabilities, which the hon. Lady mentioned. Subsection (1) deals with the reasons why child care places should be provided. Clearly, one reason is to enable people—particularly mothers—who face pressures juggling child care with their jobs to go out to work or to remain in jobs if they choose to do so. Hon. Members should remember that one of the basic principles that we set out for scrutinising the Bill is that there should be no bar to the lifestyle chosen by parents, whether they choose to stay at home and look after their children, to take advantage of a publicly funded or voluntary independently funded nursery or to use the extended family. Parents should have that choice and they should not be financially penalised for their decision.
The second criterion relates to parents who wish to undertake education or training to achieve a job. That is perfectly fair, but a raft of people could lose out. I have in mind those parents who have children with disabilities, of which there are many. They require special attention. Child care places may not be required to enable the parents to go out and work but to give special assistance to young disabled children which a parent is not able to provide at home, or to give needed respite to parents who, in many cases, do a fantastic job in taking on a responsibility that would otherwise fall to the state at great cost by looking after their children and becoming semi-professional carers.
We know of the extra demands that disabled children, particularly severely disabled children, can place on parents. All too often, respite is not available, and I do not mean for odd weekends or weeks off. The intensity involved in looking after some disabled children might mean that parents need several hours when somebody else takes on responsibility for the child. That might be most appropriate in a nursery so that the child can have some interaction with other children which it would otherwise miss from being stuck at home because of the nature of his or her disabilities.
If there were an assurance for somebody who looks after a disabled child that they would be able to take several hours out a week while the child is cared for at a nursery place, it would make their lives much easier. We should do much more to make the job of carer easier and not put hurdles in the way. Carers save the state a considerable amount of money by, quite rightly, making their child their number one priority. We should give them more recognition.
The next amendment is amendment No. 232, which is on a similar theme but put in slightly more politically correct terms. I shall leave the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole to elaborate on it. Amendment No. 3 is, again, to do with the dynamics of child care provision.
Tim Loughton (Shadow Minister (Children), Health; East Worthing and Shoreham, Conservative)
I will probably lose my place, but I shall give way.
Edward Miliband (Doncaster North, Labour)
I have been following the hon. Gentleman’s remarks closely. I am not sure whether coherence is important in opposition, not having been in opposition myself, but does he not think that there is a slight contradiction in his amendments? Some express concern about upward pressures on council tax but others want to widen substantially the groups covered by clause 6.
Tim Loughton (Shadow Minister (Children), Health; East Worthing and Shoreham, Conservative)
I am surprised by the hon. Gentleman’s intervention. Perhaps he did not follow some of the points that we made earlier because he was too attached to his Blackberry. I am alarmed if he is suggesting that we should not make special provision for disabled children, who inevitably cost more, simply because that might lead to an increase in council tax. We should make special provision for such people. There is nothing incoherent about our amendments in that respect. We are trying to recognise the special needs of a special group of people with disabilities. They require special attention.
On amendment No. 3, we seek to add an additional determination when working out the sufficiency of child care, and that is that the authority
“must actively monitor the demands from families to ensure that provision is responsive to their needs”.
As we discussed earlier, a local authority must be mindful of how things change. It could say that it has laid on places, that they are at a certain church hall, new Sure Start centre or wherever, and that it has done its job. However, if parents do not access the places because of problems with them, the local authority has not achieved what it is supposed to achieve according to the spirit of the Bill, although it might technically have achieved it in practice.
Amendment No. 230, which was tabled by the Liberal Democrats, deals with the eligibility criteria in subsection (2)(a). I will leave that to the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole.
Amendment No. 79 relates to a subject that we raised on Second Reading and I should be grateful if the Minister would respond in more detail. Why should the provisions be limited to parents who are currently claiming the child care element of the child tax credit? A number of outside bodies have made representations on this point. The National Childminding Association, the Pre-school Learning Alliance, 4Children and the Daycare Trust have said that they recognise
“the benefits of good quality childcare for all children and particularly for children from workless households, who are more likely to be disadvantaged.”
They add:
“Research shows that children from disadvantaged backgrounds are likely to receive the greatest benefit from high quality early years services.”
They think that there should be equal availability for people who are not claiming the tax credit for whatever reasons. There is no explicit mention of low incomes in the Bill. Local authorities need to have regard to the needs of low-income families who are working and low-income families who are not working. They should not be excluded from the Bill.
Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland, Labour)
I am sympathetic to the sentiment that the hon. Gentleman is expressing. An example is the children of asylum seekers. Asylum seekers are not entitled to the working tax credit, because they are not allowed to work. However, will he clarify whether, as well as dealing with vulnerable and disadvantaged groups, his amendment would place a duty on the local authority to make provision for the most advantaged, by which I mean the children of extremely wealthy people, who do not claim tax credits because their incomes are above the necessary level?
Tim Loughton (Shadow Minister (Children), Health; East Worthing and Shoreham, Conservative)
We said at the outset that the problem of accessible child care is a problem for everybody, but it is a particular problem for disadvantaged families and those on low incomes. If the provision is tailored purely to those who happen to be claiming the child care element of the child tax credit, that will exclude many people who are not claiming it, but who are entitled to it, many non-working families, and better-off families. Some rationing or funnelling of provision could apply to such people. Clearly, people who are more able to afford independent child care need less help than others. I am most concerned about the many non-working families who would benefit from access to additional child care, but who do not qualify under the working tax credit. Many families on the minimum wage would simply not be able to afford the fees.
Ann Coffey (PPS (Rt Hon Alistair Darling, Secretary of State), Scotland Office; Stockport, Labour)
I am listening to the hon. Gentleman’s list. Is there any group of people that he plans to exclude, in the sense that the local authority will not have to provide child care for them?
Tim Loughton (Shadow Minister (Children), Health; East Worthing and Shoreham, Conservative)
I do not want to exclude anyone, but there should be an inclining scale involving preferences. Clearly, the authority’s policy should not be based on how best to provide child care for people earning a substantial amount of money, who are best able to make their own arrangements. However, there are many people who fall between two stools. They might just be beyond certain qualification levels, but they might still find it difficult to find accessible and affordable child care and juggle their work practices and lifestyle. The way that the provision is phrased is too exclusive. We have tabled the amendments so that the Minister can define how those people who are excluded will be catered for.
Beverley Hughes (Minister of State (Children, Young People and Families), Department for Education and Skills; Stretford and Urmston, Labour)
For the benefit of the Committee and the hon. Gentleman, I should like to ensure that he understands, as I am sure that he does, that with this duty we are talking not about excluding people from child care, but about defining sufficiency—on which the question about whether the local authority has fulfilled the duty should be assessed.
The duty does not exist at the moment, but since 1997, with Government help, local authorities have managed to improve dramatically the quality and quantity of child care, and it is accessible for many families. The provision before us is about defining how local authorities will be judged; it is not about excluding people from nor including people in child care.
Tim Loughton (Shadow Minister (Children), Health; East Worthing and Shoreham, Conservative)
The right hon. Lady is right, but many people who need to be helped will be excluded by the phrasing of the clause. Those people are from non-working families, or they are not claiming the child care element of child tax credit, for whatever reason. That is why the Government need to make their case more clearly about who will not be included.
Local authorities have a duty to all council tax payers and their children, so whether or not the Government judge how well child care provision has done in disadvantaged areas, they need to show how well child care provision has done across the board. The measure before us does not even encapsulate those most disadvantaged communities that we should like included.
Stephen Hesford (PPS (Rt Hon Baroness Amos, President of the Council), Privy Council Office; Wirral West, Labour)
In my copy of the Bill, clause 6 is entitled:
“Duty to secure sufficient childcare for working parents.”
How will that include non-working parents?
Tim Loughton (Shadow Minister (Children), Health; East Worthing and Shoreham, Conservative)
The title needs to be changed, too.
Stephen Hesford (PPS (Rt Hon Baroness Amos, President of the Council), Privy Council Office; Wirral West, Labour)
There is no amendment to that effect.
Tim Loughton (Shadow Minister (Children), Health; East Worthing and Shoreham, Conservative)
That could well be a good point, and it would normally have been dealt with in a clause stand part debate, to which we are now not entitled. However, given that a new clause and 30 amendments to this clause have been tabled already, yet another amendment might have confused matters even further.
I take the point made by the hon. Member for Wirral, West. However, I said that the amendment was a probing amendment; it was not an attempt to redefine the definitions in the Bill. Perhaps we shall return to that point on Report, if the Minister is unable to convince us as to why there should be such an exclusive definition.
We are still not half way through this group of amendments.
Ian Cawsey (Assistant Whip (funded by HM Treasury); Brigg and Goole, Labour)
We are enjoying it, do not worry.
Tim Loughton (Shadow Minister (Children), Health; East Worthing and Shoreham, Conservative)
I am enjoying it greatly.
The next amendment is the Liberal Democrat amendment No. 195, which makes an important reference to provision for children from black and minority ethnic backgrounds. It needs more of an outing during this aspect of the Bill.
Amendments Nos. 83 and 84 return to my earlier definition of what sort of child care is needed. Amendment No. 83 states that the authority should have regard to the affordability of such child care, and amendment No. 84, to the sustainability of such child care. I have mentioned several times how it is no good setting up new child care places on an unsustainable financial model. It will result in other good-quality child care places disappearing, and a net loss of child care places some years later because sustainability was not a significant element when the provision was planned.
Amendment No. 99 carries on that point. Perhaps my hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr. Gibb) will talk about it in more detail.