§ 31. Fiona Mactaggart (Slough)What steps she is taking to promote Government measures to make it easier for those mothers who want to return to work to do so. [42884]
§ The Minister for Women (Ms Patricia Hewitt)We are promoting a range of measures to tackle this issue, including investment in child care, the working families 432 tax credit, the new deal for lone parents and the new deal for partners, and increased access to adult education. The Employment Bill currently before Parliament includes further measures to enable more mothers who wish to return to work to do so.
§ Fiona MactaggartI welcome the steps that have been taken to help women to return to work, one of the most significant of which is the improvements in child care provision, especially after school child care. May I urge the Secretary of State to do what she can to ensure that, as new opportunities funding runs out for after school child care schemes, support for mothers, especially low-paid mothers, through such schemes continues so that we carry on making the progress that we have started to make in opening up work opportunities for women?
§ Ms HewittMy hon. Friend raises an important point. We have begun to make real progress on child care. We have created additional child care places for almost 880,000 children since 1997, and we are on track to help more than 1.5 million children with child care places by 2004. The specific issue of new opportunities funding in disadvantaged areas and how we sustain and grow provision in those communities is being reviewed by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Skills, and is also the subject of a study by the performance and innovation unit.
§ Mrs. Caroline Spelman (Meriden)I am sure that the Secretary of State will agree that parents returning to work often prefer informal child care arrangements, and, if possible, leaving their children with a relative. Does she accept that we were right to criticise this gap in the arrangements for the working families tax credit, and that yesterday's announcement that child care tax credits might be extended to grandparents represents a welcome climbdown?
§ Ms HewittI am delighted that the hon. Lady has told us that she and the Conservative party strongly support the working families tax credit and the child care tax credit that goes with it. When my right hon. Friend the Chancellor first announced the working families tax credit, he made it clear that he would keep its operation under review. It is already enormously popular and it is helping more than three times as many people as the Conservatives' family credit was helping. The issue of whether it can be extended to family carers including grandparents is of real concern, for instance, to some of my constituents in low-income communities. That is why we are looking precisely at that possibility.