My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Goudie, and to share her passionate concern about the level of inequality that affects children’s start in life and therefore affects people throughout their lives.

I have been enjoying taking part in this debate and am particularly glad that the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, brought her expertise to this afternoon’s session. I was particularly interested in her focus on advertising built into apps, built into systems where parents feel as if they are doing the right thing by exposing their children to them. It is the Green Party’s policy to ban all advertising targeted at children of primary school age or under, because there is psychological evidence that shows that children are unable to distinguish between editorial content and advertising content—where, indeed, there is a difference between those two. I understand that it may not be in her brief, but I ask the Minister later, if possible, to say what actions the Government plan to crack down on advertising aimed at a vulnerable population with no way of understanding that what has been targeted at it is advertising.

I particularly thank the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, for giving us the opportunity for this debate and for introducing it so powerfully. I have crossed out quite a number of things in my speech in an attempt not to repeat but rather to add to what has been said in this debate. I note that for the second debate in a row, there are no Tory Back-Bench speakers. I have to draw the contrast between this debate and yesterday’s debate on the Autumn Statement, where we saw a large number of speakers with a very different gender balance. I urge those who participated in yesterday’s debate, if they read the Hansard of this debate, to think about the fact that if they will not think or care about early childhood education for other reasons, they should at least acknowledge this is the foundation of our economy. In yesterday’s debate, we were—as we are practically every day in the House—lamenting the terrible level of productivity in the UK. Where is the foundation of that? With our inadequate early years provision. If you will not care about it for other reasons, please think about caring about it for that great god of the economy.

The noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, in setting up this debate, focused on the impact of Covid, and we have already heard very powerful testimony about that, but it has exacerbated problems right through our education system from early years onwards. Of course, when children leave the early years system, they go immediately to baseline testing. Then, in primary schools they have SATs and all the pressure, worry and concern that they raise. Our whole education system is focused on teaching to the test, treating children like an empty vessel into which a whole lot of information is poured. They are shaped into a work-ready form. I go back to 2013 and the then Childcare Minister, Liz Truss—you might remember her. Liz Truss, having, in her position as Minister, toured a number of early years settings, said:

“I have seen too many chaotic settings, where children are running around. There’s no sense of purpose”.

I ask the Minister if that still reflects the philosophy and approach of the Government.

As an alternative approach that I think the Government should be taking, I will point her towards the work of Paul Ramchandani, the world’s first Professor of Play in Education, Development and Learning, who is based at the University of Cambridge. I encourage the department to look at the professor’s work, which very much focuses in the early years setting on the fact that that play is fundamental for children to learn and develop. For younger children, that is where they learn to communicate, to share, to interact with other children and to manage their emotions when things do not work out. There is an excellent article in the Times Education Supplement covering this much more broadly than I have time to today. Does the Minister agree that early years education has to be focused on the development of the whole child, rather than making them school-ready in the narrow Liz Truss sense?

In addressing this debate, I have three sections: philosophy, staff and some inequality points, building on the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Goudie.

One of the things to think about in the Green Party philosophy is that early years education should go on for longer. In many countries, academic learning is not introduced until the age of seven. These early years should be regarded as a unique educational stage in their own right, not just as preparation for school. Here is one of the practical realities that we see: I am sure that many of the noble Lords taking part in this debate are regularly contacted by parents who are concerned about their child being the youngest in the year and struggling developmentally to keep up with children who are almost a year older than them. We need to recognise the variance in children’s development and give them the chance to develop in that early years setting, which should—indeed, can—be much more flexible and adaptable than a school setting could ever possibly be.

We think that we should see a movement towards the early years going on for longer. One thing that is really important, but which much of our early years provision does not currently enable, is regular access to outdoor green spaces and nature. We are very much aware of the fact that this has both educational and health benefits. We now understand that the human microbiome is crucial to our well-being. Being in natural environments, for example playing in the mud, has all kinds of health benefits to which, sadly, many of our young children simply do not have access either in their early years setting or in their home environment. The science shows us that the benefits are huge. I do not know whether the Minister can offer me any hope that the Government acknowledge the importance of that exposure to the natural world—that is, physically being in the natural world. Can she say whether the Government have any plans to increase that opportunity?

I come to staffing, which the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, has already covered quite a bit; I will lean heavily here on the Early Education and Childcare Coalition’s report, prepared with the Women’s Budget Group. The Government are talking; I welcome them saying, “We need to expand early years provision and improve the quality”. However, the coalition’s figures show that 57% of nursery staff are planning to leave their jobs in the next year, while two-thirds of nurseries are already reporting an average waiting time of six months for a place. We have a long-term situation where car mechanics are generally paid far more than childcare workers. This is an old feminist commentary on the gendered nature of those two roles, of course, but we have to acknowledge that this issue is crucial for all our futures. We need to value our workers.

Some of the practical recommendations from the coalition are really worth focusing on; they are not necessarily enormously expensive. They include having a career development hub at the Department for Education, because one thing that this study and others have very much focused on is the fact that there is not really any way for people to develop their skills practically. Nurseries are often understaffed and struggle to keep up with the legislative requirements on staffing levels. Their ability to have time for staff to go away for training and further development just is not there. What is also crucial—I will come back to this—is the need for more special educational needs training so that we can meet the increasing demands for special educational needs provision in early years education.

Further to that point about allowing staff to go away for training, the report recommends a system of having bank staff at the local authority level to enable staff to take time out for training. This would mean that staff could do so without any negative implications for their employer. There is also the experts and mentoring scheme for childminders. Do the Government plan for that to become a permanent programme?

I will finish with a point that I have raised before with the Minister and cannot avoid raising in this context, as we are focusing so broadly on the early years sector—the rising number of hedge funds and those in the financial sector investing in it. These people are not running nurseries because they are passionate about children’s development or because they really want to make a difference. By definition, they are there to make a profit. There are now 81,500 childcare places in England owned by investment funds and similar organisations. That is almost double the total in 2018.

A report from UCL academics last year said that these are very risky financial models, heavily indebted and at real risk of collapse—as we have seen in the care home sector. I put this on the record because I suspect that many parents do not realise the role of the financial sector in their provision. We all know how desperately parents have to hunt around for a place and then grab what they can, but I wonder whether they know that Busy Bees Nurseries is owned by the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan. Kids Planet is owned by the private equity firm Fremman Capital, which has recently been on a large buying spree of expansion. The Dutch private equity firm Waterland recently acquired Partou. The London-based Oakley Capital owns what it renamed the Bright Stars Nursery Group, which is one of the fastest growing.

We are talking about something fundamental. We are talking about the future—and we are not doing very well.