Childcare Bill

Public Bill Committee, 8 December 2005.

Childcare Bill - Standing Committee D

Childcare Bill

Sir David Amess (Conservative, Southend West)

Due to a printing error, amendments Nos. 71 and 72 have been printed at the start of today’s amendment paper, although they were debated on Tuesday afternoon. I apologise for the slight mistake.

Clause 3 - Specific duties of local authority in relation to early childhood services

Tim Loughton (Conservative, East Worthing and Shoreham)

I beg to move amendment No. 72, in page 3, line 9, after ‘persons’, insert

‘and voluntary and professional bodies’.

Sir David Amess (Conservative, Southend West)

With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment No. 193, in page 3, line 10, at end insert—

‘(d)young children’.

Tim Loughton (Conservative, East Worthing and Shoreham)

This is a probing amendment and has been grouped with a Liberal Democrat amendment that deals with a rather different subject, but we shall touch on that at the same time.

The clause includes a list of people with whom an English local authority must engage when it is drawing up and implementing its child care provision plans. We have no objection to that at all and we are particularly pleased with the reference to “parents and prospective parents”. My hon. Friend the Member for South-West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) will greet the inclusion of that as well; it is a subject he may wish to speak about later. The clause also refers to the need to consult early years providers and, equally importantly, it states that the private and voluntary independent sectors should be involved. I am pleased that they are mentioned because they are an important part of the child care provision that we are trying to improve.

The clause goes on to use the fairly catch-all term:

“other persons engaged in activities which may improve the well-being of young children in their area.”

That refers only to people, so we have tabled a probing amendment that refers to voluntary and professional bodies. It is not clear from the explanatory notes whether they would be included automatically. I am sure that they should be and that the Minister intends for them to be included, but it would be useful to clarify the matter during the debate.

A great many voluntary organisations and charities involved with children have done a lot of work in this area and lobbied hard for much of what is in the Bill. They will be an essential part of local decision making and consultation by ensuring that what local authorities are facilitating is appropriate and sufficient. There are also professional and trade bodies representing various independent nurseries; all sorts of other organisations have come together into lobby groups to lobby on the provisions. It is right that those groups should be given a role in what will not be an easy task—the new provision of child care—and it is essential that local authorities are left in no doubt that they should be consulted on an equal basis to the others explicitly listed in the clause. The amendment is a probing one, and I am hopeful that the Minister will say that those groups are automatically included under the various technical definitions used. It will be helpful for her to say that and send out a strong signal on the matter.

I have a good deal of sympathy with amendment No. 193, in the name of the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke), which seeks to add young children to the list as an integral part of the consultation process. Just because a child is young, it does not mean that we can pat them on the head and ignore them.

The National Children’s Bureau has done some interesting work and produced interesting guidance on exactly how we can consult and take account of the views, wishes and preferences of young and very young children. They can be observed in different environments. When a nursery is being built or when a property is being adapted to be a nursery, it is essential to observe how children act in their environment. If the environment is wrong in terms of doors and windows, nooks and crannies, and places where they can play comfortably and be safe, their development and success at that nursery could be impaired. There are a number of ways in which to take on board the views of young children without requiring them to write an essay or to fill in a survey form for the local authority.

Another point, which is not pedantic, is that when we discussed the 2004 Children Bill the Government recognised the importance of properly consulting young children as part of the exercise of setting up the various structures in the legislation. The new children’s commissioner made that a key part of his mandate. Not only was he interviewed by young children, which was apparently one of the more gruelling parts of his selection process, he regularly consults and without a second thought includes children in the various processes that he is dealing with. It would be useful if that could be put in the Bill because it would send a clear signal to local authorities that they should do that automatically. That would greatly benefit the process and add to the quality of the outcomes.

We support the amendment tabled by the hon. Lady, as well as our amendment No. 72.

Annette Brooke (Liberal Democrat, Mid Dorset and North Poole)

I want to reciprocate the support of the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton). I agree with the principles of amendment No. 72. I am not sure about the drafting, but the hon. Gentleman has outlined the people and groups that need to be fully involved. It would be comforting to those groups to state in the Bill that they will be involved throughout.

On amendment No. 193, I was heartened by the rebuff from the Minister on Tuesday in so far as I understand that under clause 3(4)

“An English local authority must take all reasonable steps to encourage and facilitate the involvement in the making and implementation of arrangements under this section”.

I was assured that that included listening to parents as well as implementation. I am therefore encouraged that inserting paragraph (d), which would include listening to young children, into the list would be totally appropriate.

The hon. Gentleman referred to the pioneering work by the National Children’s Bureau and others, and I also referred to that at an earlier sitting. I am pleased that the Government have been so supportive of that work. However, to have a commitment to listen to the views of young children has yet to be enshrined in law and what better place to start than the Childcare Bill? This is an opportunity to be pioneering.

The Early Childhood Forum’s response to the consultation on the 10-year child care strategy states:

“In particular there is disappointment that the ethos of listening to children, which was prevalent in the Every Child Matters document, is not mentioned nearly enough to warrant recognition of the importance it has on the quality of service provision and the well being of children. Nor will this document be a catalyst for changing the attitudes towards listening to our youngest children. It would be a shame to miss the ideal opportunity to cement that commitment to listening to children from birth about the services they use.”

Listening to young children is a foundation for quality early childhood practice. In fact, it is a way of spreading best practice between local authorities and providers because the interaction would enhance the service and introduce all the practices that we will have, perhaps in regulations, when we know more about the early foundations stage.

It is an amendment that we can put forward confidently, because the additional duty of listening to young children is unlikely to be an added cost, for once. It is part of the process of improving the work force and raising quality. There is quite a lot of anecdotal evidence showing how quality has been improved, and I want to refer to a paper that I was given by Investors in Children.

Mooney and Blackburn sought children’s views to identify some quality indicators for effective early years practice and environments that were used to inform the Government’s Investors in Children quality assurance scheme endorsement. Among the views expressed, it was suggested that child care settings should offer opportunities to be with friends as well as outdoor play space, refreshments, fair rules—I think that children are good at equality when they talk about what is fair and what is not fair—and caring and interested adults who listen. How often do we hear “Nobody is listening to me”? It was also suggested that child care settings should offer a safe environment—I think that children are good judges of that—and so on. The paper contains a great deal of good practice, and I offer the Minister this pioneering opportunity to agree to amendment No. 193.

Justine Greening (Conservative, Putney)

Perhaps the Minister can provide some clarification on this brief point when she responds to my hon. Friend.

Subsection (2) refers to the duty of local authorities to identify parents or prospective parents. I take it that that means biological prospective parents rather than people who are thinking of having children. I also note that clause 11(3) says:

“Subsequent childcare assessments must be prepared at intervals not exceeding three years.”

As parents are prospective parents for no more than nine months, I wonder whether there is a slight contradiction there that should be tidied up or clarified by the Minister. To fulfil their obligations, local authorities are likely to have to do inspections and assessments more frequently than every three years.

Sir David Amess (Conservative, Southend West)

Order. The Committee was delighted to listen to the hon. Lady, but may I gently tell her that what she said was not relevant to the amendments that we are debating; it is a point for clause stand part. I am sure that the Minister will know how to deal with the points that she made.

Beverley Hughes (Labour, Stretford and Urmston)

We have heard that amendment No. 72 would insert a specific reference to voluntary bodies into the duty on local authorities in subsection (4)(c). Before I reply, it might be helpful, given Tuesday’s debate, if I recap on the overall purpose of the opening group of clauses.

As the Committee appreciates, clauses 1 to 5 relate to the outcomes duty, but, in practice, their combined effect is to give Sure Start services statutory underpinning, with statutory guidance explaining how the new duties are to be achieved through the children’s centre way of working. To achieve the maximum effectiveness of services to improve children’s life chances in the way that we discussed on Tuesday, clause 3 sets out the essential characteristics of those early childhood services. They must be delivered in an integrated way to facilitate access and maximise the benefits to service users, they must include a proactive outreach approach and they must involve parents in the planning and provision of services. These services are the ones specified in clause 2—early years provision, social services, such as family support, information services provided by local authorities and relevant services provided by the national health service and Jobcentre Plus. Local authorities will be able to achieve that child-focused service delivery only by working with their partners to implement the duties as set out in clause 4.

I appreciate that the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole wants to ensure that local authorities include providers from the private and voluntary sectors in the planning and delivery of those services. Those sectors play a vital role in the provision of early childhood services, and I agree that it is important that planning builds on and maximises the potential of existing services. As the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham acknowledged, that is why clause 3(4)(b) will give local authorities a duty to involve private and voluntary providers of early years provision.

Further, the duty in subsection (3)(c), on which the amendment focuses, is broadly drawn to cover everyone else who can contribute to improving the well-being of young children and to reducing inequalities. It places a wide responsibility on local authorities and their partners to involve other people and organisations engaged in relevant activities in the field of early childhood and children’s services. That includes any other relevant parts of the private and voluntary sector, beyond those early years providers referred to in subsection (4)(b), because securing the benefits of that mix of service provision is crucial to the success of children’s centres.

That is why we have reinforced that message in the children’s centres planning guidance, which was issued last year, and in the practice guidance, which was issued last week. We say that local authorities must work with the voluntary and professional bodies to plan and deliver children’s centres, and in particular they must be offered opportunities to participate in identifying local needs and developing plans to meet those needs. We stress that consultations must be held before decisions are taken about where centres should be based and what services they should provide.

We say also that local authorities should look to voluntary organisations, private companies and, in particular, social enterprise organisations not only to supply services, but to run and manage children’s centres. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will be assured that the clause is widely drawn and encompasses the concerns and questions that he raised.

Amendment No. 193 would make local authorities take all reasonable steps to encourage and facilitate the involvement of young children not in the practice and services that they receive, on which the hon. Lady focused, but, in relation to this clause, in the planning of early childhood services.

We agree that early childhood services will be effective only if they engage not only parents, but children who use them. I am committed to that, and so are the Government. That includes listening to the views of children under five years old who use the service.

The clause would place a duty on local authorities to consult young children on the planning of services, because the words in the clause relate to the making and implementation of arrangements. I hope that the hon. Lady can appreciate that although she was talking about young children’s experience of the service delivery, there are practical difficulties in engaging that age group in meaningful, wide-ranging formal consultation about such questions as where children’s centres should be located.

Annette Brooke (Liberal Democrat, Mid Dorset and North Poole)

I thought that it might be appropriate to insert listening to young children in that provision of the Bill, because the provision starts with taking “all reasonable steps”. I agree with some of the Minister’s comments, but the caveat “reasonable steps” would not bring young children into some of the detailed physical arrangements the Minister might be talking about. I also concede that ethical considerations need to be taken on board when working with and listening to young children. Does the Minister think that

“must take all reasonable steps”

is the protective phrase, so that local authorities will not have a ridiculous duty placed on them?

Beverley Hughes (Labour, Stretford and Urmston)

I think that the phrase “all reasonable steps” concerns the scope of the duty, which is quite broad. The key question is what is it a duty to do. It is a duty to consult on matters such as where children’s centres should be. Consultation should take place on the strategic planning for children’s centre service delivery. The hon. Lady spoke knowledgably about the valuable work that has been done by the voluntary sector, and mention has been made of the Children’s Society, Mencap and the National Children’s Bureau, the work of which was funded by the Government. We are very committed to that.

The hon. Lady knows that such work is based on consulting children about their settings—what they would like to eat and drink, when they can go outside and how their experience should be organised from day to day—to involve and empower them to express their views about those experiences. I can reassure her about the concerns she expressed regarding the involvement of children at that level. It is a specialist area and it is rather too early to deal with it in this Bill. However, the children’s centre practice guidance, which I hope she has had a chance to examine, places the emphasis on practitioners listening to and involving children in the discussion of how things are organised and their experience in those settings.

The Bill requires local authorities actively to encourage and facilitate the involvement of parents when planning the provision for an area. For practical reasons, such as the ability of children to take part in high-level decisions and discussions, it is not appropriate to extend the requirement in clause 3 to young children. With regard to the day-to-day experience of children, I assure the hon. Lady that the guidance on the way in which children’s centres must be run already places a great emphasis on the involvement of children and the responsibility of practitioners to listen to them. I hope that she feels that that is acceptable and rather more appropriate.

Stephen Hesford (Labour, Wirral West)

May I encourage my right hon. Friend to maintain her position? She is right that under subsection (4)(c), those involved will be able to take account of children’s views. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole is not listening. Will those involved be able to take children’s issues into account, as the Minister outlines?

Beverley Hughes (Labour, Stretford and Urmston)

That is absolutely right. The process includes, of course, some of the most important people whom local authorities are required to consult in the making of arrangements: the parents of very young children. I hope the hon. Lady accepts that it is much more appropriate that we involve children in the delivery of practice and that it would be neither appropriate nor straightforward for young children to be involved in planning matters or for the local authorities to consult formally that population about issues such as the siting of children’s centres.

Annette Brooke (Liberal Democrat, Mid Dorset and North Poole)

Will the Minister comment on whether it would be desirable to include a requirement to listen to young children? She argues, fairly convincingly, that this might not be the right place in the Bill, but surely it is not enough to hide it away in guidance if we want to send a message to the sector about spreading good practice.

Beverley Hughes (Labour, Stretford and Urmston)

Such a requirement certainly will not be hidden away in the statutory guidance. There is an onus on us to try to make law that is feasible and reasonable. We are discussing decisions about where children’s centres would be best placed, who should manage them and which bodies apart from those listed in the Bill should be involved. It is not appropriate or feasible to expect local authorities to have a formal consultation with young children about such matters, as important as it is to push the boundaries further in involving young children in the issues that affect them on a daily basis.

Roger Williams (Liberal Democrat, Brecon and Radnorshire)

I do not believe that my hon. Friend is suggesting that local authorities consult everybody about everything, but it is appropriate, and helpful, to consult on some things. It would be useful to include that. I understand that the Children’s Commissioner for England considers it good practice to talk to children and consult them. As my hon. Friend said, this may not be the appropriate place, but laying emphasis on working with children and taking on board their views is important and would lead to better facilities for the whole community.

Beverley Hughes (Labour, Stretford and Urmston)

On what is appropriate, I think that the hon. Gentleman agreed with me rather than with the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole. I am trying to make it clear that the clause is about strategic decisions on the number of children’s centres, their siting and who should manage them. I do not think that it is appropriate or feasible to expect children under five to take part meaningfully in such consultations. Therefore, it is unreasonable to apply such a duty to local authorities.

However, having made those decisions, further decisions such as what is happening inside the children’s centre, how practitioners interact, what facilities are available, how things should be organised and the day-to-day experience of young children under five are a completely different matter, and children should and will be involved in them.

Clause 3 is about high-level planning. I do not agree with the hon. Lady that it would be appropriate to put a duty on local authorities to involve children under five in such decisions.

Tim Loughton (Conservative, East Worthing and Shoreham)

I am grateful to the Minister for elaborating on what is in the Bill and in the explanatory notes. The Bill refers to consulting with providers in the private, voluntary and independent sectors only, but I am concerned about a host of other children’s groups that may not be providers. They produce literature and provide advice, support services to young parents and outreach services, but they do not themselves provide child care nursery places or other child care facilities. However, on what the Minister said, it is clear that all those bodies have a role, and that it would be unusual for local authorities not to want to consult them. This discussion has been useful in that it will reinforce that point for local authorities.

I shall allow the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole to speak to amendment No. 193 before I say what I intend to do with amendment No. 72.

Annette Brooke (Liberal Democrat, Mid Dorset and North Poole)

I am disappointed by the Minister’s reply, as I should like the words “listening to young children” to be in the Bill. However, I listened carefully to her and I do not wish to press the amendment to a vote, as I want to look at the whole Bill to see whether there is a more appropriate place for it.

I respect the fact that the phrase is in the guidance, but this first Childcare Bill should contain the words “listening to young children”. However, I shall go through the Bill with a fine-toothed comb to see whether I can find a better place for the amendment.

Tim Loughton (Conservative, East Worthing and Shoreham)

On the basis of my earlier comments and having heard the Minister’s response, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Ann Coffey (Labour, Stockport)

I want to take this opportunity to ask the Minister a question about subsection (4), which places a duty on local authorities to

“take all reasonable steps to encourage and facilitate”

parents, early years providers and so on

“in the making and implementation of arrangements”.

That will clearly give rise to tension, as I have experienced locally, when early years providers have felt that they have not been involved as much as they might have been in discussion about the role of the children’s centres. The position has much improved. I have received good feedback from the providers in my area, who now feel that they are being included, and the system is working well, but I can foresee areas of tension in future. How does my right hon. Friend think the provision will work if an early years provider or parent feels that they have not been properly consulted?

Beverley Hughes (Labour, Stretford and Urmston)

I agree that local authorities should work closely with the private and the voluntary sector when developing children’s centres, as I made clear in my earlier response.

Our policy on the provision of child care in children’s centres has been set out in guidance. Local authorities must consider using private or voluntary provision where it is available. The guidance published last week says:

“Local authorities should avoid simply duplicating existing provision as they establish children centres. In line with the Childcare Bill, we will expect local authorities to determine whether it is appropriate for private or voluntary providers to deliver the service, before they do so themselves.”

My hon. Friend will have noticed that, under clause 8, local authorities will not be expected to provide child care unless it is appropriate for them to do so. Phase 2 of children’s centres—from 2006 to 2008—is about to begin. We have said that, where there is good local provision of child care, the children’s centre does not have to provide it.

My hon. Friend also asked what arrangements were in place to ensure that local authorities adhered to the guidance and used private and voluntary providers where possible. The current process increasingly involves children’s services advisers whom we have appointed under a director for children and learners in the Government offices. They will work closely with the local authorities for which they are responsible and look in detail at their plans to ensure that the guidance as we have expressed it is adhered to.

I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s account of the fact that in Stockport that arrangement already seems to be working well and that private and voluntary providers are happy that local authorities are working in the spirit of the policy. I am sure that that is the case elsewhere in the country. We have the mechanisms in place through those children’s services advisers to ensure that planning is appropriate and fully involves the private and voluntary sectors.

Clause 4 - Duty of local authority and relevant partners to work together

Maria Eagle (Labour, Liverpool, Garston)

I beg to move amendment No. 130, in clause 4, page 3, line 36, leave out ‘are’ and insert ‘may be’.

It is a pleasure, Mr. Amess, to serve on the Committee with you in the Chair, keeping us in good order. You are very sharp this morning, as we have already noticed. I did not have a chance to welcome you on Tuesday, although I thought about sending you a note.

Clause 4 enables local authorities and their partners to share their resources and to pool budgets, allowing them to deliver the fully integrated front-line services that we all agree have huge benefits for young children. That is in keeping with the existing operation of section 10 of the Children Act 2004, under which the arrangements for children’s trusts are made.

The amendment will allow funds pooled by a local authority and its partners to be spent in ways other than just on the functions of the authority and their relevant partners when they are jointly exercised. The current wording allows funds to be used only if they are spent on the functions of the authority and its partners which are jointly exercised. That is more prescriptive than we intended, so I bring the happy news that the amendment will correct a drafting error and allow the local authority and its partners more leeway to pool resources as fully as they decide is necessary. The amendment is permissive. It changes the power given to local authorities from a prescriptive one to a permissive one.

I hope that the Committee agrees that that will maximise flexibility so that local authorities and their partners can work together to achieve the ends that we have repeatedly said we want. I also hope that without too much ado I can persuade the Committee to agree to the amendment.

Tim Loughton (Conservative, East Worthing and Shoreham)

That was a long explanation for the addition of two words and the subtraction of one. The amendment seems amenable and we support it. Perhaps the Government will reciprocate on one of our amendments in future.

Clause 5 - Power to amend sections 2 and 4

Tim Loughton (Conservative, East Worthing and Shoreham)

The clause is short and I want to probe its meaning. I hate clauses such as this that give enormous powers to the Secretary of State to change his or her mind at a whim, but at least the clause is subject to an affirmative motion of the House, if I understand correctly the reference in clause 98, which refers specifically to clause 5. It takes a little working out.

Why would the Secretary of State want to change the definition of early childhood services? It is not one little part of what we are talking about; it is virtually all of it. Will the Minister give us some examples of why and in what circumstances she envisages the Secretary of State wanting to redefine the whole subject?

I hate such phrases as

“make such other amendments ... as appear to him to be necessary or expedient.”

Again, that seems to give the Secretary of State enormous powers. We have had long debates on the details, but we seem to be changing the assumptions on which those debates were based. Will the Minister give some examples of why the clause is necessary and what is likely to be achieved by it that is not out of keeping with the aims and objectives that we have already debated?

Justine Greening (Conservative, Putney)

I support what my hon. Friend said about this catch-all clause. In many respects, it could undermine the Bill that we are debating. Things could change dramatically.

I ask for clarification. The clause states that the Secretary of State may

“amend the definition of ‘early childhood services’”.

Does it mean only services, or could it be extended to the provision of goods and assets? We need clarification of what “services” means in this context.

Beverley Hughes (Labour, Stretford and Urmston)

I shall preface my comments by saying that the first five clauses are important to the “Every Child Matters” programme. In practice, their combined effect is to give Sure Start services statutory underpinning, with statutory guidance explaining how the duties are to be achieved through the children’s centre way of working. It is important to appreciate that.

Clause 5 allows the Secretary of State to alter by order the definition of “early childhood services” in clause 2 and, if necessary, to make consequential changes to the relevant partners who have to work together under clause 4. We recognise the potential importance of such changes. Clause 98 therefore requires that any order made under clause 5 is made by affirmative resolution. That will allow Parliament a full opportunity to debate such changes.

Clause 2 defines “early childhood services” for the purposes of clause 3 and sets out how those services must be delivered. Those services must be integrated, they must reach out to excluded families and they must involve parents and providers. The clause focuses on those key services relating to young children, parents and prospective parents that are essential to delivering the Sure Start children’s centre model. The model is for parents, from the moment they know that they are expecting a baby; it will give them a coherent pattern of child health, integrated child care and education, family support services, some free at the point of delivery and some subsidised according to income. We are defining those services because research has shown that they are vital to improving outcomes, which is at the heart of part 1.

We obviously do not have any plans to use the power to make changes, but we recognise that we may need to amend, remove or add to the services to which the clauses apply. Having the power to do so will give us the flexibility to recognise and respond to the changing needs of families over time.

The hon. Gentleman asked for some examples. Changes may be needed for a variety of reasons: to reflect new policies, alterations in how services are configured, or legal changes. For example, emerging research or evidence of best practice might require us to refine or take a different approach to child care and early childhood services. We want to create a framework in which it is possible to respond, with appropriate safeguards through an affirmative procedure, to any emerging issues.

Justine Greening (Conservative, Putney)

One of my concerns is about the suggestion that there may be an opportunity for the Government to redefine early childhood services. Local authorities will be reticent about putting in the investment to provide them, in case suddenly at some point in the future—the Minister said that there are no plans at the moment—the goalposts are moved.

My concern is that the measure will hinder rather than help the provision and improvement of early childhood services, because there will be an uncertainty in the minds of local authorities, particularly given the concerns expressed in the original debate about the lack of additional funding to provide the services. It is a real concern, as local authorities will hold back to find out whether changes come forward in future months.

Beverley Hughes (Labour, Stretford and Urmston)

I am not sure about the hon. Lady’s comments about additional funding. The massive new funding from this Government during the past seven years has marked a significant change from the situation before 1997. We have made a commitment to continue it, and that is why we are able to bring forward those proposals.

As I said, we do not envisage any changes, but it is right to allow for the framework that we are defining not to be massively changed, but to be refined in light of any emerging evidence. Given the Government’s history and commitment to this area, it is not our intention massively to change the framework.

Another example is that there might be changes in the organisation of Departments. Although we have specified in the Bill two other big public service organisations along with local authorities, we might need to refine that later to reflect other changes in departmental structures.

We may need to incorporate other pieces of legislation into the framework in the Bill. With emerging evidence and research about what is best practice for children, and departmental and legislative changes, it would be sensible for the Bill to include a facility that meant that those changes could be made flexibly but with the appropriate scrutiny of Parliament.

We accept the starting point of the hon. Members for East Worthing and Shoreham and for Putney (Justine Greening). We would not want to make changes unless they were absolutely necessary. Changes could be significant, and they should at least be debated and decided by Parliament. That is why we have proposed the affirmative procedure.

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

Will the Minister remind the Committee about the Standing Orders for such a parliamentary debate, and how long each House of Parliament would have to debate the significant changes about which she talks?

Beverley Hughes (Labour, Stretford and Urmston)

It is some time since I took part in such a debate, but from recollection I think that it takes an hour and a half. That is the convention, as I remember it. I am not sure about whether there is any flexibility; I am not a Committee Clerk.

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

I did not raise the point to test the Minister’s knowledge of Standing Orders, because I am sure that she is significantly more knowledgeable than I am about those issues, but to quiz her about whether she thinks the procedure allows a significant amount of time to debate the issue. We spent considerably more time than that debating clauses 1 to 4 on Tuesday. In all honesty, does she feel that that is sufficient time to debate significant changes to the purpose of the legislation?

Beverley Hughes (Labour, Stretford and Urmston)

Those are really matters for the House, rather than for me. I am constrained by the rules of the House and the conventions in these matters. The decision that the hon. Gentleman has to make is not whether the time for a debate under the affirmative procedure is long enough, nor is it a matter of not being prepared to agree with the proposals if he feels that the time is not long enough. The decision is whether—given the pioneering legislation that hon. Members have been kind enough to acknowledge that we are making—it is sensible to have a provision with the proper safeguards to enable us to reflect further emerging knowledge in an area in which our understanding of what helps young children to develop has accelerated very much over recent years. Should we have a provision that enables us to continue to reflect any emerging evidence and changes in our legislation? I propose that we should.

Justine Greening (Conservative, Putney)

The Minister’s comments concern me. The original definition of early childhood services in clause 2 is very broad. It refers to what aspects of services will be brought together under a local authority and to the broad provision of services. The Minister’s comments suggest that potential changes in the future could be far more prescriptive and could be top-down changes from national Government. It concerns me that, although I am happy with things in their current form, in the future there could be a far more top-down, prescriptive approach to nursery and early childhood services provision in local areas, when what may be wanted is a far more flexible, grass-roots way of meeting needs. I thought that that was what the Bill was about.

Beverley Hughes (Labour, Stretford and Urmston)

I appreciate that the hon. Lady has recently arrived in the House, but when we are making legislation, we must ensure that we do so in ways that reflect the law that is already in place. That is what the list in clause 2 does. Similarly, if there were any amendments, we would have to ensure that the changes were consistent with current or even—I made this point—emerging legislation that has not yet been passed, but which may be passed and which may be germane to the Bill. It seems only sensible to have a provision that, with the proper scrutiny, enables us to take future changes into account to ensure that they are incorporated in our aspirations for young children.

Clause 6 - Duty to secure sufficient childcare for working parents

Sir David Amess (Conservative, Southend West)

A large number of amendments have been tabled, so there will not be an opportunity for a stand part debate. Hon. Members should bear that in mind and make their points as we discuss the amendments.

Ann Coffey (Labour, Stockport)

I am not sure whether this is a point of order, but most things in this place qualify as one. The document giving notice of the amendments is helpful because it gives the amendments in numerical order so that one can find them, but I cannot find the document that follows on from the one that I had on Tuesday, which ends with amendment No. 234. Am I totally confused?

Tim Loughton (Conservative, East Worthing and Shoreham)

It is on the Table.

Ann Coffey (Labour, Stockport)

Thank you very much.

Sir David Amess (Conservative, Southend West)

That was a point of order. If, when we adjourn at 10.25 am, the hon. Lady would kindly quietly have a word with the Clerk, he will be able to help her.

Tim Loughton (Conservative, East Worthing and Shoreham)

I beg to move amendment No. 279, in page 4, line 7, after ‘must’, insert ‘using all appropriate resources.’.

Sir David Amess (Conservative, Southend West)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following: Amendment No. 224, in page 4, line 7, leave out

‘, so far as is reasonably practicable,’.

Amendment No. 89, in page 4, line 8, after ‘of’, insert

‘good quality, accessible and affordable’.

Amendment No. 90, in page 4, line 8, after ‘is’, insert ‘, and remains,’.

Amendment No. 76, in page 4, line 13, at end insert

‘, or

(c)to assist with children with disabilities or other special needs.’.

Amendment No. 232, in page 4, line 13, at end insert

‘or,

(c)to sustain caring responsibilities.’.

Amendment No. 3, in page 4, line 15, after ‘authority’, insert—

‘(aa)must actively monitor the demands from families to ensure that provision is responsive to their needs,’.

Amendment No. 230, in page 4, line 16, leave out paragraph (a) and insert—

‘(a)must have regard to the needs of parents in their area—

(i)who are eligible for the childcare element of the working tax credit,

(ii)who are eligible for the maximum entitlement to the child tax credit,

(iii)for the provision of childcare which is suitable for disabled children, and

(iv)from black and minority ethnic communities’.

Amendment No. 79, in page 4, line 17, leave out sub-paragraph (i).

Amendment No. 195, in page 4, line 20, at end insert—

‘(iii)the provision of a diverse range of childcare, and

(iv)the provision of childcare which is accessible to black and other minority ethnic groups.’.

Amendment No. 83, in page 4, line 22, at end insert

‘and to the affordability of such childcare’.

Amendment No. 84, in page 4, line 22, at end insert

‘and to the sustainability of such childcare’.

Amendment No. 99, in page 4, line 22, at end insert—

‘(e)must have regard to existing childcare operated by private and voluntary independent providers.’.

Amendment No. 100, in page 4, line 22, at end insert—

‘(f)must establish an appeals process for providers who wish to challenge the basis on which the provision of childcare is deemed to be sufficient in this section.’.

Amendment No. 125, in page 4, line 22, at end insert—

‘(g)must have regard to the quality of any childcare provided.’.

Amendment No. 126, in page 4, line 22, at end insert—

‘(h)must have regard to childcare provision for workless households, pursuant to its duties under section 1(1).’.

Amendment No. 4, in page 4, line 22, at end insert—

‘(2A)In carrying out research to comply with subsection (2) above, local authorities shall ensure compliance with guidance provided by the Market Research Council and the British Polling Council.’.

Amendment No. 127, in page 4, line 24, at end insert

‘, which will set out the factors that local authorities may consider in assessing—

(i)whether local childcare provision is sufficient, and

(ii)what constitutes reasonably practicable steps.’.

Amendment No. 239, in page 4, line 33, leave out ‘16’ and insert ‘18’.

Amendment No. 80, in page 4, leave out lines 35 and 36.

New clause 9—Appeals mechanism—

‘An English local authority must establish an appeals mechanism to enable parents unable to access childcare under the terms set out in section 6 to require the local authority to reassess the sufficiency of the provision of sufficiency.’.

Amendment No. 249, in clause 22, page 11, line 6, after ‘of’, insert

‘good quality, accessible and affordable’.

Amendment No. 250, in page 11, line 6, after ‘is’, insert ‘and remains’.

Amendment No. 253, in page 11, line 11, at end insert

‘or

(c)to assist with children with disabilities or other special needs.’.

Amendment No. 254, in page 11, line 13, at end insert—

‘(aa)must actively monitor the demands from families to ensure that provision is responsible to their needs.’.

Amendment No. 255, in page 11, line 15, leave out sub-paragraph (i).

Amendment No. 261, in page 11, line 22, at end insert—

‘(c)must have regard to existing childcare operated by private and voluntary independent providers.’.

Amendment No. 262, in page 11, line 22, at end insert—

‘(c)must establish an appeals process for providers who wish to challenge the basis on which the provision of childcare is deemed to be sufficient in this section.’.

Amendment No. 257, in page 11, line 22, at end insert—

‘(2A)In carrying out research to comply with subsection (2) above, local authorities shall ensure that relevant guidance provided by the Market Research Council and the British Polling Council is complied with.’.

Amendment No. 263, in page 11, leave out lines 35 and 36.

Amendment No. 200, in clause 98, page 49, line 24, at end insert—

‘(aa)an order under section 6,’.

Tim Loughton (Conservative, East Worthing and Shoreham)

Halfway through that diatribe I shouted “house”, but it went unnoticed. I had hoped, Mr. Amess, that in your announcement before the list of amendments you would say that the grouping was a complete nightmare and that you had decided to reorder the amendments. With the greatest respect to the Chair and the Clerk, it is not easy to deal with a group of amendments that includes no fewer than 30 amendments and a new clause, and which covers different clauses and different subjects. There is a great deal of commonality between some amendments—clearly, they should be grouped together—and some provisions that pertain to Wales mirror those that pertain to England, but many others are on a different subject. It would have been easier for the Committee if they had been separated out.

Annette Brooke (Liberal Democrat, Mid Dorset and North Poole)

I concur with the hon. Gentleman. It will be difficult to structure the discussion, as five or even six major issues are contained in the group. I hope that we will be able to work together to facilitate the discussion.

Sir David Amess (Conservative, Southend West)

Order. I have heard what both hon. Members have said and will reflect on their points as we progress further in the Bill. However, I have no doubt at all that they will be able to cope more than adequately with the challenges that they face.

Tim Loughton (Conservative, East Worthing and Shoreham)

You spoil us, Mr. Ambassador, as they say. I will try to keep some semblance of order and go through the amendments as they appear on the list. I would like hon. Friends to elaborate on certain amendments, so I will deal in detail with some but leave the others for them. I shall just touch on some of the Liberal Democrat amendments, as I have no doubt that the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole will go into them in more detail.

Amendment No. 279 is not of particular import but just happens to come first in the group. There are others that I want concentrate on more. This probing amendment, which would insert the phrase “using all appropriate resources”, goes to the heart of the dilemma that we and the Local Government Association raised in respect of proper and sufficient funding of the provisions. The Secretary of State made it clear on Second Reading that, in her view, there were no unfunded commitments in the Bill. We do not agree. Given the complexity of new duties and structures that local authorities will be responsible for, and all the other competing obligations, duties and structures that they must undertake as a result of the Children and Adoption Bill, the 2004 Act and the restructuring of children’s services departments, we have serious concerns about whether local authorities will manage with their available resources.

Justine Greening (Conservative, Putney)

Does my hon. Friend agree that the Bill will be expensive to implement successfully in some areas? My constituency includes Southfields, which has been termed locally “nappy valley” because of the high proportion of families with young children. The Bill will have a huge effect on the local authority of Wandsworth.

Tim Loughton (Conservative, East Worthing and Shoreham)

My hon. Friend makes a good point. Her constituency and that part of south-west London have transient populations. The demographics of particular areas must be considered. She is in an area that is growing younger. I represent Worthing, which used to be an area that was growing older. I am happy to say that it is now growing much younger as new developments and new families come in. It is difficult to ascertain, on the basis of long-term projections, whether local authorities will have sufficient resources. There is a question mark over the placing of a clear duty on a local authority that it “must secure”. The provision needs a rider; we have proposed “using all appropriate resources”.

Stephen Hesford (Labour, Wirral West)

I know that the hon. Gentleman said that this is a probing amendment, but if it were taken at face value, would it not be a get-out clause for local authorities that do not do their duty? They could simply make up some story about not having enough money. I do not accept his opening gambit that the provisions are unfunded.

Tim Loughton (Conservative, East Worthing and Shoreham)

I take the hon. Gentleman’s point, but there are all sorts of other checks and balances concerning how the local authority accounts for itself that would make that difficult. We do not want to give local authorities an excuse for not doing something that they should be doing and that the Bill intends them to do.

However, by the same measure, representatives of local authorities and the Local Government Association would say that if they do not have the resources, various things will have to give. The LGA, for example, wants to highlight that

“without extra investment, meeting these duties will either result in making childcare even less affordable to parents, or place additional, and unacceptable, pressures on Council Tax bills.”

It is not an either/or option. If the resources are not there, it will not happen and, despite the best endeavours to institute every dotted “i” and crossed “t” of this Bill, it still may not happen because cost pressures have increased. That is particularly true in south-east England because demographic changes have meant that the constituency those measures are aimed at has increased in size all of a sudden.

Despite best endeavours, if the resources are not there, child care is either not going to happen or quality, affordability or various other factors are going to have to give. I want a rider so that local authorities can say, “We’ve done everything that we were required to do and more, using all the appropriate resources we have at our disposal, but despite that, there may be some failings.” In such cases, the Government have to recognise that either those authorities are doing something badly and they need assistance to do it better or that their funding resources do not match up to their service obligations. That is the point of my amendment, and this is the only appropriate point at which the issue of funding can be addressed. It might be useful for the Committee to spend some time on it.

Amendment No. 224 deals with the phrase “reasonably practicable”. That is a big concern: what on earth is “reasonably practicable”? We need more finely honed definitions because that phrase could be more of an example of the sort of get-out clause mentioned by the hon. Member for Wirral, West (Stephen Hesford) than my proposed safeguard. However, I shall not steal the thunder of the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole by going into detail about her amendment.

Amendment No. 89 is key because it goes to the heart of the issues of quality we were debating earlier. The amendment would add the proviso that child care should be good quality, accessible and affordable. We have said this before, but it is no good simply creating a lot of additional child care places for the sake of it if they are not very good places or they are not sustainable. In doing so, we might actually drive out some better quality ones. I cannot see how the Government can object to such helpful additions. The Minister mentioned that quality is important; we want “quality” included in the Bill rather more than it is.

Accessibility is key. It is no good setting up a structure if parents from certain backgrounds or areas cannot access it. It is one thing to be able to say that child care places exist, but if people cannot access them for a whole host of reasons, that is not much good to those who are missing out. Affordability is also key. There is nothing to say that local authorities have not achieved their responsibilities if they produce child care places that are beyond the pocket of an awful lot of people. Again, that would be entirely self-defeating, given what the Bill is trying to achieve.

Annette Brooke (Liberal Democrat, Mid Dorset and North Poole)

Does the hon. Gentleman share my concern that it will be incredibly difficult to provide affordable, much-needed places for children with disabilities if the local authorities do not have additional resources for that purpose?

Tim Loughton (Conservative, East Worthing and Shoreham)

The hon. Lady raises a good point and perhaps we will discuss it in more detail in the context of some of the later amendments tabled by the Opposition, which deal with disability. That is a key area. Inevitably, child care places for children with disabilities or special educational needs will require more specialised provision, which will inevitably be more costly. Her point is quite right.

Amendment No. 90 relates to sufficiency. Again, we might need to question the term “sufficient”. Providing child care places is a dynamic process. We can all say that we know exactly how many children under the age of two—or whatever it might be—we have in our constituency or in a local authority area now, but in nine months’ time that figure will have changed. Given the drastic changes in demographics and the birth rate that are starting to feed through, and given that many nurseries are being set up on what is usually a five-year funding plan, it is essential that the idea of sufficiency applies not to the present, but to the foreseeable future. Forward planning is needed because, otherwise, in a short space of time, what was sufficient turns out to be woefully inadequate or to constitute over-provision, in which case there are competitive pressures and various nurseries may go out of business.

The amendment is intended to be helpful. The addition of the words “and remains” makes it crystal clear to local authorities that they must plan with at least a five-year horizon in mind and that they must be able to convince people of the sufficiency of the provision not now, but over the next few years, as the plans are rolled out.

The next amendment—we are only one sixth of the way through—is amendment No. 76, which touches on the issue of disabilities, which the hon. Lady mentioned. Subsection (1) deals with the reasons why child care places should be provided. Clearly, one reason is to enable people—particularly mothers—who face pressures juggling child care with their jobs to go out to work or to remain in jobs if they choose to do so. Hon. Members should remember that one of the basic principles that we set out for scrutinising the Bill is that there should be no bar to the lifestyle chosen by parents, whether they choose to stay at home and look after their children, to take advantage of a publicly funded or voluntary independently funded nursery or to use the extended family. Parents should have that choice and they should not be financially penalised for their decision.

The second criterion relates to parents who wish to undertake education or training to achieve a job. That is perfectly fair, but a raft of people could lose out. I have in mind those parents who have children with disabilities, of which there are many. They require special attention. Child care places may not be required to enable the parents to go out and work but to give special assistance to young disabled children which a parent is not able to provide at home, or to give needed respite to parents who, in many cases, do a fantastic job in taking on a responsibility that would otherwise fall to the state at great cost by looking after their children and becoming semi-professional carers.

We know of the extra demands that disabled children, particularly severely disabled children, can place on parents. All too often, respite is not available, and I do not mean for odd weekends or weeks off. The intensity involved in looking after some disabled children might mean that parents need several hours when somebody else takes on responsibility for the child. That might be most appropriate in a nursery so that the child can have some interaction with other children which it would otherwise miss from being stuck at home because of the nature of his or her disabilities.

If there were an assurance for somebody who looks after a disabled child that they would be able to take several hours out a week while the child is cared for at a nursery place, it would make their lives much easier. We should do much more to make the job of carer easier and not put hurdles in the way. Carers save the state a considerable amount of money by, quite rightly, making their child their number one priority. We should give them more recognition.

The next amendment is amendment No. 232, which is on a similar theme but put in slightly more politically correct terms. I shall leave the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole to elaborate on it. Amendment No. 3 is, again, to do with the dynamics of child care provision.

Ed Miliband (Labour, Doncaster North)

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Tim Loughton (Conservative, East Worthing and Shoreham)

I will probably lose my place, but I shall give way.

Ed Miliband (Labour, Doncaster North)

I have been following the hon. Gentleman’s remarks closely. I am not sure whether coherence is important in opposition, not having been in opposition myself, but does he not think that there is a slight contradiction in his amendments? Some express concern about upward pressures on council tax but others want to widen substantially the groups covered by clause 6.

Tim Loughton (Conservative, East Worthing and Shoreham)

I am surprised by the hon. Gentleman’s intervention. Perhaps he did not follow some of the points that we made earlier because he was too attached to his Blackberry. I am alarmed if he is suggesting that we should not make special provision for disabled children, who inevitably cost more, simply because that might lead to an increase in council tax. We should make special provision for such people. There is nothing incoherent about our amendments in that respect. We are trying to recognise the special needs of a special group of people with disabilities. They require special attention.

On amendment No. 3, we seek to add an additional determination when working out the sufficiency of child care, and that is that the authority

“must actively monitor the demands from families to ensure that provision is responsive to their needs”.

As we discussed earlier, a local authority must be mindful of how things change. It could say that it has laid on places, that they are at a certain church hall, new Sure Start centre or wherever, and that it has done its job. However, if parents do not access the places because of problems with them, the local authority has not achieved what it is supposed to achieve according to the spirit of the Bill, although it might technically have achieved it in practice.

Amendment No. 230, which was tabled by the Liberal Democrats, deals with the eligibility criteria in subsection (2)(a). I will leave that to the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole.

Amendment No. 79 relates to a subject that we raised on Second Reading and I should be grateful if the Minister would respond in more detail. Why should the provisions be limited to parents who are currently claiming the child care element of the child tax credit? A number of outside bodies have made representations on this point. The National Childminding Association, the Pre-school Learning Alliance, 4Children and the Daycare Trust have said that they recognise

“the benefits of good quality childcare for all children and particularly for children from workless households, who are more likely to be disadvantaged.”

They add:

“Research shows that children from disadvantaged backgrounds are likely to receive the greatest benefit from high quality early years services.”

They think that there should be equal availability for people who are not claiming the tax credit for whatever reasons. There is no explicit mention of low incomes in the Bill. Local authorities need to have regard to the needs of low-income families who are working and low-income families who are not working. They should not be excluded from the Bill.

Helen Goodman (Labour, Bishop Auckland)

I am sympathetic to the sentiment that the hon. Gentleman is expressing. An example is the children of asylum seekers. Asylum seekers are not entitled to the working tax credit, because they are not allowed to work. However, will he clarify whether, as well as dealing with vulnerable and disadvantaged groups, his amendment would place a duty on the local authority to make provision for the most advantaged, by which I mean the children of extremely wealthy people, who do not claim tax credits because their incomes are above the necessary level?

Tim Loughton (Conservative, East Worthing and Shoreham)

We said at the outset that the problem of accessible child care is a problem for everybody, but it is a particular problem for disadvantaged families and those on low incomes. If the provision is tailored purely to those who happen to be claiming the child care element of the child tax credit, that will exclude many people who are not claiming it, but who are entitled to it, many non-working families, and better-off families. Some rationing or funnelling of provision could apply to such people. Clearly, people who are more able to afford independent child care need less help than others. I am most concerned about the many non-working families who would benefit from access to additional child care, but who do not qualify under the working tax credit. Many families on the minimum wage would simply not be able to afford the fees.

Ann Coffey (Labour, Stockport)

I am listening to the hon. Gentleman’s list. Is there any group of people that he plans to exclude, in the sense that the local authority will not have to provide child care for them?

Tim Loughton (Conservative, East Worthing and Shoreham)

I do not want to exclude anyone, but there should be an inclining scale involving preferences. Clearly, the authority’s policy should not be based on how best to provide child care for people earning a substantial amount of money, who are best able to make their own arrangements. However, there are many people who fall between two stools. They might just be beyond certain qualification levels, but they might still find it difficult to find accessible and affordable child care and juggle their work practices and lifestyle. The way that the provision is phrased is too exclusive. We have tabled the amendments so that the Minister can define how those people who are excluded will be catered for.

Beverley Hughes (Labour, Stretford and Urmston)

For the benefit of the Committee and the hon. Gentleman, I should like to ensure that he understands, as I am sure that he does, that with this duty we are talking not about excluding people from child care, but about defining sufficiency—on which the question about whether the local authority has fulfilled the duty should be assessed.

The duty does not exist at the moment, but since 1997, with Government help, local authorities have managed to improve dramatically the quality and quantity of child care, and it is accessible for many families. The provision before us is about defining how local authorities will be judged; it is not about excluding people from nor including people in child care.

Tim Loughton (Conservative, East Worthing and Shoreham)

The right hon. Lady is right, but many people who need to be helped will be excluded by the phrasing of the clause. Those people are from non-working families, or they are not claiming the child care element of child tax credit, for whatever reason. That is why the Government need to make their case more clearly about who will not be included.

Local authorities have a duty to all council tax payers and their children, so whether or not the Government judge how well child care provision has done in disadvantaged areas, they need to show how well child care provision has done across the board. The measure before us does not even encapsulate those most disadvantaged communities that we should like included.

Stephen Hesford (Labour, Wirral West)

In my copy of the Bill, clause 6 is entitled:

“Duty to secure sufficient childcare for working parents.”

How will that include non-working parents?

Tim Loughton (Conservative, East Worthing and Shoreham)

The title needs to be changed, too.

Stephen Hesford (Labour, Wirral West)

There is no amendment to that effect.

Ed Miliband (Labour, Doncaster North)

Good point.

Tim Loughton (Conservative, East Worthing and Shoreham)

That could well be a good point, and it would normally have been dealt with in a clause stand part debate, to which we are now not entitled. However, given that a new clause and 30 amendments to this clause have been tabled already, yet another amendment might have confused matters even further.

I take the point made by the hon. Member for Wirral, West. However, I said that the amendment was a probing amendment; it was not an attempt to redefine the definitions in the Bill. Perhaps we shall return to that point on Report, if the Minister is unable to convince us as to why there should be such an exclusive definition.

We are still not half way through this group of amendments.

Ian Cawsey (Labour, Brigg and Goole)

We are enjoying it, do not worry.

Tim Loughton (Conservative, East Worthing and Shoreham)

I am enjoying it greatly.

The next amendment is the Liberal Democrat amendment No. 195, which makes an important reference to provision for children from black and minority ethnic backgrounds. It needs more of an outing during this aspect of the Bill.

Amendments Nos. 83 and 84 return to my earlier definition of what sort of child care is needed. Amendment No. 83 states that the authority should have regard to the affordability of such child care, and amendment No. 84, to the sustainability of such child care. I have mentioned several times how it is no good setting up new child care places on an unsustainable financial model. It will result in other good-quality child care places disappearing, and a net loss of child care places some years later because sustainability was not a significant element when the provision was planned.

Amendment No. 99 carries on that point. Perhaps my hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr. Gibb) will talk about it in more detail.

Childcare Bill - Standing Committee D

Clause 6 - Duty to secure sufficient childcare for working parents

Joe Benton (Labour, Bootle)

I remind the Committee that with this we are discussing the following: Amendment No.d¤224, in clause 6, page 4, line 7, leave out

‘, so far as is reasonably practicable,’.

Amendment No. 89, in clause 6, page 4, line 8, after ‘of’, insert

‘good quality, accessible and affordable’.

Amendment No. 90, in clause 6, page 4, line 8, after ‘is’, insert ‘, and remains,’.

Amendment No. 76, in clause 6, page 4, line 13, at end insert

‘, or

(c)to assist with children with disabilities or other special needs.’.

Amendment No. 232, in clause 6, page 4, line 13, at end insert

‘or,

(c)to sustain caring responsibilities.’.

Amendment No. 3, in clause 6, page 4, line 15, after ‘authority’, insert

‘(aa)must actively monitor the demands from families to ensure that provision is responsive to their needs,’.

Amendment No. 230, in clause 6, page 4, line 16, leave out paragraph (a) and insert

‘(a)must have regard to the needs of parents in their area—

(i)who are eligible for the childcare element of the working tax credit,

(ii)who are eligible for the maximum entitlement to the child tax credit,

(iii)for the provision of childcare which is suitable for disabled children, and

(iv)from black and minority ethnic communities’.

Amendment No. 79, in clause 6, page 4, line 17, leave out sub-paragraph (i).

Amendment No. 195, in clause 6, page 4, line 20, at end insert

‘(iii)the provision of a diverse range of childcare, and

(iv)the provision of childcare which is accessible to black and other minority ethnic groups.’.

Amendment No. 83, in clause 6, page 4, line 22, at end insert

‘and to the affordability of such childcare’.

Amendment No. 84, in clause 6, page 4, line 22, at end insert

‘and to the sustainability of such childcare’.

Amendment No. 99, in clause 6, page 4, line 22, at end insert

‘(e)must have regard to existing childcare operated by private and voluntary independent providers.’.

Amendment No. 100, in clause 6, page 4, line 22, at end insert

‘(f)must establish an appeals process for providers who wish to challenge the basis on which the provision of childcare is deemed to be sufficient in this section.’.

Amendment No. 125, in clause 6, page 4, line 22, at end insert

‘(g)must have regard to the quality of any childcare provided.’.

Amendment No. 126, in clause 6, page 4, line 22, at end insert

‘(h)must have regard to childcare provision for workless households, pursuant to its duties under section 1(1).’.

Amendment No. 4, in clause 6, page 4, line 22, at end insert

‘(2A)In carrying out research to comply with subsection (2) above, local authorities shall ensure compliance with guidance provided by the Market Research Council and the British Polling Council.’.

Amendment No. 127, in clause 6, page 4, line 24, at end insert

‘, which will set out the factors that local authorities may consider in assessing—

(i)whether local childcare provision is sufficient, and

(ii)what constitutes reasonably practicable steps.’.

Amendment No. 239, in clause 6, page 4, line 33, leave out ‘16’ and insert ‘18’.

Amendment No. 80, in clause 6, page 4, leave out lines 35 and 36.

New clause 9—Appeals mechanism—

‘An English local authority must establish an appeals mechanism to enable parents unable to access childcare under the terms set out in section 6 to require the local authority to reassess the sufficiency of the provision of sufficiency.’.

Amendment No. 249, in clause 22, page 11, line 6, after ‘of’, insert

‘good quality, accessible and affordable’.

Amendment No. 250, in clause 22, page 11, line 6, after ‘is’, insert ‘and remains’.

Amendment No. 253, in clause 22, page 11, line 11, at end insert

‘or

(c)to assist with children with disabilities or other special needs.’.

Amendment No. 254, in clause 22, page 11, line 13, at end insert

‘(aa)must actively monitor the demands from families to ensure that provision is responsible to their needs.’.

Amendment No. 255, in clause 22, page 11, line 15, leave out sub-paragraph (i).

Amendment No. 261, in clause 22, page 11, line 22, at end insert

‘(c)must have regard to existing childcare operated by private and voluntary independent providers.’.

Amendment No. 262, in clause 22, page 11, line 22, at end insert

‘(c)must establish an appeals process for providers who wish to challenge the basis on which the provision of childcare is deemed to be sufficient in this section.’.

Amendment No. 257, in clause 22, page 11, line 22, at end insert

‘(2A)In carrying out research to comply with subsection (2) above, local authorities shall ensure that relevant guidance provided by the Market Research Council and the British Polling Council is complied with.’.

Amendment No. 263, in clause 22, page 11, leave out lines 35 and 36.

Amendment No. 200, in clause 98, page 49, line 24, at end insert

‘(aa)an order under section 6,’.

Tim Loughton (Conservative, East Worthing and Shoreham)

The Government Whip told me that I was about to sit down when the Committee adjourned this morning, but on checking my notes I seem not to have made it quite halfway through. We had reached amendment No. 99, which would require local authorities to

“have regard to existing childcare operated by private and voluntary independent providers.”

I mentioned that my hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr. Gibb) would elaborate on that, so I do not have to deal with all 30 amendments in one go.

Amendment No. 100 is on a slightly different subject. We want to add a new provision to the clause so that the Bill establishes

“an appeals process for providers who wish to challenge the basis on which the provision of childcare is deemed to be sufficient in this section.”

We have had and will have some debate on the definition of sufficiency and the role of the local authority in determining whether it has overseen the sufficient provision of child care in its area.

Roberta Blackman-Woods (Labour, City of Durham)

Has the hon. Gentleman considered whether clause 11, which places a duty on local authorities continually to assess provision, meets his need for ongoing review and continuing questioning of whether places are available?

Tim Loughton (Conservative, East Worthing and Shoreham)

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for making my job even harder by zipping on to another clause. She raises a point that I mentioned earlier and that is inherent in some of the other amendments that we propose, which is that the situation is dynamic. We should assess and plan for child care not only on the basis of the position today, but on the basis of what the position will be over the next few years. Clearly, a constant review of that will be necessary.

The amendment addresses how an outside body can challenge the judgment, and it is a judgment, particularly in the absence of quite strict criteria for what satisfies sufficiency. There are concerns among the various independent nursery groups that local authorities are not paying sufficient heed to existing nursery provision and are going ahead and setting up their own nursery provision, as they are allowed to as a last resort. That will be detrimental to existing provision. Much of the provision in this country is provided by private and voluntary independent nurseries. It seems right that there should be some mechanism to empower those existing, recognised, established and registered quality providers to challenge the decision made by a local authority.

Much legislation that we scrutinise has a system of checks and balances whereby the body being regulated or the industry being overseen is entitled, through a recognised mechanism, to challenge a judgment, particularly when it has a material effect on their business. I do not have the details of how such a system should be set up in this respect, but a form of appeals process should be inherent in the Bill, for use by an existing or an independent provider that is investing in an area, if it thinks that it is not being given the opportunity to work properly in partnership with the local authority.

The terminology of much of the Bill is rightly about partnership between the local authority and a whole host of other providers, but if a private and voluntary independent provider feels that it is getting a raw deal, what can it do? It can make a fuss, it can criticise the local authority, but what can it achieve? I cannot see any other provision for such a situation, except that the provider can make representations to the local authority, which is judge and jury in determining the sufficiency within the criteria that are set down by the Secretary of State. It is also judge and jury for reviewing those criteria and how they are panning out in practice over whatever period of years the reviews will take place. I cannot see a formal mechanism whereby a private and voluntary independent provider, or any other sort of provider, independent of the local authority, can challenge the basis on which the authority seeks to define some of the rather indeterminate phrases in the Bill.

Amendment No. 100 therefore simply calls for some form of appeals mechanism to be put in place. Obviously we would want to see the details of that mechanism, and one would hope that the Secretary of State, if she were minded to take the amendment on board, would publish proposals.

It should also be made clear what sanctions should apply when the local authority is found not to be acting in accordance with the statutory requirements and, in this case, not acting in true partnership with the other potential providers that are involved in producing child care places. That is the basis of the amendment, and the principle applies to much of the other legislation that we have scrutinised.

I will defer to my hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton on amendment No. 4, which again tries to tease out further detail of how a local authority can carry out fair and balanced research to come to the conclusion that it is overseeing the provision of sufficient levels of child care in its area. There are some strict criteria on which he will elaborate if he catches your eye, Mr. Benton.

Amendment No. 239 again refers to the subject of disabled children. The principles behind the amendment, which my hon. Friend and I have been happy to take on board, come from Mencap. It says in support of the amendment:

“Disabled children are likely to be less independent than non-disabled children, and to require childcare for longer, as the Bill recognises by securing childcare for non-disabled children up to the age of 14 and for disabled children up to the age of 16. However, while it is reasonable to suppose that a 14 year old non-disabled child will be sufficiently independent not to require childcare, there is no good reason to suppose that a disabled child’s need for childcare will end at the age of 16. This amendment would ensure that childcare is secured for all disabled children, whatever their age.

Securing childcare for disabled children only up to 16 years leaves a crucial gap for 17 and 18 year olds, who may not be able to access adult services but are too old to access childcare. Half of all families with a disabled child are living in poverty or on the margin of poverty. Childcare costs twice as much for parents of disabled children compared with parents of non-disabled children.

Parents of children up to the age of 18 have the right to request flexible working hours in order to meet their care needs. The recognition elsewhere that disabled children have particular care needs up to the age of 18 should be reflected in the Childcare Bill.”

I have a great deal of sympathy with that intention. Hon. Members mentioned the extra costs and attention required in looking after disabled children. The amendment recognises that disability does not become different at the age of 16, and that while such children are still classified as children up to the age of 18, the special measures should pertain.

Amendment No. 80 goes back to not limiting the availability of child care to those receiving the child care element of the child tax credit. I shall not reopen that at this stage as we shall come back to it when we debate the relevant clauses.

We then come to the amendments that I can group together because they all refer to the Welsh section of the Bill in clause 22. They mirror those that we tabled on English authorities and would apply in relation to the powers that are available in the Bill, rather than those that are held by the Welsh Assembly. Without going into further detail, that covers amendments Nos.d¤249, 250, 253 to 255, 261 to 263 and 267.

Amendment No. 200, which will be dealt with by my hon. Friend, relates to statutory instruments.

New clause 9 relates to my earlier point about appeals. It states that an English local authority must establish an appeals mechanism to enable parents who are unable to access childcare under the terms set out in clause 6 to require the local authority to reassess the sufficiency of provision. The new clause contains a typing error, as it repeats the word “sufficiency”. It is intended to be probing.

Just as other providers should have a mechanism for challenging the judgments of the local authority, surely so should the customers, namely the parents. If a local authority declares that it has done enough to provide sufficient places, but a parent is still having difficulty accessing child care despite the criteria set out for sufficiency, there should be a mechanism by which parents can complain that they are not receiving the service that the authority is obliged, under the statutory duty in the Bill, to provide. I am not advocating a highly prescriptive system for setting up such an appeals system, but, just as there is an appeals mechanism on access to schools, there should be a system whereby parents can question the judgment of a local authority on the sufficient and appropriate provision of child care places.

We must secure proper checks and balances for alternative providers who feel that their livelihood is being challenged unfairly and for those parents who feel that the legislation has not achieved its aims. We do not seek a highly prescriptive system with people making challenges at every juncture, but there must be a fall-back position if parents are still having problems accessing the child care that the Bill is intended to provide.

That is a rather long tour d’horizon of the 30 amendments and one new clause that I have pleasure in recommending to the Committee.

Annette Brooke (Liberal Democrat, Mid Dorset and North Poole)

I shall endeavour to organise my remarks so that I do not continue for too long. I wish to identify the key issues and then to refer specifically to the Liberal Democrat amendments.

The key points are the meaning of “as far as is reasonably practicable”, the meaning of “sufficiency”, the related matter of quality, and whether all children in disadvantaged groups are included. There is also the issue, which were picked up on this morning, of those parents who might not be in work, but might be in great need of child care. I appreciate the title of the clause, but, nevertheless, those are important points that need to be made.

I am fairly optimistic that, if we apply the law of averages, the Minister might accept one of the 31 proposed changes. I shall start by going through our amendments in the hope that I might be the lucky person this afternoon.

Amendment No. 224 would leave out

“so far as is reasonably practicable”.

It is a probing amendment. I know that that was an important insertion as far as the Local Government Association was concerned. What concerns me is the lack of definition and how measuring and monitoring would take place.

I also have a concern related to the local area that I represent. When some areas are so far ahead of the game in providing child care, an authority that is not so far down the road might provide a great deal less. If we are not careful, we will end up with something approaching a postcode lottery. At the very least, we are looking for guidance on how local authorities are meant to interpret the phrase. I accept that we will not achieve the ideal provision of quality child care overnight. I understand that it is important to have some caveats, but the phrase is unclear and different local authorities will respond to it in different ways.

Amendment No. 232 is compatible with Conservative amendment No. 76. It strays into the subject of parents who might not be at work. They may be at home because their caring responsibilities for the family, or perhaps for one child in that family, are so great that it would be impossible for them to be in full-time work. However, those parents, of all parents, need good quality child care to help them. That is an important principle.

We need to give support to families before the real crisis occurs. We spend a lot of money sorting out problems when there has been a breakdown in a family. For all sorts of conditions that parents or their children might have, that preventive aspect— providing good quality child care—is all important. I am enthusiastic about straying outside the title of the clause to ensure that we pick up that special group. We have had representations from the National Autistic Society, which were similar to those from Mencap, about the pressures that such families face.

Amendment No. 230 picks up on an intervention made this morning. I do not think that any Opposition Member is suggesting that the Bill should apply to the whole of child care provision, but amendment No. 230 tries to go beyond parents receiving the child care element of the working tax credit and to pick up on the 1.2 million families who are not in work. It also touched on the issues raised by the hon. Member for Putney (Justine Greening) about black and minority ethnic communities, which, equally, will need specialist child care. I am really pleased that we are mentioning disabled children, but we must accept that other disadvantaged groups need to be covered as well.

Amendment No. 195 duplicates that point, but says it differently. We keep trying to phrase the amendments in an acceptable way, and this amendment deals with diversity of provision. It is important that the local authority has a duty to provide a choice for parents. In the same way that there is a choice agenda to drive up quality, there are many different types of nursery provision with different philosophies, and parents have a right to choose along those lines.

Among amendments Nos. 125, 126 and 127, I regard amendment No. 125 as the most important. When we talk about sufficiency, we must ensure that we make it clear that we mean not only quantity but quality. Given the amount of time we are taking without making rapid progress, I hope to talk at a later stage about quality assurance, because along with quality in this clause, we need in guidance references about quality assurance schemes and how we address the issue of quality.

Amendment No. 126 rephrases the same point and relates to households without work. Amendment No. 127 is important because it gives objectivity to “sufficiency” and “reasonably practicable”, setting out the factors that local authorities could consider when making an assessment.

That concludes the Liberal Democrat amendments. My hon. Friend the Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Mr. Williams) will deal with the amendments to clause 22, as they apply to Wales.

Some of the Conservative amendments are similar. I have a slight problem with including the duty that relates to good quality, accessibility and affordability. Although I agree with that duty, local government’s response would be, “How can we do that?” in whatever timeframe was given to achieve it, and it would need a time frame. However, we must have ideals.

On how the private and voluntary sectors and the local authorities work together, it is important to have a level playing field. There were several references to that in the Conservatives’ amendments. I live in an area where the expansion that was propelled by the Labour Government from 1997 onwards could not have happened without close work between the private and voluntary sectors. Nevertheless, as chairman of education, I pushed for a nursery on a maintained-school site when there was a local playgroup nearby. It was a difficult decision, but in those circumstances, it happened to be right.

I am with the Conservatives on the need for a level playing field, but my mind is not set in any particular direction. I want to be sure that the local authority does not go down an extreme route, becoming more of a provider than the Bill intends. However, there will be circumstances in which a local authority has to step in. We need safety checks to ensure that good partnership works consistently throughout the country.

I said that I would be brief and will let my hon. Friend mop up any further points.

Ann Coffey (Labour, Stockport)

I should probably raise this point in a clause stand part debate, but as we are not having that debate, I am sure that it relates to one of the amendments, which I do not support, incidentally.

I want to draw something to the Minister’s attention which comes under the heading of “sufficiency of child care”. In Stockport, a third of jobs are provided by the retail sector and hon. Members will be aware that that involves shift work, often over a 24-hour period. Most child care is based on a model in which people work during the course of the day, and most of it takes place between 8.30 in the morning and 6.30 in the evening. It is very difficult for those who want to work different hours to find suitable child care, particularly for young children, who they do not want to shift out of someone else’s bed at 10 o’clock to take them home.

At the moment, if parents with young children want to work, there are jobs available. Tesco is providing about 600 part-time jobs near a large area of housing that has high levels of unemployment and high levels of single parents on benefit. It is fortunate that the jobs are based there. Those parents tend to use informal care—relatives, friends and so on. I entirely take the point of the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) about ensuring that quality child care is available. The big problem is that we cannot impose quality on informal care. The second huge disadvantage for such parents is that they have to pay cash for such care because it cannot be registered. They cannot claim back the child care component of the working tax credit.

We have a marvellous opportunity to deal with that problem. As I understand it, a child minder, in order to registered, is registered in their own home. She is not registered to mind children outside her own home, so if a parent wants to use a registered child minder, she has to take the child to that person’s home. I understand that there is an exemption to that rule for nannies and babysitters, who do not have to register, and their services can be paid for through the child care tax credit because of the exemption.

Will my right hon. Friend consider how we can enable an exception for registered child minders, or for people who have taken a similar local course to that of child minders, to allow them to register to mind a child in the family home? That would be of huge benefit because it would ensure equality of care. It would be a particularly useful and flexible form of child care in relation to the problems of finding such care for children with disabilities. Often it is more helpful to provide support to a disabled child in their family home than to take the child elsewhere.

I realise that I should more properly raise that point when we discuss clause 33, and perhaps when we get there I will raise it again, but I thought I would raise it now in case we did not get that far.

Roger Williams (Liberal Democrat, Brecon and Radnorshire)

It is always a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr. Benton. Having done so before, I am aware that you have a very clear view on the nature of devolved Assemblies and Parliaments. Some of the remarks that I shall make involve amendments that relate to Wales. I hope that you will allow us a little bit of latitude to deal with the nature of such legislation.

Joe Benton (Labour, Bootle)

I have listened to what the hon. Gentleman said and I forewarn him that I am always open to people discussing matters freely, but within the confines of keeping to the amendment.

Roger Williams (Liberal Democrat, Brecon and Radnorshire)

Thank you, Mr. Benton; I welcome your advice.

In my copy of the Bill the long title does not refer to working parents. I take the point made by the hon. Member for Stockport (Ann Coffey) about children brought up in families where the parents are not working, for whatever reason. That is something that we should, as the Opposition, at least test, as parents who are not working look to us for the same facilities and opportunities as parents who are working. The hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham should not be too concerned about it. Certainly Liberal Democrat Members will support the Opposition’s efforts to ensure that all the children in this country can get the best child care possible.

I am responding on behalf of the Liberal Democrat party to the amendments tabled by Opposition Members relating to clause 22. I have supreme confidence in your wisdom, Mr. Benton, in grouping these amendments together, but I had hoped that we could consider and discuss all the amendments relating to part 2, which relates to Wales, in one sitting. Although the nature of child care and the requirements for child care do not differ terrifically in Wales, there are some differences. For instance, Merthyr, the constituency neighbouring mine, has the highest level of economic activity in the whole of the United Kingdom. The requirements there for child care are as acute as anywhere in the UK, and the Welsh Assembly must address that issue. We have problems in delivering child care in rural areas, where it is often difficult for isolated families to access the available facilities. However, the main reason why I wanted all the amendments relating to part 2 to be taken in one sitting is that I believe they could have been scrutinised better, in the round and in relation to the Assembly’s powers, if they had been taken together.

To move quickly on and address the amendments—

Joe Benton (Labour, Bootle)

Order. May I make an observation that might be helpful? The grouping of the amendments was done for a specific purpose—to obviate repetitious debate. That is the major concern when we are grouping amendments. I just point that out to the hon. Gentleman and hope that he will bear those remarks in mind.

Roger Williams (Liberal Democrat, Brecon and Radnorshire)

Thank you, Mr. Benton. I did compliment you on the way in which you had grouped the amendments. My concern was that, if they had been grouped differently, we could have addressed the way in which they sit within the devolved settlement in another way.

We have little difficulty in supporting the official Opposition’s amendments as far as they go. As we see it, their intention is to make sure that child care is available, accessible and affordable and that special arrangements are made for children with disabilities. We want a good mix of provision by the private sector and by voluntary providers, but also by the local education authority if those facilities are not available, as they sometimes are not in the rural areas that I represent.

With those few words I support the amendments. At a later stage we may want to address other issues in amendments that my hon. Friends and I have tabled.

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

This is the first time that I have appeared under your chairmanship, Mr. Benton, and it is a great pleasure to do so. I want to pick up on some of the points that have been aired in the Committee and raise others.

Amendment No. 89 focuses on good quality care. It is important that we do not just churn out huge numbers of child care places without regard to their quality, as the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke) said. I want to take the opportunity to talk about Sure Start, which has produced some very good places. For example, there is a wonderful Sure Start provision in Littlehampton in my constituency. It is doing a very good job, and I support it.

It baffles me therefore to read the national evaluation report that came out last month, which says that there is a problem with Sure Start in deprived communities. It states that

“those from relatively less (but still) disadvantaged households (i.e. non-teen mothers) residing in SSLP areas”—

Sure Start local programme areas—

“benefit somewhat from living in these areas ... In contrast, within these same deprived communities, children from relatively more disadvantaged families (i.e. teen mother, lone parent, workless household) appear to be adversely affected by living in a SSLP community.”

I am baffled as to why that should be. Could the Minister give the Committee some understanding of what the Department thinks is the cause? There are some favourable comments elsewhere in the report about the achievements of Sure Start, but that part baffled me and, I suspect, other people. It would be helpful to hear an official response to the criticism.

The 10-year child care strategy raises the issue of quality. The Government want to introduce a graduate component to the provision of child care. Paragraph 6.8 on page 45 of the strategy states:

“The Government is committed to radical reform of the early years and childcare workforce. We will work with leading bodies in the sector to achieve the long-term vision which is to:

ensure that all full daycare settings are led by graduate qualified early years professionals. This will build on the example being set by children’s centres, whose leaders are expected to attend the one year integrated leadership programme”.

The other two key elements of improving the quality of the work force in child care centres are

“improve the qualifications and status of early years and childcare workers. More will be trained to degree-level”

and

“put in place training opportunities for childminders and other home-based carers which enable more to achieve level 3 qualifications, work in partnership with other providers and develop long-term careers as part of the children’s workforce.”

These are laudable aims. Would the Minister say something about the policy and the progress on it, which I hope will go some way to address the issue of quality in the provision of child care?

Obviously, we are all concerned about quality. As my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham said, churning out huge numbers of poor quality places will do nobody any good, and research from the effective provision of pre-school education project makes it very clear that poor quality early years provision can be detrimental to the development of children, whereas good quality provision can have a beneficial effect.

Amendments Nos. 3, 254 and 257 are similar. They add substance to the duty on local authorities in claused¤6 to

“have regard to the needs of parents in their area”.

The phrase is vague. Having regard could consist of a thought in the bath in the morning. The duty must be set out in a little more detail and substance. Local authorities could interpret it loosely to suit their own convenience rather than to reflect the genuine wishes and needs of the public.

The wording of clause 6 in this regard is very different from the more upbeat wording in the 10-year child care strategy document published last year. I refer the Committee to paragraph 5.6 on page 35 of that document, which states:

“The childcare vision will be delivered through a clarified and extended statutory duty

on local authorities”.

We have seen that in the Bill. The document continues:

“Local authorities’ existing legal duties are relatively light given the extensive role that they are already playing in early years and childcare”.

It then says:

“The new duty will require local authorities to actively monitor the demands from families and to ensure that provision is responsive to their needs.”

That seems to me to be a far more extensive duty on local authorities than merely having regard to.

The purpose of amendment No. 3 is to incorporate the wording from the child care strategy document into the Bill to ensure that local authorities engage in genuine research to find out what the demands are from families and that the local authority is responsive to the needs of those families.

That brings me to amendment No. 4, which deals with how that research should be carried out. Page 58 of the child care strategy document explains that that means addressing

“the childcare preferences of local parents, areas of unmet demand and local barriers to childcare”.

That is what should be researched.

Amendment No. 4 states that in carrying out research, local authorities will have to comply with the guidance of the Market Research Society—I apologise for referring in the amendment to the “Market Research Council”, which should read “Market Research Society”—and the British Polling Council.

I have seen too many polls from local authorities and other statutory bodies that are frankly biased in the way in which questions are configured, as though they are geared to elicit a certain response. I could cite the South East England Development Agency, which asked whether 25,000, 32,500 or 40,000 more houses were wanted in the south-east. Many of us want no new houses in our constituencies. We have had too much house building in Bognor Regis and Littlehampton over the past 30 years. There was no option for people to say that they wanted none or they wanted 10,000. It is important that questionnaires are designed to elicit people’s opinions accurately and objectively. We must ensure that research is rigorous and objective and is not carried out in a way that is designed to elicit a certain response that the local authority wants.

The Market Research Society guidelines set out a good code of conduct which should be incorporated at least into the guidelines issued by the Department and preferably into the legislation. They cover the use of research techniques and state:

“Market researchers will take special care when carrying out research among children and other vulnerable groups of the population.”

We talked this morning about consulting young children and I am sure that we are not talking about issuing toddlers with questionnaires to fill in or letters to respond to.

Market research must be specially designed when dealing with certain sections of society and it must be made clear to responders that their co-operation is voluntary. The guidelines also refer to the configuration of questions and state clearly that questions should be

“fit for purpose ... that the design and content of questionnaires are appropriate for the audience being researched; that Respondents are able to answer the questions in a way that reflects the view they want to express; that Respondents are not led towards a particular answer; that answers are capable of being interpreted in an unambiguous way; that personal data collected is relevant and not excessive.”

It would be beneficial to have, for the first time, a duty on local authorities to conduct their polling and research in a way that conforms to the very best practices in the market research industry.

Amendments Nos. 99 and 261 have been tabled to address the concerns of the private and voluntary independent sector, as represented by the National Day Nurseries Association, which has long-standing concerns about local authorities driving out child care places. Paragraph 3.4 of the Government’s 10-year strategy states:

“In total the Government has created 1.2 million childcare places since 1997 (an increase in the net number of places of 525,000)”.

That implies that 700,000 places have been lost as a result of the Government’s creation of 1.2 million new places. That is borne out by extensive research by the NDNA, which has revealed that

“an alarming number of cases where local authorities have not sought partnership with PVI providers, resulting in a duplication of childcare already on offer, rather than an expansion of services into communities that are currently without childcare.”

The NDNA conducted an extensive survey that involved issuing 2,000 questionnaires. The response rate was 10 per cent, and there were some alarming results.

Stephen Hesford (Labour, Wirral West)

The hon. Gentleman makes what might be an interesting point. He mentioned a survey carried out by that organisation, and described the issuing of questionnaires. Were the results tabulated in a manner consistent with the guidance of the Market Research Council and the British Polling Council?

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

That is a very good intervention and the hon. Gentleman makes a valid point. I have no idea what the answer is. That is a matter that I must raise with the NDNA when we next meet. However, one can rely on that research because it consisted of questions to that organisation’s members.

Almost 50 per cent. of day nurseries reported that their local authorities were creating child care centres, with Government funding, close to their own centres. That duplicates existing PVI provision, the overwhelming majority of which provides services of a good quality. According to Ofsted, about 70 per cent. of child care provision in the PVI sector has been graded as either good or outstanding. As a consequence, the NDNA reports falls in occupancy in the PVI sector to an average 76 per cent. in August this year from 84 per cent. in February. The NDNA attributes that drop to increasing provision by local authorities.

The NDNA says that, in June 2005, there were around 532,000 full day-care places in the PVI sector. On the basis of a 76 per cent. occupancy rate, that would leave around 126,000 places available to be exploited by local authorities in order to meet the level of provision that we understand needs to be filled. The NDNA calculates that, when one uses £15,000 as a rule of thumb for the required capital to establish a child care place, if one multiplies that by 126,522, that totals £1.89 billion of capital spending that could be saved if local authorities could use existing spare capacity in the PVI sector. They also reported that 63 per cent. of day nurseries had no confidence in respect of prospects for entering into partnerships with local authorities for providing new child care facilities as joint facilities involving local authorities and the PVI sector. The majority of respondents—71 per cent.—reported that local authorities were not yet involving them in the delivery of children’s centres, and 79 per cent. said that local schools were not involving them in providing child care on school sites, with specific reference to wrap-around care; 47 per cent. of day nursery respondents stated that a children’s centre or school had launched child care services aimed specifically at the under-fives that directly competed with and duplicated their own services.

There is a concern in this respect, and, like many Members, I was aware of it before the publication of the Childcare Bill; for example, provision under the neighbourhood nurseries initiative might have caused similar problems. It is a great pity that local authorities are in some instances just going ahead and providing child care places themselves, without paying more attention to existing provision.

The NDNA gives some interesting case studies. One neighbourhood nursery in the north-west has attracted more than £150,000 in public money since 2003 to help develop its own child care services, but in the summer of that year it learned that the local education authority was planning to develop a child care centre right next to its site. It sought assurances from the local authority, which said that it did not plan to open a nursery. However, a year later, it confirmed that a children’s centre would be set up on the neighbouring site, with day nursery facilities in which the neighbourhood nursery could participate. However, since then, the nursery has experienced persistent difficulty in communicating with the LEA. The new centre is due to open next summer and the nursery believes that it will take places from it.

Local authorities will often respond by saying, “Well, we’ve set up this children’s centre because the Government have asked us to.” We must emphasise that they need to take much more cognisance of existing PVI provision. These amendments are important; they ensure that that is explicitly stated in the Bill.

Amendment No. 200 would amend clause 98 by adding “section 6”—clause 6—to the list of sections in subsection (3) that will require an affirmative resolution. I have looked carefully at clauses 6 and 5, and I cannot see why clause 5 should have an affirmative resolution, but not clause 6.

Clause 6(4) gives the following power to the Secretary of State:

“The Secretary of State may by order amend subsection (2) ... so as to modify the matters to which a local authority must or may have regard in determining whether the provision of childcare is sufficient.”

That is an important provision. It goes to the root of what we have been discussing about local authorities taking over private sector places, and the whole discussion that we have had about sufficiency.

Roberta Blackman-Woods (Labour, City of Durham)

I have in front of me the research that the hon. Gentleman has been referring to. There is an issue to do with possible duplication, but the research suggests that the Childcare Bill shows that the Government have been listening to the concerns of the NDNA, and that they hope that the model put forward in the Bill will ensure that duplication does not take place. That is on page 21 of the report.

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

The hon. Lady raises a good point, and she is right. It would be possible to use the wording of the Bill in a way that avoids duplication. However, many of our amendments were suggested by the NDNA, because there is a concern that the wording could be better, in order to ensure that local authorities take much more cognisance of the PVI sector than they do at present. I accept that that is before the passage of the Bill.

I turn finally to amendment No. 200. It concerns me that in the last eight years, while I have been in the House, more and more Bills have been really framework Bills. They seem to be full of provisions in almost every other clause that give the Secretary of State the power to issue guidelines and regulations. Often one can have no feel for what the Bill will do in detail until the guideline regulations are published. Then we have provisions, as in this instance, that amend the primary legislation itself. That is not the way that we should be legislating.

We all want to work in this House to produce legislation. We all want to work to improve child care provision and education. The Government or the bureaucracy of the civil service need not fear bringing these measures before the House of Commons to be amended if they wish in due course to change the definition of early childhood services or what should be regarded as sufficient to meet the requirements of the Bill. It should be a matter that can be debated in Committee or on the Floor of the House rather than amended by a resolution, which, unless a Member prays against it, will not even be debated. On that note, I look forward to hearing a full response to all the issues that I have raised.

Justine Greening (Conservative, Putney)

I want to speak in support of amendment No. 99, which, in the context of our debate on other amendments, it is vital to include in the Bill. My hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton has already dealt with the potential crowding out of existing PVI sector nurseries by Sure Start. That concern should be taken on board seriously, because the last thing that we want to happen is a reduction in quality and choice rather than an increase. The Bill could be a force for good in expanding the choice open to parents, but we need to ensure that that is the outcome, not the reverse.

When Sure Start nurseries open up there is a danger that PVI sector nurseries will shut down, so that parents of disadvantaged children, rather than having more choice and a greater ability to find different gateways into accessing child care, have only one—the Sure Start nursery. If they do not take advantage of that, for whatever reason, they then have no access to a nursery at all.

Secondly, it is easy to say that if a Sure Start nursery opens next door it may put pressure on an existing nursery to close, but we should not forget the disruption to the children involved. They will have to change nursery and perhaps lose the friendships that they have formed with other children, purely because there is an oversupply in one small area. We talked about having nurseries located in the right place. It cannot be sensible to have a system in which a nursery could start right next to an existing one. We want new nurseries to spring up, but not near existing ones if possible. The catchment areas should not overlap or duplicate.

Finally, we talked about the Government’s beloved clause 5 and improving best practice. If the Secretary of State and the Ministers want those powers, we need to ensure that we have a framework of nurseries that helps the PVI sector flourish alongside any local authority provision, so that there is the best possible chance for that best practice to emerge. Perhaps the Minister can enlighten us about my points when she sums up.

Beverley Hughes (Labour, Stretford and Urmston)

We have had an interesting debate on what is, as Members have noted, a complex arrangement of amendments to the clause. Given the size of the group—I have sympathy with Opposition Members for the task that they have faced; it has faced me, too—rather than deal with the amendments separately, as Opposition Members have attempted to, I will try to deal with them in relevant groupings based on the themes that they cover, if that is acceptable.

First, let me set the clause in context and outline what it is about. It is one of the main clauses at the heart of the Bill and it is crucial to what we seek to do in relation to child care. It is about giving all parents a real choice about how they balance work and family life. Within that overall objective, it is about enabling parents on the lowest incomes, and perhaps with the most difficult circumstances in terms of disabilities, to lift themselves out of poverty and give their children the best start in life.

By way of introduction, I will say a bit about why we are proposing the measures that we are in the way that we are and why I think that, broadly, they are right. As Members know, since 1997 we have invested heavily to increase significantly the number of child care places. As the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton noted, there has been a significant net increase of nearly 600,000 registered child care places. Now there is one available for one in four of all children under the age of eight. His point about the turnover in places was not well made. We know that the closure rate of small businesses in any part of the economy is about 10 per cent. As such, over a seven-year period, one would have expected to see a turnover in child care places, notwithstanding the large net increase. In fact, for his information, the closure rate of all child care businesses, as recorded by Ofsted, has fallen recently. That is because of the investment that the Government have put in. In opposition to the NDNA report, Ofsted’s statistics suggest that, since the publication of the 10-year strategy, closure rates for these small businesses—child care providers—have fallen dramatically. I might return to that point later.

Tim Loughton (Conservative, East Worthing and Shoreham)

Is that not also a reflection of the differing numbers of children coming forward? We know that that figure will drop off, so that is all the more reason to ensure that there is a level playing field. In future, fewer and fewer children—the raw material—will be coming through as the birth rate falls.

Beverley Hughes (Labour, Stretford and Urmston)

No, I do not think that that reflects the position. The fall in closure rates is a reflection of the fact that the private and voluntary sector has an increasing assurance from the Government that investment in child care will continue. That has given more confidence to those businesses. If they see fluctuations of the kind that the hon. Gentleman has just noted, they know that, none the less, it is worth sticking in there, because this Government are serious about the long-term sustainability of child care for families in a way that the sector did not see before 1997.

Ann Coffey (Labour, Stockport)

Does my right hon. Friend agree that part of the confidence derives from the years of sustained economic growth since 1997 and the high number of people in employment?

Beverley Hughes (Labour, Stretford and Urmston)

Absolutely. As my hon. Friend rightly notes, that is the other strand of Government policy that has a bearing on the issue: job creation and enabling people—particularly, but not exclusively women, where they choose to do so—to enter the labour market for the benefit of both families and the economy.

We had to set about trying to achieve the net increase over that period with a particular strategy: setting national and local targets, and applying and allocating the fund accordingly. The particular time and circumstance—the need to increase child care quickly—called for that approach. That centrally managed approach will take us only so far.

Changing lifestyles and attitudes have altered the way in which people work and the make-up of the work force. Child care must respond to those developments, and—this is a point that my hon. Friend raises well—it must be flexible enough to address the changing demands of modern family life. It is also the key to making the child care that has already been established, the 600,000 net new places, sustainable in and available for the long-term. That calls for a fundamentally different approach from that which has served us well during the demands of the first eight years of the Government’s commitment. It demands a local approach that takes account of local circumstances and needs. I do not think that anyone disagrees with that fundamental principle; indeed, it is welcomed by the Local Government Association.

Local authorities are best placed to shape and facilitate the local child care market to try to ensure that supply meets demand. That is what the clause is about. It is an attempt to establish a child care market that is strategically shaped and supported by local authorities—but sustainable, flexible and responsive to the needs of parents. In so far as the clause does anything, it formalises and puts into statute the way in which local authority roles have developed, through their work with the Government to get us to the current position.

As hon. Members have said, the diversity of providers ensures that the market is able to respond to parents’ needs. As we debate the detailed issues that the clause raises, I should like Members to keep hold of this essential point: the child care market is different from education and other public services. That is because of the need to balance the responsibilities of local authorities with the needs of providers, while reflecting the fact that parents pay for child care. Many amendments are concerned with that complex relationship.

By a later clause’s definition, the local authority is not a key provider guaranteeing a place, as in education. It is partly a provider, but mainly the strategic facilitator of an important market that is, ultimately, outside the authority’s control. We are asking local authorities to strike a balance between the roles of being not the only provider, and being a stimulator, facilitator and shaper of a market for services provided by people whom the local authority do not ultimately control. That is the key balance that we must strike in this clause.

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

I am gratified that the Minister has made those helpful comments, but will she or the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister take action if the Government discover that local authorities do not take due notice and cognisance of the level of provision, but ignore it, fail to work with child care providers and behave as though they do not exist?

Beverley Hughes (Labour, Stretford and Urmston)

As I shall say, it is not our intention that local authorities should behave in that way, nor would such behaviour be within the spirit or the letter of the Bill. I shall explain what I mean by that, and what the levers are in relation to local authority behaviour.

We started with an introduction relating to amendment No. 279, and I want to refer to a group of amendments related to resources and the definition of “reasonably practicable”: amendments Nos. 279, 224, 84, 90, 250 and 127. As my hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster, North (Edward Miliband) noted early in the debate, there is a bit of a confused approach to funding in the apparently conflicting intentions of some of the amendments. Amendment No. 279 is concerned with the matter of available resources, but other amendments contain proposals that would extend the obligations of local authorities to other groups or add a different range of responsibilities.

I want to place two points on the record. First, I do not accept that the requirements of the duty in the clause are either unfunded or underfunded. Local authorities are already undertaking all the elements of work that will be involved in the exercising of the duty. Secondly, the level of resources up to now, and planned for the future, encompasses the work that local authorities have to do.

I remind the Committee that for the period 2006 to 2008, over and above the resources that local authorities have already received, the Sure Start grant allocations amount to £2.7 billion, which is a substantial increase on existing funding. We will shortly be announcing a £125 million-a-year transformation fund allocation, which will help local authorities to invest in training and measures that directly relate to the quality of early years services without affecting affordability. We are funding a new pilot in nursery education for two-year-olds—that is another £20 million—and £440 million will be available for extended schools through the schools funding mechanism. In addition to that is the working tax credit, which is important in relation to child care; it assists more than 330,000 families to the tune of about £2 million a day. That enables families to pay for the child care that the measures provide.

I shall go on later to outline the work involved for local authorities. It is not a matter of providing directly—that would be expensive—but of facilitating and shaping the market, which involves a range of activities that larger local authorities are already putting in place.

There are a number of amendments that deal with sufficiency and what we mean by “reasonably practicable”. We want local authorities to do all that they reasonably can to ensure that a parent’s child care needs are met, so that if they choose to work or take up education or training with a view to work they have the opportunity to do so. “Reasonably practicable” is the term that strikes the right balance, which I referred to earlier, between what is practicable and affordable for the local authority and the parent’s legitimate expectation that there will be a place that meets their needs. It gives local authorities a degree of discretion and is intended to make the most effective use of the substantial resources that the Government provide.

Amendment no. 224 would remove that important balance. It would take away recognition of the point that I made earlier, that local authorities must shape the market but it is one over which they do not have total control. I ask the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole not to press her amendment because it does not recognise the reality of the situation in which local authorities will exercise this important duty.

Similarly, I do not think that amendments Nos. 84, 90 and 127 are necessary; let me explain why. Amendment No. 127 seeks to specify the factors that a local authority may take into account when assessing sufficiency and what is reasonably practicable. The statutory guidance that we intend to issue under the clause will address such issues in detail and will assist local authorities to engage with what is and is not reasonably practicable, taking into account local factors, which are very important. That is why subsection (3) has been included. There is no additional need to state in the Bill what that guidance will include.

Justine Greening (Conservative, Putney)

The Minister has said that she is confident about the funding. If when the guidelines come out, local authorities tell the Government that the cost of meeting them and the sufficiency rule will be more than the cost of what is currently in place, what action will the Government take? The context is that councils are under threat of being capped if they increase council rates. Will the Government step in to plug any funding shortfalls so that the Bill can be enacted properly on the ground?

Beverley Hughes (Labour, Stretford and Urmston)

There are important different local parameters to be considered in judging to what extent local authorities fulfil their duty of sufficiency, which is why the issue cannot be put into the Bill in detail. Rural areas can be very different from urban areas, for example.

Earlier, the hon. Lady raised the issue of demographics in respect of populations that have a very high number of young children and so on. The extent to which local authorities have met the sufficiency duty will be assessed by Ofsted and other inspection processes. The Government are constantly enabling local authorities to meet their duties, not only by the increased level of funding but by removing the previous ring fences on funding.

If the hon. Lady bears with me, she will come to a fuller understanding of exactly what we are requiring local authorities to do. I do not say that to be patronising in any way; it is just that we have not yet got to that point. If she is prepared to wait, she will be able to come to a detailed judgment on whether she thinks the duties are that onerous in cost terms.

Justine Greening (Conservative, Putney)

The Minister is getting to the heart of my point. If at this stage local authorities do not know what the guidance notes will say, how can the Government be sure about their response in respect of how much it will cost them? They cannot be confident about the statement that the Minister just made until they have consulted local authorities.

Beverley Hughes (Labour, Stretford and Urmston)

As I said earlier, we have consulted local authorities on their work, which they have been doing for a considerable time, to fulfil national objectives on increasing child care places. We can be confident about the scale of work involved in the duty because of what local authorities have told us about how they have already assessed need, given business support to people who want to start up child care businesses and got involved in training and in establishing child minder networks.

I had not anticipated going into this level of detail at this point, but I want to give the hon. Lady some idea of the activities that we are talking about. Largely, they are activities that local authorities have already been undertaking that have enabled us to get to our current achievement of nearly 600,000 additional places.

Roger Williams (Liberal Democrat, Brecon and Radnorshire)

The Minister has spoken about the expectation of parents, but the clause is about the provision of child care for working parents. Is it because the Government are limiting such provision to working parents that they are confident that it can be provided for within the finances available at the moment?

Beverley Hughes (Labour, Stretford and Urmston)

There are two reasons. The first is that the whole vision of the Bill is about the well-being of young children. Over and above the role of parents, which is the most important factor, two factors contribute significantly to the well-being of young children. The first is the quality of their day-to-day experiences; if they happen in a situation outside the home, it is the quality of the child care that the child receives. The second is the ability to work, particularly that of low-income parents, but it also applies more generally. That focus on work, which is so important in helping to raise children out of poverty and disadvantage, gives us the priorities in the Bill.

The hon. Gentleman is right to suggest that there is also the question of the balance, to which I keep referring, between having a reasonable scope of the duty that we are imposing on local authorities for all kinds of reasons and, at the same time, giving working parents in an area a reasonable expectation that they can access child care. We have to keep returning to the issue of balance and proportionality.

Amendments Nos. 84 and 90 also deal with sufficiency. I stress that there are a number of other duties in legislation that use the concept of sufficiency. Such examples would be the duty of the local education authorities to ensure that there are sufficient schools in their area and the duty to secure sufficient provision of nursery education. Such duties have been described as target duties: they do not convey an individual right to a place, but they are concerned with providing sufficient provision.

I support the underlying aim of those two amendments: to ensure that the provision of child care remains sufficient on a long-term basis. The duty, as drafted, has that continuing effect. As long as the duty remains in place, the requirement on the local authority to secure sufficient child care places will apply. I hope that hon. Members can see that those amendments are not necessary.

Amendments Nos. 3, 254, 4 and 257 relate in various ways to the assessment process. In response to the hon. Member for Putney, this is one of the tasks that the local authorities will have to undertake in fulfilling their duty. It will call for clear, transparent processes, both for the assessment of places that exist and the assessment of need. An assessment of unmet need would need to be addressed by local authorities. That is a critical aspect of the new duty to secure sufficient child care, but it is a complex issue. We plan to support local authorities on how they carry out assessments through the provisions, largely those in clause 11. We will use regulations to set out in more detail how we expect local authorities to assess needs. They will include details of who the local authority should consult to ensure that it meets parents’ requirements.

My hon. Friend the Member for Stockport raised the important issue of flexibility. The availability of child care has a different pattern from that of the typical working day. The local authority will have to assess the local labour market, the pattern of working hours that many working parents have to work and whether there is sufficient child care for working tax credit claimants, who need those flexible working hours, to access. That is all part of the assessment that we shall set out in regulations.

My hon. Friend raised a specific point about those people who, because of unsocial working hours, would want their children cared for in their own home. As she said, employing a nanny who is approved under the child care approval scheme qualifies for working tax credits. We have also made it possible that a registered child minder would qualify as a suitable place in relation to a working tax credit claimant, wherever that child minder is providing the care, including in the parent’s own home. That is already available; we have already made those changes.

Justine Greening (Conservative, Putney)

Will the Minister take the opportunity to clarify a report that I read briefly in the newspaper last week, that pension liabilities arise with respect to nannies and au pairs? This is something that the Government have pursued, only in the context of ensuring that child care is affordable. If there are more layers of cost as a result, those options would be less available to the Minister’s constituents and mine.

Beverley Hughes (Labour, Stretford and Urmston)

I will certainly endeavour to find that out for the hon. Lady. It may be a matter for the Work and Families Bill; indeed, some of the other issues that hon. Members have raised today are germane to that Bill. They are not embraced within the context of the Bill that we are discussing today.

We plan to deal with all the issues about how local authorities undertake the assessment through statutory guidance. That approach, of putting the detail in regulation, rather than the change proposed by amendment No. 3, is the best way to ensure that the assessment can also get involved, in a way that is responsive to families and local factors. We are currently preparing a number of papers, including one on the assessment process, which I would be happy to circulate to members of the Committee before we get to clause 11, if that would be helpful, so that members can see some of the detail that we are thinking about. With your permission, Mr. Benton, I shall circulate that to members of the Committee after this sitting, so that they have it in time.

There was a question about the methodology. I agree that the needs assessment must be statistically valid, and must catch all elements of the relevant population, including hard-to-reach groups—that is very important—and must provide accurate information about the demand and supply of child care in an area. I do not think that it is appropriate to tie the needs assessment to the two non-statutory organisations mentioned in amendment No. 4. I certainly do not think that it would be appropriate to include them on the face of the Bill. However, we would want to say something about the robustness of the methodology in the guidance.

We now come to a large group of amendments: Nos. 76, 253, 79, 255, 80, 263, 83, 89, 249, 126, 195, 230, 232 and 239. They all, in one way or another, touch on the question of parents’ needs and definitions of sufficiency. They seek, broadly, to widen the range of groups for whom local authorities should have particular regard when they are seeking to secure sufficient child care. I fully understand the intentions of hon. Members behind some, at least, of the amendments, but I want to assure them that our approach to the clause already meets the needs of the group of amendments in an inclusive and strategic way. We are confident, having discussed and consulted widely on the proposals, that the provisions and the definitions that we propose address all working parents, with a focus on those who most need support with child care.

Hon. Members will have noted that, as the Bill is drafted, local authorities will have to secure sufficient child care to meet the requirements of parents who need child care to take up or to remain in work. Child care will not be deemed to be sufficient unless it meets the needs of two particular groups: lower-income families and those with disabled children. That duty applies to workless households that are seeking work. Children in workless households in which parents are not seeking work will still, however, benefit substantially from the Bill and from our wider child care strategy. For example, they will be entitled to take up the free early years provision for all three and four-year-olds, which will increase over the next few years from 12 and a half to 15 hours a week. Clause 7 requires local authorities to ensure that that provision is in place. Secondly, provisions under the Children Act 1989 deal specifically with children in need, and it would not be appropriate for us to replicate them in the Bill.

Thirdly, the expansion of children’s centres and the duty to improve young children’s well-being under clause 1(1) will involve employment services. It will ensure that those services are fully involved as partners of local authorities in supporting workless parents and helping them to move back into employment.

Long-term workless households are likely to be those who are not seeking work; they will therefore not be among the families to whom the duty specifically applies. By and large, that will often be disadvantaged families and those who are hard to reach. The children’s centre services will engage those families, getting the parents involved in the children’s centre. It will initially support them in parenting and then in preparing themselves to access employment. That initial level of service is appropriate to meet what are often high needs. Those measures negate the need for amendment No. 126.

Our aim is to give parents real options on whether to continue working or to return to work. As I said earlier, work is the best way of moving children and families out of poverty and therefore of improving child outcomes. By linking the duty with eligibility for tax credits, we shall ensure that the local authorities give priority to securing child care for working families and those making the transition into work.

Using the eligibility of tax credits has the added benefit of allowing consistency between local authorities. That is why we want them to have particular regard to child care, for which tax credits can be used. Those credits are central to the Government’s efforts to tackle poverty and provide lower-income families with greater opportunity. I therefore ask Opposition Members not to press amendments Nos. 79 and 80, and the parallel amendments for Wales, which would leave out the important need to have regard to families eligible for tax credits.

That approach will also ensure that the needs of families from black and minority ethnic groups, which are the focus of amendments Nos. 195 and 230, will also be met appropriately. Evidence shows that the barriers faced by those groups vary considerably. However, we know that families from minority ethnic groups are disproportionately represented among lower income groups, and the tax credit mechanism is therefore the best way to address the availability and affordability of help for those families. We also know from research that black and minority ethnic families do not always access information. That is why the duty on local authorities to provide information in a proactive way will enable them to get the additional support that they need.

Those are not the only mechanisms. For instance, the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000 places a duty on local authorities to promote equality of opportunity. In practice, it means that they need to take account of the cultural background of children in service provision, and that of course covers child care. We therefore expect local authorities to take into account the need to consider cultural factors when securing child care, and the guidance will give information as well as examples that highlight the practical ways in which local authorities can ensure that child care provision is inclusive and reflects the cultural backgrounds and needs of black and minority ethnic families within their local populations.

Affordability is the subject of amendment No. 83, part of amendment No. 89, and amendment No. 249 for Wales. I hope that the Committee understands why it would not be sensible to refer to affordability in the Bill. It is a relative term. Members will know of the variance in what is affordable; I think particularly of the differences between London and the south-east and other parts of the country. The right place to guide authorities on how to take account of affordability is in the guidance, rather than in the Bill. If we did that in the Bill, we would have to get into definitions of what we meant by affordability, and there is no single definition that could apply to all parts of the country.

We all know that disabled children and their families face very significant difficulties in accessing good-quality, appropriate child care. We are strongly committed to supporting disabled children and their families, who also face real challenges in other aspects of their lives. On amendment No. 76, amendment No. 253 for Wales and amendments Nos. 230, 232 and 239 in particular, section 17 in part III of the Children Act 1989 already requires local authorities to provide an appropriate range and level of services for children in need. That includes many disabled children, as hon. Members know. I do not want to duplicate those provisions. I acknowledge that, for parents of disabled children, breaks from caring are often very much needed. However, that is not the same as child care to enable parents to work. The social care system is designed to help families to meet the cost of short breaks via direct payment and so on. That offers parents more choice and flexibility in the services that they use, as arrangements are made by the parents or the young disabled people themselves.

It is crucial that we acknowledge that young people of 16 and 17 have different needs. We must ensure that all young people have access to appropriate provision. Amendment No. 239 would extend the local authority duty for child care for disabled young people up to the age of 18. In so far as such care is needed, it is likely to be available in any case, given the push that these measures, including child care for disabled children up to the age of 16, will produce. The measures will change substantially the situation that prevails at present.

I have some concern about young people aged 17 and 18, who may not want to be regarded as needing child care. They are likely in any case to be at a point of transition, because of their age. Whatever they do in the day and whether or not that is in a training centre or a special needs centre, not all disabled young people will need child care wrapped around that day and they may not want to be included in child care provisions. I appreciate the views of important bodies such as Mencap, but there are other groups representing the views and rights of disabled young people, which would take a different view on whether 17 and 18-year-olds should be included automatically as part of a duty on local authorities for child care. They will certainly need other services and they have a right to them, but whether they would want to be included as children needing child care is a moot point.

We come now to the important issue of quality, which several hon. Members raised. This relates to part of amendments Nos. 89 and 249 and to amendment No. 125. The whole Committee agrees that quality is important and that parents want high-quality child care. They want to know that their child is being cared for properly and given stimulating things to do, just as they would be at home. We have an absolute commitment to quality, because we will not enable local authorities to achieve the outcomes duty unless we have a concern about quality.

We have not yet reached the part of the Bill that deals with quality, but contrary to comments that were made yesterday, the word “quality” does appear later in the Bill, and it appears in the right place. From its early years foundation stage and the reform of the regulation and inspection framework, the Bill reflects the fact that the new quality regime, which the foundation stage represents, is all about quality. If Members remind themselves of what is in the Bill at those later stages, as I am sure they have, they will see that quality is at the heart of it.

Quality appears in the right place, because it appears in relation to the foundation stage framework and to the work of Ofsted in regulating and in inspecting that framework. That is the right place, because it ties it to the definitions in the foundation stage, and therefore to the definitions of quality that Ofsted will use for regulation and inspection.

If we use the word “quality” at this point in the Bill, we must define what we mean. What we mean is what will be defined in the earliest foundation stage and in Ofsted’s regulation and inspection procedures. That is why the amendments that argue for the inclusion of a loose and undefined reference to quality in this part of the Bill, unanchored from the foundation stage and Ofsted’s regime, are not only unnecessary but would make us have to define what we mean from a local authority point of view and how local authorities would assess quality. We have Ofsted to assess quality, and such a reference would get us into a very unhelpful situation in relation to what we expect local authorities to do.

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

Could we not include a definition of quality that provided that child care should achieve level 1 and 2—outstanding or good—according to Ofsted’s grading, and that if it is graded adequate or poor, it will not be regarded as quality?

Beverley Hughes (Labour, Stretford and Urmston)

There are two points to make. First, in order to become a registered provider, the provider would have to satisfy Ofsted’s registration process, because Ofsted is the body that applies the quality standards. If we took up the hon. Gentleman’s suggestion, we would put the local authority in a very difficult position, because we would be asking it either to apply Ofsted’s own quality standards and to do it separately, or to apply something else, which would be unnecessary and very dangerous.

Secondly, provision that is outside schools must be registered with Ofsted in order for tax credits to be claimed. That is another reason why the particular regard to families who can claim working families tax credit is important, and why the duty is defined with particular regard to those families. All provision for under-fives, as Members will see in later clauses, will have to be registered with Ofsted.

Providers who provide services wrapped around the school day for children under eight will not necessarily have to be registered with the full Ofsted scheme, but they will have to be registered on the Ofsted child care register if they want to provide services for families who can claim the working families tax credit. [Interruption.] I can see my Whip’s eyes glazing over at these technicalities. I am sure that the other Committee members are keeping up with the argument.

Tim Loughton (Conservative, East Worthing and Shoreham)

The Minister should get another Whip.

Beverley Hughes (Labour, Stretford and Urmston)

No. It is a salutary reminder for me to be as clear as I can.

My point is that the working families tax credit requirement is another lever by which the local authority will ensure quality child care, because we are defining sufficiency generally but with particular regard to the number of families who are eligible for the working tax credit. It is therefore another very important lever for quality. I hope that Members will be satisfied with that explanation and will withdraw the amendment.

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

The right hon. Lady is making interesting comments and we are listening attentively to them. We shall come to the provisions later, but I am worried about how easy it is to register with the Department for Education and Skills as an English language school for people who wish to learn English as a second language in this country. That has been used as a loophole for all sorts of nefarious activities because no real quality check is made on the schools when registering with the Department. Will there be a similar problem with registering child care provisions, or will there be a threshold to cross before registration is accepted?

Beverley Hughes (Labour, Stretford and Urmston)

We can go into the detail later, but I assure the hon. Gentleman that the requirements of registration will be those for the full Ofsted registration for under-fives. It is a robust scheme. It has been developing and, because of the Bill, it will continue to incorporate not only learning and development standards, but the welfare standards of care for young children. I assure the hon. Gentleman that the registration process is nothing like that for schools that teach English as a second language. It has been the cornerstone of the framework through which quality has gradually been building up, and will continue to be.

The hon. Gentleman raised two issues about the Sure Start programme. It is slightly off his point about child care, but I want to deal with the national evaluation of the programme and what its findings might mean in respect of quality. Let us be clear about the methodology of the evaluation. It compared a sample of families with young children in areas that had a Sure Start programme and a sample of families in areas that did not have such a programme but were similarly disadvantaged. We must remember that, at present, the Sure Start programme is only in areas with a disadvantaged population.

It is important that members of the Committee know that I took the findings seriously. The random sample of families selected from the Sure Start areas did not necessarily have contact with the Sure Start programme. The research findings could not identify separately those families that had contact, so we do not know whether the sample of families in the Sure Start areas had experience of what its local programme provided. None the less, the findings are important. They showed small but discernible positive effects for the majority—about 86 per cent.—of children, such as fewer behavioural problems and better social skills.

The hon. Gentleman was right to say that, for a minority of children—about 14 per cent.—especially those of really disadvantaged and hard-to-reach families, such as children of teenage parents, teenage lone parents and those in long-term workless households, there was a suggestion of negative effects, specifically poor verbal ability and social skills, and more behavioural problems than their peers in equally poor Sure Start areas.

As for interpreting the findings, I have referred to the methodology, but there is also the consideration that this is quite early in the time scale in which we would expect to see significant positive effects for disadvantaged groups, primarily because international research shows that positive effects on children largely—this is significant—come through as positive effects on parents first, in the way in which they parent their children. A small amount of time in a Sure Start programme will not change a child’s life chances; that will come about as a result of a change in the routine parenting that they receive daily. However, it is early days.

I do not consider that there is a problem with the philosophy and concept of Sure Start. Indeed, research in this country and internationally tells us the opposite, but it raises issues about how some of the programmes have implemented the Sure Start model. On the back of that evaluation we issued very specific and detailed guidance for what should happen in children’s centres as they develop, based on the Sure Start model. In the guidance we specified that they have to do three things. Those three things are all reflected in the provisions of the Bill, which is not a coincidence.

First, there must be a clear focus on outcomes for children and on reducing inequalities. I say that because some of the programmes have had a warm reception from the community, and from parents in particular, because they have involved parents in the establishment of programmes. Everyone has had a very warm feeling about the involvement of parents, which is great, because we have to work through parents, but it may be that one or two programmes have taken their eye off the ball as regards outcomes for children through parents, and we need to reinforce that.

Secondly, we need to get better at reaching all families. That is why we have enshrined in the Bill proactive outreach for disadvantaged children. Thirdly, real inter-agency and integrated working is what makes the difference.

New clause 9 proposes that there should be an appeal process if an individual parent is dissatisfied because they cannot access the particular kind of child care that they want or need. I completely agree that if parents’ needs are not being met, they need to have a channel to express that. However, I do not believe that a convoluted appeals process is appropriate in that context. I agree that there needs to be a well signposted process by which parents can complain, and in which their complaint is registered not just with the local authority but with Ofsted when it does its inspections.

Local authorities already have in place well established procedures to enable citizens and residents to make complaints, and what I intend to do in the guidance is to ensure that as part of that overall complaints process, they must provide parents with a well signposted dedicated pathway in relation to child care issues, by which they can lodge complaints about child care and early years services. In other words, that dedicated pathway must be available within the overall complaints procedure. Those complaints will be received by the local authority and will be made available to Ofsted when it forms judgments as part of the joint assessment review process. However, notwithstanding that development, if parents think that there has been maladministration they can still go to the local ombudsman.

The amendment as it stands would complicate the route by which parents can seek redress. I hope that hon. Members feel that what I will put into the guidance will be clear and that that will be a much more straightforward way for parents to complain.

Amendment No. 99, with amendment No. 261 for Wales, are, again, well intentioned. I am pleased to inform hon. Members that in clause 8 we have addressed the issue that they raise concerning the contribution of providers within the private and voluntary independent sectors. We are determined that those sectors should continue to play a full part in the provision of early years education and child care as services are expanded. The sector has a good track record of responding positively and flexibly to changing parent demand, and many parents choose the sector because of its flexibility.

In that context, the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton raised the issue of the report from the National Day Nurseries Association and its conclusions. I want to comment briefly on that report, and first on the size of the sample on which the report was based. Some 2,000 questionnaires were sent out and only just over 200 people responded—10 per cent. of 2,000 is very small and is also a very small percentage of the sector as a whole. I do not want to set aside the comments in the report, but I want to place them in that context. The hon. Gentleman reported finding that a number of those responding had expressed concern about the willingness of local authorities to engage with private and voluntary providers. The report also states that 37 per cent. of respondents—given the sample, that is only 80 nurseries—were confident of forming a relationship with their local authority and 40 per cent. reported that they had already been in contact with their local authority seeking involvement and were fairly comfortable with what was going on.The hon. Gentleman raised the issue of occupancy rates as though it were a sign of a problem for the sector. The NDNA admits that there are seasonal changes in occupancy rates and that occupancy traditionally drops in the summer months when this survey was undertaken.

I shall make a final point on the NDNA report, and I am so glad that it made this comment. The report concludes that the mutual involvement of local authorities with private and voluntary independent providers is a two-way process and that “greater endeavour is needed” by the private and voluntary independent sectors to explore partnership arrangements with local authorities. However, they need to take the initiative and bring local authorities to the table, instead of waiting to be involved. Therefore, the onus is on both.

The Bill already ensures that a local authority should act to provide child care only after it has consulted private and voluntary independent providers and has established that none are willing to provide it, or that it would not be appropriate in the circumstances. That will require local authorities to understand the child care market in their area, including the maintained and PVI sectors. I hope that, given the strength of the limitation placed in the Bill on direct provision by the local authority, the hon. Gentleman will agree that the letter of the Bill is very strong in this regard and that there is therefore no need for further amendment.

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

It would be enormously helpful if the Minister would say a little more about when it might not be appropriate for a local authority not to have regard to the existing provision.

Beverley Hughes (Labour, Stretford and Urmston)

This is what we envisage—and we shall make it clear in the guidance with examples. If a child has particular needs and a private or voluntary independent provider could provide a place but only at a much higher unit cost than the local authority, it would be appropriate for the local authority to add that place to its existing provision. Therefore, we envisage the “appropriate” caveat being used incrementally, in relation to special circumstances, and not simply if the local authority decides to provide another 40-place nursery. That would be the kind of appropriate incremental addition where the cost in the other sector is unreasonable. It is to prevent the possibility, however remote, that the private and voluntary independent sector could hold the local authority over a barrel in relation to any individual case. We must allow for circumstances of that nature, when it would be right for the local authority to step in and provide a place.

There is then amendment No. 100, with amendment No. 262 for Wales. It would require local authorities to have an appeals process in place to handle providers’ concerns. I have already set out in some detail how we expect local authorities to follow regulations and have regard to guidance in relation to sufficiency. Even if a local authority has made an assessment that an area has sufficient child care, that should in no way curtail independent action by a provider who wishes to open in an area if they believe that sufficient parents are willing to purchase their services.

The detail of the way in which sufficiency in child care in Wales is secured is a matter for the Welsh Assembly and falls within the devolved powers. With regard to the similar amendments, Nos. 261 and 262, I am sure that the contribution made by providers in the PVI sector in Wales is greatly valued.

The Bill is not intended to expand public sector child care provision in Wales at the expense of other provision. The Welsh Assembly takes the view that the Bill as it stands would require local authorities to meet the duty to secure sufficient provision of child care on their own, without impacting on the private and voluntary independent sectors or, indeed, including them. For those reasons, I hope that that amendment will be withdrawn.

Finally, amendment No. 200 is the order-making power. We have no plans to use that, and I have sought to demonstrate that clause 6 strikes a proper balance, ensuring that all working parents are able to access child care that meets their needs. That includes all the groups suggested in the amendments. The clause also provides local authorities with the necessary discretion to be able to fulfil their obligations with the resources available. I want to ensure that the balance continues, and that is why we have included the regulation-making power, but it would be used only to ensure that the definition of sufficiency continues to include those who will benefit most. That means that if a better way became available in future to identify families on low incomes, we could alter the recommendation through regulations.

I have some sympathy with the point raised by the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton. However, any order that might be introduced to change the matters that we are considering would not require the House to discuss again the principles of the Bill. Rather, it would make subsidiary changes to the definitions of people who would benefit most.

I hope that the Committee will agree that the negative procedure is appropriate. It would not fundamentally change the Bill, and I am sure that hon. Members will note that where we feel that it is important to include an affirmative resolution on any other order-making power, we have allowed for that in clause 98. I hope that hon. Members will accept my arguments.

Annette Brooke (Liberal Democrat, Mid Dorset and North Poole)

The Minister has been very comprehensive, and I am sure that we will enjoy reading the report of her comments, as there was quite a lot to digest—

Beverley Hughes (Labour, Stretford and Urmston)

Because the hon. Lady’s mind wandered?

Annette Brooke (Liberal Democrat, Mid Dorset and North Poole)

No. It was quite enough to digest at this time on a Thursday afternoon. I am trying to be nice, and look where it gets me.

Mine was indeed a probing amendment, because it is important that local authorities should know what “reasonably practical” means. I still fear that I shall see in my surgery people—sadly, perhaps, with very disabled children—to whom the local authorities have said, “No, you cannot have child care; it is not reasonably practicable. It is far too expensive.” At the moment, week after week, given the current conditions in the area, I see parents who are desperate for more respite. They are lucky if they get a total of 10 working days if they have a severely disabled child.

Given the massive constraints on respite care at the moment, I fear that the clause will offer a get-out for hard-pressed local authorities, and that will produce tensions that will have to be managed. I am not sure how that will be covered in guidance, and I think that things will be very patchy across the country. Among those who come to my surgery are people who have moved from other places, and they say that it is much harder to get respite care in our area. I really see problems ahead, but, at this point, I am not interested in pursuing the amendment.

I do, however, want to say a little more about amendment No. 125 and to seek a vote on it. As I have said from the word go, I see the issue of quality running throughout the Bill. Although I certainly agree with the Minister that the early foundation stage, the inspection stage and the regulation and registration stage are important, the local authority must take a leadership role on quality.

If I recall correctly, Ofsted inspections will take place every three years, but what about quality in between? I mentioned quality assurance schemes, and local authorities work well with providers to help them get their quality assurance, their certificates and their kite marks. It is a process of ongoing self-evaluation, and the local authority has a leadership to play in helping some of the smaller providers through it. Taking part in that process really raises the esteem of all the work force in a setting, but leadership can come only from the local authority.

In the past week, we have had an Ofsted report covering 45 providers. I do not have it with me, but I think it said that more than half did not have enough staff when the day commenced—one can see the pressures that might be involved if one was struggling to get one’s own children to school. If we have to wait three years to get such a report, it is vital that the Minister should overcome any problems she might have with defining quality and include quality in the sufficiency definition.

That takes me back—I obviously studied a long time ago—to the old Soviet Union targets.

Tim Loughton (Conservative, East Worthing and Shoreham)

We still have them.

Annette Brooke (Liberal Democrat, Mid Dorset and North Poole)

Indeed. As I remember, there would be a quantity target for a product such as glass, but that product would be totally unusable. We therefore have to put quantity and quality together to make sense of a target. If the Minister will not reconsider and share my rather holistic view of how quality should run through every stage, I should like to put amendment No. 125 to a vote.

Ann Coffey (Labour, Stockport)

I understand what the hon. Lady is saying, but how would she recommend that local authorities assess quality? A number of years ago, when local authorities had responsibility for the registration and training of child minders, I had to take up the case of a council that was rigidly applying the registration rules, because that meant that people from the area, where there were few formal qualifications—[Interruption.]

Joe Benton (Labour, Bootle)

Order. I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Lady, but the background noise is getting a bit high, and I want to hear the her speak.

Ann Coffey (Labour, Stockport)

I thought you were going to tell me to shut up, Mr. Benton.

There were very few formal qualifications in that area, and the local authority’s rigid application of the quality test meant that people did not feel able to apply for positions as child minders. If quality is to be the responsibility of local authorities, how would the hon. Lady ensure consistency across local authorities and that standards were not applied in one area but not another?

Annette Brooke (Liberal Democrat, Mid Dorset and North Poole)

I accept that there will inevitably be challenges, but that is not necessarily a reason not to assess quality. We rely a lot on regulations elsewhere in the Bill, and we are being asked to take them on faith. I would have thought that we could come up with a definition of quality just by taking the principles of a quality assurance scheme.

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

The hon. Member for Stockport makes me think that local authorities must have a system in place at the moment for assessing quality, so the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole is right to want such a provision in the Bill. How quality is assessed should not be a problem, as local authorities have to do that at the moment.

Annette Brooke (Liberal Democrat, Mid Dorset and North Poole)

I hope that that is so, but I think that practice varies. We want to spread good practice on quality assurance. The more I have listened and thought about the subject, the more committed I have become to the idea that we should press amendment No. 125 to a Division. I shall say a lot more about quality, because I was supportive at the early foundation stage for the very reason that it is an underlying strand. There must be local authority leadership, and the idea fits well with the local authority’s commissioning role, too.

Beverley Hughes (Labour, Stretford and Urmston)

I shall make a couple of points clear, because quality is an important issue. First, Ofsted can, of course, inspect at any time. It must inspect at least every three years, but it can go in at any time and do a spot inspection without any notice, particularly if concerns have been expressed.

Secondly, many local authorities do indeed provide the leadership to which the hon. Lady refers. Local authorities have instigated and validated their own quality assurance schemes, but that is different from requiring them to do so; that would put an un-costed burden on local authorities. We have to leave it to local authorities to exercise leadership in the way that they think best for their area. They are doing so in significant numbers, but that is different from giving them another duty under the Bill.

Annette Brooke (Liberal Democrat, Mid Dorset and North Poole)

It looks as though we will have to differ. I do not want to place an onerous duty on local authorities; I think that I made that fairly clear, and I showed my acceptance that such leadership is happening already.

I have a great deal of sympathy with the hon. Member for Stockport, because we do not want too much sticking to the regulations. However, there are some good examples in child minding. Child minders thought that having to register and being Ofsted-inspected would be onerous. I find it really inspiring that so many child minders, as well as the National Childminding Association, actually like the regime and appreciate that it is the beginnings of the professionalisation of its work force. [Interruption.]

Joe Benton (Labour, Bootle)

Order. Remarks should be made through the Chair, please.

Annette Brooke (Liberal Democrat, Mid Dorset and North Poole)

I shall conclude, because I have made my point on amendment No. 125.

Joe Benton (Labour, Bootle)

Just for good order’s sake, I point out to the hon. Lady that amendment No. 125, which she has asked to press to a Division, will be moved formally later, when we get to it on the amendment paper.

Tim Loughton (Conservative, East Worthing and Shoreham)

The Minister gave us a comprehensive response; indeed, she spoke for rather longer than I did in proposing this great tranche of amendments. Much of what she said was helpful, but it reinforced the point that an awful lot of what we are debating hinges on regulations that we have not seen. It would have aided the Committee greatly to see at least a draft of some of those regulations.

I was pleased that the Minister offered the Committee sight of some work in progress to do with clause 11 ahead of our consideration of that clause, which is not far off now. Any other such work in progress would aid our work, and so shorten the length of speeches justifying what may or may not come up later in regulations.

The point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton about quality has to be right: surely local authorities have mechanisms in place now to give qualitative measures, and it would surely not be an enormous innovation to inject some of those into the assessment in the Bill.

I was reassured by the Minister’s responses on the complaints mechanism, which she referred to as a highly convoluted appeal process. It need not be convoluted, but the essential point, if we are to afford parents some assurance that they can register a grievance when they have one, is that there will be an independent body assessing it. The parents will not be complaining just to the authority against whom the complaint is directed. If the Minister is saying that such complaints will automatically be made available to Ofsted as part of its inspection and will be publishable, that would be helpful. If that mechanism works without an enormous network and structure having to be put in place, it would address the point that we are raising.

It is interesting to note a parallel with the yellow card system. It is appropriate that the main Chamber is discussing regulation of the pharmaceutical industry, where the Medicine and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency operates a yellow card system, so that when consumers experience side-effects with a drug, their general practitioner can be notified, as can the regulatory agency. That information can then be published, so that if people see that there is a problem, it can get back to the authorities—companies in this case—to do something about it.

Similarly, if Ofsted is experiencing complaints with commonality around the country and those are published, people will have some assurance that their complaints are being fed through and not being brushed aside by the local authority, and are being taken account of nationally. Similar problems will occur in all parts of the country. That assurance was helpful.

On the parallel amendments dealing with an appeals or complaints process for the providers, I was not quite as reassured, because the Minister said that it is open to providers to set up business wherever they wish and there are no restraints on them within certain requirements. That is not the point. We are concerned with unfair competition, where publicly funded new providers are coming in with the up-front capital costs provided, which may not be a sustainable business model. That has been the experience of certain independent and voluntary providers over recent months and years when they are forced into competition with a neighbourhood nursery that is publicly funded, with all the costs covered up front.

I shall not press the amendment, but more consideration needs to be given to how PVIs can register their concerns and have them assessed properly, although not looked at on a Competition Commission basis. Hence the purpose of some of the amendments on which my hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton elaborated. The local authority should have regard to the existing provision and not seek to duplicate it unnecessarily.

I have a good deal of sympathy with the argument on quality advanced by the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole. She may find some support from this party on amendment No. 125 which, without being too prescriptive, sets out the importance of having regard to quality.

Rather than detain the Committee too much longer—we have made our point about the great melange of amendments grouped together for explicable technical reasons—I should like to ask it to divide on amendment No. 76, which deals with disabilities. The Minister mentioned disabilities but skirted around the point of amendment No. 76 and concentrated instead on the other disability amendment, which is about raising the age from 16 to 18. She did not address at all the argument that we were trying to make. She made the perfectly legitimate point that respite and breaks from care are not what child care is about, but we are saying that there must be special considerations for disabled children. We are all aware of that, and in most cases such considerations can be more costly if they are addressed properly.

Parents may choose not to go out to work because they are full-time carers of disabled children or may be disabled themselves. For their children to be able to go to a nursery place could be beneficial, particularly if the child has been isolated at home because of the nature of his or her disabilities. Special disabled provision would be required at the nursery, but not necessarily for five or even two full days a week. Episodes of nursery care would put the child in an environment where there could be social interaction with other children and more specialist care from specially trained nursery staff who deal with people with disabilities, including learning disabilities.

Going back to the argument about the child care element of the working tax credit, parents would not qualify as they would not be in work or seeking work because of the care that their children need. The alternative is a full-time carer and parents going out to work, which would involve far greater expense for everybody involved. Greater flexibility must be afforded to disabled children and to disabled children with disabled parents, which is why such provision merits being added to the Bill, which amendment No. 76 would do.

Annette Brooke (Liberal Democrat, Mid Dorset and North Poole)

My party will support that amendment. It occurred to me while the hon. Gentleman was speaking that two deaf parents could have a child with good hearing who would need a certain amount of social interaction with other children.

Tim Loughton (Conservative, East Worthing and Shoreham)

That is a good point, hence my wanting to include disabled parents as well as disabled children. I cannot see that they are included in the Bill, and they could be missed out. For the reasons that the hon. Lady gave earlier, it may not be not reasonably practicable to provide such people with the more expensive child care that is often involved. If that happens, we will miss the children who are in many respects the most disadvantaged. For them, the experience of a nursery place or other form of child care helps their development and is a positive boon. The child gets some of the things that they miss out on because of the limitations of home environments in which they spend more time because of their disabilities.

I am grateful to the Minister for responding in great detail to our many probing amendments. She has shown sympathy with many of the fears and concerns that have been articulated today, and I hope that they will be addressed when the regulations are published.

Stephen Hesford (Labour, Wirral West)

In many ways, the Committee could sympathise with what the hon. Gentleman says, but the formula of words used in the amendment is too vague. It looks more like a probing amendment than one that would do what the hon. Gentleman seeks, and I could not vote for it on that basis.

Tim Loughton (Conservative, East Worthing and Shoreham)

Vagueness is the charge, but I assert that the amendment is rather more specific. It is more closely targeted at children with disabilities or other special needs than some of the rest of the Bill. Indeed, later amendments deal with the definition of work, whether it is part time, voluntary or whatever. I do not think that there can be any confusion as to who the amendment targets. If the hon. Gentleman sympathises with what we are trying to achieve, I hope he will not be deterred from voting with us by an unjustified notion of what we are trying to do. I would be delighted to come up with more detail if he is coming across to our side.

On that basis, rather than push the lead amendment, and before the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole moves hers, I should, if you are so minded, Mr. Benton, like to ask the Committee to vote later on amendment No. 76.

I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Joe Benton (Labour, Bootle)

For good order’s sake, I explain to the hon. Gentleman that amendment No. 76 will be called formally when we come to it on the order paper.

Annette Brooke (Liberal Democrat, Mid Dorset and North Poole)

I beg to move amendment No. 225, in clause 6, page 4, line 9, leave out ‘parents’ and insert ‘families’.

Joe Benton (Labour, Bootle)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments: No. 226, in clause 6, page 4, line 9, leave out ‘to enable them’.

No. 227, in clause 6, page 4, line 11, at beginning insert ‘to enable parents’.

No. 228, in clause 6, page 4, line 12, at beginning insert ‘to enable parents’.

Annette Brooke (Liberal Democrat, Mid Dorset and North Poole)

These four simple amendments, which hinge around amendment No. 225, will not take as long to discuss as the previous group. It is important to link sufficiently to the needs of families, and that is not just about considering parents’ employment status but recognising the benefits of quality child care for all children. Amendments Nos. 226, 227 and 228 tidy up the rest of the section.

I like the idea of considering the whole of the family in such a context, and using “family” means that we are not only considering the needs of the parents but embracing the needs of the child. At times we have concentrated greatly on the needs of parents, and it is important to put things in a family context. I do not have prescriptive views on what the family unit should be, but I define a family as a child plus at least one caring adult, come what may. The word “family” describes a unit and sometimes it is better to focus on the whole unit to ensure that we genuinely improve the well-being of the children in it.

Maria Eagle (Labour, Liverpool, Garston)

I am glad that the hon. Lady, who spoke with admirable brevity, said enough to give me some sort of clue as to her intention. I must say that I have been puzzling over precisely what the impact of the amendments was meant to be.

In view of what the hon. Lady said, I suspect that her amendment may well be defective. She said that she wants to ensure that the clause is not linked only to the needs of parents, but includes families. She then gave her definition of a family, and it seems that what she wants to add is the needs of the child.

Annette Brookeindicated assent.

Maria Eagle (Labour, Liverpool, Garston)

The hon. Lady nods, which assists me. However, I do not think that replacing “parents” with “families” would quite achieve what she says she aims to achieve. If amended, the clause would read “sufficient to meet the requirements of families”, but the duty would still be subject to paragraphs (a) and (b), which include the requirement to enable parents

“to take up, or remain in, work”.

The amendments appear to alter the focus of the duty away from working parents towards families, which I think is what the hon. Lady intended to do, but it would still require local authorities to secure sufficient child care so that parents in families can work. Therefore, the amendments would not move the focus of the clause away from that link to the employment needs of parents in the way that she seeks.

Earlier, in what I might describe as a bit of a tour de force, my right hon. Friend the Minister for Children and Families talked in detail—she is now leaving the Room, which worries me a bit—about why the present focus on working parents is the best way in which to help the children in those families to achieve quality outcomes. She also covered in some detail, which I do not want to go over again, how the current drafting allows authorities to shape and support the child care market.

The duty ensures that there will be a sustainable child care market that will have flexibility to meet the needs of the parents. That is not to say that the needs of children are not central—they are completely central to the Bill—but the clause is about what parents can expect of their local authority, so it is right that it should focus on working parents, given that clauses 1 to 5 place children’s well-being at the forefront of the Bill. Children are the entire focus of the Bill, but that does not mean that we need to focus every clause on them. We cannot put the entire Bill into each clause; some clauses inevitably have to deal with other things. I do not want the meaning and focus of this key clause to become muddied and less clear. The Bill is about giving children the best start in life, but the clause is about what support parents can expect the local authority to give them, through the child care market, to assist them, particularly with their employment prospects and work.

The amendment would unnecessarily restate the objective of the Bill and would risk creating confusion, which is never good in primary legislation. I understand that the hon. Lady wants to focus on families, which is entirely laudable, but the entire Bill focuses on families, and it is not necessary to focus every single clause on families and the word “families” to achieve what I think she seeks to achieve. I hope that she can understand my point. She looks a little bit like she does not agree with me.

It is quite difficult to see what replacing the word “parents” with “families” would add beyond the hon. Lady’s feeling that it would be nice and helpful to emphasise that, when we are talking about child care, children are as important as parents. I can understand her desire to keep stating that, but I have not been convinced that it is important enough to muddy the meaning of the clause. I hope that I have convinced her. I managed to unconvince her on Tuesday on another amendment. I hope that I have done better this time. I await with baited breath to see whether she will feel able to withdraw the amendment.

Annette Brooke (Liberal Democrat, Mid Dorset and North Poole)

I do not think that I have convinced myself enough at this stage to push the amendment to a vote. However, this is an important probing amendment. It is vital that we come out with something that is a little unusual and not entirely obvious, although it becomes more obvious when we look at the amendments on part-time work and so on. However, as I said that we had too many amendments in the earlier group, it would be a little inconsistent to argue that the amendment should have been taken with the others. It will begin to make more sense when we reach that group.

For a particular family, it might not be the best outcome for both parents to go to work or for both parents to have full-time work. We should think about flexible arrangements that suit a family. I feel that in life we should use the term “family” more than we do. We talk about and have lots of statistics on child poverty, but we must recognise that when we are dealing with child poverty, it is within the context of the particular family. I do not think that it is incompatible. However, I have not convinced myself that my amendment would improve the Bill at this stage. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Tim Loughton (Conservative, East Worthing and Shoreham)

I beg to move amendment No. 77, in clause 6, page 4, line 11, after ‘in,’, insert

‘part time or full time’.

Joe Benton (Labour, Bootle)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments:

No. 78, in clause 6, page 4, line 11, after ‘work’, insert ‘or unpaid voluntary activity’.

No. 179, in clause 6, page 4, line 12, after ‘undertake’, insert

‘part time or full time’.

No. 251, in clause 22, page 11, line 9, after ‘in’, insert ‘part or full time’.

No. 252, in clause 22, page 11, line 9, after ‘work’, insert ‘or unpaid voluntary activity’.

Tim Loughton (Conservative, East Worthing and Shoreham)

These are fairly straightforward probing amendments, which mirror each other. As I mentioned, we wanted to tease out the detail of the definition of work a bit more in subsection (1). As currently drafted, it simply says that parents should be helped

“to take up, or remain in, work”.

Amendment No. 77 would qualify that by adding

“part time or full time”.

The Minister must have a definition of what constitutes work. Someone might be in part-time work for the very reasons we debated. They may be looking after a disabled child or being a carer because of disabilities themselves. The provision is replicated in amendment No. 251 to clause 22 in the Welsh provisions.

Amendments Nos. 78 and 252 also qualify work as “unpaid voluntary activity”. I am sure that the Minister will be in favour of parents doing voluntary work. Indeed, we are coming to the end of the year of the volunteer, and I declare an interest as a national trustee of the Community Service Volunteers, who are partly responsible with the Home Office for arranging the year of the volunteer, and very successful it has been.

Also, at the beginning of the week, the Chancellor announced in his pre-Budget report that funding would be made available to young people going off and doing voluntary work, perhaps as part of a gap year. Therefore, he approves of it, so the Minister is on safer ground in agreeing to the amendment, if she is so minded.

There will be parents who can do voluntary work, but who are not minded to do paid employment, and others who qualify for payment as part of a voluntary work scheme. Strictly speaking, such people will lose out. They may therefore decide not to go into voluntary work and to rely on paid employment so that they qualify for access to the child care that they require.

These are two pairs of probing amendments, and I should be grateful for the Minister’s response, particularly to the second pair, in the light of the Chancellor’s comments.

Annette Brooke (Liberal Democrat, Mid Dorset and North Poole)

The hon. Gentleman and I have accidentally joined forces, as we have tabled an identical amendment. The purpose of amendment No. 179 was simply to obtain clarification on something that I raised on Second Reading. I was not clear whether part-time work was included, so I want the Minister to state clearly what the position is.

I realised that somebody might be engaged in part-time work and part-time education or training and need full-time care provision. I should explain that it was not possible to table the amendment as “and/or”, which is what I intended to have. My concern relates to someone who needs quite a lot of child care but who is engaged in both education and training and part-time work. Will part-time work on its own qualify and what will the position be for someone who is doing full-time hours that are a mix of training and work? Often training is a route to a better job and a better property, so that is quite important.

Beverley Hughes (Labour, Stretford and Urmston)

I hope that I can briefly reassure both hon. Members that the amendments are unnecessary. The reference to “work” is to the natural meaning of the word, which will include part-time work, full-time work, paid work and unpaid work, including unpaid voluntary work. It is the Government’s clear commitment to encourage people to make a contribution to society through voluntary work and activity, so voluntary work is included in the definition of work.

Tim Loughton (Conservative, East Worthing and Shoreham)

How will voluntary work be judged? Does clearing up the garden of an aged relative count as voluntary work, or does it need to be with an organised voluntary programme or a charity as part of a local community group?

Beverley Hughes (Labour, Stretford and Urmston)

We are still deliberating on that and we will consult groups and local authorities to see how we frame the definition. As the hon. Gentleman rightly says, there is a wide range of activities, from involvement with a national or a local organisation to less easily defined activities that none the less contribute to the locality. I will try to give him some examples of that, but I do not want to have a final definition until we have undertaken the consultation.

On that more general point, although I recognise the frustration of Opposition Members in the sense that the detail of the guidance and the regulations that we keep referring to has not been fine-tuned and is not available at this time, that is partly because we intend to consult extensively with all the interested parties before we finalise it. Although I am happy to produce the papers on the direction of travel and our early thinking, they cannot be definitive until we have consulted those who will be affected by the guidance, either as local authorities implementing the duties or as providers or parents using the services. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will take some reassurance and comfort from the fact that we intend the definition of work to be framed as widely as possible. It certainly includes the categories that are included in the amendments.

Roger Williams (Liberal Democrat, Brecon and Radnorshire)

Will the Minister consider including in the definition of work parents who are caring for other members of the family so that their children could have child care and that activity could be encouraged?

Beverley Hughes (Labour, Stretford and Urmston)

Possibly. If they are registered as child carers, they will be in work, but we are getting into a convoluted situation. I have made the point about the relationship and relevance of work to lifting children out of poverty. That will be the key issue. However, the definition of work includes all the variants that the amendments specify. I hope that, with those reassurances, the amendment will not be pressed to a vote.

Tim Loughton (Conservative, East Worthing and Shoreham)

The Minister has comprehensively dealt with the first pair of amendments, on the definition of part-time or full-time work, so I certainly will not seek to press that. However, I am more concerned with the minefield that is voluntary work and how on earth it will be defined. If I nip down to the shops and do some shopping for my neighbour on a voluntary basis as part of my shopping, does that constitute voluntary work? If it does, I would qualify for assistance with child care places. Would taking my neighbour’s child to school or helping to organise the walking bus to school count as voluntary work? I gave the example of gardening. What about working at home on a computer doing some voluntary work over the internet? What if I—or, more likely, somebody else—were the organiser of the Stretford and Urmston Labour party ball?

Beverley Hughes (Labour, Stretford and Urmston)

We do not have balls.

Tim Loughton (Conservative, East Worthing and Shoreham)

I am sure that there are other examples of high life in the social diary of the Stretford and Urmston Labour party.

Ed Miliband (Labour, Doncaster North)

Is the hon. Gentleman volunteering to help?

Tim Loughton (Conservative, East Worthing and Shoreham)

I know that the Labour party is desperate for funds, but I am not offering my services.

What constitutes voluntary activity? The issue is a minefield, especially in terms of how the Chancellor defines voluntary activity for his new scheme, which I applaud and which we welcome. In this case, there is a defined benefit of somebody doing voluntary work, so I am interested to see how the Minister approaches the problem.

Ann Coffey (Labour, Stockport)

I am slightly confused because I thought that we were debating the role of the local authority in ensuring that the provision of child care is sufficient to meet various needs and what could work in the circumstances. I am concerned because it sounds as though the hon. Gentleman is talking about the local authority providing direct assistance—almost as though that were financial assistance—to someone doing voluntary work. As I understand it, we are talking about the local authority trying to estimate how many of those doing voluntary work in their area might require child care, which they would have to pay for, either directly or through access to some other benefit.

Tim Loughton (Conservative, East Worthing and Shoreham)

The hon. Lady is entirely right, but those people who are claiming to do some form of voluntary activity and therefore have a right to a say on whether their need is being realised by the local authority will have a say under the powers. They will not get something for free, but an entitlement is included in the provision. That could be an important point, which is why I made it clear to the Minister that it is essential that a tight definition is applied. It would be helpful if she were prepared to share the definition of work with the Committee.

I raised this as a probing amendment and I do not wish to pursue it. It would, however, be useful if the Minister were mindful of it and helped us to make progress on it at a later stage. On that basis, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.