Willis Nicola; Hipkins ChrisNICOLA WILLIS (National): Thank you for the opportunity to ask some questions about these Estimates. An issue that our select committee did examine but which I would appreciate some more input from the Minister in the chair the Hon Chris Hipkins on was predictions around what early childhood education participation may look like over the next months and indeed years. The reason this is important of course is that the Estimates estimate how much expenditure the Crown will make on early childhood education (ECE) on a demand-driven basis i.e. how many hours we expect children of each age to enrol in services by type of service and therefore how much Crown expenditure will be incurred. What we have seen during COVID-19 is reductions in participation by children both in terms of the hours that they're attending and the number of children who are enrolled in early childhood education. I think it is of concern to me and to National and I think to many of us that in an economic environment where we can expect to see increasing unemployment where in some households parents will no longer have work or will have reduced incomes and therefore will make choices not to enrol their children in early childhood education or may on the margin decide to reduce their participation—this may have a significant impact because it has been agreed by Governments of both stripes in recent times that increasing participation in ECE particularly for three- and four-year-olds sets a good foundation for future learning.So my question to the Minister is around what the latest view is on what we can expect to see in early childhood education enrolment patterns. But secondly to that if there is any view that there may be a reduction in that attendance has there been any thought given to whether any underspend in this area would be reallocated within early childhood education? In previous Budget years we've seen that when there has been an underspend in early childhood education it hasn't been reallocated within that sector. I would be interested to see what the Minister's view is there and whether he has engaged at all with the Minister for Social Development who in a separate Vote has funds that are associated with subsidising early childhood education for lower-income families in particular. And in relation to both of these questions I'm interested in what steps have been considered to monitor respond to and evaluate any changes in early childhood participation across the country and particularly across at-risk demographic groups. So I'd invite some commentary on that.Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister of Education): I think the questions the member asks are incredibly reasonable ones. Early childhood education participation as she's noted has declined both during the COVID-19 lockdown period as we would have all expected but also it has yet to rebound to the level that it was pre - COVID-19. At the moment the data that we have on that is survey data. It is not the most reliable data as the member will appreciate. Survey data is a rapid response so it gives us some information to work from but the most reliable data takes a wee while to come through in the data return exercises that centres go through and then that will need to be rigorously crunched in order to give us the best picture possible.I guess what I could give her is a high-level response and say the bit that I would be concerned about is if we were losing children out of the system altogether because I think a lot of work has gone into getting particularly under-represented groups into early childhood education. If the data shows us that we're seeing shifting participation patterns depending on what those patterns are it may or may not be something that we'd be worried about. So if we were seeing for example a reduction for some children from say 40 hours a week down to 30 or 20 hours a week based on their parents working less and therefore having them at home more we might be concerned about the overall employment outcome for the parents. But for the children that wouldn't be such an issue because you know 20 hours is still a very credible amount of early childhood education participation. So we don't yet have that data to be able to do that detailed number crunching around that but of course I want to see that data as soon as I can the same as everybody else in the House does. In terms of the childcare subsidy that the member mentioned we did have an issue with the childcare subsidy during the lockdown. We provided the subsidies for early childhood education participation during the lockdown as if a lockdown hadn't happened. So it was if the participation was at the pre-COVID levels because during level 4 there was next to no participation and during level 3 the participation was very very low and even at level 2 we still weren't back to normal levels; level 1 we're getting closer but we're still not there completely. So we have kept the Ministry of Education - provided funding at the level that it would have been. The childcare subsidy however—under the rules of the childcare subsidy centres were not able to access that because it was attached to children attending and if they weren't attending then they couldn't get the money. So we worked very quickly to put an alternative in place which is basically a fund that centres could apply to if they'd been financially disadvantaged by not having the childcare subsidy recognising that actually many of those centres that are heavily reliant on the childcare subsidy are also in the lowest socio-economic communities which is where we can least afford to lose early childhood education provision. So we have taken steps to make sure that we've kept those services going. With regard to underspend of course all of those things are subject to further Budget consideration. At this point we don't have an accurate estimate of what any underspend might be and what it might look like. But of course you know I'll go into those Budget negotiations attempting to get as much money for early childhood education as I can.CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): Just before I take the next speaker can I just clarify: the chairman's speech counts in the time—the chairman of the select committee—and that doesn't stop the chairman from asking questions.