Childcare Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-07-01
Topic: Social Welfare
Nicholas True (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, this is very much a debate on Amendment 1, and I welcome it—it must not be another Second Reading debate—but the points in the amendment seem to be the essence of good governance. Even if my noble friend is unable to accept the amendment, I am sure that he would be the first to say that government will be constantly reviewing the cost of providing childcare and constantly consulting. I am already grateful for the assurances that I have had that he will consult childcare providers. So in that sense the spirit of it is agreed. Of course, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, that longitudinal and technical study is extremely important. Without going over where we have been before, policy should be founded on consideration of good information and be brought forward in due process, and we are moving towards that. I have one mild stricture for the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock. She said that she did not care about what was in the government manifesto. That is a perfectly reasonable personal thought, but I think Mr Lloyd George from her Benches reminded this House that it ought to have a care for the manifesto of a newly elected Government. So I know that she does not oppose this Bill, but I hope that it is not going to be a doctrine that we hear from the Liberal Democrats—that they do not care too much what the elected Government have promised I wanted to probe further on regulation. I shall read Hansard very carefully tomorrow. My noble friend does not necessarily have to reply in detail; it may be something that he wants to give further thought to. But on the question of regulations—maybe draft regulations, not the final regulations—the fact is that the wrong regulations under this Bill, and under its wide powers, could drive small, private and voluntary settings out of existence, just as the wrong sort of heat drives our trains off our railways, it seems. That will be one of the concerns that I express as we go through the Bill. It is reasonable for Parliament to want to avoid the wrong sort of regulations on behalf of those whom we represent. Of course, I declare a particular interest as the leader of a local authority that may have to implement those regulations and as the husband of a provider who may have to respond to them. I hope that between now and October my noble friend will see whether we can show a little bit of ankle on the regulations, because some of them could be literally life and death, not only to businesses and voluntary organisations but to the hard-working women, if I may use that phrase —they are predominantly women—who work in these settings, many of them part time. So I would be grateful for the most that he can do to help us on regulations In the amendment proposed by the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, of course I agree that value for money is important. Once upon a time, Her Majesty’s Treasury was very interested in value for money before any policy came forward; now it seems that we are looking into affordability once the policy has been published. The value-for-money argument has another aspect to it that I hope we will not lose sight of. I recognise that the Government are committed to this principle. However, this policy, we are told, is going to be funded by taking away benefit from people earning more than £150,000 a year who are provident enough to save for their retirement. That money is going to be given to another set of people, many of them earning more than £150,000 a year, who, you might say, are not provident enough to put a bit of money aside to pay for childcare for their children. That could be a bit of a merry-go-round, to use a phrase that we have heard lately As the policy evolves, I hope that we will consider whether the state, the Government and the taxpayers are getting the best value for their money—not only what parents get in terms of providers; that is an issue of quality. This looks potentially—we shall see—to be a very expensive policy with a very substantial dead-weight cost involved in it of paying for a lot of people for something that they pay for already I do not expect an answer but I hope that that thought will inform a little the consideration of the implementation of the policy. Having slightly enlarged on the noble Earl’s Amendment 29, I hope that that aspect of value for money will be kept in mind as development of the Bill goes forward.