My Lords, I shall speak to Amendments 4 and 4A in this second group. Amendment 4, and Amendment 4A, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, relate to flexible childcare provision for working parents. When we debated the amendment on Report, I was clear that the Government are fully committed to ensuring that sufficient flexible provision of childcare is made available to support hard-working parents. Indeed, if the new additional free hours are to support parents to work, they need to be delivered in a way that meets parental demand. We know that a large number of parents, particularly those on low incomes, work all year round and outside nine to five. We want to ensure that the new entitlement provides childcare to support their working patterns.
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I will come on to explain why we think that the amendment to the Bill the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, proposes would not deliver a flexible system in practice but I would first like to thank her for highlighting this very important issue, and reiterate that the Government strongly agree with the principle of this amendment. We have made good progress on flexibility since Report stage in October. As a result, I am pleased to confirm that regulations will cover the need for childcare to support parental working patterns, and that we will review statutory guidance to remove any barriers to flexibility and clearly set out the types of flexibility that local authorities should consider.
In developing the regulations and guidance, we need to work closely with local authorities and providers to look for innovative ways to meet the needs of parents, and to encourage new providers to enter the market to give parents more choice. We need to build on the existing best practice of local areas offering flexibility in the childcare system—for instance, Brighton & Hove City Council, where 82% of year-round nurseries offer a stretched entitlement; Bradford council, which offers a community nanny scheme, providing flexible childcare for lone parents struggling to access work or training; and Swindon council, which has started offering weekend sessions. The department is already working with local authorities and the Local Government Association through a newly established local authority working group to identify and address any barriers to offering flexible provision.
It is clear that the market will need to adapt to support a flexible childcare offer in the extended entitlement, and we will encourage different types of providers to offer the additional hours. Childminders, for example, will have a very important role to play. More than 46,000 childminders are registered on the Early Years Register and we want carefully to consider how to encourage more of them to offer the free entitlement, as we know that they can contribute to flexible delivery in a way that many other providers cannot—such as providing childcare overnight and outside term time.
This Government have removed many of the previous restrictions to childminders offering the free entitlement. We have seen significant increases in the number of childminders offering funded hours as a result, and we want this to continue. From this January, childminders are able to spend up to half their time working from non-domestic premises. This is opening up new opportunities for them—for example, in working with schools—and will further enhance their role in the 30-hours delivery.
I am pleased that the Government have today announced the successful early implementer areas, where the extended entitlement will be introduced a year early, and will look at ways to provide flexible childcare for working parents. All the early implementers will test innovative approaches to encourage flexibility, and four out of eight of the early implementers will have a specific focus on it. When I met the noble Baronesses, Lady Pinnock and Lady Tyler, last night, I slightly sold ourselves short when I said that the figure was three out of eight. It is, in fact, four out of eight. The noble Baroness was pleased with three; I hope that she is even more pleased with four.
There are some very exciting proposals. For example, York will test a “banking system” to enable parents to access the extended entitlement during the school holidays, and Portsmouth will trial a stretched offer over 51 weeks supported by sessional providers and childminders working in partnership. The Government have also announced £4 million of funding for early innovators to test flexible and different approaches to delivering the extended entitlement with a number of providers across the country.
While the Government agree with the principle of ensuring that the 30 hours is delivered flexibly, we have been clear that placing requirements around flexibility in primary legislation—as the noble Baroness sought at Report stage, and again today with her Motion to disagree with the Government’s amendment—is not the right approach, and the other place agreed. I would like to be very clear that such requirements in primary legislation would simply not work in practice. Dare I say that her amendments to increase flexibility would, we think, be very inflexible? Local authorities are dependent on the market to supply childcare places and it would not be reasonable to place a statutory duty on them to guarantee out-of-hours and holiday provision for every parent who wants it, since their local childcare market may not be able to deliver this.
There are a number of local authorities, particularly in the north-east, where the majority of childcare is delivered by sessional providers, such as maintained schools or nurseries. These providers cannot offer out-of-hours or holiday provision and placing a duty on local authorities will not change this overnight. It is also important to note that local authorities, rightly, cannot require private providers to deliver childcare. Therefore, it is simply not right to give them a legal duty to secure flexible provision for every parent in their area.
Every parent’s needs are individual, and while the priority for some parents is to be able to access childcare during the school holidays, for others the pinch point is between them leaving work and collecting their child from a childcare provider. Different local authorities need to work with their local childcare providers to ensure that these needs can be met; a one-size-fits-all approach in primary legislation will not allow them to do this. As the Local Government Association has said:
“We are pleased the Government listened and has removed clauses which would have allowed the Secretary of State to prescribe the types of and times at which childcare is provided. The clauses would have placed duties on local authorities that they have little control over.”
I know that one of the issues which the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, is rightly concerned about is ensuring that there will be transparency on how the entitlement is delivered and that flexible childcare is available for parents. I reassure the noble Baroness that this is really important and that is why we have included a requirement in the Bill for local authorities to publish information to parents on their local childcare offer, which will include information on the availability of childcare and how that fits with parental need. I hope the noble Baroness will find this reassuring.
On the basis of the work that the department has under way with local authorities to remove barriers to delivering flexible childcare, and the commitments made in the other place around regulations and statutory guidance, I hope that noble Lords are content to support the Government’s position. I beg to move.
Amendment 4A to the Motion on Amendment 4