Deprivation/Child Poverty

I completely agree with the hon. Gentleman's point about the importance of quality. The point that I am trying to make is that although the regulations that the Government have introduced in an effort to achieve their laudable aim have improved quality in some respects—I am sure that hon. Members on both sides of the Chamber would sign up to that aim—they might also accidentally be squeezing out some potentially high-quality providers. I have no problem with squeezing out poor-quality provision—that is absolutely fine—but highly regulated, bureaucratically defined provision can often lead to other, unusual, different kinds of high-quality provision being excluded too. I suspect that that is one of the problems that we are seeing at the moment, which is why we have a mismatch between what parents want and what is being provided, and that has resulted in a large number of underused and vacant places in the existing child care sector. I was therefore concerned by the Government's response, which did not seem to address the issue or suggest that any material change was in the wind. Clearly, there must be some way of providing a high-quality but far more flexible set of services at an affordable cost or at a different time of day, a different day of the week or a different month of the year. In that way, people who do not want to work from 9 to 5, but at other times of the day, or those who want to continue their jobs during school holidays, would not have to give up their jobs when the existing level of provision caused them child care problems. I was filled with gloom when I read the Government response. Yesterday, however, the clouds parted, and I saw a ray of sunshine. Two of the Minister's colleagues came to give oral evidence to the Committee on the issue of care. That was part of an inquiry into social care, but there are clear parallels and overlaps with the causes of child poverty, as I am sure that the Minister will understand. The difference between the Government's approach to social care and what they said in response to the Committee's report was stark. Yesterday, the Under-Secretary of State for Health, the hon. Member for Bury, South (Mr. Lewis), who has responsibility for care services, said that the Government were trying to move towards a system of personal budgets and personal accounts, giving people control over the money that is spent and allowing them to choose who provides their care services. He said that the Government were looking at three different models. In one, people would employ their own staff and run their own operation. In the second, they would get the money and pay a traditional care provider to provide a service. In the third, the person would want the maximum ability to articulate their own needs and would want the authorities to settle the bills because they would not want the hassle of the bureaucracy. He then went on to tell the Committee that"““it is not just about choosing from the existing menu. The whole point of giving people personal budgets is to change the provider side. It is to change the menu, not to choose from traditional conventional services. If we are going to create a flexible system, it is not just about giving people power and control, it is also making sure that the provider side, the supply side, is completely different and people can use that money in an innovative and imaginative way.””" The Under-Secretary then got the wind in his sails and a couple of pages later started to get very enthusiastic. He said that"““it is about completely reorganising the relationship between the State and the citizen. It is a massive redistribution of power, frankly, from the State to the citizen without leaving the citizen alone.””" He finished by saying that"““I think probably personal budgets in the hands of lead professionals, right and responsibility contracts, ruthlessly identifying which families we are talking about would be a major way of tackling child poverty and breaking into generational deprivation, stopping kids drifting into the criminal justice system, supporting good parenting. It has the potential to transform.””" That was eye-opening, fresh and new and I thought that it was a potential answer to a great many of the criticisms and concerns outlined in our report. The contrast between what he had to say and the Government's response to the report was very stark, so I hope that the Minister will explain to us either that the Department is examining that approach, to see how it can be applied to child poverty more generally, and particularly to child care issues, or, if it is not, why not. One of the answers I have recounted seems a great one; the other one, as encapsulated in the Government's reply to the report, does not.