Live webchat with childcare minister Sam Gyimah MP, Thursday 8 January 1-2pm

[KateHMumsnet]

Hello,

We're pleased to announce a webchat this week with the recently appointed childcare minister Sam Gyimah MP.

Sam attended schools in both Ghana and the UK and went on to read Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Somerville College, Oxford University. He spent 5 years working for Goldman Sachs and then went on to help build and develop a number of small businesses.

Sam was elected the Conservative Member of Parliament for East Surrey in 2010, and was appointed as Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department for Education in July 2014, with responsibility for childcare provision. He has served as School Governor of an inner London school and on the Board of a housing association. He is married and has a very young son.

Please join us live on Thursday 8 January from 1-2pm. The Minister is keen to discuss the cost and availability of childcare in particular, so if you have any questions, now is the time to ask! If you can't make it on the day, please post your questions in advance here.

Thanks
MNHQ

Congratulations on your new post.

I am mum to two lovely children (3 and a new baby) - we had to time our second child to coincide with some free nursery hours. I am the main earner and will return to work full time, my husband has already had to go part time as it made more financial sense than a full time nursery place. My parents (just retired) are going to two days for us when I return to work.

Can I ask why maternity entitlement provides women with a year off (in theory, we cannot afford to take that long) - yet free childcare provision only comes in when the child is three years old? It seems counter-intuitive. We earn a decent sum, but if both children were in full time childcare, the bill would be nearing £1500 per month... Twice the sum of our mortgage.

Our frustration is only increased by our niece getting free hours at two, where her mum chooses to not to work. Nor is looking for work. It would seem more sensible to have it the other way around.

Many thanks!

We are another family caught between earning too much to qualify for childcare help with our youngest (18 months) yet once we've paid the childcare on our youngest (18 months) we can only just cover rent, bills, food etc. It was a close call at Christmas to afford heating AND eating

My salary is lost in travel and childcare costs, and it is entirely dispiriting to work and work and yet always be scraping by. I agree with previous posters - why do the free hours start at 3 and not 2? why can people who don't work at all claim free childcare from 2, yet those of us desperate to work but are bared by the cost can't? I read a while ago about a suggestion to scale early years childcare costs over a longer time frame, so that parents are not hit with massive bills over a short time scale, but can instead pay smaller amounts for longer - can a system like this be considered?

Why is childcare cost based on Per Child when Tax Credits and Childcare Vouchers are limited by value amount, or by number of parents in work which provides vouchers?

The new Tax-Free Childcare scheme is going to be on a per child basis, is that right and will this see a benefit to those families who have 3 or more children? Do children age 11+ (scheme ends the Sept following child's 11th birthday) not still need childcare? Can we leave them home alone without NSPCC or Government kicking up a fuss?

Hello Mr. Gyimah,

Please can you explain how childminder agencies are expected to lower costs for parents?

Why has the Government pursued this policy, despite widespread opposition from both childminders and parents?

How do you see the future of childminding if your party is re-elected?

Thank you

I'm anxious about the provision of childcare once the children reach school age. I've had to move house to get into the catchment of a school where a private nursery does breakfast club, after school club and holiday club. And I'm lucky to be able to do that. But it will cost a lot. And I'll need it all because, as a single working parent, I do not have enough annual leave to cover all the holidays, inset days and inevitable illnesses. I also worry when they reach secondary school as then there is no provision before/after school. I'm going to have no choice but to leave them on their own.

What options are the government considering to help working parents of school age children cover out-of-school time?

Hi Sam,

I reckon you've already been asked about biscuits so here's another one...

Why have you significantly increased the financial burden on those employing nannies by eliminating nanny employers from the NI break other small businesses get but still requiring them to pick up the bill for their nannies SSP, and restricting the funded hours of early years education to nurseries and childminders, meaning parents need to either pay the nanny the full hourly rate while the child is at nursery or make their nanny redundant and find a wraparound solution for their 2 or 3 year old? Will you consider a mechanism to allow nannies to register on the Early Years register as well as the vOCR to enable them to deliver this? Surely this would reduce the burden on nurseries and childminders too and free up places for those who don't already have a form of childcare in place?

Why can't childcare workers be regarded as some sort of protected category for the purposes of employers' National Insurance? If you reduced the National Insurance burden for employers, and allowed private nannies to work on a self-employed basis and offset certain professional costs, as they appear to in the Netherlands, you could make a big difference a) to affordability and b) the ability of nurseries to stay in business (there are now large swathes of the country apparently experiencing market failure and with no nurseries whatsoever).

I think I may have cross-posted with Schadenfreude.

Can I add that the red tape for employing a nanny is off the scale of ridiculous and I spent about £400-800 a year just on spurious registration requirements (eg negligence insurance that fundamentally assumes nannies are likely to be negligent, tokenistic criminal record checks that only apply in certain jurisdictions and are therefore meaningless, and pointless OFSTED registration fees), that appear to lead to no tangible benefit for myself, my children, or my nanny, as well as paying a payroll provider to churn out payslips and do employer tax returns on our behalf.

It is absolutely ludicrous that domestic employers have to meet the same reporting and accounting requirements as large corporations in this regard, with similar fines, and all the more so when you consider that we are not allowed to receive some of the incentives to registration that businesses can apply for. I am sure the same applies to employers of carers generally.

I also find it bizarre that a business could offset the cost of employment agency fees against profits, but parents can't use childcare vouchers to pay nanny agency fees.

Don't even get me started on whether childcare should be fully tax-deductible or not.

Hi Sam. My question is about why, under the current system, free childcare hours are sometimes offered to those fitting certain categories e.g. unemployed at age 2, whereas most working families have to wait until the beginning of term after their child turns 3 here in Scotland? It seems to me that parents who are not working are generally in a better position to care for their child at home and therefore are in less need of childcare at this age.

The current situation means that we as a family have had to make the sad decision to have only one child. As someone who had a baby relatively late in life (38) for various reasons, and could not afford to keep their home on just my husband's income, we would have to wait until we got some funded childcare hours so we could afford to have another child and for me to continue working part time. By this time it will be risky for us to have another child and may well be impossible. I'm sure we're not the only ones in this situation.

Are there any plans to change the age at which free childcare hours are allocated?

Thanks

I am being very naughty now and triple posting, which is not supposed to be allowed, but I think Mumsnetters might like to read your views on the long hours, long commute culture that has also hit this generation on top of childcare costs, which makes the whole situation much worse in terms of women dropping out of the workforce (and some men, of course, but statistically it's mainly women). People are feeling flogged to their knees and it doesn't seem as though any government has really addressed the problem at all.

Hi Sam. I'd like to ask why it's been necessary for me to return to work after only 12 weeks after giving birth and for my partner to have to have left his job to care for our baby son?

Essentially, his salary would have been wiped out by our childcare costs and now, because I earn a princely £27000 per annum, he's not entitled to anything, so four of us (two adults, two children) live on one wage.

Have we gone wrong somewhere here?

Nannies - work alone, unsupervised, in private homes with no legislative requirements around qualifications or background checks of any kind. They also offer a flexible and affordable form of childcare for families who work shifts and have 2 or more children or nanny share with another family.

What plans might you have or might you consider having, which could begin to address this potentially unsafe, unregulated practice for children?

I echo BettyStogs what is the point of government funding going to 9.30-3pm, term time only pre-schools. I can't see how this benefits working parents.

Hello! Sam here. Thanks for having me on Mumsnetters, looking forward to answering your questions.

I would also like to know what the future is for childminding agencies. there has been overwhelming opposition from both parents and childminders yet no sign of the idea going away.
please explain again how introducing a middle man will cut costs?

@LowSlungCarbing

Hello Mr Gyimah

Do you recognise childcare as a gender equality issue? Every indicator is that women out-earn men until they have children, at which point men zoom off into the stratosphere and leave us behind with (to make wild generalisations) the smoking ruins of our careers around us.

Are you a feminist? Do you think childcare is an important feminist issue?

Hi LowSlungCarbing,

Great question. Childcare is a matter for parents and families, not just mothers. Increasingly, men are more involved in the upbringing of their children and that is rightly the case. That is why to support this, the government introduced shared parental leave for the first year when a child is born. But also, more and more men are taking paternity leave seriously.

As the first male childcare minister, with a 9 month old, I am very much of the view that the right environment should be created for fathers to take a more important role in childcare, including working in the sector.

Am I allowed to cheekily condense my questions?

Given the huge number of unemployed, why would the government prefer having parents in work over young people?

Is childcare actually beneficial for preschool children?

@JeanBillie

Hello,

This isn't a new question by any means but it's an important one, and as you're newly appointed I'd be interested to hear your take on it.

I'm in my mid late 30s and have worked in my profession for nearly 15 years, after getting my degree. My husband is a similar age, manages a team, has worked for 20 years. Our kids are 1 and 3. We work hard; our income is fine.

Why could I barely afford to return to work after the birth of my second child? At one point I thought I might actually be paying to return to work, as the cost of childcare and travel pretty much takes up my whole take-home pay.

And what are you planning to do about the prohibitive cost of childcare in this country?

Look forward to hearing your thoughts.

Hi JeanBillie,

The government recognises that childcare is a significant part of the cost of living of most families, and that is why we have a number of policies to help alleviate the cost. The cost of childcare rose by 50% between 2002 and 2010 but has stabilised more recently and in some cases, is dropping. But most couples quite rightly also want to know what the government is doing to help. So here are some examples.

For a couple with a 3 year old, the would currently get 15 hours free childcare worth £2,200 a year. But after we've introduced tax-free childcare later this year, they will be able to get an additional £2,000 per child to offset against the childcare costs. So that's £4,200 for a 3 year old. For a low income couple on universal credit, they could get, in addition to the 15 hours free childcare, up to £6,000. Obviously this doesn't pay for the entire cost of childcare, but it's aimed at helping parents like you.

The difficulty of childcare is that every family is different, and their childcare needs are different.

@BettyStogs

While cost is certainly an issue, for me the biggest concern is lack of provision. My DS can't attend the pre-school attached to our local (village) primary school as it's only open school hours during term time and there is no wrap-around provision at all, or any local childminders who will pick up and drop off. Similarly the primary school has no breakfast or after school club, causing issues for working parents. I have no idea yet what we will do when DS starts school in 2016. So my question is what will you do to ensure suitable full time childcare is available to those who need it?

Hi BettyStogs,

Wraparound care is a key priority of mine as a minister, and my first speech as a minister touched on this. My priority is to encourage more schools to offer nursery provision but also from 8am - 6pm (not just school opening hours), so that working parents have the flexibility they need around dropping off and picking up their children.

Other government changes that could help deliver wraparound care include allowing childminders to operate an non-domestic premises for 50% of the time. What this means is that a group of childminders could team up with a school to offer before pick up and after drop off, to help parents. I agree that more needs to be done with schools to make parents aware where they do offer these services to help inform their choice of school. That's something that is a priority for the department.

Obviously every parent has a different childcare need and what I want to do is ensure there is as much diverse provision in the market, whether it's childminders, nurseries or nurseries in schools. So we are supporting all of these types of provision.

If your Government is so dedicated to easing the childcare burden on parents, why was one of the first things it did when it took office cutting the childcare element of tax credits from 80% to 70%, a cut which equated to up to £30 a week for parents of two or more children?

I was a working lone parent on a low income at that time and as a result of that cut, childcare became entirely unaffordable for me. It led to me leaving a much-loved job and spending three years on income support until my youngest started school, which wasn't what I wanted and given your Government's targeting of benefit claimants I'm guessing it wasn't what you (collective) wanted either.

Would also like to echo earlier questions about childcare for school age children, specifically before/after school clubs and holiday care for over 12s who are too old for most childcare settings.

Sam, the 'tax free childcare' that you refer to above is a 20% credit on childcare up to 10k, is that right? So to get the full 2k in your answer, the parents would need to pay 8k themselves. Slightly disingenous to include it in an answer without mentioning that.

For what it is worth, my child care costs for 2 children, 4 days a week are 20k. 1 after school nanny plus holiday club, 1 nursery. And emergencies still send me scrabbling round.

2 at nursery would be even more expensive.

Do you mean that CM's would offer the care in the schools?
What would they do with the babies and toddlers they look after?
Most CM's already offer before and after school care.

@teacherlikesapples

Hi Sam, Education and care are so closely intertwined, it feels strange to separate them. All of the people we have working with young children, should have a good understanding of their development and how to support their learning. Of course the children should feel well cared for, be kept safe and have someone who genuinely enjoys being with them, but ideally those factors should be the bare minimum right? Should't we want more from our 'childcare workers'?

In other countries, like New Zealand- at least 50% of those working with young children (including babies and toddlers) will be qualified early childhood teachers. Yet some people I have worked with in UK baby rooms have been barely literate. It seems the only requirement is that they were conviction free. Of course there are some great people working with our babies & toddlers- but with childcare being such a low paid job it's always a challenge to consistently attract the best candidates.

Is having educated & qualified educators working with all of our young children a priority for this Government? If so- will barriers like the low pay & quality of training be addressed?

Hi teacherlikesapples,

You're right that looking after children is so important that we need the best qualified people doing so. In addition, we know that in terms of brain development, most of it happens in the early years. And that's why quality of staff has been a focus of this government.

The good news is that wages have been going up in the sector over the last 3 years, which helps attract good quality staff. And qualifications across the board continue to increase.

But also, training and qualifications are important, which is why we have introduced literacy and numeracy standards for level 3 apprentices. This means that anyone who qualifies to this standard should have had a minimum of a C in maths and English at GCSE. To attract more graduates into the sector, we've invested heavily in the early years teacher status. But also looking after children is about care and having a genuine interest in the wellbeing of children. And what the best providers are good at doing is identifying those people through their own recruitment processes.