Clause 45 - Power to enable exemptions to be conferred
Childcare Bill
2:15 pm

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

I beg to move amendment No. 233, in page 22, leave out line 25.

David Amess (Southend West, Conservative)

With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment No. 234, in page 22, leave out line 30.

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

These two amendments were put forward by a group of child care experts. They are probing amendments on matters about which people would like clarification from the Minister. They propose that certain lines should be left out of the Bill, and I am sure that by justifying why they should be left in, the Minister will be able to tell us exactly what their significance is.

The National Children’s Bureau and the Early Childhood Forum are concerned that groups of providers could be exempt from the need to meet the learning and development requirements. They say:

“Our experience indicates that as this is a national framework, all providers should be expected to work towards it and that settings will not improve in quality if there are whole classes of exemptions allowed. This also has implications for the training of early years providers.”

The second amendment in this group is significant because those same groups are concerned that the Bill might mean that severely disabled children, for example, could be taken out of the equation. Their question is: should not this framework be a challenge for all?

I can understand why the exemption was used for the previous foundation stage. Blind children were exempted from handwriting tests. That seems perfectly reasonable, but I seek clarification from the Government about the circumstances in which they envisage this provision being used. I would not want a general bracketing with a child with specific disabilities. It would be a lot easier to exempt them but I do not think that the Government are trying to take the easy option as far as children with disabilities are   concerned, and that is not what the Minister is committed to doing. A clarification would be helpful for all of us.

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

This is an important clause. As we have stressed, the point of the early years foundation stage, and the new regulatory and inspection framework that supports it, is quality. The bringing together of the existing frameworks is crucial to deliver high-quality outcomes for children. As a result, all schools and registered providers, other than those exempted under the clause, will be required to deliver the early years foundation stage. For the first time, regardless of what setting they attend, that will ensure that all children receive high-quality, integrated education and care provision.

Initially for some individual providers this may be challenging. The exemptions power in subsection (1) will enable, on an exceptional basis, the Secretary of State to exempt providers from having to deliver all aspects of the foundation stage. Such exemptions would be made only in exceptional circumstances: for example, on a time-limited basis during which period we would expect local authorities to use their powers under clause 13 to support providers in improving the quality of their practice and to give them training so that they are able to deliver the foundation stage.

We do not want to use that power to exempt providers for a long period of time or indefinitely to exclude them from the general direction of travel, because it is all a matter of quality. However, there may be circumstances in which an individual provider could be released from all the requirements for a period under close observation and with support from the local authority to allow it to come up to the right standard.

Subsection (2) enables the Secretary of State to make regulations permitting providers to disapply some of the learning and development requirements for a particular child, which would depend on particular circumstances. It would have to be decided on a case-by-case basis, rather than a category one. The benchmark for us would be what was in the best interests of an individual child.

However, as we take forward the development of the early years foundation stage, we must ensure that we can provide for human rights implications and the rights of parents to ensure that—within appropriate boundaries—their children are cared for in accordance with their own philosophies and beliefs. Subsection (2) provides this flexibility to be able to take account of specific circumstances, philosophies or parental values.

We have to have this flexibility in the Bill to take account of some of those exceptional circumstances, but I reassure the hon. Lady that we regard any exemption as being exceptional and mostly for a time-limited period to enable people to reach the ability to deliver the early years foundation stage in full. For the reasons I have outlined, we need the power to have that flexibility in the Bill.

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

I thank the Minister. She really did cover my concerns thoroughly in that response. I was quite pleased that the local authority’s role and quality were acknowledged. I think that we exchanged looks at that point. With that, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.