I speak as a former teacher with 20 years’ experience in education, so I will speak from a personal point of view. I also plan to speak fairly briefly. I will speak in particular about clause 2 because there are issues with it.
Years ago, I worked at Glasgow University in a team that trained new teachers, from nursery teachers through to secondary science teachers. As part of that job, I had to visit students on their placements. I visited one student in a particularly deprived area of Glasgow. There was a small boy who had started school a few weeks before the visit and he had only one word in his vocabulary: “man”. He used that word for any adult or older pupil. He was not a child with special educational needs, but his language development was severely behind where it should have been. The hon. Member for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell) mentioned an 18-month developmental gap. For that particular child, the gap was closer to two years. That is a very difficult gap to make up.
Some great work was done by a Notre Dame sister who was a secondary head teacher in Liverpool. She came to Glasgow to look at inner-city schools and the difficulties that young children had in communicating and making their views known. She worked very closely with the parents and realised that early intervention was key. This nun, Doreen Grant, wrote a fabulous book called “Learning Relations”, which Members might want to tap into from time to time.
The proposal for 30 hours of childcare will be fantastic for working parents. It is extremely important and will make a massive difference to their lives. I therefore welcome it. However, we need to be careful about the language we use and should think about revising it. We keep talking about “childcare”. In Scotland, we talk about “early-years education”. The education programme starts at the age of three. I am talking not about formal education and learning to read and write, but about learning to communicate, learning about relationships and starting to work through a curriculum. There is a subtle but fundamental difference between the word “childcare” and the words “early-years education”. Childcare is about the parents. It is about supporting them, benefiting them and making their lives more convenient. Of course, it benefits the children as well—I am not denying that. However, early-years education is focused 100% on the children. It is about improving their life chances.
The Secretary of State said that the Conservative party was the only party to have in its manifesto a commitment to 30 hours a week of childcare. I am sure that was a slip-up, because of course the Scottish National party had a commitment to 30 hours’ early-years education in its manifesto. The difference, of course, was that that was for all children. We are talking about education as a way of increasing life chances and reducing inequality, so it is crucial that we do not limit it to families where both parents are in work. Clause 2 will further increase inequality, as the children most in need of a good start and early intervention could miss out.
I am concerned that three groups of parents are not fully addressed in the Bill. First, we have heard about children with disabilities, and I welcome the Secretary of State’s commitment to ensure that provision will be made for them, but what about parents with disabilities
who are not able to work? Where will their children be left? They could be further excluded from society and miss out on chances. Extremely young children could have to take on a caring role, so I feel strongly that the provision set out in the Bill has to be increased to include parents with disabilities who are unable to work.
I am also concerned about grandparents, sometimes elderly grandparents, who look after children. No provision is made for them, and they too have to fulfil the requirement of being in work in order to access the 30 hours of childcare. We have an opportunity to make a real difference to those carers, who are unsung heroes in society.
The third group of parents I am concerned about is those on zero-hours contracts. The right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) mentioned flexible working, but what about those people? Unless we have a firm commitment to childcare provision for them, they will not be able to access it. That is really worrying.
There is a famous quote, which has been attributed to a lot of different people—“Give me the boy until he is seven and I will give you the man.” That is key, because what we do at the early stages makes such a difference. The Secretary of State talked about school-readiness and the difference that the 30 hours of childcare will make to young children when they go to school. Are we only going to ready children from some sectors of society? I urge the Secretary of State to expand the provision so that all children, particularly those from a disadvantaged background, can access it.
We have an opportunity to support both parents and children, and I urge the Secretary of State to follow the Scottish Government’s ambitious target of providing 30 hours of childcare—or better, 30 hours of early-years education—to all children.
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