| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
Mrs. Spelman: I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. He makes my point precisely: it is wholly inappropriate to talk in ideological language about poverty pay in nurseries when, in reality, there is often a high level of volunteer and parental involvement in those operations. Parents have been happy to be involved in that way to date and they are greatly disappointed to see that heavy-handed legislation eroding their achievements over the years in providing a service to the local community.
Real partnerships can be achieved without that sort of heavy-handedness and strangulation by state nurseries. My children attend Knowle Church of England primary school whose site also comprises a private day nursery, Early Birds, which offers nursery provision and a wrap-around service. Continuity for children is provided on the same site. I urge the Government to recognise that it is possible for private and state provision to co-exist happily in a real partnership. It is a symbiotic relationship that allows parents a real choice.
Jacqui Smith (Redditch):
I thank the hon. Member for Meriden (Mrs. Spelman) for securing the debate on an issue that we all agree is important and I am grateful to have the opportunity to contribute to it. The Government have already made significant commitments to, and progress in, the provision of early years education, and I shall refer to that later in my speech.
I agree with the hon. Member for Meriden that the quality of educational provision for young children is important and that one factor that determines that quality is the stability of the staff and the key workers with whom they come into contact. There is a conflict between aiming to achieve that objective, and refusing to accept that it might be necessary for staff to receive decent levels of pay and training. The minimum wage is a way of ensuring a reduction in labour turnover not only in child care provision but in all small businesses. It ensures precisely the stability that is necessary to provide high-quality child care.
Mr. Hayes:
Surely the logic of the hon. Lady's argument would write off a whole range of community initiatives and voluntary and charitable work. If, as she is saying, quality and continuity can be provided only by professional staff, that would put an end to a range of activities, not only in education but many other areas of life, which are provided in my constituency and, I am sure, in hers.
Jacqui Smith:
I certainly was not arguing that quality depends only on a professional input. Of course, it depends on good volunteers, but there is a slight irony in saying that we need to maintain stability and continuity of employment, but that we are not willing to underpin that aim with a minimum wage, which, as experience in other countries has revealed, helps to reduce labour turnover.
Mr. Ian Bruce:
I am sure that the hon. Lady will agree that to pay a professionally qualified teacher £3.60 an hour would be an insult. Conservative Members are not suggesting that it is right to take on professional people at that rate, but surely the minimum wage is not aimed at such people. It is suitable for people who are willing to volunteer to work in organisations that have money to help with the expenses that such volunteers incur by driving to the place of work and, perhaps, putting their own children into child care. What is wrong with those people being paid an £8 allowance for working in such places or being able to volunteer their services for free? Surely the hon. Lady can determine the difference between what we are asking for and the Government's rigid minimum wage legislation.
Jacqui Smith:
As a member of the National Union of Teachers, I do not think that £3.60 an hour is an appropriate rate for a teacher. However, pay of less than £3.60 an hour is not appropriate for people whom we trust to care for and develop our children. That is the significant point.
Mr. Jenkin:
Will the hon. Lady give way?
Jacqui Smith:
No, I want to move on.
As the hon. Member for Meriden said, the issues connected with early years education range much wider than the minimum wage and employment legislation, although they have an important contribution to make. I declare an interest as the mother of a five-year-old and a child of 10 months. Two years ago, my family was lucky in that my son was able to attend the nursery class in a local primary school. Like many parents, we sent him there because we wanted him to have the opportunities
offered by high-quality early years education. Those include the chance to meet and play with other children; the opportunity to experience a range of stimulating, fun play and learning activities; the opportunity to learn how to work in a group; the chance to talk, listen and develop concentration, and the chance to learn how to share, or not, as the case may be. That high-quality early years education provides not only a social introduction to school but the early foundations for literacy and numeracy that are so important for raising standards later in children's school life and beyond.
Like the hon. Member for Meriden, I welcome the opportunity to discuss my child's progress with qualified staff. Anyone who has experienced a parents' evening knows the slight trepidation that one feels when one arrives at the school to talk about the child's progress, but it is crucial to have an early analysis of children's strengths or special needs because that can provide an early indicator of support that is needed or even just ideas for talking to and playing with them. I agreed with the hon. Lady when she stressed the importance of the parents' role. I am not an expert in colouring with pencils, cutting out and other activities that are important for children. I welcome the expertise offered by the nursery class that my son attended and in his present primary school which gave me ideas about what to do with my children.
The other day, I was particularly pleased to visit Hollyoakes Field first school in my constituency. That runs a good project, according to which parents are invited into the classroom to work with teachers and benefit from those ideas for developing play and learning opportunities outside the classroom. We want to develop more of those initiatives that involve parents.
I recognise, from my experience, the advantages of early years education, but for my child such provision was piecemeal. What children received was determined by luck, one's ability to travel and often, most significantly, by one's ability to pay for quality nursery care. I recognise the important role played by private providers, but we should have learned from the past the lesson that parental choice cannot be delivered simply by allowing a free market to exist without planning and coherence in provision.
That was particularly the case under the former Hereford and Worcester county council when it had a Conservative administration. The council provided itself a low-cost education service and viewed nursery and early years education as a frill which could be dispensed with to keep costs down. My family benefited from the Labour and Liberal Democrat administration that took over the council, which succeeded in increasing the number of nursery classes and realised the importance of that provision for children's long-term success. Despite the improvements made by that administration during the 1990s, the authority continued to be hampered by a lack of political and financial support from national Government and, most significantly, a lack of a coherent strategy across the range of providers of nursery and early years education. That lack of co-ordination was, of course, exacerbated by the introduction of the nursery vouchers scheme.
It might be worth while reminding ourselves, as a contrast to the present situation, what happened under the nursery vouchers scheme. It managed to combine the worst disadvantages of a completely free market--lack of
planning, no entitlement to, or equality of access and no certainty of supply--with a bureaucracy that left parents gasping and taxpayers footing the bill. I welcome the Government's quick action to establish early years development partnerships and plans. It is clear from experience that we can achieve a coherent system only if we involve all providers, public and private; local authority social services, as well as education services, and employers, training and enterprise councils and parents.
Mr. Brady:
Does the hon. Lady accept that one of the main criticisms of the nursery vouchers scheme was that it encouraged schools to take children into reception classes, which was inappropriate? Does she accept also that it is unfortunate that that trend has not stopped following the ending of the vouchers scheme? Would she care to comment on that?
| Next Section
| Index | Home Page |