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

@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?

I realise I didn't answer your second question earlier; yes, I would regard myself as a feminist, and I definitely don't think childcare is a women's issue; it's an issue for parents and families.

When it comes to staying at home or going back to work, women should have the same choices that men do.

mimilovell your neighbour can register as a nanny on the vOCR, which would mean you can pay her to work in your home using tax credits. Hop over to the home based childcare section if you want to know more.

Obviously there were a lot of questions about cost and affordability, and apologies I couldn't answer them all. Here are some slides that highlight what you could get in terms of childcare support.

Hello Mumsnetters,

I've got to run, but thanks for your thought-provoking questions and for having me on! Happy New Year.

Thank you Sam, for your responses.
I believe that the key issues are that children are important and their early education is crucial. To have qualified , experienced profession provide this vital role does cost. But parents do find it difficult to cover the full cost. It is difficult to find the balance between high quality trusted care and affordability.
I request that you and your department continues to offer choices for parents and childcarers in how to offer this, but retain the importance in this matter.
Thank you.

They could have just sent a robot who spouted party policy in a monotone and we might have been better informed (nothing personal, Sam).

Thank you for addressing questions about cost but looking at your slides I see why my friends in the UK are struggling.

One friend in particular really worries me. Both her and her DH are doctors in London and they both need flexible childcare as they are both trying to specialize and work nights. Gross income of £100k a year and you would think they are fine but with twins now aged 3.5 they have resorted to sending their DC to the grandparents over the weekends when they work. They have no money and I regularly ask her for her weekly shop at the end of the month because I know they don't have the money to feed themselves or their DC. They are not the only family living like this.

Their childcare costs at the cheapest CM are over £3k a month for both DC. Why they don't have more help towards their costs is beyond me. This is not right and my friend has been on the verge of leaving the UK for the past 3 years. The last thing the NHS needs is to lose another 2 doctors to Canada or Australia.

Forget about helping the unemployed so much and look to help those working families that are in poverty. They hide it well but go to any car boot sale on a Sunday and you see well educated people with good jobs buying for their DC out of necessity not choice. Look at their faces and you can see the stress they are under.

Totally with you on that opinion Boffinmum!

If you want to prove your worth take a lead over the cost of childcare and every working family will vote for you. Childcare is a huge barrier to women rising to the top and a simple change of making childcare costs fully deductible for dual income families would help secure the Tories with a win at the next election plus take your political career to new heights.

No mention of the fact that since the Coalition came to power childcare costs have increased by a staggering 30% while wages for most of us have plummeted.

Thank you for your positive response about wraparound care - I'm glad to hear that it is regarded as a priority. It is an affordable, hassle-free childcare option that would ease the stress and barrier to work from many parents.

Well I got totally ignored. Apparently it is simply assumed that having parents in work is better then having young people in work. And that childcare is better for children than parental care.

Why oh why oh why does childcare NEED to be affordable?

If I can't afford to buy a particular service given my wage then I don't.

Why should childcare be different?

IceBeing, because the country's economy is actually fucked if women don't go out to work. It's been that way for over 20 years. There was a Bank of England report about this. That's why they started trying to help with childcare in the early 2000s, but frankly nobody has ever really bitten the bullet.

I hope they didn't give him a second biscuit. He weren't wurf it.

I was also going to ask his opinion of stay home mums/dads. Suspect he wouldn't have answered..

I am disappointed, but not surprised, by the Minister's answers. I think he was very badly briefed about childminders. He seemed to know very little about us.

He did not answer my question regarding childminder agencies - and he was asked the same question by Adsy, I noticed.
We asked how the agencies would reduce costs for parents. After all, this is supposed to be the focus of the webchat. We have long suspected that, far from reducing costs, they will increase costs for parents. Nothing I read today has assuaged that belief.

The Minister did not appear to realise that childminders do not need agencies for support. Prior to their cutting budgets and funding, we were supported by the Local Authorities, and by bodies such as the NCMA. They offered training, support for new minders, assistance with paperwork - everything that the agencies are supposed to provide. This Government have wasted a shocking amount of money reinventing the wheel.

I am not clear on what he means by a myth that agency childminders will lose their OFSTED rating. Everything I have read says that it is the agency that will be inspected and rated by OFSTED. I don't think the Minister was clear on this point either.

This Government did not open up the Free Entitlement to childminders: it was already open to us. What the Government has done is to widen access to non-Network childminders - and only those who have Good or Outstanding grades.

I am alarmed at the future vision of childminders opening before and after school clubs.
The Minister doesn't seem to realise that childminders have always offered wrap around care in the past. He certainly doesn't appear to be aware that the current cost issues and lack of available care is due to the swinging cuts in funding and the policies that have forced so many childminders out of business in the past few years. I can't see that the current policy of forcing ever younger children into schools will change this.

Eh? That was a bit short. Much shorter than some of the other webchats I've read with celebs.

Also, I'm totally confused as to what his views and policies were. Seemed that he used the usual buzzwords and hoped we'd all nod our heads and agree with him.

Poor show.

Hang on. I thought you 3-4 years 15hrs funding was supposed to be for access to early years education, not "childcare"?

Bit of a worry that the childcare minister blurred this line himself.

The response I received told me everything I need to know.

hmm boffin I suppose if every SAHP went back to work they could employ the person they displaced from a job as childcare...then there are two people in work instead of one.

Economics is most puzzling in the way one can make work/money out of thin air.

So I can see how the government benefits from the parent displaces young person only to employ them as childcare model coz they basically get to tax the original jobs pay twice...but it doesn't really help either of the 'workers'

The money being payed out is the same but now both people are working instead of one. and sharing the original paycheck.

In particular the parent is getting a very shite deal.

We should rebel!

Of course the flip side is that parents returning to work only to see their salary disappear on childcare aren't actually getting that raw a deal at all.

Before they went back to work they were doing full time childcare for free. Afterwards they are working full time for free.

The real problem that parents have is the actual children and their need to be looked after. That surely is part of making the decision to have children though?

I presume the Bolton childminder Sam Gyimah mentioned was from the new St. Bede academy agency.

However, my LA offers exactly the same kind of support for free - at the moment. Their support was even better before funding was cut, mind you.

There are just a few differences.

The pre-inspection support my LA offers is for an OFSTED inspection. St. Bede's mentions pre-inspection support, but also claims its childminders won't be inspected
No wonder the Minister was confused!

If the childminder is ill, St. Bede's offers an alternative in a nursery so long as there are places. How very interesting...

And they charge for all this. They don't say how much online. There appears to be a joining charge, with additional support being charged for.
I have seen quotes from other agencies whose joining fee was around £200 a year.

Not a good deal for the childminder, then. Doesn't sound like a good deal for the parent, either. Agency fees will be passed on to them, they'll have a childminder who is visited by the agency rather than independently inspected by OFSTED, and their child will be offered a nursery place (a childcare option they have already rejected) as emergency care.

He's just been on woman's hour reading out the party line. It's a waste of time them trying to talk to the public if they just repeat briefings and don't answer the questions. 20‰ off expensive childcare is still expensive.