Clause 6 - Duty to secure sufficient childcare for working parents
Childcare Bill
1:45 pm
Ann Coffey (PPS (Rt Hon Alistair Darling, Secretary of State), Scotland Office; Stockport, Labour)
I should probably raise this point in a clause stand part debate, but as we are not having that debate, I am sure that it relates to one of the amendments, which I do not support, incidentally.
I want to draw something to the Minister’s attention which comes under the heading of “sufficiency of child care”. In Stockport, a third of jobs are provided by the retail sector and hon. Members will be aware that that involves shift work, often over a 24-hour period. Most child care is based on a model in which people work during the course of the day, and most of it takes place between 8.30 in the morning and 6.30 in the evening. It is very difficult for those who want to work different hours to find suitable child care, particularly for young children, who they do not want to shift out of someone else’s bed at 10 o’clock to take them home.
At the moment, if parents with young children want to work, there are jobs available. Tesco is providing about 600 part-time jobs near a large area of housing that has high levels of unemployment and high levels of single parents on benefit. It is fortunate that the jobs are based there. Those parents tend to use informal care—relatives, friends and so on. I entirely take the point of the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) about ensuring that quality child care is available. The big problem is that we cannot impose quality on informal care. The second huge disadvantage for such parents is that they have to pay cash for such care because it cannot be registered. They cannot claim back the child care component of the working tax credit.
We have a marvellous opportunity to deal with that problem. As I understand it, a child minder, in order to registered, is registered in their own home. She is not registered to mind children outside her own home, so if a parent wants to use a registered child minder, she has to take the child to that person’s home. I understand that there is an exemption to that rule for nannies and babysitters, who do not have to register, and their services can be paid for through the child care tax credit because of the exemption.
Will my right hon. Friend consider how we can enable an exception for registered child minders, or for people who have taken a similar local course to that of child minders, to allow them to register to mind a child in the family home? That would be of huge benefit because it would ensure equality of care. It would be a particularly useful and flexible form of child care in relation to the problems of finding such care for children with disabilities. Often it is more helpful to provide support to a disabled child in their family home than to take the child elsewhere.
I realise that I should more properly raise that point when we discuss clause 33, and perhaps when we get there I will raise it again, but I thought I would raise it now in case we did not get that far.