Education Bill

Before the noble Baroness replies, can I pick up two or three points in what the Minister said? To begin, I again warmly welcome the Government’s commitment to recruit more health visitors. That just seems so vital and may well answer some of the noble Baroness’s concerns. I mentioned recently a visit to Walthamstow where a health visitor saw a mother with a young infant. She tried to persuade the mother to go to the local children’s centre but only had one bite at the cherry to do so. She had a statutory responsibility to see families something like five times before the age of five. She only had a short period—some 15 minutes or so—to spend with this mother. There was no father; he was absent. The mother’s family was in Africa. The only people she knew in the area were local church people who came and helped her. She was otherwise completely isolated. If we reinforce health visiting and strengthen family/nurse partnerships, people like that mother might be encouraged to use children’s centres and engage. We might reach out to more vulnerable families. I warmly welcome the Government’s commitment in that area. I may be wrong about my concern with regard to private providers; I reiterate that there are many outstanding private providers in many areas. However, when we discussed the Childcare Act, some of the evidence appeared to indicate a higher staff turnover among some of the private providers. Can the Minister provide information about staff turnover in early-years nursery provision as that seems to me the crucial piece of data? If we can see how private providers compare with local authority providers and voluntary providers, we can get a sense of their performance. Although that information obviously needs to be put in context, I think we all agree that the most important thing for any infant is a stable relationship with their carer. A high turnover of staff in a setting certainly gives cause for concern. I have had the privilege of speaking with a manager of a Montessori centre on a number of occasions and have great admiration for that approach. I am grateful to the noble Lord for his support for the other comments that I have made today. I understand the Government’s concern not to be overly prescriptive and to avoid rigidity as far as possible as regards setting minimum standards. However, the noble Lord spoke about the health service setting certain minimum standards for its practitioners. If we all agree that the early years are the most vital point in a child’s life and that this measure is a very important way of breaking the cycle of disadvantage, perhaps we need to think a bit more about whether, given the current enormous financial pressures on local authorities, we might do more to assist them to make the best decisions for children in these circumstances. I am sure that we will discuss this further.