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MINISTER FOR WOMEN
The Minister was asked—
Child Care
18. Andrew George (St. Ives): What steps she is taking to improve access to child care for women. [136666]
The Minister for Women and Equality (Ms Patricia Hewitt): The Government are committed to improving access to good-quality child care for all parents seeking places for their children. We are spending record amounts on child care, with a £1.5 billion budget by 2006 for sure start, early years and child care.
Andrew George : I am grateful to the Minister for that reply. Is she aware that child care facilities provided by employers—necessarily larger employers—are tax deductible, whereas those who work for small employers and use child care facilities pay tax? In areas such as mine, people predominantly work for small employers, are on low incomes and pay a disproportionate amount of their income on child care. Do the Government have plans to address that and equalise the mismatch?
Ms Hewitt: The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. I am glad to say that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor and his colleagues in the Treasury are considering the issue of employer-supported child care. I draw to the hon. Gentleman's attention the existence—not widely enough known—of child care vouchers that employers can provide to their employees. Those are particularly suitable for small businesses and relieve the employer of the cost of employers' national insurance contributions.
Mrs. Anne Campbell (Cambridge): Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is important for both parents and employers to have access to good information about child care as well having access to child care itself? Will she commend the work of Opportunity Links in my constituency, of which I am the unpaid chair, and, of course, Childcare Links, the Government's website, which gives information on child care and I understand receives about 7 million hits a month?
Ms Hewitt: I am delighted to have the opportunity to congratulate my hon. Friend on Cambridge Opportunity Links, which she started before 1997. It was so successful that it formed the basis for the national roll-out of Opportunity Links and it provides an invaluable service. I am delighted to congratulate not only my hon. Friend but everyone else associated with it.
Mrs. Caroline Spelman (Meriden): For the benefit of hon. Members, perhaps I should explain that there is meeting of the 1922 committee of the Conservative party, which explains the absence of my Back-Bench colleagues. I think I can, with some confidence, be the first to record officially my congratulations to my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard), who I assume will be successful.
I commend the Minister for Women for having the courage to admit in her interview with The Daily Telegraph that the Government may have given the impression that they want all mothers to go out to work, and that her view was falsely given. I wish such grown-up politics, with the Government admitting their mistakes, would happen more often. However, the loss of 20,000 childminders over the past three years has reduced a mother's choice in relation to child care. Is the right hon. Lady prepared to make another admission that the Government's favouring of institutional child care has also been a mistake?
Ms Hewitt: I wish the hon. Lady well in the coming reshuffle and thank her for her remarks. I am clear—I have been advancing this argument for longer than I care to remember, and certainly for the past 15 years or
more—that it is the role of Government to support parents and families in choosing how they can best balance the care of their children and earning a living. That is what we are doing with our investment in child care, with the support that we are giving through child care tax credit and children's tax credit, and with the package of family-friendly measures that we introduced in April—which I hope the new leader of the Conservative party will not seek to abolish, given that he opposed all the social chapter measures when he was a member of the Cabinet.Given the mix of child care, I think that we are responding to the wishes of parents for good-quality day care and nursery care places that can integrate education, child care and support for families. We are at the forefront with our mix of child care, and what we are doing is being studied with great interest and admiration throughout the world.
Ms Meg Munn (Sheffield, Heeley): I am sure that my right hon. Friend is aware that most parents want local child care. One of the problems for women in some poor areas has been an absence of childminders. What progress has been made in spreading the availability of childminders to all areas?
Ms Hewitt: As we put in place the children centres—we have already announced the first 32 or so—which will be focused on the most disadvantaged communities, we will provide a base for day-care centres and also a base where childminders can come to get support and extra resources to improve the services that they can offer within their own homes or in the homes of the parents for whose children they are caring. That is the approach that will meet the different needs of families, especially in our poorest communities.
Sandra Gidley (Romsey): Despite the increase in child care places, there is still an unmet demand. Does the Minister share my concern that more and more families are having to resort to the use of au pair agencies? Au pairs are untrained, unchecked and often exploited. If the right hon. Lady shares my concern, will she tell the House what she plans to do?
Ms Hewitt: There have been situations where au pairs have found themselves expected to take on far too much responsibility within the home, particularly for the care of a very small child, and where they have been exploited by their employers. I share the hon. Lady's concern about the position of some au pairs, although others do an outstanding job. I know that that is a matter that my right hon. Friend the Minister for Children is considering.
Employment Rights (Parents)
19. Brian White (Milton Keynes, North-East): What action has been taken to (a) monitor and (b) increase the take up of the Government's measures to help mothers of (i) small children and (ii) disabled children. [136667]
The Deputy Minister for Women and Equality (Jacqui Smith): The package of new laws implemented this April provides parents with more choice and more support in deciding how they balance work and child care in ways
that benefit everyone—employers, employees and children. Monitoring is important and we are working to develop a comprehensive range of information, both qualitative and quantitative. That includes the results of the second work-life balance study of employers which we published on Monday; monitoring changes in the workforce through the labour force survey; monitoring the number of calls to the ACAS helpline; and working with other bodies to survey specific target groups.To ensure take-up, we have undertaken a national advertising campaign and provided a package of guidance material to increase the take-up and to support employers and employees.
Brian White: I welcome my hon. Friend's reply. Schemes such as sure start have been a tremendous success in my constituency and in others, but may I ask my hon. Friend to look at the public service agreements and cross-departmental and individual departmental targets, which interacting together can sometimes impede some of the objectives that she has set out. Will she consider that and have regard to blockages within individual targets and PSA agreements?
Jacqui Smith: I hope that the targets set by the Government are not impeding the important progress that we have made in promoting the work-life balance both within and outside Government. As my hon. Friend rightly points out, the range of policies to
support children, from sure start to improved tax benefits and investment in health and education, are important in ensuring that we have the right policies in place for families and the right choices in place for parents.
Mr. Tom Clarke (Coatbridge and Chryston): Does my right hon. Friend agree that the Government's measures to help mothers of disabled children are as much about addressing problems as about recognising potential? Given that a number of children with disabilities, especially those with autism, have great talents in music and art for example, will she and her colleagues do their utmost on an interdepartmental basis to ensure that those children's potential is fully realised?
Jacqui Smith: My right hon. Friend has a proud record of supporting disabled children, and he has made an important point—the workplace flexibilities that we can offer the parents of disabled children are important if the children are to achieve their potential. My right hon. Friends the Minister for Children and the Secretary of State for Education and Skills put the need to maximise opportunities for disabled children at the centre of their work on the better integration of support services for disabled children. We need to make sure that we design services around disabled children to enable them to maximise their chances, not make them fit into administrative structures.
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