HC Deb 18 May 1998 vol 312 cc705-12

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Clelland.]

10.15 pm
Sir Michael Spicer (West Worcestershire)

This is a problem largely of the Government's own making. It threatens the very existence of nursery education in this country, and it is causing growing consternation and alarm in Worcestershire.

The voucher system was far from perfect, but its introduction was a firm step in the right direction towards parental choice, and it provided an opportunity for radical improvement in the education of very young children. The scheme's abolition for politically motivated and doctrinaire reasons has been disastrous. Local education authorities have taken full control of both provision and regulation of nursery education, and have used their new powers to devastating effect.

In Worcestershire, they have virtually obliterated nursery education for four-year-olds, and much the same can be said of the rest of the country. If the effect were an improvement in the early life of young children, that would be the end of the matter, but the plain fact is that it has been a massively retrograde step.

First, and probably least important, there is a budgetary question. Each year, £1,100 is made available for each child under five. By working 52 weeks a year, and employing nursery-trained teachers, rather than mainstream teachers, nursery schools are able to accommodate that subsidy in their budgets, but the same is not true of mainstream schools. Assuming a teacher-pupil ratio of 15:1—which is twice as high as the permissible ratio in nursery schools—the funding will not cover a teacher, let alone a teacher and an assistant.

Extra funds must therefore be provided by deflecting moneys from the budget allocated for teaching over-fives. Head teachers, especially in counties such as Worcestershire, argue that budgets are already overstretched. Money, however, is not the main issue. Much more important, most of the children whom local authorities are forcing out of nursery schools and into mainstream schools at the age of four are receiving a much lower standard of education.

The schools are not subject to the Children Act 1989, and therefore have no statutory limit on pupil-teacher ratios. Nurseries are compelled to maintain a ratio of 8:1, but schools can apply whatever ratio they think fit. Typically, that results in ratios of between 15 and 20:1. What is more, teachers in schools, although they are much more expensive than nursery teachers, are often not much better qualified to teach really young children. Certainly that is true of the often totally unqualified assistants who work with them.

What is more, as a recent Channel 4 programme vividly illustrated, the structure and environment of the school is often totally inappropriate to tiny children. A body of evidence is even emerging, especially from Scandinavia and Switzerland, that the semi-formality of the teaching of four-year-olds in schools is a severe impediment to their further development.

One does not have to accept entirely the pre-eminence of the theory of learning through play to have a feeling for the force of the argument that children in large establishments can be educationally force-fed prematurely, to their permanent damage. There is a special requirement with the very young to treat the needs of each child individually, which is so much easier in small nursery groups.

The whole problem is compounded by the fact that the regulation of nursery and early education is controlled by local education authorities which, because of present demographic factors resulting in falling rolls, are struggling to attract more children to their schools and thus help their argument for further funding by the taxpayer.

Put bluntly, since this Government took over the schools, the LEAs have been forcing parents to send their four-year-olds to schools. Frankly, it is a scandal. Under the voucher scheme, it has to be said that parents were increasingly persuaded to send their four-year-olds to schools for fear of losing a place for them later, but at least under that scheme they had a choice. Now, they do not have any choice at all. The idea that, in those circumstances, there can be a genuine partnership between nursery schools and LEAs, as the Government seem to pretend, is at best disingenuous and at worst a deception.

In their recently published consultation paper on the regulation of nursery education, the Government are showing some signs of awareness of the problem and the anomalies, which is at least a start. The question is, what is to be done? It seems to me—this is the purpose of raising the matter tonight—that, first, a uniform system of regulation for all nursery education is needed, whether it is provided through the schools, nurseries or play schemes.

It is illogical, to say the least, for the conditions of the Children Act 1989, for instance with respect to teacher ratios, to be applied to nursery schools and not to nursery education within mainstream schools. Also, it is wrong that mainstream schools should be exempt from having to employ properly trained nursery teachers. It is also unacceptable that there should be unspecified cross-subsidisation of nursery teaching within schools from budgets allocated for the teaching of children over five years old.

It is essential that common standards should be regulated independently. At present, social services act as the LEA's agent in most authorities in much of the regulatory process. That role should be handed over in its entirety to an independent regulatory organisation, such as the Office for Standards in Education.

Above all else, what is required is that the Government should throw away their electoral rhetoric and political dogma, and recognise that, if parental choice, which is the only real alternative to control by the LEA, is to be reintroduced, some form of voucher system will have to re-emerge. If that forces the Government to swallow too much pride, perhaps vouchers will have to be given some other name. The Government have not been slow in other areas to rebrand Conservative policies.

The future of little children is what matters. Conservative Members must acknowledge that the voucher scheme had its flaws. Because of loopholes in the Children Act 1989, LEAs could, using often unfair and inaccurate prospectuses, seduce parents to send their four-year-old children to mainstream schools. Parental choice must be reinstated, and nursery schools put on a par with mainstream schools. The Act must be amended so that mainstream schools are compelled to comply with the same regulations that apply to nursery schools—the two must be put on an equal footing. LEAs should also be told that they will not receive extra funding if they deflect into nursery education moneys that have been allocated to mainstream teaching.

The Government should start to think of children first and ideology second—the interests of the two are, in this case, antithetical. The Government should be big enough to admit that, in abolishing the voucher system, they made a mistake. They should introduce an even better voucher scheme than the one that we Conservatives left behind.

10.25 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education and Employment (Ms Estelle Morris)

I congratulate the hon. Member for West Worcestershire (Sir M. Spicer) on raising this important issue. I had thought that the House had reached unanimity in our consideration of early years education. Children, not political point scoring, should be at the centre of the debate. I regret the fact that, in some of his remarks, he reverted to political point scoring, and failed to deal with the debate in which, over the past 12 months, I have been very happy to take part.

Sir Michael Spicer

Will the hon. Lady give way?

Ms Morris

No. I want to make progress, although I may have time to give way later.

Let us consider a few facts. I accept that Worcester changed its admission arrangements in September 1997 to admit younger children. The notion that it decided to do so on 2 May after the election of a Labour Government is surely misplaced. The admission arrangements were changed as a direct result of the Conservative Government's nursery voucher scheme, which had an in-built incentive for local authorities to take young children into schools.

The money to fund the voucher scheme—bureaucracy and all—had come from local authorities in the first place. On the whole, it had come from local authorities that had done well by young children in providing early years education. To ensure that that money returned to the maintained sector, they had to compete for kids—money followed four-year-olds. I fail to see why Conservatives Members are surprised that the organisations that wanted to provide early education competed in the market that the Conservative Government created.

We inherited a situation in which, because of the nursery voucher system, local authorities throughout the country were changing admission dates, so that they could take younger and younger children into sometimes inappropriate placings. We cannot be held responsible for that; we can be held responsible only for what we have done in the 12 months since the general election.

Sir Michael Spicer

The hon. Lady said that I had been making political points, but the Labour party made massive political points about the voucher scheme during the general election—they conducted a major campaign on it. I accept that the scheme was flawed, as I have said, but at least it allowed for parental choice. Because LEAs now control the system, parents are compelled to send their children to LEA schools. That is the fundamental difference, as I hope the Government understand.

Ms Morris

If that was the case, I would share the hon. Gentleman's concerns. All our actions show that I have not spent the past 12 months trying to squeeze out good private or voluntary sector providers.

Among the things that we have done with the money saved by the abolition of the nursery voucher scheme is to help to meet the costs of seven early excellence centres that we have opened—many in partnership with the voluntary sector. Playgroups contribute to those centres. We have been able to use money that was tied up in bureaucracy to develop EECs. No hon. Member in any part of the House has argued that early excellence centres, which are beacons of excellence in early years education and which show the way in integrating child care, early years education, working with families, the family literacy scheme and support for families, are not a good way forward.

Early years development partnerships have replaced nursery voucher schemes. The new Worcestershire unitary authority has produced an excellent scheme, and the chair of the Worcestershire early years development partnership, Professor Christine Pascal, is one of the best known people in the field of early years education. I assure the hon. Member for West Worcestershire that every provider that received money from the public purse for educating four-year-olds under the nursery voucher scheme has had the opportunity to be part of an early years development partnership, and that many—if not all—have taken that opportunity.

Mr. John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings)

Will the Minister give way?

Ms Morris

Not yet; I shall finish this point.

In every instance where a member of the private or voluntary sector has not transferred from being a provider under the voucher scheme to being a provider under the partnership scheme, my Department has specifically gone to them and found out why they have withdrawn. Some have withdrawn because they do not want to aim at the desirable learning outcomes; some have not wanted to participate because they did not especially enjoy the experience under early years vouchers; but no provider has told my Department, "We are not part of the partnership scheme, because we have not been made welcome." We have a choice. Do we want a system that brings those providers together on the basis of market economics, in which they will compete with one another and drive one another out of the market, as happened under the voucher scheme, or do we want to bring those providers together in partnership, in the interests of children and parents? We have tried to do the latter.

However, the key point, from the viewpoint of the hon. Member for West Worcestershire, is that the choice that existed under the voucher scheme—the same providers, from all sectors, as well as new providers from the voluntary and private sectors—is still available in partnerships. It is necessary to co-ordinate those partnerships; the administration and co-ordination are done by a local authority.

However, in the hon. Gentleman's local authority, Worcestershire, the partnership is not chaired by the chair of the education committee or by a local authority official, but by a woman whose standing in early years education is unparalleled in the country. Her standing is widely respected, and I defy the hon. Gentleman to find anyone who knows about early years education and lives in his constituency who does not accept that the leadership of his local partnership is in good hands, and is committed to making the partnership cohesive.

Mr. Hayes

The Minister speaks with her usual clarity and honesty, but, as private sector playgroups are closing by the day and by the week, will she give us some feel for the numbers that have closed since she came to office? If partnerships are so important, why did Labour local education authorities, of one of which I was a member for many years, fare so badly at providing such partnerships, when their discretionary powers gave them a perfect opportunity and right to do so?

Ms Morris

Far too many playgroups are closing, but the hon. Gentleman should not pretend that that did not happen until 2 May 1997. Playgroups closed last year because of the nursery voucher system. The hon. Gentleman should read the material sent out by the Pre-School Learning Alliance. It does not pretend that the closure of playgroups did not hit the nation until the past 12 months. The divisive, competitive nursery voucher system began the closure of playgroups.

The hon. Gentleman should remember that the provision that started in September 1997 was planned before the general election, and that anything that happened in the year starting in 1997 in terms of kids in settings was planned well before the general election. I cannot see how hon. Gentlemen can fail to draw the conclusion that that was a direct result of the system that the Conservatives had in place.

I am not happy that playgroups are still closing; neither is my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State. That is why, only last week in a speech to the Pre-School Learning Alliance, he announced that a further £500,000 would be provided to stop good intermediate stage playgroups closing. We need those playgroups for the expansion in three-year-old education that we want, and for the work we want to do to extend child care and wrap-around provision. To prevent their being squeezed out of the market, we will be talking to partnerships and the PLA to see how best to ensure that they are not.

I will now try to reassure the hon. Member for West Worcestershire in several respects. He is right, for instance, about the mess of regulations. What is fair for one should be fair for another: they are the same kids, no matter whether they are in the private, the voluntary or the maintained sector. The system has grown up over the years in patchwork fashion, and nobody has ever taken it by the scruff of the neck to see what could be made of it.

We deserve some credit for having published, some months ago, a discussion document that honestly faced up to the difficult issues to do with regulating child care and early years education. The two are not the same: the hours are different, the expectations of parents are different, the training of the professionals is different. What might be suitable in terms of teacher/pupil ratios for two-year-olds might not be for a four-year-old.

To be generous to our predecessors, I suspect that they did not tackle this area because it is so complex. We, however, have done it. We have asked the right questions; and I will take the hon. Gentleman's comments this evening, if he so agrees, as a response to the consultation that we have launched. I shall ensure that they are incorporated in the relevant document. The hon. Gentleman was also right to question the wisdom of four-year-olds learning in classes of 30, given that, in another setting, they might be in smaller groups.

I congratulate the partnership in Worcestershire on taking steps to ensure that the ratio in its reception classes will be 1:15. We have not made Worcestershire do that: it is ahead of the game. I also congratulate the county on the partnership's innovative idea of creating a central pool of supply staff, so that teachers from all sectors—private, maintained and voluntary—can undertake training. Those are the actions of a group of people, led by a good chair, who are committed to making partnership work.

As for inspection, qualifications, initial teacher training for working with three, four, five, six, seven and eight-year-olds, and the curriculum—they all need examining. I will say, however, that in all those areas we have taken action. We are reviewing the qualifications with a view to making them more coherent. We are reviewing desirable learning outcomes. We are reviewing the inspection framework. We want to bring together the inspection of child care and of early years education.

I also take seriously the hon. Gentleman's point about the necessity for child protection of the utmost rigour. I shall make that point forcefully in the consultation process, in the cause of enhancing rigorous child care and early years education inspection.

Sir Michael Spicer

The review is good news, and I am glad that the hon. Lady has listened to the arguments and responded accordingly. However, since there was a change in regime, education for four-year-olds in nursery schools has been obliterated in Worcestershire and, as I understand it, virtually throughout the country.

My hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr. Hayes) raised the serious matter of playgroups closing, but the situation is worse than that: for four-year-olds, nursery school education has ceased to exist. The fear is that, with all the problems, which the Minister has shown she understands, nursery school education will be wiped out entirely, even for three-year-olds. That is the real worry. If the Minister has grasped that point tonight—she may have grasped it before—that will be a tremendous achievement.

Ms Morris

May I reassure the hon. Gentleman that I do not envisage three-year-olds in reception classes? That does not go on, as far as I know, and if it came to my attention that it was happening, it would be a matter of great concern.

We have taken action this year to provide places for four-year-olds. Now we want targets to be set so that we can provide places for three-year-olds. In the provision for three-year-olds, where reception classes cannot cater for kids, we will need the wealth of experience that exists in the maintained sector. There is good maintained nursery provision for three and four-year-olds. Not all kids walking through a school gate are going into a reception class at three and four. Some are going into a properly staffed, good-quality, rigorous nursery. We should not do down the maintained sector.

Because we realise that we will need the strengths of all the sectors to extend provision for three-year-olds, we have secured partnerships. That is why we provided the £500,000 of hang-on money last week to keep the playgroups going.

I imagine that the hon. Member for West Worcestershire and I will never agree on the reasons why, in September 1997, more four-year-olds went into reception classes than previously. I defy him to find any local authority that changed its admission age in the last two months of the summer term. Time would have been needed, to notify staff, to offer places, to take appeals and to allow parents to buy uniforms for their children and meet the infant class teacher. That does not happen in a six-week half-term.

Where the decision was made, as in Worcestershire, to change the starting point to four-year-olds rather than five-year-olds, it was made before 1 May last year. That is the legacy we inherited, and the turn-around that we have tried to achieve. We have not managed to do it within one year, but we have managed to give a clear signal to those in the field, but most of all to parents, that we are deadly serious about top-quality education for children.

That is the best start that we can give a youngster. Children are entitled to a proper setting, a curriculum that is appropriate to their needs, and staff who are properly trained to give them a good start. Families have a right to expect that their children will be in well regulated places, where high standards are maintained, and where the regime of child care and early years education meets the changing social and economic patterns.

I am sorry that we finish this Adjournment debate without agreement on the essential issues that caused the hon. Gentleman to call for it. When I knew that I would be responding this evening, I took the opportunity to look again at the Worcestershire plan. I know that, over the next year, the hon. Gentleman will have contact with the early years development partnership and with Christine Pascal. I hope that he will find that the seeds of partnership that have been sown will grow, in the interests of children and their parents. If they do not grow over the next 12 months, I would want to hear about it.

I assure the hon. Gentleman that we would take action to ensure that what we have done this year to lay the foundations can be built on year after year, until we achieve our eventual objective of a good quality nursery place for three and four-year-old children whose parents want it, as a start to the children's school life.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at seventeen minutes to Eleven o'clock.