argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Childcare Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2015-11-25
Topic: Social Welfare
Nicky Morgan (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank my right hon. Friend very much indeed for that question. She raises an important point. We want local authorities—in fact, they are under a duty—to ensure that they provide places for all children, including those with disabilities This Childcare Bill and the 15 additional free hours it provides is, of course, part of an overall package of childcare measures being introduced by this Government. My right hon. Friend has already talked today about the fact that we are spending over the course of this Parliament £1 billion more on childcare every year. I shall come on to talk about this in more detail. We will conduct an early years funding formula review, as we want to understand how providers cater for children with disabilities and special educational needs. I should also point out for the sake of completeness that our tax-free childcare proposals mean that the maximum amount parents of these children could pay into their childcare accounts is double the amount that could be paid for children without disabilities. Parents can use that money for children with disabilities until they are 18, and for children who are not disabled until they are 12. I hope my right hon. Friend will agree that we are offering a comprehensive package of childcare support for all children and all families.
Childcare Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2015-11-25
Topic: Social Welfare
Michael James Tomlinson-Mynors (Conservative, Centre-right): I am very grateful for what the Secretary of State has said, but can she reassure nursery providers in my constituency, such as Broadstone Christian nursery and Montessori nursery in Lytchett Minster, that there will be a fairer funding formula? We heard about the formula a few moments ago, but it is particularly important for childcare providers.
Childcare Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2015-11-25
Topic: Education
Nicky Morgan (Conservative, Centre-right): I am delighted to hear about the work of the nurseries in my hon. Friend’s constituency. Yes, I can give him that assurance. The national funding formula review will apply not only to schools but to early years, and it will include the high-needs block of funding as well.
Childcare Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2015-11-25
Topic: Social Welfare
Robert Alexander Stewart (Conservative, Centre-right): The doubling of hours for childcare is great, but how will we ensure that the quality of the care that our children receive will be doubled up? How will we ensure that there are sufficient places, and that they are of the right quality?
Childcare Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2015-11-25
Topic: Social Welfare
Nicky Morgan (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend has raised an important point. We are, of course, doubling the entitlement to free childcare for two-year-olds, which originally applied to 20% who were the most disadvantaged, and now applies to 40%. The sector responded by creating an additional 230,000 places over the last Parliament. It has already risen to the challenge, and will do so again. I shall go on to say something about the way in which families will respond to the entitlement and how they will use the additional hours—I am sure that other Members will speak about that as well—but we know that there is already spare capacity in the system.
Childcare Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2015-11-25
Topic: Social Welfare
Julian Charles Sturdy (Conservative, Centre-right): The Secretary of State is right to refer to the fairer funding formula, which is vital to nurseries. She will probably come to this later, but what measures is she introducing to guarantee that local authorities will pass on all the extra funding to nursery providers, and will not top-slice it?
Childcare Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2015-11-25
Topic: Social Welfare
Nicky Morgan (Conservative, Centre-right): I will come on to that, but my hon. Friend is absolutely right. As I have said, we want as much money as possible to go to the frontline, and that will be one of the issues that we will raise as part of the funding formula review.
Childcare Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2015-11-25
Topic: Education
Nicky Morgan (Conservative, Centre-right): I am going to make some progress. I think the hon. Lady will want to hear what I say about rates. She may want to ask a further question after that The hon. Member for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell) is on record as saying that she is pleased to see that the Government are offering more support for early years, and wants to see our policies turned into reality. Today, she has the chance to demonstrate her support by joining us in the Lobby to support the Bill. It appears that she will be doing that, and I welcome the support of the Labour party Questions were raised in the other place about why the Bill was introduced so early. My response to that is "Why would we wait?" It is clear from the interest expressed by Members today, and from the reaction of our constituents, how successful and important the existing 15-hours offer is in supporting better outcomes for children. As the OECD’s latest "Education at a Glance" study reminds us, the United Kingdom is one of 13 OECD countries in which more than 90% of children aged three are enrolled in pre-primary settings, and pupils who each received one year of pre-primary education in the United Kingdom perform better at the age of 15 than their peers who did not We also know that the extension of free childcare is something that working parents want, so instead of waiting, we committed ourselves to implementing the extended offer early in some areas, from September 2016. We know that that is what parents want because we have listened to them. Over the summer, my Department consulted nearly 20,000 members of the public and 750 employers. Those who took part told us that they wanted 30 hours of free childcare and that the increase in hours would support their work choices. I heard that myself on a visit to Rolls-Royce in August with the Under-Secretary of State for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for East Surrey (Mr Gyimah), who has responsibility for childcare and education. Employees talked to us about their childcare decisions and what they are looking for from the entitlement to 30 hours of free childcare. It was a pleasure for us to meet them and I thank them for sharing their views. They were very clear that they want more flexibility and choice in how they can access childcare I am determined to ensure that high-quality, affordable childcare is available to those parents, so that pressure is taken off their household budgets, and so they are more financially secure and better able to plan for their future. I am confident that we have a childcare sector that will deliver. The childcare market is flourishing: it has grown by 230,000 places since 2009.
Childcare Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2015-11-25
Topic: Social Welfare
Felicia Jane Beatrix Drummond (Conservative, Centre-right): Does my right hon. Friend agree that the 124 childminders who create 597 places in Portsmouth make a big difference to the overall quality of childcare? Will measures be put in place to support them with administration, in particular?
Childcare Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2015-11-25
Topic: Social Welfare
Nicky Morgan (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention. Childcare by childminders is very much part of the response. They are popular and flexible. We want to continue to do what we did in the last Parliament—to offer childcare business support grants, which enable people to set up in business as childminders; often they are women setting up in business for the first time. We welcome their contribution to this market Providers have demonstrated what they can do through the two-year-old free entitlement programme, with nearly 60% of eligible children accessing a place at the beginning of this year, four months after the entitlement was extended. Now we will increase our overall investment in the childcare sector and set an increased funding rate that will enable providers to deliver the entitlement and ensure fair value for the taxpayer The Chancellor has just made the autumn statement and he could not have demonstrated more clearly the Government’s commitment to funding the early years and childcare. In the last Parliament, we invested around £20 billion to support parents with childcare. The Chancellor’s announcement today, along with the funding announced at the Budget in the summer, mean that this Government will go even further and invest a record amount in childcare The Government will provide more support than any other in history, with, as I have mentioned, a package that includes rolling out tax-free childcare from 2017 and more support for families on universal credit. The extended entitlement means that working families will be entitled to receive an unprecedented increase in childcare support, with savings of up to £5,000 per child per year for working families. By 2019-20, we will be investing more than £1 billion a year to fund our manifesto pledge for 30 hours of childcare for working parents of three and four-year-olds As well as being the only party to commit to extending free childcare to 30 hours, at the general election we were the only party to commit to raise the average funding rate paid to providers. Today we are confirming we will do so.
Childcare Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2015-11-25
Topic: Social Welfare
Nicky Morgan (Conservative, Centre-right): I suggest that the hon. Lady look at the review, which is being published as I speak. The figure of £9 an hour is not one that we recognise. No such case has been made to us in the course of the review. As I have just set out, the average rate is going to go up to £4.88 for three and four-year-olds, and to £5.39 for two-year-olds. We are confident, based on the evidence we have gathered, that that increase will provide high-quality childcare for children in Islington and elsewhere in the country.
Childcare Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2015-11-25
Topic: Social Welfare
Nicky Morgan (Conservative, Centre-right): Let me just answer the hon. Lady’s other question. She asked about the funding formula review. That is about making sure that as much money as possible goes to the frontline. I hope she has also had a conversation with Islington council. The duty is on me, under this Bill, to procure the places, but the local authority’s role is to provide a sufficient number of places for families needing childcare and it must pass on as much of the money as it possibly can—we have already talked about top-slicing—so that the front-line providers get the money that the taxpayer is providing.
Childcare Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2015-11-25
Topic: Social Welfare
Nicky Morgan (Conservative, Centre-right): The Bill is going to enter Committee and I am sure that there will be debates on this, but the evidence-based review we are publishing today does not support the figure the hon. Lady mentions. She might be talking about the additional rate that some providers will charge, but we are talking about the free entitlement and about the hundreds of millions of pounds of hard-earned taxpayers’ money that this Government are going to spend to ensure that working families get the support for childcare that they need.
Childcare Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2015-11-25
Topic: Government Operations
Michelle Emma May Elizabeth Donelan (Conservative, Centre-right): The subject of councils siphoning off a bit of the money has been mentioned. That happens in Wiltshire, and I welcome my right hon. Friend’s intention to try to stop it. What measures will be put in place to achieve that, so that people in Wiltshire will get just as much as everyone else?
Childcare Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2015-11-25
Topic: Education
Nicky Morgan (Conservative, Centre-right): Part of the reason for having the funding formula review, which is part of the wider review of school funding, is to ensure that we talk to the local authorities, and the other bodies that receive the money, to find the best ways of doing this. In my opinion, that should involve maximum transparency so that people know how much money is being given by the Government, how much the local authority is receiving and how much is being passed on. That would enable the childcare-providing businesses and the families who were potentially going to be paying additional costs to know exactly how much money was not making it through to the frontline. We need to have that review and ensure that we get contributions from across the country.
Childcare Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2015-11-25
Topic: Education
Nicky Morgan (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Lady sets out precisely the problem we are trying to solve. She and other parents at her children’s school would be able to contact the governing body and request that. I will publish more details shortly. There is a real need for schools to make their facilities available for the schools or others to provide both before and after-school clubs and activities. That would extend to having provision during school holidays, which are another time when it is very difficult for working parents to juggle their parental responsibilities while keeping employers happy I talked about tax-free childcare. I do not know the ages of the hon. Lady’s children, but up to the age of 12 she will be able to pay money into the account. The Government would top that up, up to £2,000 a year. She could also then use that for provision. In my experience, when schools and others realise there is parental demand they want to respond to it.
Childcare Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2015-11-25
Topic: Education
Nicky Morgan (Conservative, Centre-right): First, the hon. Gentleman should be pleased the Conservative party is on the side of working people, as he will know that his own Front-Bench team are not at the moment—if he would like to join us, he would be very welcome. Secondly, when he was shadow Education Secretary at the general election, his party did not commit to increasing the funding for early years in the way we have done. We can, of course, have a wider debate about the schools budget, but that is not the subject for debate today. I just point out to him that not only have we committed to protecting the schools budget in real terms, but by the end of this Parliament the Department for Education’s resource budget will be higher than it was at the start. His policies would never have delivered that.
Childcare Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2015-11-25
Topic: Social Welfare
Michael James Tomlinson-Mynors (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Lady mentioned cuts to child tax credits in the last Parliament. Does she accept that it is unfair and unjust that nine out of 10 families, even families of Members of Parliament, are eligible for child tax benefits?
Childcare Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2015-11-25
Topic: Macroeconomics
Lucy Claire Leigh (Frazer) (Conservative, Centre-right): I am a little confused. There has been a review, which the hon. Lady will not yet have had an opportunity to see. The Chancellor has announced, as the Secretary of State said, that there will not be a cap, so the figures that the hon. Lady identifies must necessarily be out of date because they do not take into the account the review, which she rightly says—I do not criticise her for this—that she has not yet seen, and they do not mention the cap that she refers to.
Childcare Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2015-11-25
Topic: Social Welfare
Samuel Phillip Gyimah (Conservative, Centre-right): The cost of childcare review that was undertaken by the Department over a period of six months had 2,000 responses, including from all the sector representatives. The hourly rates that have been announced today reflect the data that were given to us by the sector, including the profit and loss accounts of providers. I would encourage the hon. Lady to look at that before criticising the rates that have been announced.
Childcare Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2015-11-25
Topic: Social Welfare
Samuel Phillip Gyimah (Conservative, Centre-right): Is the hon. Gentleman aware that we are doubling the entitlement, but not necessarily the demand? Many parents already buy more than 15 hours, which is the current free entitlement, of childcare. The policy changes who pays for it. All the scaremongering about reduction in quality does not stack up.
Childcare Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2015-11-25
Topic: Education
Lucy Claire Leigh (Frazer) (Conservative, Centre-right): This legislation is extremely welcome. One of the greatest barriers to re-entry into the workplace is childcare. Many parents, often women, find the financial burden of childcare prohibitive and do not return to work, because in the short term it simply is not financially viable. Their whole salary is eaten up by childcare costs. According to a recent report by the Fawcett Society, childcare responsibilities remain a significant limiting factor in women’s participation in the workplace. That is also self-evident from the figures. Childcare costs in the UK are the highest in the EU, with families here paying over 25% of their income on childcare, compared with an OECD average of 11.8% This legislation is not simply about short-term financial gain, however. It is also about long-term prospects. If women have the option to return to work, career progression is easier. It is about ensuring equality, because women who take long-term breaks are more likely to remain on low pay. Now that women have an opportunity to continue in their roles, promotion will be easier and the gender pay gap will be reduced. Of course, not every parent will want to return to work when their children are young, but this legislation is enabling and empowering for those who do. The Bill offers freedom and choice, and for that reason it must not only be welcomed but applauded The Childcare Bill ought to be not only about parents but about children. It emanates from the Department for Education and comes under its budget, so it must ensure that the needs of the child are at its core. The Bill enables all children of three and four to access early-years education, providing an opportunity to ensure that all children, whatever their background, get the same educational opportunity in life. It provides an opportunity to change life chances and to create a fairer society. We all know that by the age of five children from low income households are over a year behind in vocabulary, compared with children from high income households. The attainment gap for children on free school meals increases as they progress through school. In early years, the differential in performance is about 20%. As their schooling progresses, it widens such that by GCSE it can be as large as 30%. Unless we address disparities in education in the early years, these children will always be behind. The Bill will enable us to fill the gap.
Childcare Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2015-11-25
Topic: Education
Lucy Claire Leigh (Frazer) (Conservative, Centre-right): The Bill will enable two, three and four-year-olds to have the schooling they need. I welcome the Chancellor’s announcement that there will be a £1 billion increase in education spending, but I ask the Secretary of State not to lose this great opportunity to ensure that disadvantaged children get the best start in life In undertaking the pilots and the review next year, I ask the Secretary of State to take into account the points made to me by nursery providers in my constituency: to recognise the differences in nursery provision throughout the country and the scalability or otherwise of nurseries; to consider that rural and urban provision may be different; to recognise the different living costs of staff around the country, which may be high in Cambridgeshire; and to provide a rate that will enable providers to provide good quality and consistent education and care. If that is achieved, the Bill could be instrumental in our children’s futures, providing the best outcome for the next generation.
Childcare Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2015-11-25
Topic: Education
Samuel Phillip Gyimah (Conservative, Centre-right): I also take this very seriously. The enrolment rates for the first 15 hours are 96% for four-year-olds and 94% for three-year-olds. If the system is so chronically underfunded, how come that many young people are enrolled in it successfully?
Childcare Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2015-11-25
Topic: Education
Samuel Phillip Gyimah (Conservative, Centre-right): As the Secretary of State said in her opening speech, as part of announcing this rate we will be introducing an early years national funding formula, which will seek to ensure that the early years funding is allocated on the basis of need, rather than historical circumstances. Some local authorities get quite a lot of money whereas others get less. We will be looking to make sure that all local authorities are treated fairly.
Childcare Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2015-11-25
Topic: Education
Samuel Phillip Gyimah (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Lady is throwing out lots of numbers, but nobody has mentioned the £4.35 she has just thrown out there. To answer her question, we have said that we will consult local authorities in order to design the early years national funding formula. Part of that consultation will be about recognising how authorities such as Islington are funded and making the appropriate decisions then. She can contribute to that consultation, as can every other local authority in the country.
Childcare Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2015-11-25
Topic: Social Welfare
Samuel Phillip Gyimah (Conservative, Centre-right): The eligibility will be checked by HMRC, and it will be based on the actual income earned, so at 16 hours on the national living wage, someone would have to earn £107 a week in order to qualify for 30 hours of free childcare. In addition to the 30 hours of free childcare, that person may get other support such as the childcare element of tax credits or tax-free childcare. This is an incredibly generous offer, but that is not what the hon. Lady is suggesting.
Childcare Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2015-11-25
Topic: Social Welfare
Samuel Phillip Gyimah (Conservative, Centre-right): The answer to the hon. Lady’s question is simple: a lone parent would have to earn £107 a week to qualify for 30 hours of childcare. Eligibility is judged not on hours but on someone’s earnings, because HMRC can monitor earnings, not the hours that people work. If someone earns £107 in half a day that gets them 30 hours of childcare, and if someone earns that in a week they still receive those 30 hours of childcare.
Childcare Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2015-11-25
Topic: Social Welfare
Samuel Phillip Gyimah (Conservative, Centre-right): As I said very clearly, this is an income check. Irrespective of the number of hours someone works or what they earn, they will have to have an income of £107 a week to get 30 hours of childcare. HMRC will check their income, not their hours.