Nick Gibb (Shadow Minister, Education; Bognor Regis & Littlehampton, Conservative)

What the Minister is saying is interesting. She is clarifying matters very well, but Ofsted is an inspection organisation. Many schools languish in special measures for more than a year, and Ofsted’s inspection and repeated inspections, and guidance even, are sometimes not enough to improve standards. The same undoubtedly applies in early child care   settings. Therefore, the Minister is sub-contracting quality assurance to Ofsted, which is really an inspection regime.

It is odd that, under the Minister’s regime, she is willing to allow primary schools to drive out perfectly valid and high-quality child care—primary schools are exempted from the caveat in the Bill—but is not prepared to drive out, through the local authorities providing new child care provision, child care settings that are of very poor quality, as determined by Ofsted.

Beverley Hughes (Minister of State (Children, Young People and Families), Department for Education and Skills; Stretford & Urmston, Labour)

With great respect, the hon. Gentleman is talking nonsense. I cannot say it any more gently than that. He is returning to a point that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary dealt with. No one on the Labour Benches has ever said that we are happy for primary schools to drive out perfectly good providers. They are his words and no one else’s, as far as I can recall.

Local authorities have a role in relation to ongoing improvement, if that is what the hon. Gentleman means by quality assurance—he introduced the issue of schools, but this point relates to schools and child care providers. Many have their own quality assurance standards, and they work with providers to help them meet those standards. That is different from the process of regulation and inspection that we think should be the benchmark when the local authority goes through the comprehensive assessment, considering what parents need for the supply of child care, so that it can identify the gaps and work to fill them. The point at which it seeks to facilitate the market to provide more child care is not the ongoing improvement of practice. At that point, it wants to know whether the providers meet Ofsted standards, which is what they will have to do.

Annette Brooke (Shadow Minister, Education & Skills; Mid Dorset & North Poole, Liberal Democrat)

I am in total agreement and just want to clarify matters. I did not agree with the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton. The Minister has clarified that the local authority has a role to play in the quality agenda and in working with Ofsted. That is what I have tried to say all along: the Bill should recognise that the local authority has a role to play.

Beverley Hughes (Minister of State (Children, Young People and Families), Department for Education and Skills; Stretford & Urmston, Labour)

I am glad that if, through my clarification, we have reached greater common understanding. However, it is not relevant to include that reference in this part of the Bill. We are talking about the assessment process and, on the basis of the assessment process, the identification of gaps that the local authority, with private and voluntary independent providers, can fill to obtain more child care in the authority’s area. At that point, it must obtain the child care that meets the registration standards.

From that point onwards, most authorities have a quality improvement scheme, and they work with providers to ensure that they can access local authority training. That is continuing, as the hon. Lady knows, and it will continue after the Bill is enacted. At the point of the assessment, we cannot helpfully muddy   the waters by using the quality assurance process. We need a common standard that everybody understands, and that is the Ofsted registration process.

On amendment No. 304, I must return to my earlier point, which we will continue to make about the Welsh clauses. Having established the principle that assessments must be kept under review, it is right to leave the detail to be set out in regulations by the National Assembly for Wales. Under the system in England or Wales, it will be possible for parents to say to the local authority, “Our needs have changed. We want you to look at them again.” I hope that with that assurance, the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton will feel no need to press his amendment to the vote.

Nick Gibb (Shadow Minister, Education; Bognor Regis & Littlehampton, Conservative)

I am grateful to the Minister for that clarification. In view of the helpful policy document that she circulated last night, and the wide debate in which we have aired our concerns fully, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Tim Loughton (Shadow Minister (Children), Health; East Worthing & Shoreham, Conservative)

I beg to move amendment No. 106, in page 6, line 13, at end insert

‘, which must be published and a copy sent to the Children’s Commissioner’.

David Amess (Southend West, Conservative)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments: No. 194, in page 6, line 28, leave out paragraph (a) and insert—

‘(a)consult parents and prospective parents in their area,

(b)consult early years providers in their area, including those in private and voluntary sectors,

(c)consult other persons engaged in activities which may improve the well-being of young children in their area, and

(d)consult young children’.

No. 302, in clause 26, page 12, line 38, leave out paragraph (a) and insert—

‘(a)consult parents and prospective parents in their area,

(b)consult early years providers in their area, including those in the private and voluntary sectors,

(c)consult other persons engaged in the activities which may improve the wellbeing of young children in their area,

(d)consult young children and,

(e)consult and pay particular attention to the advice of the Children’s Commissioner Wales.’.

Tim Loughton (Shadow Minister (Children), Health; East Worthing & Shoreham, Conservative)

This is a straightforward amendment, which has been grouped with two amendments in the names of Liberal Democrat Members.

In producing the assessment of the sufficiency of child care provision, the clause ensures that the local authority fully publishes its findings, so that they are visible to the public and to other child care providers, whether private, voluntary, independent or other, so that everybody can see the basis on which the local authority has reached its conclusions and the evidence that it has used, and parents can have full access to those findings to inform their decisions. The amendment would add the provision that a copy of the assessment should be sent to the children’s commissioner.

Again, this is a probing amendment. I am mindful that, in debating the Children Act 2004, which established the children’s commissioner, we placed many requirements on him to account for his work to the Secretary of State, I hope to Parliament and to many others. It would be useful to ensure that, in providing an account of the work that he has been doing, the children’s commissioner is fully informed and has an overview of the sufficiency of the child care provision established in the Bill. Part of his remit is to ensure that the welfare of children of all ages and descriptions is attended to by a range of agencies—local authorities, voluntary organisations and others.

Therefore, amendment No. 106 is a probing amendment to ensure that the findings are fully published and that the children’s commissioner is part of the process of information being passed on, so that he is better informed when making the assessments that he is obliged to make under the 2004 Act.

Roger Williams (Brecon & Radnorshire, Liberal Democrat)

Amendments Nos. 194 and 302 place in the Bill the people or bodies of whom inquiries should be made. Again, we include among those people young children. Investors in Children, the quality kitemark created by the DFES, says that, in assessing quality of provision and education, the views of children and young people should be taken into consideration.

I know that we have emphasised this issue before, but we return to it because it is so important. As I understand it, the children’s commissioners in Wales and England place a great deal of emphasis on the value of talking to children and getting their views on issues that affect them and in which they are involved. It would improve the Bill if the profile of children and young people in determining their own services could be enhanced, particularly in Wales, where the commissioner’s role is slightly different from that of his counterpart in England.

I believe that the commissioners should be involved in assessments. In Wales the children’s commissioner can take on complaints from individuals, whether they are parents, children or young adults. By working through those complaints and resolving them, his own work can be better informed. Indeed, in Wales, some of the work that he has done has directly followed on from comments and complaints by young people. For those reasons we believe that which people should be consulted on such matters should be set out in both the English part and the Welsh part of the Bill, and their views should be taken into consideration.

Beverley Hughes (Minister of State (Children, Young People and Families), Department for Education and Skills; Stretford & Urmston, Labour)

On amendment No. 106, I made it clear this morning when the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) was necessarily detained in another part of the House that we would require local authorities to publish their assessments. However, it is better to set out the requirements of how and when they do so in regulations because we can take into account different   ways in which the document might be published or how it might be distributed. There is no difference between us in principle on that.

The children’s commissioner will be able to access information, but requiring every local authority to send him a copy of their child care assessment is rather burdensome, not least for the commissioner, who would have reams of paper arriving on his desk. The commissioner will want to focus on particular issues, largely those brought to him by children. Although it will be possible for him to take up an issue relating to an area’s assessment, we should not require authorities routinely to send them to him or require him to receive them.

On amendments Nos. 194 and 302, I have already made it clear in the note that we have circulated that there will be a wide specification of the groups that local authorities have to consult as part of the process, so I hope that hon. Members are assured that they are unnecessary. I invite the hon. Gentleman to withdraw his amendment.

Tim Loughton (Shadow Minister (Children), Health; East Worthing & Shoreham, Conservative)

As I said, my amendment is a probing one. I am sure that the children’s commissioner will be very disappointed not to be festooned with all this extra paperwork.

However, my serious point is that we do not want the children’s commissioner to stick his nose into the successes or shortcomings of a particular authority. That is not his remit and he will have an enormous job of work to do with limited resources compared with those of his counterparts in other parts of the United Kingdom, but that is another debate. We want the children’s commissioner to have an overview of how certain authorities are achieving the assessment, so that someone is monitoring that process independently of the Secretary of State—this is one of the joys of being children’s commissioner, someone who jealously guards his independence. That would enable him to determine which authorities are doing it effectively and well and which appear not to be doing it quite so well. He would then be able to report to the Secretary of State and others on the process as he sees it from an independent standpoint.

As I said, this is a probing amendment; the point has been made and the Minister has responded. On that basis, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.