Childcare Bill

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Blackpool, North and Fleetwood (Mrs. Humble), whose constituency title is almost as complicated as mine. She has brought great experience and knowledge to the debate. On behalf of the Liberal Democrats, I welcome the Bill. Given that much of our long-term policy work and commitment relating to early years provision is compatible with the 10-year child care strategy, it would be churlish not to express that general support. However, that does not mean that the Bill has our wholehearted support in its present form. There are a number of issues that I shall raise, and a great deal of detail will have to be addressed in Committee. Like the Secretary of State, I believe it is worth reflecting on what has been achieved since 1997. I was a chair of education pre and post-1997, and I would be the first to acknowledge the extremely low base from which the Government started and the enormous progress that has been made from 1997 onwards. The creation of early years development and child care partnerships in local authorities, a free nursery education place for all three and four-year-olds whose parents want one, Sure Start, early excellence centres, neighbourhood nurseries and so on, and now children’s centres are to be extended to an additional 300,000 pre-school children across 136 local authorities, plus the extended school programme. However, issues have inevitably arisen, and given the sums of money being invested, it is right that clear evaluation and monitoring take place. I understand that in 2004–05, total public spending on child care was around £5 billion, and I agree with the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May) that we need value for money from such sums. The National Audit Office reported in 2004:"““From the launch of the measures announced in the National Childcare Strategy to spring 2003, 626,000 new childcare places for all ages were created in England. However, 301,000 places have closed””—" for every two places created, one was closed. Sustainability has been an issue and will continue to be one, and needs to be monitored. Earlier this year I recall the same confusion as the right hon. Member for Maidenhead surrounding the outcomes of Sure Start. I appreciate that evaluation is continuous at a local and national level, and given the wide local variations in schemes and the length of time that it would take nationally to get a true picture, it is important not to jump to hasty conclusions, but feedback is needed. I join the right hon. Lady in calling for some indication of when an evaluation will be published. I note that the national evaluation runs from 2001 to 2008, and is predicted to cost more than £20 million. Issues have arisen relating to the quality of provision throughout the period that I referred to—for example, the ““Panorama”” programme which showed some worrying tendencies in terms of quality in some settings. Will the roll-out programme of children’s centres, with the provision and level of non-ring-fenced resources to local authorities, mean a watering-down of the original concept and practice of Sure Start? In 2004, according to the Social Market Foundation report on life chances and early years, 26 per cent. of families reported unmet demand for child care, with lone parents, parents in deprived areas and parents of children with special needs affected most severely. Those conclusions seem to underpin the need for the type of proposals that we are discussing, especially as I assume that 26 per cent. must be an understatement of what the demand would have been if parents had access to more information on availability, affordability and so on. Further underpinning for the Bill’s strategy comes from the EPPE—effective provision of pre-school education—project, published last year, which found that pre-school children with three years’ quality pre-school provision who started in nursery at two or younger were up to a year ahead of their contemporaries in educational attainment when they started school. Notwithstanding that report, it is important to consider other evidence that might lead to different conclusions.