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11.54 am
Mrs. Anne Campbell (Cambridge): I welcome the debate and congratulate the hon. Member for Meriden (Mrs. Spelman) on securing it. It is particularly appropriate that she has done so, because it was Margaret Thatcher who remarked in the 1970s that her Government would provide nursery education for all three and four-year-olds. A Conservative Government never came anywhere near meeting that aspiration. Nursery provision in Cambridgeshire, which is my local authority area, never reached higher than about 34 per cent. in the whole period of Conservative government. It is fitting that a Labour Government will achieve nursery education and appropriate child care for all three and four-year-olds whose parents want them to have it.
Mr. Ian Bruce: Will the hon. Lady give way?
Mrs. Campbell: I have only just started my speech and I will not give way at this stage.
It is appropriate to provide for parents a wide choice of nurseries, playgroups, child minders or even reception classes for their children to take advantage of. A good number of parents with mature four-year-olds would like their children to be in reception classes rather than in nursery classes, but that gives rise to a particular issue in my constituency. Cambridgeshire has a policy of allowing schools to admit children in the September after their fourth birthday, which means that children born in July or August may start in reception classes shortly after their fourth birthday.
A body of parents have formed a group called Action for Fours, which is led by Catherine Hurley and Kate Polack--two young mothers in my constituency who feel that they should not be forced to send their children to school. I wrote to my hon. Friend the Minister about this issue and she rightly said that parents should choose whether their child should start school before the statutory age. However, there is a problem for schools: if a child is
not in full-time education when the census is conducted in February, but a place has been kept vacant, they do not receive funding for that child. An over-subscribed school will not want to keep places vacant for children who may arrive halfway through the year. I hope that the Government will be able to address that dilemma.
I am particularly pleased that the recently published policy guidance on school admissions says:
Cambridgeshire has been fortunate in benefiting from the money from the reduction in infant class sizes, and the £1.7 million allocated to it this year will provide 69 additional teachers and 11 extra classrooms. Primary schools in Cambridgeshire are among the lowest funded in the country, so that money is particularly welcome. It will virtually eliminate classes of more than 30 for five, six and seven-year-olds in my constituency and throughout Cambridgeshire.
Mr. Hayes:
I hear what the hon. Lady says about five, six and seven-year-olds, but she must be aware that classes for older primary, secondary and nursery children have increased in size since the Labour party came to power. The Smart Start pre-school in Market Deeping in my constituency, which has been providing small class sizes for children in the area for 25 years, is facing closure as a result of Government policy, and people are very angry about that.
Mrs. Campbell:
Cambridgeshire county council, which is Tory controlled, is one of the problems that my constituency faces. In 1995-96, when there was a Labour-Liberal administration in Cambridgeshire and a Conservative Government, the authority spent £15 million above the education standard spending assessment; last year, the authority spent £6 million above it; and, this year, it is spending £5 million above it. The leader of the Tory county council in Cambridgeshire said on BBC Radio Cambridgeshire this morning that he would like, over the years, to see the council reducing the gap between what it spends on education and what the SSA says it should spend. The implication for my constituency is £4.8 million-worth of cuts. Schools in my constituency will be devastated by that, because it means that, as the Government increase expenditure on education, Cambridgeshire county council is determined to reduce its contribution, and schools will see no benefit from the extra money that the Government are putting into education.
I refer briefly to the national child care information systems, which my hon. Friend the Minister is pioneering. I am pleased that she is basing that work on some of the work that has been done in my constituency. The scheme that I started, called "Opportunity Links", to provide education for parents who wish to return to work has been
an outstanding success in Cambridgeshire. It is an internet-based information system, which provides information not only on child care, but on jobs, training and benefits advice. I am pleased to say that there are some 1,300 accesses to that website every week. It is proving to be extremely popular and a useful tool for parents who wish to get back into the workplace.
However, there is still a problem, as perceived by Cambridgeshire county council, about the data protection issues connected with making child minder information available on the internet. The local authority quotes the Children Act guidance, which states:
Sir Nicholas Lyell (North-East Bedfordshire):
I am grateful for the opportunity to make a short contribution to this debate. Like other hon. Members, I shall start by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Meriden (Mrs. Spelman) on initiating the debate and on her comprehensive and thoughtful speech.
I want to lay my emphasis on the earlier years and take this opportunity to express my strong support for the Pre-School Learning Alliance and the many pre-school groups in my constituency. Pre-school playgroups play a vital role in the education of young children and are of benefit, as I was glad to hear the hon. Member for Redditch (Jacqui Smith) acknowledge, not only to children but to parents, in assisting them to teach and encourage learning through play, both in the playschool and at home.
Not long ago, as many as 8,000 children in Bedfordshire attended pre-school playgroups, but it must be recognised that playgroups are under pressure, numbers are dropping and playgroups are closing, because of the combination of factors with which they are challenged. Both sides of the House, particularly the Government, need to rally to help them.
The pressures come from a combination of changes in the funding system, and increased costs and regulation through the working time directive and the minimum wage, and the consequential national insurance requirements. Because schools can now receive funding for four-year-olds--one quite understands that schools wish to maximise their revenue--they are putting pressure on parents to send children in order, it is said, to secure a
place at five. I have had too much anecdotal feedback from visiting pre-school groups in my constituency to be in any doubt about that. The effect is not only to put pre-school groups under financial pressure, but to cream off the four-year-olds, who are an important part of three-to-five provision because they provide, in a sense, role models for the younger children in the integrated type of education that pre-school groups provide so effectively. Numbers are therefore falling just at the time when costs and pressures are rising.
The Pre-School Learning Alliance is responding by boldly facing up to the challenge. It does not want to get itself into a political wedge; it wants to rally and increase its numbers. I believe that it will. A great many children throughout the country still do not attend pre-school playgroups and do not get those benefits. We need to reach out to them. In doing so, it will be possible to rebuild pre-school numbers and thus help to solve the problem, provided that we get assistance from local education authorities and the Government recognise that problem.
The point to emphasise about pre-school playgroups is the sheer standard and professionalism of what they provide. I have been interested in this subject since before I entered the House more than 20 years ago. My wife was a professionally trained teacher who taught in Lambeth and Camberwell, and when we had small children she ran a playgroup at our home. I saw the value then, and have seen it ever since. I have attended annual conferences of the Pre-school Playgroups Association in Bedfordshire.
Recently, I visited two pre-school groups in Dunton and Stotfold in north-east Bedfordshire, and I shall visit Potton this Friday. I should emphasise that those pre-schools are inspected by the Office for Standards in Education and have received excellent reports. Their teaching through play is admirably adapted for children between rising three and rising five, and their staff-pupil ratio is only 1:6, which is much better than the average of 1:10, which lower schools and nursery schools can hope to achieve.
In addition to achieving that very low staff-pupil ratio, those pre-schools are attracting mothers and other helpers, who learn and carry the knowledge back home. They are extremely well equipped. I was deeply impressed at the variety of books that they had. Last week was National Book Week and I opened a new book corner in the Poppies playgroup in Stotfold. The pre-schools are equipped not only with books, but with simple computers, which introduce children to computers at such a young age that they come naturally to those essential parts of modern life.
"Some admissions authorities for primary schools offer places in reception classes to parents before their children are of compulsory school age, in accordance with their published admission arrangements. If a parent is offered and accepts a place during the normal admission round but asks to defer their child's entry to school until he or she is of compulsory school age, the admission authority may agree to the parent's request provided the place is taken up within the same academic year."
That is a most welcome statement, and I hope that the Government will find ways to compensate schools if a child is admitted, but not in place in February when the census is conducted.
"whilst local authorities have a duty to provide information on childcare provision, the register should not be left on 'open shelves' . . . This implies that the public need to request access to it through contact with a local authority officer. This guidance was an attempt to prevent people from having access to the register who were not genuinely seeking childcare."
We all recognise the difficulties with paedophile rings and the sensitivity of some child care information. We have got around that problem very well in Cambridgeshire by writing to every child minder and getting a signed agreement from everyone who wishes to have her information published on the internet. I believe that that is the way to proceed. I do not know whether other counties have come across the same problem or interpreted the legislation in the same way, but the issue needs to be addressed.
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