The next item of business is a debate on motion S4M-10131, in the name of Kezia Dugdale, on Scotland’s future. Time is extremely tight this afternoon, so the presiding officers will hold speakers to their times. Ms Dugdale, you have 14 minutes.
15:10
Thank you, Presiding Officer.
When the white paper was published in November, I was as surprised as the next person to see that childcare was front and centre. A policy area that is completely devolved was being sold as the cornerstone case for independence. The commentariat was quick to link the policy to the polls and the sizeable gender gap when it comes to support for independence.
Although we added our voices to the collective cynicism, we did not lose sight of the ambition for a transformation in the provision of childcare. Whatever the result of the vote at 5.30 today, the Parliament will have accepted
“That the Parliament resolves to keep childcare at the top of the political agenda”,
as it says in the first line of the motion.
That is no mean feat. I hope that we will make good on that promise, because high-quality, affordable childcare can transform lives. It has a clear economic benefit, it has clear links to closing the educational achievement gap, it is central to gender equality and it is key to tackling child poverty. The issue lights the fire of the Labour Party, because it is at the heart of our pursuit of equality and social justice.
It is one thing to unite behind a single line in a motion; it is quite another to unite behind a long-term vision for childcare in Scotland, which carries the support of at least the two major parties in the Parliament. That is why the motion calls, again, for a cross-party Scottish childcare commission, which would set out a route map for the long term. I will return to that.
First, I want to spend a considerable amount of time focusing on the childcare policy that is outlined in the white paper, and on the various twists and turns that the policy has taken over the past six months. That needs to be on the Parliament’s record and it is a matter of regret that that has not happened before today. I have been truly shocked by the spin, the vacuity and the handling of statistics around the issue. I cannot make up my mind whether there has been wild incompetence or deliberate deception.
Regardless of that, let me go through each twist and turn. I do not intend to give way until I have got to the events of May, when I will happily accept an intervention—preferably an apology—from the minister.
First, let us look at the white paper. The approach to childcare is set out in three phases. In phase 1, 600 hours of childcare, for 50 per cent of two-year-olds, will be delivered in the first budget in an independent Scotland. In phase 2, all three and four-year-olds will get 1,140 hours of childcare a year by the end of the first parliamentary session. In phase 3, all children from age one to school age or five will be entitled to 1,140 hours of childcare.
According to the Scottish Government, the associated costs are £100 million for phase 1 and £700 million for phase 2. That includes no capital costs whatever. The Government has not published the cost of phase 3, but the Scottish Parliament information centre tells us that it will cost £1.2 billion. Again, there are no capital costs associated with that phase.
When the Scottish National Party was asked where the £700 million would come from, it said that it would come from the tax receipts of the 100,000 more women who would go into work. In January, the Government published the paper, “Childcare and Labour Market Participation: Economic Analysis”. Alex Salmond boasted that he had published that “very important” paper
“so that everybody can read and understand these things.”
However, the paper contains an interesting footnote, which says:
“Note the analysis below illustrates the impact of a boost in female participation rates rather than a specific policy. The specific proposal will have its own unique implications for the economy and budgetary impacts. These are not simulated here.”
Essentially, the Government had examined the impact of there being 100,000 more women in the labour market, but that had no direct or substantiated link with its own childcare policy.
On 6 March, the Institute for Fiscal Studies rang the alarm bells when it stated that there was little evidence that a major expansion of early learning and childcare would lead to tens of thousands more women getting jobs.
On 11 March, Tom Gordon from The Herald received confirmation in a freedom of information response that there was no modelling of the Government’s childcare policy. The response stated clearly that the Government’s modelling was of the impact of having more women in the workforce, not
“the impact of improved childcare itself.”
A separate FOI request sought details of how long the Government had given itself to get 100,000 more women into work. Was it one year, five years or 10 years? That FOI request was refused on public interest grounds. Let me read out the response. It states:
“We recognise that there is some public interest in release as part of open, transparent Government and to inform public debate. ... However, there is a stronger public interest in high quality policy-making, and in the properly considered implementation and development of policies, particularly on such a significant issue as childcare. This means that Ministers need a private space within which to obtain the best possible evidence and advice from officials to be able to consider all available options and to debate those rigorously, to fully understand their possible implications. Disclosing this advice and evidence while the childcare policy is still under discussion and development may undermine or constrain the Government’s ability to develop that policy effectively.”
While the Government was touring the country saying that only independence could deliver transformational childcare, officials in Victoria Quay were desperately trying to work out how it could be done.
However, it gets worse. On 2 April, SPICe published its paper on early learning and childcare. It revealed what many of us already thought: there are not enough women. As outlined right at the beginning, the SNP maths was based on 100,000 women who have kids under the age of five joining the labour market. However, there are only 64,000 economically inactive women and only 14,000 of those are actively looking for work.
The SPICe paper added that a rapid increase in the number of women joining the workforce might lead to suppressed wages. It states:
“This could have wider implications for the labour market and on incentives for women to enter the workforce.”
There is not just a problem with the number of women who have kids under the age of five and are looking for work. Another issue is the nature of that work. The calculations in the Government’s paper released in January are based on the median salary of both men and women—£26,000 a year. However, the reality is that the median salary for women in Scotland is £17,000, because so many women work part time.
When Alex Salmond was questioned about that on “Politics Scotland”, in both January and April, he cast that aside and arrogantly pointed to the employment statistics that show that 60,000 more women returned to work in the past year alone. In the January programme, he said:
“The vast overwhelming majority of these extra jobs are full time”.
In April’s programme, he said that they were “mostly … full-time jobs”. Neither of those statements was true, and in parliamentary questions that were asked in my name and answered by John Swinney they were demonstrated not to be true. The vast majority of those jobs were, in fact, part time on a two-to-one basis. The major boost to female employment statistics comes from women aged over 50 who are returning to work, not from young mums.
That matters, not simply because the First Minister misspoke, but because it fundamentally undermines the maths once again. Part-time workers pay less tax and tend to have low-paid jobs. What about those jobs? The idea that a young mum who has been out of work for three years can walk into a £26,000 job is nonsense. I want transformational childcare for lone parents in Niddrie, Pilton, Wester Hailes and Gracemount. It is the lives of those women that I want to transform. Alex Salmond wants their votes.
Another, final twist came on 2 May, when the Government revealed, in response to an FOI request from Tom Gordon, that there was childcare modelling—it just would not be released. I will read out what the response said:
“While the strategic policy direction has been set out in the White Paper, detailed policy design work is continuing. The premature release of this detailed modelling-type work could be to the detriment of the full consideration of the entirety of the evidence and the options which underpin development of childcare policy. The modelling work forms only one part of a wider evidence base used to continue to develop this policy. Release of this information could therefore lead to a narrowly focused debate which may not allow for the measured consideration of all evidence on the best way to deliver the policy highlighted in the White Paper, and this would not be in the public interest.”
That is “Yes Minister” speak for, “We scribbled all over the fag packet and we still can’t make it add up.” Forget the public interest; it is clearly not in the minister’s interest for the information to be in the public domain. Let us get this absolutely clear—the Government refused to provide full workings for a paper that it published in January, which it published so that, in Alex Salmond’s words,
“everybody can read and understand these things.”
We were told that publishing some results in January was pertinent and a good thing but that publishing all the results in May would be premature and a bad thing. We understand the Government’s childcare policy all right—we understand it to be an absolute shambles.
However, there is a road back. The Government could commit to a childcare commission and stop hijacking the debate on childcare for its own ends. The Labour Party has set up the every step campaign, and we have been touring the country asking parents for their first-hand experiences of childcare. We know that the quality and flexibility of childcare are just as important as the cost and we understand how important workforce issues are to parents. Parents care about what people who work with their kids in nurseries get paid, their terms and conditions and their qualifications.
We understand that childcare does not stop when kids go to school and that, if anything, the issues get worse. The SNP’s policy is based only on children who are three and four years old and some two-year-olds, but the challenge is much broader than that. Parents want wraparound care and they want more investment in breakfast clubs, but those are the two things that have faced the brunt of the Government’s cuts to local authority budgets. Parents want council services to be joined up, and they want their politicians to join up, too. I note that the minister’s amendment mentions my colleague Malcolm Chisholm and Willie Rennie. However, the Government can hardly boast about cross-party working when so much of the understanding of the Government’s approach has had to be unearthed through parliamentary questions and FOI requests, many of which have been rejected or avoided along the way.
I want transformational childcare. I want to transform the lives of the mums whom I meet regularly at rhymetime in Craigmillar library. There is no incentive for them to work just now. I do not want to send them into a low-paid poor job on a zero-hours contract. I want them to go to college first and get the skills that they missed out on in school, but they cannot do that because of the cuts that the Government has made to the colleges budget. The task is made all the harder by the fact that there are 93,000 fewer part-time places for women in our colleges than there were in 2007, with nearly a quarter of a million women being denied a place in further education over the past seven years. That is the Government’s responsibility.
I know that members on the Government benches share the passion to help those women get back into work. Those members see independence as the answer, but I believe that their proposal is in tatters. We need to get round the table and address the issue together. I see the ministers shaking their heads and saying that the proposal is not in tatters—they could not be more removed from reality. Their officials are telling them that they do not have the answers and that their policy is still in development, yet they sit and laugh. I find that truly shocking.
I look forward to the debate. Once again, let us take the politics out of this, get round the table and work out a long-term vision for childcare in Scotland that we can all get behind.
I move,
That the Parliament resolves to keep childcare at the top of the political agenda regardless of the referendum result; believes that the SPICe briefing, Early Learning and Childcare, which was published 2 April 2014, has discredited the childcare claims made by the Scottish Government in the white paper on independence; notes that the Scottish Government has refused to publish its own economic modelling and, in the interests of transparency, calls on it to publish all of the information that the childcare claims in the white paper are based on; agrees that good quality, affordable and flexible childcare is essential in supporting many families; believes that all parties should work together on a long-term vision for childcare in Scotland and reach a consensus on the delivery, availability, affordability and financing of a comprehensive childcare strategy, and further believes that, to begin this work, a Scottish childcare commission with all-party support should be established.
15:23
The Government has a significant and positive track record of achievement when it comes to childcare, so I welcome any opportunity to talk about the issue, and today is absolutely no different. It is worth reminding ourselves of just what those achievements are.
We are building on our previous increase in annually funded early learning and childcare provision, from 412.5 hours to 475 hours in 2007, with a further expansion to 600 hours from this August. That represents a 45 per cent increase in provision for three and four-year-olds since the Government came to office and is worth up to £700 per child per year.
We are working with local authorities and partner providers to deliver a phased, sustainable expansion of early learning and childcare that supports more children and families while maintaining quality and—for the first time in legislation—improving the flexibility of provision in line with local needs. We are backing that up with investment by committing more than £250 million over the next two years, including £3.5 million to strengthen the capacity and skills of staff, alongside the on-going expert review of the early years workforce.
We have done all those things because they are the right thing to do. Investment in our children’s lives, in the earliest years, is crucial for the future of our country. Childcare enhances all-round development and wellbeing in children. Evidence also shows that childcare is particularly beneficial for disadvantaged children. The benefits of childcare persist through primary school, with evidence also suggesting that they carry on into secondary school and beyond.
Our commitment to children is evident in our world-leading early years policies and strategies, including our ground-breaking early years collaborative. We promote the measures that we do because they advance our economy and our society. Because we know what works and how important it is, we continue to be hugely ambitious. However, our ambition absolutely requires independence.
In “Scotland’s Future”, we outlined our blueprint for achieving universal childcare in Scotland. Kezia Dugdale outlined our plans, but they are so good that further expansion is required. In our first budget, we will commit £100 million to extend 600 hours of childcare to nearly half of Scotland’s two-year-olds. By the end of that first session of Parliament, those vulnerable two-year-olds and all three and four-year-olds will be entitled to 1,140 hours of childcare, which is broadly the same number of hours as is provided in primary school. To achieve that, we will invest a further £600 million.
In the long term, we will provide 1,140 hours to all children in Scotland, from the age of one to when they start school. When that is fully implemented, around 240,000 children and 212,000 families will benefit.
The transformational change of our childcare policy would improve care and learning for young children, boost economic growth and remove a major barrier to work for many parents, especially women. Indeed, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and the European Union have stressed the importance of childcare in removing barriers to female labour market participation. [Interruption.]
Order. Let us hear the minister.
Achieving all that will be one of the major gains of independence. The experts agree with that premise. [Interruption.]
Labour members may laugh, but if they want to learn, they should listen to what I am going to say.
Professor Sir Donald MacKay, an economic adviser to previous secretaries of state for Scotland, said in written evidence to the Economy, Energy and Tourism Committee:
“No financially responsible Scottish Government would dare to implement the childcare proposals under the fixed block grant funding of devolution, unless they were prepared to take an axe to existing programmes”.
Bronwen Cohen, the former chief executive of Children in Scotland, noted the difficulties in transforming childcare without independence because of “split responsibilities and policies”.
Moreover, our plans for childcare have been widely welcomed, with experts recognising the potential that our proposals have for improving the lives of children and families across Scotland. Jackie Brock, the current chief executive of Children in Scotland, said:
“The White Paper proposals by the Scottish Government are really exciting. We call them a game changer.”
It is therefore a real pity that, despite the enthusiasm over our ambitions for childcare, Labour persists with its negativity.
Will the member give way?
On the point about negativity, I give way to Neil Bibby.
The minister has talked a lot about the childcare policy in the white paper. What will the total cost of the policy be, and how will it be paid for?
I always listen to the cabinet secretary, who has just said, “Independence is the answer.” That is exactly right. [Interruption.]
Order.
We have outlined the first phases of our childcare proposals. I am proud to stand by them. I will talk more about the costings and the attacks that Labour has made against our childcare proposals. If Labour members calm down and listen, they might learn some more. [Interruption.]
Mr Bibby, will you stop shouting at the minister across the chamber?
Given the progress that we have made on childcare, and our ambitions to do even more, we will absolutely reject Kezia Dugdale’s motion this evening.
Members should be in no doubt that our childcare plans would boost female participation rates and the economy. The European Commission, the OECD and various experts all agree on that. A European Commission report from 2009, based on a study of 30 countries, concluded:
“Empirical studies of the relationship between childcare costs and labour force participation are consistent with this prediction; when costs go down, labour force participation goes up, especially among mothers.”
The SPICe briefing, which was published on 3 April, states:
“there are currently 64,000 economically inactive women in Scotland with children aged 1-5. The second and third of the Scottish Government’s modelled scenarios require 68,000 and 104,000 inactive women to enter the workforce.”
However, the next sentence on page 26 states:
“In order to achieve the modelled scenarios, the policy would need to influence the labour market decisions of a larger group of women, which could include:
women who do not currently have children or who have children aged under 1 year or over 5 years, and
future groups of women, either before or when they have children (which could extend the timescale of the impact)”.
In other words, SPICe recognises that the policy operates over more than one year and that women who re-enter the labour market as a result of free childcare stay in the labour market even when their children get older. Without the help that we propose, too many never come back into the labour market.
That point is made in the Scottish Government analysis that was published on 12 January, which noted:
“Such an expansion is modelled to take place over a number of years. However, the impacts of such a policy on output and taxation will build over time.”
SPICe, of course, recognises that, every year, around 55,000 children are born in Scotland. Their mothers will benefit year on year.
I turn to the points that Kezia Dugdale raised this morning in her press release about our proposals. For her and her party’s information, I point to the robust evidence and analysis on which our childcare policy is premised: the growing up in Scotland research and an international review of early learning and childcare policy, delivery and funding. In addition, our policy takes account of the OECD’s starting strong work, which highlights the best type of childcare system, and the effective provision of pre-school, primary and secondary education study.
In contrast, let us examine Labour’s recent performance on childcare. At the start of this year, Kezia Dugdale and her leader—who is in the chamber this afternoon—commenting on their spending preferences for the consequentials, said that they would invest in childcare to help 10,000 vulnerable children. Despite us pledging to help more than 15,000 children from August next year, Labour voted against those proposals.
On “Scotland Tonight” on 7 January, when challenged to say what she would cut to pay for her childcare pledges, Kezia Dugdale suggested removing funding from small businesses. The next day, her party colleague Patricia Ferguson confirmed on “Politics Scotland” that Labour would “certainly consider that”. However, when John Swinney said on 23 January, on “Question Time”,
“Kezia wanted us to increase business rates for companies within Scotland”
she protested:
“That’s not true. It’s not true.”
Kezia Dugdale is getting quite a reputation for saying one thing in public and another thing in public.
Labour today—Kezia Dugdale in particular—has made big play of SPICe’s commentary on our proposals, so we too have asked SPICe to analyse Labour’s proposals for 25 hours of childcare. Given what Ms Dugdale said this morning about not creating policy on the back of a fag packet, members can imagine my surprise and astonishment to read SPICe’s conclusions on Labour’s policy proposals:
“Labour party researchers have indicated that they are still in the process of deciding the policy details and funding”.
Kezia Dugdale rose—
The member is in her last minute.
I did not realise that the fag packet to which Kezia Dugdale referred this morning was about her own party’s policies. My goodness! [Interruption.]
The member is in her last minute, Ms Dugdale.
I totally subscribe to Labour’s call to work together, but I say that with a feeling of déjà vu; I totally subscribed to that call when Labour leader Johann Lamont made it more than a year ago, but it fell short on any substance.
Our children’s futures demand that we put aside differences and embrace the knowledge and expertise that can be found on these benches and beyond the party boundaries.
You should draw to a close, please.
In response to Labour’s calls today and echoing what I said one year ago, that is exactly why I work alongside Malcolm Chisholm and Willie Rennie on our task force. I recognise that we can put aside political differences and work towards the best interests of our children. Furthermore—
No, no furthermores, thank you. You should draw to a close.
We should also welcome the cross-party approach to childcare in Scotland.
We will work together with others who want to. However, I regret that Labour’s continual negativity shows that it does not have the interest that we have in putting children’s lives first in Scotland.
I move amendment S4M-10131.3, to leave out from “regardless of” to end and insert:
“; acknowledges the significant progress made by the Scottish Government in expanding funded early learning and childcare to 600 hours for three and four-year-olds and the most vulnerable 27% of two-year-olds; recognises the radical proposals for transforming childcare set out in Scotland’s Future: Your Guide to an Independent Scotland, which would ensure that children from age one to five would be entitled to 1,140 hours of early learning and childcare, broadly the same number of hours that children currently receive in primary school; welcomes the valuable cross-party contribution made by Willie Rennie and Malcolm Chisholm as members of the Early Years Taskforce, which brings together practitioners, professionals and politicians to inform the strategic development of early years policy, including early learning and childcare, and further welcomes the establishment by Children in Scotland of the Partnership Commission for Childcare Reform as part of its Childcare Alliance, which will help to inform this important agenda”.
15:34
I am pleased to have the opportunity today to discuss childcare once again. Members across the chamber will know the Liberal Democrats’ ambition for nursery education, and thanks to our pressure and that of many others in this Parliament, thousands of two-year-old children will get 15 hours of nursery education each week from 1 August. That comes alongside the expansion in childcare for three-year-olds and four-year-olds to match provision in England. The SNP said that such provision would not be possible without the powers of independence, but it is being delivered under devolution.
I participate in today’s debate with some sadness and sorrow. Let me be clear: the white paper’s ambition for childcare is admirable. I doubt that there will be any disagreement with such an ambition. All members would support that aspiration and the ability to give children a great start in life.
However, we know that the sums simply do not add up. It is fine to have aspirations, but the sums need to add up. Kezia Dugdale asked the minister whether the policy can be afforded. I have to say that the minister needs a better answer than, “The cabinet secretary told me so.” That is not enough; we need something much more substantial than that.
The Scottish Government says that it will cost £700 million to implement stage 1 and stage 2 of its childcare plan to provide, by the end of the first parliamentary session under independence, 1,140 hours per year of childcare to all three-year-olds and four-year-olds, and to vulnerable two-year-olds—or 48 per cent of two-year-olds. Underpinning the whole policy is the argument that an increase in female participation in the workforce would mean a significant increase in direct and indirect tax receipts. The Government’s weak analysis suggests that increasing the female labour market participation rate by 6 percentage points, to Scandinavian levels, could benefit Scotland’s economy by £2.2 billion and increase tax revenues by £700 million. However, there is no detail on the estimates of the component tax revenue streams that would contribute to the £700 million.
Will Willie Rennie take an intervention?
No.
I know that the minister will say that there is detail, but one “illustrative example” is not sufficient. We cannot trust the Government’s analysis because it will not release the workings; we do not have the full picture. I have lodged numerous parliamentary questions asking for further information on the costings of the plan that is set out in the white paper, but not one of the answers has provided any additional detail.
I am told that
“The Council of Economic Advisers considered the economic and social importance of improving childcare provision”
but there will be no full report on its findings. Instead,
“The analysis informing the council’s deliberations will be reflected in the Annual Chair’s Report of the Council of Economic Advisers.”—[Official Report, Written Answers, 2 April 2014; S4W-20507.]
I look forward to seeing whether there is further detail available in that report.
It is not just tax receipts that do not add up.
Will Willie Rennie take an intervention?
I am not going to take an intervention.
Thanks to research that has been done by SPICe, we know that a 6 per cent rise in the female workforce is equivalent to approximately 104,000 women moving into work. However, in 2011, only 15,000 women of working age with children aged 1 to 5 said that they were looking for work, and 64,000 women were inactive, with the majority of those citing looking after family as the reason for not working. Only 14,000 of those said that they would like to work. Put simply, there are not enough women of working age with children to fulfil the SNP’s childcare plan.
The fact is that the SNP and the Scottish Government could act now to improve the childcare that we offer. Thanks to the UK’s budget and the improving economic conditions, the Scottish Government has the money now to implement in full the same childcare package as England. That would mean that 40 per cent of two-year-olds—rather than the figure that we currently have—would receive free nursery education, from this autumn. I welcome the figure that has been given, but we are not even matching what England is doing.
I agree with parts of the Government’s amendment, especially on the importance of cross-party work on the issue and the value of the partnership commission for childcare reform as part of Children in Scotland’s childcare alliance. However, the SNP has played fast and loose on nursery education for too long. First, it held back on action in order to offer a carrot for independence, and now it exaggerates the numbers in order to make the case for independence.
I understand that SNP members are genuinely passionate about independence, but they must not allow that to emasculate this important area of public policy. The future of our children is more important than their passion for independence.
I am pleased that the Labour Party’s motion acknowledges the continuing importance of the issue, so we will support it today. Education can never be taken away, no matter what happens to a person. A solid education gives people skills to fall back on, and pride in their achievements that cannot be taken away. Education stands alone in that enduring legacy of opportunity.
Draw to a close, please.
We should do everything that we can to ensure that every child in Scotland benefits from education.
Mary Scanlon has up to six minutes. We are very tight for time today.
15:41
It was a bit rich for the minister to tell the Labour Party to listen and learn when the Government is debating its white paper flagship policy today with a huge absence from the SNP ranks. [Interruption.] I see that Mr Russell is laughing, but it is his party’s flagship policy.
I am glad that the Labour Party has selected childcare for debate this afternoon. As all parties in the chamber recognise, we must go further in terms of the hours that are provided, and we must extend eligibility. One concern is the issue of birthday discrimination, which my colleague Liz Smith will come back to in her speech.
Recently in the Education and Culture Committee, we heard evidence on Scotland’s educational and cultural future, with regard to the Government’s white paper. During the final evidence session, we discussed childcare—rightly so—with the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning. Mr Russell gave a typically modest performance, which included the following statement. He said:
“It is wrong to try to deconstruct it”
—the white paper’s childcare policy—
“and undermine it by taking a figure from here and a figure from there and saying, ‘You hivnae worked this out.’” —[Official Report, Education and Culture Committee, 29 April 2014; c 4098.]
That was quite an extraordinary statement. To question the financial assumptions behind the policy is an exercise not of deconstruction, but of parliamentary scrutiny.
As the Labour motion makes clear, the Scottish Parliament information centre recently published a full and rather devastating brief on the white paper plans. Is SPICe, too, guilty of deconstruction?
Perhaps I could go a step further and ask whether freedom of speech is no longer accepted by this Government.
Secondly, there are very good reasons to conclude that the Scottish Government has not got its sums right on the policy—notwithstanding the fact that the projected 6 per cent rise in female employment is purely illustrative, as the journalist Tom Gordon and many others have pointed out, and is in no way related to the specific proposals that are outlined in the white paper.
As other members have mentioned today, in order for female employment to reach Swedish levels, 104,000 currently inactive mothers would have to enter the workforce. As SPICe has concluded, there are 64,000 women in that category at present, and only 14,000 indicated that they would enter employment. Economic modelling for the policy cannot have been done, or we would not be here today debating the issue and asking for information. That is a crucial point because, as the cabinet secretary said to the committee, the childcare policy—in particular the third phase of the plan—will be funded via taxation.
If there are not enough women who are able—or, indeed, willing—to enter the workforce, that raises questions about the proposal’s affordability. SPICe has estimated that the third phase would cost £1.2 billion, which could rise to £1.5 billion if costs continue to grow. It is estimated that, in order to generate that kind of figure from increased workforce taxation alone, we would need a 10 per cent rise in employment rates, which is an extremely substantial advance in what would be a relatively short timeframe.
A further point relates to the nature of the work that it is anticipated those mothers will do. Kezia Dugdale raised that issue, too. In a press release that was issued the day after the white paper was published, the Scottish Government indicated that the projected 35,000 additional childcare jobs will be “mainly for women”. We all know—in my case, I know from my family’s experience—that people who work in the nursery sector are low paid. Most of them are on the minimum wage and many are on zero-hours contracts. They are much more highly trained and qualified than they were a decade ago, and are all registered with the Scottish Social Services Council. In a debate such as this, we should all put on the record how much we value everyone who works in childcare.
It is not just about education. The great thing about childcare is that it offers the chance to identify children’s development needs at the earliest stage, so that they can be addressed pre-school rather than later.
I very much welcome Professor Siraj’s review of the early years workforce. However, unless conditions are radically altered, many part-time workers within the sector will not earn enough to go beyond the personal allowance. Since the coalition Government came to power, the personal allowance has increased year on year and is now more than £10,000. Overall, the increase in the personal allowance has taken more than 200,000 of the lowest earners in Scotland out of paying income tax altogether. Moreover, it is assumed that the earning potential of mothers who are presently economically inactive will be roughly equivalent to that of those who are in work.
It is not solely the absence of childcare that is holding women back; it is also the fact that better access to education is needed.
We know that the Scottish Government has not directly modelled the impact of improved childcare, and that there is public interest in its doing so. I hope that, if necessary, the Scottish Information Commissioner does what she did in relation to the legal advice on Scotland entering the European Union, and takes this Government to the High Court to get that information.
We move to the open debate. Speeches should be of up to six minutes, please. Less would be more.
15:47
Thank you for that subtle hint, Presiding Officer.
I am always happy to talk about childcare in the chamber. We have talked about it quite a lot, and I acknowledge the transformational change that the Scottish Government’s plan can make to constituencies such as mine. I am even more focused on it at the moment—I should perhaps declare an interest—because since we started talking about childcare, I have heard that my daughter Jessica and her partner John are expecting their first baby. I will probably be looking at childcare in a lot more detail, because my daughter and her partner will be dealing with it in the future.
That focuses me on the future that I want for my grandchild. What kind of country do I want my grandchild to grow up in? We are sitting at a point at which we have two futures. We want Scotland to be the best country to grow up in. Independence is the only way that we can give that opportunity to children and to families like mine. The Scottish Government’s policy on childcare in an independent Scotland can and will make that transformational change.
That is backed by many experts. The minister has mentioned Jackie Brock, the chief executive of Children in Scotland, who stated, about the Government’s analysis paper:
“This demonstrates, undeniably, that quality early education and care has advantages for every child but is especially important as one measure to eliminate Scotland's inequalities in educational attainment.”
I believe that high-quality childcare will make a difference. I look at it from the point of view of my constituency which, as other constituencies do, has difficulties. I have said often in the chamber that I do not doubt for a moment any member’s passion or beliefs, or that they got involved in politics to try to change things. In my constituency, Ferguslie Park has been an area of multiple deprivation for decades. As I have said before, to tinker constantly at the edges, as the union has done over the decades, has not made any difference in places like Ferguslie Park. We need the type of transformational change that independence and the levers that the powers that it offers can bring, which can make a difference to young people, children and families in such areas.
People in my constituency are fed up hearing the same old and tired arguments from the unionists; they are fed up hearing that we cannot make a difference. The same arguments are made from one election to the other—from Labour to Tory, back and forward. People are told that one more push for Labour will make a difference, but it never made a difference in the past and it will not make a difference in the future.
The difference that we have to make is to start from the beginning and look at how we can build the future that we want. Independence offers that opportunity. Our aspiration is to make Scotland the best country for our children to grow up in. Let us go down that route.
Let us move away from all the pettiness. When I listened to Kezia Dugdale, I almost thought that panto season had come early because her speech was so full of clichés and lack of vision. We have to look at how we can promote the future for Scotland, and move away from the petty bickering that the public are quite clearly fed up with.
We need to debate the issues in a mature way.
Neil Bibby rose—
We have to say how we are going to make things better. Just as I said “mature”, Mr Bibby got up. Here we go.
We have to look at the issue in a mature way, and people want substance and facts, so will George Adam support our call for the Scottish Government to publish all relevant costings and economic modelling on the childcare policy?
“Substance and facts” do not go with Mr Bibby in any shape or form. Labour members should start looking at their own policies, which they recently announced. I think that the document was called “Together We Can”. The SPICe paper said that Labour’s plans
“don’t outline the anticipated impact on female participation in the work force and the supporting background information also does not show the likely scale of impact on female participation.”
Labour members have the cheek to lecture us when they have no plans and no ideas for the future.
I appeal again to everyone in the Labour Party to be positive and to work with us. Let us work together: let us ensure that we can make a difference. I do not doubt that there are good-minded people throughout the chamber who want to make a difference, but I do not hear that when we debate the issue. I do not want to sit here for two and a half hours to talk about strategy and ideals and what we are going to do. I want to create the policy, enforce it and then make a transformational change. That is what the responsibility of independence is and that is the difference that our ideas would make to Scotland.
With the aspiration that we have, surely we can do better than constant bickering. The Scottish Government has printed a white paper on Scotland’s future. It has shown quite clearly the way forward and how we can promote that. I have still—to this minute—to hear anything positive about our future if we remain in the union. I plead with the unionist party members here: if they want to remain in the union so much, what is their future for childcare? What will they do for young people and families in Scotland? We have not heard that yet, and I can guarantee you, Presiding Officer, that we will not hear it in the future.
We have to be aspirational and we have to be bold. We have to support the ideals that the Scottish Government is putting forward. Let us all work together so that we are not standing here in 10 years wondering why we still have problems with child poverty.
Many thanks for your brevity.
15:53
Aileen Campbell said at the end of her speech that we can work together on this agenda, and it is exactly that that is at the heart of Kezia Dugdale’s motion. It calls for a childcare commission to develop
“a long-term vision for childcare”,
and she uses the word “consensus”. That is absolutely central to what is being proposed today.
There has been a great deal of progress on the early years agenda, particularly with reference to child development, which has been the focus of the early years taskforce, of which I was glad to be a member. However, there is a wider childcare agenda that is to do with parental employment, gender equality and childcare as a weapon against poverty, which we would like the commission to take up, as well.
Childcare is an area in which there was a great deal of co-operation and agreement. Obviously there were differences—we pushed a lot on more provision for two-year-olds, and to some extent the Government responded to that—but there was a lot of common ground. That all ended on the day that the white paper was published. I deeply regret that, as someone who has had a passionate concern for childcare for more than 20 years. Since the white paper was published, we have seen the hijacking of childcare for misleading constitutional debating points and spurious referendum point scoring.
It is particularly galling that, despite the First Minister’s never having had any interest in the subject in his 27 years in Parliament, when he saw the gender gap in referendum polling, childcare was suddenly thrust to the fore. I deeply regret that.
There are at least three fundamental problems with what the white paper argues on childcare. As a general proposition, of course it is true that if more people go into work, more revenues will be generated. Under Labour’s proposals for greatly enhanced fiscal devolution, more of that revenue will be kept in Scotland. That creates great incentives to increase employment.
However, that is not how things would work under independence. First, we would have to meet the up-front cost of £700 million in the first parliamentary session in an independent Scotland. All the independent experts say that the fiscal position in the first few years of an independent Scotland would be more difficult and more bleak than our current fiscal situation. It would be easier to put in the childcare investment now than it would be to do it in 2016 in an independent Scotland.
As several members have mentioned, the fundamental deception is on the employment and revenue effects of what is proposed. The paper of 12 January is particularly deceptive in that regard, because it paints a picture of a Swedish model, a 6 per cent increase in the labour force and the generation of £700 million in revenue, but what the Scottish Government proposes in the white paper is not the Swedish model of childcare. The Swedish model is based on people achieving full-time employment. There is nothing in the white paper about after-school care. Even provision for the under-fives does not allow for full-time employment.
As we know from the SPICe paper, even if the Scottish Government were proposing something more like the Swedish model, the numbers simply would not add up. For the Swedish level of employment to be achieved, 104,000 additional women with children under the age of five would have to go into the workforce—that figure has been much quoted, but it goes to the heart of what we are saying—but there are only 64,000 women in that position, and SPICe estimates that only 14,000 of them want to go into employment, because quite a lot of parents—in particular, mothers with children aged under five—want to delay that. That is the deception at the heart of what we have been presented with in the white paper. We are told that, suddenly, all that would be possible. I am arguing that it is more possible now than it would be in the Scottish Government’s first term in an independent Scotland.
That is not to say that, if the policies were implemented, there would not be advantages. There would be child development advantages and advantages for many parents who are currently working, who might be able to have more free care rather than informal care or paid care. I am sure that we would support those policies—a lot of what we propose on provision for under-fives and so on is quite similar—but they would not have the dramatic employment effects that are at the heart of the argument that the SNP puts forward as part of its referendum campaign.
One obvious way to improve what is proposed would be to build in after-school care, which we are arguing for now. We want after-school care to be central to our childcare priorities. That is in our current policy document. To return to the present, that is a big issue in my constituency, where there are simply not enough of the after-school care places that are fundamental to parental employment. A particular issue in Edinburgh is the fact that there is not sufficient building capacity to meet that need. North Edinburgh Childcare, which I always mention in childcare debates, does a lot of after-school care in school buildings. It is under pressure to move out of those buildings because there is no space in the schools for the expanding roll. There are big issues with after-school care, so let us address them.
Another aspect that we have highlighted in our policy document is the need to invest in the childcare workforce. That is absolutely fundamental. North Edinburgh Childcare, which has a brilliant childcare academy that has won awards, faces the problem of not being able to train people who are aged 24 and over, as it used to do, because Skills Development Scotland is putting in money for training only people under 24. It is worth while putting the money in, but not at the price of exclusion of older people. Let us address the problems that we face.
Finally, I turn to affordability. We regret the fact that the UK Government reduced the childcare tax credit element to 70 per cent, but there are still possibilities for the Scottish Government to provide subsidy. North Edinburgh Childcare has benefited from such subsidy, and Save the Children has suggested that money should be allocated to childcare for children in deprived areas, which would have an anti-poverty effect, among many other advantages.
15:59
Listening to some of the Labour members’ speeches this afternoon, I have found myself thrown back to my university days—a long while back now—when I studied social history and labour history, and I cannot help thinking about how the founding fathers of the Labour Party would have approached all this. They were inspired by a vision and set about realising it; today, however, Labour is crippled by an obsession with process and point scoring. I am so glad that Kezia Dugdale was not around to tell Tom Johnston that he could not electrify the Highlands because he had not modelled it properly, or John Wheatley that he could not build social housing because he had not got the numbers right, or Nye Bevan that he could not start the national health service because he had to prove how it would pay for itself.
Does Ms McAlpine recognise that neither Tom Johnston nor Nye Bevan misled the Scottish people on the costs of electrification or the welfare state?
I hope that the member will withdraw the word “misled”, because it is extremely inappropriate and unparliamentary.
I think that we can do without that word in future.
It is a pity that we cannot call the Labour founding fathers, to hear what they make of the lack of ambition in the present-day Scottish Labour Party.
However, we have heard from people such as Dr Jim McCormick, an adviser to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, who last month gave evidence to the Economy, Energy and Tourism Committee. When I asked him whether he agreed that
“a transformative approach to early years”
was
“the single most significant thing that we can do to close the attainment gap”,
which at the moment sets in before a child turns 5 and widens as they grow up, he said that he did. He also said that he had looked at the challenges of a yes outcome and a no outcome in the referendum. He thought that
“If there was a no vote and there was further devolution, there would need to be substantial devolution of tax credit powers so that we had the revenue that would allow us to make up for some of the income tax that we did not have.”
We know from Labour’s devolution commission that only a tiny proportion of income tax will be devolved and that there is certainly no plan to devolve tax credits or any other form of welfare. As for the situation after a yes vote, Dr McCormick said:
“the fact that transforming childcare has been the number 1 social policy issue of the year so far must bode well for the kind of political space that we might find ourselves in.”—[Official Report, Economy, Energy and Tourism Committee, 23 April 2014; c 4353.]
I was particularly interested in Dr Jim McCormick’s remarks because I am old enough to remember him in a past life. Back in 1996, he authored with one Wendy Alexander an article for an Institute of Public Policy Research study, “The State and the Nations”. The article is widely considered to be the first draft of the Scotland Act 1998 and, of course, Ms Alexander went on to work with Donald Dewar on drafting that legislation. Mr McCormick and Ms Alexander were the bright young things of their day—and in their day, back in the 1990s, they had ambition for the people of Scotland. In comparison with the people back then, today’s bright young things, such as Kezia Dugdale, on the front bench do not seem to have made a great deal of progress. Mr McCormick seems to have got more radical as he has got older, and he has showed that he can move with the times. Labour, on the other hand, seems to be stuck back in the 1990s, unable radically to develop devolution in any meaningful way.
It is not just Mr McCormick who has grasped the opportunity of the transformative nature of a Nordic-style childcare system. Back in 2012, none other than Ed Miliband had his “Borgen” moment. In a speech to the Sutton Trust, he said:
“If you are born poor in a more equal society like Finland, Norway or Denmark then you have a better chance of moving into a good job than if you are born ... in the”
USA.
“If you want the American dream”
move
“to Finland.”
However, when the committees on which I have sat—the Education and Culture Committee and the Economy, Energy and Tourism Committee—have examined what will happen in the area post-independence, all I have heard is how it is not affordable and how we cannae do it. Mr Bibby, in particular, has been telling us that we should not aspire to Nordic levels of childcare because they are unaffordable. In comparison, when Jackie Brock—
Will the member give way?
No, thanks—I am running out of time.
When Mr Bibby more or less invited Jackie Brock to trash the white paper at the Education and Culture Committee, she said:
“Greater support from Government has been a significant milestone for those of us in the childcare sector.”—[Official Report, Education and Culture Committee, 1 April 2014; c 3928.]
I ask members on the Labour front bench to draw inspiration from the past and from the people who had vision, set about realising their vision and did not get bogged down with point scoring. Kezia Dugdale said that her party has not lost its ambition for childcare, but by constantly attacking the ambitious proposals in the white paper, she simply exposes that position as a lot of nonsense.
Kezia Dugdale talked about the need for a route map and coming together. We have a route map: the white paper is the route map. It is our vision for the future, and it is the vision that we will realise. Labour has no route map, no ideas and no vision.
16:05
I am pleased to speak in this debate, as it gives me the opportunity to return once more to early learning and childcare, which underpin the wellbeing and potential of children across Scotland.
The issue of early learning and childcare does not go away, and will only become more acute. The Institute for Fiscal Studies has predicted a significant rise in child poverty in Scotland by 2020. The issue has not gone away for parents and carers, who have to juggle on a daily basis the challenges, responsibilities and commitments of family life, which include ensuring that they have access to good-quality and reliable childcare. Until that is delivered, the issue cannot go away for all of us in the chamber.
As anyone who has brought up children will know, it is not just the cost that matters when one is looking at childcare options. Families have to build their childcare around their work patterns and the availability of nurseries, childminders or day care in their local area. Crucially, we must consider wraparound care for school-age children, which has been missed in the current debates. If there is more than one child, there can be further complications with getting the children to where they need to be. That all adds time to the working day.
A nursery or childcare provider whose hours do not match the requirements of the main carers, whether because of work patterns or other reasons, will be of no use at all, no matter how high quality or affordable the provision. I know from listening to parents that decisions on childcare options sometimes have to be based around what is available, whether that is friends, family or voluntary, private or public sector provision, rather than what is perhaps best suited to the child’s or family’s circumstances. If any parent or carer who is in employment is asked, they will give a long list of childcare options that are turned to, depending on the circumstances. There will be childminders who take the children to and from school or nursery, or a day care centre, or combinations of those options. I speak from experience when I say that there can also be the emergency phone call to granny, asking her to step in when other options have been exhausted.
Flexibility and truly quality childcare can tackle significant inequalities in development and support working parents. For many families, the list of options may be limited due to financial or other circumstances, which is why it is vital that childcare provision in Scotland in the future is affordable and flexible in meeting the needs of all parents and carers.
As we all know, it is more than three months since the Scottish Parliament passed the Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014. It offered real positives for young people but, as colleagues have already pointed out, it remains an act over which some very large financial question marks loom. Unfortunately, despite the best efforts of Opposition parties, the Finance Committee and third sector bodies, a number of questions remain over the costs of the childcare commitments that the Scottish Government outlined.
The questions are not just about childcare. Whether because of the absence of financial modelling data or because of the lack of an update on the revised capital costs in the financial memorandum, which the Finance Committee is still awaiting, other question marks loom over the financial implications of the 2014 act.
I have raised before my concerns about the delay in the publication of the financial review of kinship care. The Scottish Government promised to publish the review’s findings at the end of 2013. It is crucial that kinship carers, who provide a vital role in caring for our children, are offered some financial security, but we are still waiting for the review’s findings to be published. I hope that we will hear some indication from the Scottish Government of when the review will be published, as kinship carers play an essential part in providing love, care and security for many of Scotland’s children. We must not forget the need to make those vital foundations secure before we build on the basic blocks of family life with other early learning and childcare opportunities.
It is clear that the quality of childcare is fundamental. The new definition of early learning and childcare, as set out in the 2014 act, is to be welcomed, as it recognises the crucial educational aspects of looking after children. I have raised in other debates the issue of opportunities for all children and the impact that a good-quality start can have on their life chances. That point is all the more stark now, as we hear from Save the Children that a quarter of all children live in families who are in relative poverty. Three quarters of those children are under 11, and they are at greater risk of poverty than those in any other section of society—a damning fact.
Although there is no silver bullet, we must come together to ensure that quality, flexible and affordable childcare offers children a route away from their persistent poor situations. It is absolutely vital to remember that, for too many children and young people, access to opportunities is bound up in a tangled web of poverty-related issues, including housing, food and nutrition, access to transport and opportunities for play, all of which impact on their health, education, interaction with peers and educational attainment.
Save the Children has shown that children living in poverty are twice as likely to be born underweight, three times more likely to have poor diets, nearly four times more likely not to have access to nutritious food, five times more likely to live in poor-quality housing and seven times more likely to live in households that are in fuel poverty. In addition, the education gap starts to open up long before school even begins, with the result that children who grow up in poverty finish school with significantly lower levels of attainment, which limits their opportunities throughout life.
As much as a single change can begin to make a difference, providing flexible and quality childcare is that change. Our long-term vision for childcare in Scotland must tackle the crucial issues. However, it is a long-term vision that is in danger of being cynically used as a carrot by those pushing constitutional arguments without the facts and figures to support their proposals. Whatever the outcome of the referendum in September, the need for high-quality childcare will remain. It is an issue that we all know is well within the powers of this Parliament to consider now and in the future. We do not need independence to improve the lives of Scotland’s children.
16:11
I begin by congratulating my friend George Adam on his impending status as a grandparent and by saying to Mary Scanlon that before she traduced the Scottish National Party in relation to its turnout for the debate, it might have been a good idea if she had cast a backwards glance first to see her own party’s dismal attendance.
I welcome the chance to debate the provision of childcare in Scotland, which is an issue that I care about very deeply—a feeling that I believe is shared across the board. Unlike others, I will not question anyone’s motivation in terms of their support for childcare. I am informed by my own experience as a father of two children. I have spoken previously of my good fortune in being able to secure first-rate childcare for them.
I have also spoken of the work that I have undertaken with Save the Children on childcare issues. I have hosted a number of parents from across the country who have struggled to access childcare. Many were young single parents—young women who had aspirations for themselves as well as for their children and who wanted to go to college to secure the qualifications that they needed to get the work that they wanted so that they could support their family. However, too many were unable to do that.
The question is how best we can ensure that we provide childcare to those in such a position in future. It is appropriate that we have the debate today, because today Save the Children released a study called, “A Fair Start for Every Child: Why we must act now to tackle child poverty in the UK”, which looks at the impact of poverty on children. I should perhaps also mention in passing that, at the Finance Committee earlier today, the Child Poverty Action Group reminded us that the number of children living in poverty in Scotland is set to increase by 100,000 by 2020 as a result of United Kingdom Government tax and benefit changes.
“A Fair Start for Every Child” states:
“Young children growing up in disadvantaged families are less likely to participate in formal pre-school care, which is designed to provide children with a high-quality early-years learning environment where they can learn skills that will help them in their later school careers. Many families cannot afford to send their children to pre-school because of the cost relative to household income.”
It goes on to say that
“parents surveyed by OnePoll for this report repeatedly cited childcare costs as a reason for reducing expenditure on other goods, for getting into debt and for reducing the hours they work.”
In an email to me today, Save the Children understandably said:
“Investing in additional state subsidised services is critical”.
One of the demands in “A Fair Start for Every Child” is:
“Every family to have access to high-quality and affordable childcare”.
That is an interesting conclusion, because it is exactly what the Scottish Government wants to deliver with the powers of independence.
I know that Willie Rennie does not support independence, but it was very welcome that he said that he supports the ambition for childcare set out in the white paper, as I do. He also said that he felt that everyone in the chamber would support that ambition. I am reminded of an exchange that Johann Lamont had with Glenn Campbell, who asked her:
“Do you ... support the idea that John Swinney has of equal access for all to any additional free childcare?”
Johann Lamont answered “No”. Therefore, unfortunately, the white paper’s ambition on childcare is not shared across the chamber.
I support the proposals because they will help parents with the burden of costs. Parents in the UK spend about 27 per cent of their household income on childcare. In contrast, families in Denmark and Sweden spend 9 per cent and 5 per cent respectively, due to higher levels of state investment in childcare. The proposals will help to ensure that young children get the chance to have the best start in life, and they will help to boost participation in the workplace. We know that many countries in the OECD—including Iceland, Sweden, Switzerland, Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, Canada, Finland and New Zealand—have higher female activity rates than Scotland, although Scotland is in a slightly better position than the UK as a whole.
The OECD has stated:
“Financial support for (public and private) childcare providers and parents reduce a key barrier to employment participation for many parents with young children”.
The European Commission has stated:
“Empirical studies of the relationship between childcare costs and labour force participation are consistent with this prediction; when costs go down, labour force participation goes up, especially among mothers”.
Even the SPICe briefing, which some members have said traduces the Scottish Government’s policy, states:
“studies find that an increase in subsidised childcare is associated with an increase in mothers’ employment”.
We need independence to achieve what is proposed. Willie Rennie said that he understands the passion for independence on the SNP benches, but I do not think that he and many others in the Parliament who oppose independence understand why we are passionate about independence. We do not believe in independence as an end in itself. We believe in the power of independence to deliver for people in Scotland so that we can deliver policies such as universal childcare.
It is estimated that increasing receipts from the four main taxes that are collected in Scotland by 1 per cent, getting people into work and reducing core welfare spending by 1 per cent would boost the public finances by about £350 million. However, even under the powers in the Scotland Act 2012, only about £45 million of that would accrue directly to the Scottish Government. We would not be able to invest the rest back into childcare.
I will not read out the quote, but I thought that Donald MacKay’s point that no Scottish Government would dare to implement the policy under the limits of devolution was a salient one. I cannot understand why Malcolm Chisholm and others in the Labour Party do not understand that. It is only with independence that we can deliver the policy.
16:17
I declare an interest on a personal level. I have Peppa Pig yoghurts in my fridge, I know the stories of “The Tiger Who Came to Tea” and “How to Hide a Lion” back to front, my TV is set to CBeebies and I know all about Katie Morag. I am an ad hoc member of—or a conscript to—that group known as grannies. Notice that I say, “I am a granny,” and not, “We are a grandmother.” We make a big contribution to free childcare, and I thought that it was important to put that on the record for all the grannies, granddads, great aunts and what-not who do that work.
I turn to the motion. Obviously, everyone subscribes to putting childcare at the heart and the centre of any Government’s policies, and this Scottish Government has delivered beyond those in the first eight years of this Parliament, when Labour and the Liberals were in power and money was flowing pretty freely from Westminster. That has not been happening for some time now, as we know.
Everybody in the Parliament knows that the Scottish Government works on a fixed budget, and we also know that in every portfolio, from education through to justice and health, about 80 per cent of the budget is fixed. It pays for staff, for transport, for buildings and for heating costs. There is only a very small sliver at the top that can be reallocated, and that is the rub. When Labour asks for additional childcare, we have to ask where the money will come from. That is a fair question, because we all know that it has to come from somewhere.
On “Scotland Tonight” on 7 January, Kezia Dugdale was asked where the cuts would come from to fund the childcare plan—we would have to have cuts, because the money is not floating about spare. She said:
“We found the money, we think the money is there”.
Rona Dougall said:
“Where is it?”
Kezia Dugdale said:
“The SNP don’t think it is because they’ve spent it already on small business rates ... relief.”
When, later on, Stewart Maxwell, my friend and colleague in here—for the moment—said to Patricia Ferguson:
“So you would cut the small business bonus?”,
Patricia Ferguson said:
“We would certainly consider that.”
Let us be straight talking: if extra money is to be put into childcare, which we all want, somebody’s budget will have to be cut in the little 20 per cent at the top that can be moved around.
As for releasing women into the workplace, Labour’s spokesperson on childcare, Lucy Powell, has said:
“Enabling women to go back to work who want to go back to work, in the same jobs they were doing before—so that they don’t pay that pay and status penalty for the rest of their careers—will increase revenues to the exchequer significantly, such that over time it pays for itself.”
Will the member take an intervention?
I do not have time.
That quote is about exactly the principle on which the white paper operates.
I have talked about the better times that we had in the Parliament’s first eight years. I do not recognise Willie Rennie’s picture of recovery. I am no accountant, but I can understand that the UK’s debt is running at £1.27 trillion and that the debt interest bill remains on course this year to be £1 billion a week and is growing at a rate of £5,000 per second. I do not see a good future if we stay part of the UK with such debt hanging round our necks and with cuts en route to Scotland. What lies ahead for us is less childcare and cuts to our health service.
We are always told that we try to bamboozle with figures. The most recent figures have Danny Alexander telling us that it would cost £2.7 billion to set up new Government departments in Scotland. That has been immediately disowned and rubbished by Professor Dunleavy, who said:
“UK Treasury press release on #Scotland costs of government ... badly misrepresents LSE research”.
He also said:
“The Treasury’s figures are bizarrely inaccurate. I don’t see why the Scottish government couldn’t do this for a very small amount of money.”
There is jiggery-pokery from the Treasury and there is jiggery-pokery from the Opposition benches. When I tell my granddaughter stories, I will add to my list a new storybook for bedtime reading, which I will write. I will call it, “Better Together’s Funny Money Tree”. It is a fable—and that is just my working title.
16:22
A bit like Jamie Hepburn, I think that today’s report on poverty from Save the Children could not be more timely in emphasising the importance of good-quality, affordable and available childcare. Its stark warning on alarming rises in child poverty across Scotland is accompanied by a direct call—it is Save the Children’s first recommendation—for policy makers to minimise the impact of childcare costs on household budgets.
The statistics that accompany the report reveal what most of us as parents know only too well. Between 2009 and 2014 in Scotland, the cost of a nursery place rose by 31 per cent for a child who is over two and by 26 per cent for a child who is under two. At the same time as families are struggling even to find suitable childcare, let alone pay for it, there is ever-more abundant evidence about the benefits for parents and children of good-quality care.
Barnardo’s is one of the organisations that promote the importance of attachment. I have followed that issue for some time. Scientific evidence suggests that the link—the interactions or attachments—between very young children and the adults who surround them, be they parents, carers or nursery staff, is vital in supporting those children’s development and can help those individuals to avoid problems later in life. Barnardo’s is working on that through its five to thrive approach, which focuses on creating a common language—a common understanding—between parents and childcare staff about how attachment can strengthen the connection with a child.
As I am sure most members realise, it is crucial to the success of that approach that we have well trained and committed carers who know that their job is valued. Unfortunately, Unison Scotland recently found that the average salary for a nursery nurse, who is a qualified member of our pre-school staff, is £13,361 a year, which is half the UK average wage. We have a dilemma. Parents can barely afford childcare, yet we do not begin to pay childcare staff anything like the wages that would be expected in an educational environment.
Just this week, I was talking to a parent who said, only half jokingly, that she uses the only after-school club that is available to her as a threat to her children. She says, “If you don’t behave, I’ll put you in the after-school club.” I suspect that a few members have experienced qualms about dropping off our kids at some childcare establishments.
I am conscious that there is a danger of my not distinguishing clearly enough between childcare and pre-school education. On the benefits of the latter, in particular, members of the Education Committee in the second session of the Parliament will recall the evidence that we took on the effective provision of pre-school education—EPPE—longitudinal study in England, which found that, although good-quality pre-school provision did not eliminate differences in social backgrounds, it reduced the disadvantage that children from some social groups experienced and reduced social exclusion in later life. In particular, the study found a positive effect on attainment in English and on social and emotional abilities. Children who had attended pre-school from an earlier age were generally more intellectually able and more sociable with other children.
There is no shortage of evidence to support arguments on the need for and benefits of childcare and pre-school education. There is also no shortage of political will in that regard. As several SNP members pointed out, childcare was the subject of one of the first substantive debates in this Parliament. Labour and the Liberal Democrats agreed, in our making it work together programme for government, to put childcare firmly on to the policy agenda, and the agenda was supported by all parties in the Parliament.
In successive elections and in successive programmes for government from my party and from the SNP, the commitment to childcare has remained sincere. We have made considerable progress. By 2002, we had introduced a statutory right to free early learning for all three and four-year-olds. By 2007, we had increased provision to 475 hours, which was worth just under £2,000 a year per child to parents in Scotland. The Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014 pledges to increase provision to 600 hours per year, and I am sure that we all hope that there will soon be progress on implementation.
There is political will in the Parliament for more action, and there could be cross-party support for how we should implement policy. I regret that the referendum has eroded that consensus. I regret that, instead of using all the means at its disposal to help families now, the Scottish Government is promising radical solutions only if people vote yes. I regret that, instead of working with all parties to find a sustainable way to increase childcare provision and improve the quality and flexibility of existing childcare with the powers that we have, the Scottish Government has turned the debate into one of those if-only-we-had-the-powers debates, as we heard.
What worries me most about the promises of transformation that the SNP is making is that, on all the evidence that we have seen and heard, the promises are based on nothing but assertion and assumption. I suspect that if the Sunday Herald had not chosen to take such a firm editorial line, we might have read more of Tom Gordon’s research and more of the evidence that he exposed.
You must close, please.
I support the calls for the minister to publish all the economic modelling, so that we can see how the Government reached its figures. That would be a step towards rebuilding the consensus. The outcome of the referendum should have little or no bearing on this agenda.
16:28
The childcare proposals in the white paper have the potential to transform outcomes for women in Scotland. They are much more than a policy outline and should not be seen in isolation; they are an integral and important part of a vision for Scotland that embraces the removal of gender segregation from the workplace and values the softer, caring roles that mainly women perform in our society.
The proposals must also be seen in the context of the white paper’s proposal for a fair work commission, the ambition for greater female participation in boardrooms and the ambition to address the barriers to women sustaining well-paid, career-rich professional lives, which the Royal Society of Edinburgh set out eloquently in “Tapping all our Talents—Women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics: a strategy for Scotland”.
Such an approach is far from new for this Government; it is at the heart of what the Government has been doing. The “Equality Statement: Scottish Spending Review 2011 and Draft Budget 2012-13” states:
“We recognise that equality is an important driver of growth and that inequality detracts from our economic performance and social wellbeing. We make clear in our Economic Strategy, the importance of increasing participation in the labour market, removing the structural and long standing barriers which limit opportunities and harnessing the diversity and wealth of talent we have available to us as a nation.”
This is about a new economics that challenges traditional thinking in this country. I am suggesting not that we throw the economic baby out with the bath water but more that we embrace the economic theorem that values the work of the person who puts the baby in the bath water, nurtures the baby and performs the caring roles that are so valuable to the economic future of our country.
The economist who first opened my eyes to this new thinking was Marilyn Waring, who in 1988 published “If Women Counted”, in which she challenged the accepted characteristics of the calculation of gross domestic product, which counted the journey to work as economic activity but to which what happened in the home was invisible. It is notable that Finland and Denmark used the unpaid work of—in the main—women in their internal calculations for GDP. That is maybe why they are so successful in delivering childcare.
Marilyn Waring is a great hero of mine not only because of her academic work on economics but because she was fundamental in bringing about non-nuclear legislation for New Zealand. If we are not spending money on bombs, we have more money to spend on what is truly important to the people of Scotland: the future of our children.
I mention Marilyn Waring today because she was a great influence on Dr Ailsa McKay, whose academic research and contribution to the economics of Scotland have made a great contribution to the development of the childcare proposals in the white paper. One of her final publications before her sad, untimely death was “Counting on Marilyn Waring: New Advances in Feminist Economics”. Professor Gülay Günlük-Senesen of Istanbul University has said of it:
“‘Counting on Marilyn Waring’ provides a timely reminder of the politics and economics underpinning what, how and by whom activities and outputs are valued. For those concerned with social justice and sustainable futures this important and powerful book provides an invaluable and practical insight into issues that are in need of greater visibility.”
We have much to be thankful for in the work of Professor Ailsa McKay. In her address to the Educational Institute of Scotland, she stated:
“The current economic crisis is therefore a turning point. A time for reflection—a time for ‘challenging the norm’ and taking nothing for granted.”
She had the ambitions that were eloquently spoken of by Ms McAlpine when she talked about the vision and ambition of previous leaders of the Labour Party. Ailsa McKay also contributed to the great work that has been done by the Jimmy Reid Foundation in looking at the value of universal services and welfare that is universal and valued by everyone in society and how those can transform the way we live.
In his tribute to Ailsa McKay on the Jimmy Reid Foundation’s website, Robin McAlpine talks about Professor McKay’s response to the First Minister when he first asked her whether she would contribute to the policy in the white paper. She said:
“If you’re serious about the policy, if you mean it, then I’d be delighted. But you have to mean it.”
He did mean it, and we are serious about it. The white paper is serious about it. I challenge Labour: is it serious about it? I have my doubts. Ed Miliband announced his pledge to crack down on zero-hours contracts in my home town of Motherwell. Unfortunately for him, North Lanarkshire Council, which is run by Labour, has 800 workers employed on zero-hours contracts.
I ask Labour again whether it is serious about the policy, because this week Unison released a press release that states:
“UNISON North Lanarkshire is stepping up the pressure on North Lanarkshire Council in the union’s long running campaign to end the unfair treatment of low paid women.”
According to the press release, John Mooney said:
“For an employer to purposely change job scores which lowered pay rates and to admit that they have destroyed the paperwork is astonishing and UNISON demand to know who sanctioned such disgusting behaviour.”
Is Labour serious?
16:35
Childcare is one of the many issues on which we can make real progress in Scotland if we do not treat it as a political football. Scrutiny of how we are going to pay for it is welcome—obviously, the finances are important if any Government is to deliver on promises. I welcome the fact that the issue is getting the attention that it needs and merits, because it is fair to say that it has not had that until now.
I hope that we can see the debate in the round, as being about the care of children rather than childcare. Public policy should be able to help parents to ensure that their children have the best start in life. Increases in the amount of institutional nursery childcare that is available from local authorities will be welcomed by parents who struggle to afford to pay for additional hours. We all know that childcare costs here are among the highest in Europe.
There are other types of childcare, many of which are playing second fiddle in the debate but should not be forgotten. Informal care by friends and family is the most obvious example. Throughout human history, we have raised children by sharing responsibility among friends and family. That type of care has immense value, although it is not measured in economic terms, as Clare Adamson mentioned. Any public policy that we promote should welcome and recognise the important role of informal care.
For all sorts of reasons, many parents do not have such a network to tap into, so they look outside that circle. Just who by and where our children will be looked after is a massively important decision for any parent or carer. Many of us will have visited nurseries and childminders before coming to a decision, although many people experience a limited range of options—or no options—as well as limited availability for certain days, waiting lists and shortages, which necessitate increased travel, expense and inconvenience and make a long day even longer for parents and children.
It remains the case, however, that it is often easier to secure a nursery place for a younger child than it is to secure childcare that fits round the school day and makes working life possible for those with school-age children. Childcare is essential for those with children who juggle work and family life, and it can be challenging to find the right place or person to provide it. Fees can sometimes be comparable to mortgage payments and beyond consideration, particularly for those with more than one child. As I said, fees are particularly high in this country, yet that is not reflected in the pay packets of those who deliver the care, even though their job is surely one of the most important that anyone could do. I agree whole-heartedly with the comments of Mary Scanlon and Ken Macintosh on that.
One size does not fit all. We need various flexible models of childcare that reflect that and address local challenges, but we need quality assurance, too, and mutual commitments to standardise excellence across the board. Day care should be part of a full childhood and not simply somewhere to park children when we head to work. It should be delivered by highly qualified, well-paid and valued staff and it should be such a positive offering that it will be taken up even when there is a parent at home.
The Food Standards Agency has suggested that 15 per cent of Scottish homes do not have cutlery. Quality childcare can introduce children to important life skills. Many children do not eat at the table and are not introduced to a knife and fork at home. We can look to the Copenhagen House of Food model and make good food habits an important part of a quality education.
We can address our children’s lack of physical activity from the youngest age by making the outdoors accessible all year round. We can make days when children spend wet breaks indoors a thing of the past. We could stock nurseries and schools with waterproofs and wellies for all children. Our children are not as fit or physically literate as they used to be, and we are paying the price. We need to build links with sport governing bodies and introduce our nursery children to gymnastics and athletics—the basis of physical literacy—at the earliest opportunity.
Childcare needs to be educational, affordable and universal. If we achieve that transformation, we will enable the many women who wish to work to achieve their potential and realise their ambitions. As Professor Sara Carter has noted, if the level of business ownership among women matched that among their male counterparts, we would have more than 108,000 additional businesses in Scotland. However, as the Scottish Trades Union Congress has advised, many women choose economic inactivity when faced with high childcare costs and a lack of appealing choices. That inactivity can impact on career progression and on the value of women’s pensions when they reach retirement age.
Single parents face particular challenges accessing childcare and making budgets balance. The great majority of single parents are women and, while children are young, there is a marked difference between the number of lone parents working and the number of women with partners working.
Women make up the overwhelming number of those working in childcare. Childcare has one of the biggest gender imbalances among staff and it is important that we address that. Norway has set targets for male educators and has provided extra support to help with those targets, along with job advertising and recruiting campaigns. Sweden is also often quoted in this debate. In the 1970s, less than 10 per cent of pre-schoolers in Sweden could access a publicly funded place. Their parents took to the streets.
We need to recognise the important role of childminders. They look after 30,000 children in Scotland and, in too many areas, they are a preciously rare resource. We need to ensure that we offer the support that will encourage more people to consider childminding as a career.
We must think about where our childcare buildings are located. Large institutions, colleges and universities should offer childcare provision for staff. This Parliament should consider such provision. There is a private nursery in a local college, but it is too expensive for the young mums who study there. That does not make sense.
We cannot achieve this transformation overnight, but we can achieve it.
16:41
I would like to begin with a quotation from the late Professor Ailsa McKay. Professor McKay was much respected and admired across the chamber for her hard work and dedication to improving outcomes for women and disadvantaged groups in Scotland. Writing in the Sunday Herald in December 2013 about her ambitions for the childcare plans that are outlined in the white paper, Professor McKay said:
“The highest rates of employment of mothers are in Scandinavia, where public investment in childcare is high. If Scotland could replicate this, tens of thousands of more women would be in work in Scotland. A higher female employment rate increases economic growth and productivity and has a positive impact on fertility, making it more likely that population growth will be above replacement rate … additional investment in childcare provision would more than pay for itself in the medium term.”
Labour talks about the importance of ensuring that childcare remains
“at the top of the political agenda, regardless of the ... result”
of September’s referendum. That was a point that was made by Professor Mackay and I agree with the sentiment, although I must say that I am disappointed—but not surprised—that the Labour Party has chosen to attack the Scottish Government’s childcare plans. If Labour really believed in a transformational change in childcare, it would be right behind the Scottish Government’s ambitious proposals.
Of course, Labour has form on this kind of behaviour. A few months back, we witnessed Labour MSPs teaming up with the Tories to vote against the Scottish Government’s proposals for free school meals and improved childcare provision. It appeared then that that was just another example of the Labour Party choosing to oppose for opposition’s sake—particularly as the Scottish Government’s plans had been welcomed by a wide range of children’s charities and child poverty campaigners. Labour’s actions at the time were rightly condemned in the press and in communities across Scotland, so I had hoped that lessons had been learned about the danger of attacking everything that is proposed by the SNP just for the sake of political point scoring. However, sadly, I was wrong.
In the childcare debate in January, I highlighted the work that has been carried out by Professor Edward Melhuish of the University of London. Professor Melhuish’s research has demonstrated the long-term benefits of effective childcare, particularly for children from deprived backgrounds. Those findings were reinforced by a recent research paper that was published by the Scottish Government, entitled “Childcare and Children’s Intellectual Outcomes”, which concluded that high-quality nursery education not only enhances development in children in their early years, but aids attainment in children at all ages. The paper highlights evidence that pre-school education enhances all-round development in children and is particularly beneficial to children from disadvantaged backgrounds, in helping to improve cognitive development, sociability and concentration. Those benefits continue into primary and secondary school, with research demonstrating that pupils aged 15 who attended pre-school education tend to outperform those who did not.
Although there are for parents and children significant social benefits from improved childcare, there is also a strong economic case for investment in early years education. In written evidence that has been submitted to Parliament, Professor McKay and her colleagues at the women in Scotland’s economy research centre at Glasgow Caledonian University highlighted research that shows how important investment in childcare is to stimulating economic growth.
Growth in the construction industry is often held up as a barometer of how well the economy is doing. The research centre at GCU suggests that, in economic terms, the development of a high-quality childcare sector is just as important as development of the construction sector, in that one creates physical capital and the other creates human capital.
It is argued that a lack of access to adequate affordable childcare is damaging to the economy and to society as a whole, because that lack acts as a barrier to participation in the labour market by parents—in particular, by mothers. Enabling more women to contribute to the economy through better provision of affordable childcare can help to lift families out of poverty and tackle inequality in earnings. That is an ambition that I hope all members share.
The social and economic benefits of improved early years provision are not in doubt; the question is how we can ensure that children and families here gain access to opportunities that are similar to those that are enjoyed by our Scandinavian neighbours. Childcare costs in Scotland and the rest of the UK are among the highest in Europe. We spend an average of 26.5 per cent of parental income on childcare, compared to the OECD average of almost 12 per cent. A recent report by the Family and Childcare Trust suggests that families are paying more than £7,500 per year in childcare costs for two children, which amounts to more than the average cost of a mortgage.
Under devolution, Scotland has made some progress in improving access to affordable childcare, and I welcome that. Since the SNP came to power, we have increased free nursery provision by 20 per cent. The improvements in flexible early learning and childcare that have been delivered through the Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014 will benefit more than 120,000 children in Scotland and help to save families about £700 per year. That will be welcomed by hard-pressed families throughout Scotland, although the reality is that only with the powers and resources of independence can we bring about the transformational change that is needed to provide the best possible start in life for children in Scotland.
Labour MSPs assert that that can be done now under the limited powers of devolution. If that is the case, why were those ambitious plans not advanced when the Labour Party was in power in the previous two Administrations, and why cannot it tell us now how it would pay for them under the devolution settlement?
Professor Sir Donald MacKay, who is a leading economist and a former chair of Scottish Enterprise, hit the nail on the head when he said that
“No financially responsible Scottish Government would dare to implement the childcare proposals under the fixed block grant funding of devolution, unless they were prepared to take an axe to existing programmes”.
I look forward to hearing from the Labour Party what public services it plans to cut in order to finance more childcare now, under the current limited devolution settlement.
I have already outlined the benefits to the economy that increased access to childcare provides. The Scottish Government has been clear in its commitment to improving access to affordable high-quality early learning and childcare. The Minister for Children and Young People has spoken of her ambition to make Scotland the best place in the world in which to grow up. With the opportunities of independence, we can do just that. Our families, children and communities deserve nothing less.
16:47
Lack of affordable high-quality childcare is one of the biggest issues facing families in Dunfermline, Scotland and across the UK. Across the political divide, we all agree that action needs to be taken, and childcare is rightly rising to the top of the political agenda. That is welcome news to women across all political parties who have been making the case for childcare for many decades—a case that has often fallen on deaf ears in Parliaments and council chambers that have been full of men.
I am pleased that childcare is now at the heart of the mainstream political agenda, where it belongs, but for mums and dads the pace of change is too slow. We are still waiting for a childcare revolution, and parents deserve better than childcare promises that are simply uncosted and unworkable, or are taking too long to deliver.
Whatever the result in September, we have the powers at Holyrood to transform childcare in Scotland now, and we need to use them—not just talk about them. Our priority must be to ensure that childcare is free or affordable for every parent and, as childcare challenges do not end when children start school, that must include childcare for schoolchildren, too.
In Scotland, we have waited seven long years for the SNP’s 2007 childcare pledge to be met. Finally in August, Scottish parents will catch up with their friends and family in England and Wales. That is an overdue, but welcome, step forward.
Pre-school provision will also be extended to workless families of two-year-olds. That policy is welcome, but comes with challenges because local authorities tell us that the new childcare pledge is not fully funded. Given how important childcare is in addressing the cycle of disadvantage, that is surely a big concern. Fife Council, for example, has identified a funding gap of about £500,000; that does not even factor in adaptations that need to be made to pre-school facilities to cater for two-year-olds.
I also know from speaking to early years workers in my constituency that there are real concerns about a reduction in the quality of early education for our two, three and four-year-olds as a result of the 600 hours provision, because there will be less time for planning and setting up the nursery area and less opportunity to discuss the needs and development of individual children.
It is crucial that the Scottish Government and local authorities provide the right funding and support to ensure that all our pre-school children continue to receive high-quality childcare, especially given that curriculum for excellence starts at age three. The OECD’s evidence shows that low-quality childcare can damage outcomes for children, so we need to monitor that carefully, especially in our more deprived communities, where high-quality childcare can make a huge difference to children’s lives.
Delivering 600 hours of free nursery education is not exactly the childcare revolution that mums and dads are waiting for; it is not enough to transform lives. Parents in the rest of the UK have had that level of free childcare since 2010. With parents across Scotland spending a huge proportion of their hard-earned incomes on childcare, urgent action is needed now to ensure that every family can overcome the childcare challenges that they face.
Childcare costs continue to rise much faster than inflation, and certainly much faster than wages. Many families spend more on childcare than on their rent, mortgage and fuel bills combined, and the costs continue to spiral. As a couple of colleagues have already pointed out, a nursery place costs 30 per cent more now than it did in 2010. Working full time is simply not an option for most mums of young children; only 24 per cent of mums of three-year-olds and four-year-olds work full time.
The cost of a full-time childcare place for one child is almost £8,000 a year. Is it any wonder that so many parents find that they simply have to turn down jobs or reduce their hours, or that they are forced to abandon their career plans because of sky-high childcare costs? A Save the Children report found that 80 per cent of the poorest families say that cost is the main barrier to accessing childcare and getting back into work. Some families are locked out of the labour market entirely, and many families manage only by constant juggling, by working different hours to cover childcare, or by relying on friends, grandparents, and even next-door neighbours.
Elsewhere in Europe, men are more likely to reduce their hours in order to share childcare responsibilities, but in Scotland in 2014, many employers still view childcare as a mum’s responsibility and fail to consider the growing needs of working dads who also want to balance work and family life. In that context, the Scottish Government’s pledge to transform childcare after a yes vote does seem to be attractive; if only there was any evidence at all that it could be delivered.
The reality is that the SNP’s sums simply do not add up. The pledge is based on Scotland having 40,000 more pre-school mums who are able to return to work than even exist. SPICe has estimated that the pledge will cost an additional £1.2 billion at least to finance, and it still has not been backed up by any financial modelling, despite the policy’s being one of the key highlights of the white paper.
Parents have waited long enough. They deserve better than a childcare policy that has been questioned by the Scottish Parliament’s own team of impartial experts. It is time for the Scottish Government to publish the full costings of its childcare plans, and for us all to put aside our political differences and work together to transform childcare for mums, dads, carers, and grandparents across Scotland. Our proposal for a childcare commission would give us that opportunity.
Parents want real action on childcare. They are fed up with being treated as political pawns. Whatever the result of the referendum, we already have the powers at Holyrood to deliver on childcare. Let us use those powers now, and let us work together to develop a comprehensive strategy for childcare that does not end when a child starts school. Let us bring about a childcare revolution that will transform the lives of working parents. Let us end the childcare headache that has simply been endured by working parents across Scotland for too long. Now is the time to deliver a childcare system for Scotland that supports all our parents and gives all our children the very best start in life.
16:53
Despite some of the rhetoric I have heard this afternoon, I believe that every member wishes for expanded and flexible early years learning and childcare provision. On that front, the Scottish Government has delivered in part, and in partnership, including with Willie Rennie, but we have to go a lot further.
Willie Rennie rose—
I do not have time to take an intervention; Willie Rennie should not get too excited.
To enable that to happen, policy has to be affordable and sustainable. That would be true whether or not we become independent following September’s referendum.
On the Scottish Government’s childcare commitments in the event of a yes vote in the independence referendum, I turn to the money that an independent Scotland would divert from defence spending, including that which would be gained as a result of ditching Trident and its replacement. We would make an overt political choice to pump that money into childcare. I also point out the figures that show a surplus of £8.3 billion in Scotland when we compare money that has been raised and spent in Scotland in the past five years. Those two facts are powerful arguments for the resourcing of childcare with independence.
However, we must balance that by asking whether those commitments can be delivered anyway, without a yes vote and without independence. In theory they could be, but the political choices that would need to be made in order to fund such a revolutionary expansion would be between not Trident and childcare, but between our NHS or our education system and childcare. It may be our students, academics and universities that are deprioritised after a no vote or—dare I say it?—something else that is lurking in the so far undisclosed results of the Labour Party’s cuts commission. Who knows? We are all in the dark.
Those are not the choices that I am in politics to make. As I said, there is a genuine commitment from members on all sides of the chamber. However, a no vote means that we will need, in order to deliver on childcare, to make a political choice that is quite frankly stark, unpalatable and unacceptable.
Turning to the tax and revenue implications of the Scottish Government’s plan for childcare after independence, I say to Willie Rennie again—I am sorry for name-checking him twice and not letting him intervene—that I will leave members on the front benches to argue over the details of
“the component tax revenue streams”
to which his amendment refers.
I will give members another truism. To put it simply, while we might argue and debate the extent of the revenue boost through the taxation system, and likewise the extent of the reduced benefits burden, as more people, particularly females, move in to work, no one can argue, with any degree of credibility, that there will not be a financial gain to Scotland from the steps that the Scottish Government will take after independence. No one would have any credibility who would deny the fact that wealth would flow from that.
The question that we must ask is this: When the revenues start to flow from childcare policy, as they undoubtedly will, where should they go? Should they go to an independent Scottish exchequer or to an out-of-touch and undemocratic Westminster exchequer that is unrepresentative of Scotland and which will not refund one penny to us from our good investment in our young people? I think that we, and the people of Scotland, all know the answer: an independent Scottish exchequer.
I welcome Labour’s motion, because it shines a light on two levers of power that are essential to delivering revolutionary childcare expansion. The first is the ability to make in Scotland the political choices on all aspects of spending in order to prioritise what we wish to deliver. For members on this side of the chamber, that is childcare rather than Trident. The second lever is the ability to get the benefits of economic growth and for that money to flow to a Scottish exchequer and not to an out-of-touch London Tory Government.
We can have those two levers of power only with independence. Irrespective of whether the other parties wish to argue over the numbers in the Scottish Government’s white paper, the process is clear. The levers of power are self-evident; we need them in Scotland and they can be delivered only with independence. We have had enough of the number-crunching. Members should accept that we need those powers in order to deliver on childcare.
Will Bob Doris give way?
I am genuinely disappointed that I cannot let Kezia Dugdale in, but I want to move on to speak about something else. So far, no one has spoken about the wider picture of getting people into work in childcare. The reforms to the UK tax credits system have made working families in Scotland up to £1,560 worse off, and the changes to the family tax credit system have made many families in Scotland worse off by up to £3,870.
There is a story that I tell repeatedly in the chamber. Those changes—which mean that people get working tax credits only if they increase their part-time hours from 16 to 24 hours—have pushed two families that I know in Maryhill out of work and on to benefits. That is not a progressive system. The connection between childcare provision and getting families into work and giving them lifelong prospects dovetail: they are intertwined. That is the wider picture.
All those powers could deliver something that I am genuinely passionate about—not least for Beth, Emily and Hannah, who are my three little nieces. Those powers have to come to the Parliament in order for us to have a coherent, socially just, progressive and visionary childcare system.
Draw to a close, please.
Only with independence can we achieve that.
16:59
Liberal Democrats support the principle of spend to save. Looking forward to see what we can invest now in order to make long-term changes is something that we would encourage. That is why, back in the 1990s, we had a strong policy of putting a penny on income tax for education. We recognised the value of investing in education and were prepared to make a sacrifice at the time by putting up income tax by 1p in the pound so that we could invest millions of pounds in improving education. We strongly supported that.
The difference between what the SNP is suggesting now and what we did then is that we had a transparent, costed process. We had set out in detail what the sacrifice would be—the income tax that would be raised in order to pay for education. We recognised that there would be returns to the Exchequer at a later date but our approach was a cautious one. We recognised that the money might not all come back to the Exchequer—it might not have that optimistic, desired effect. The cautious approach that we took is the approach that treasuries take throughout the world. They do not assume that the golden opportunity will definitely come. They recognise that what comes might fall short of that. They still have ambition and the desire to make that change but they are cautious with it. That is the problem that we have—
Will the member give way?
Not just now.
Alison Johnstone was right. We need to scrutinise proposals and that does not mean that we do not have ambition. I was disappointed by Joan McAlpine’s contribution because she criticised the Labour benches for lacking ambition. To ask questions is not to lack ambition. We have got to have the right to quiz, to question and to scrutinise. That is what the Parliament is about. The reason why it is particularly important on this occasion is that if people vote for independence—
On that point, Mr Rennie.
I will come to Jamie Hepburn in a second. If we vote for independence on the basis of more childcare, and the SNP is wrong and the policy does not deliver the benefits to the Exchequer that the SNP says that it will, there is no way back. We cannot reverse the decision. We cannot decide to reverse independence. That is the difference between this spend and save proposal—[Interruption.] SNP members shout “Doom and gloom.” They cannot accuse me of lacking ambition on nursery education.
Will the member take an intervention?
The member is not taking an intervention.
Bob Doris and I—the love-in continues, Bob Doris—recognised, together, that we had done a lot on nursery education. We pushed it when many others in the chamber were sceptical. I do not think that it is right for people to criticise Bob and me for lacking ambition.
Can we use full names?
Absolutely. It is the love-in, Presiding Officer. Bob Doris and I refer to each other by our first names.
Just because we question does not mean that we lack ambition.
Christine Grahame talked about blaming Westminster for the lack of funds. I gently remind her that, in England, they are delivering for 40 per cent of two-year-olds, which is far more than are being delivered for in Scotland, on the same budget.
Do you dispute the figures on the continuing debt of the UK and the continuing payments, which are now at £1.2 trillion?
The member is implying that Scotland would be debt free. The reality is that Scotland would have equally challenging financial circumstances. It is no different. It will be the same. She blames Westminster but, in reality, they are doing far more to deliver nursery education.
At the heart of all this is our desire to make a transformational change in childcare. We all agree on that in the chamber, despite the misquoting on occasion. Stewart Maxwell talked about it passionately. Jayne Baxter, Ken Macintosh and Alison Johnstone all talked about the different strands of benefit that nursery education brings, such as getting mothers back to work. Clearly, that is a distinct benefit. It has got to be affordable. We have got to have childcare that is affordable, so that people can get back to work, and that makes work pay.
At issue is child development, which Mary Scanlon talked about, but also education. As a Liberal, I strongly believe that education is the route out of poverty. This particular type of education at this early stage gives a significant benefit. Professor James Heckman, my favourite academic, talks about investing before the age of three to make that transformational change.
We all agree that this is the way to progress, but the question is how we do it. It is not unreasonable to question the SNP’s sums and it is not unreasonable to ask the SNP to be forthcoming with a little more detail. This is not a normal manifesto proposal; it is a referendum proposal from which we have no way back if the SNP is wrong, so it is important that we have the detail to scrutinise, so that people can go to the polls in September with full understanding of what the policy means.
17:05
Given the very heated exchanges on some aspects of the debate, I do not think that there is any chance whatsoever that childcare—although Alison Johnstone made the very good point that perhaps we should be talking about care of children—will move out of the political limelight. Therefore, the first commitment in the Labour Party’s motion is absolutely guaranteed, and that is a good thing. I hope that that is the case not because of the arguments about the referendum but because of the crucial importance of the care of children to the dynamic of social and economic policy in this country.
Malcolm Chisholm made excellent points, as did Jayne Baxter, Ken Macintosh and Jamie Hepburn, who talked very well about the principle. Together with the provision of nursery education, childcare provision is the centrepiece of not just the early years strategy but education policy more generally and the demographic influences on employment. As such, there is absolutely no surprise that all parties in this chamber are on record as calling for childcare provision to be broadened and for greater focus on its qualitative features, which everybody in this chamber agrees is just as important as the number of hours that we can deliver.
Although it is perhaps tempting, when it comes to childcare, to take Freud’s dictum about the narcissism of small differences, there are—as the Labour Party pointed out—substantive points to be made: not about the general principles of the policy direction, but about the timescales and funding commitments that have been set out in the SNP’s white paper. Nobody doubts the scale of the finances that are required to deliver what we would all like to see, or indeed the challenge that Clare Adamson referred to when she talked about the wider context of what we have to do on policy making. However, as my colleague Mary Scanlon rightly argued, the Scottish Government’s figures—especially in relation to boosting female involvement in the labour market—do not stand up. That is largely because there is not sufficient evidence that the childcare policy under discussion will—not might—lead to the 6 per cent rise in female employment as outlined in the Government’s statistical bulletins, of which we have seen several.
The dispute is not about different political parties arguing on different figures. The fact of the matter is that we do not have a policy model against which to make judgments about the policy.
Liz Smith talked about evidence. She will be aware that both the OECD and the European Commission have presented evidence that increasing childcare provision and making it more affordable increases the number of women in the workforce. Is she suggesting that that is wrong?
I am not disputing that in any way. I am disputing the specific figures that have been put forward as a guarantee—it is a guarantee—that the policy will deliver a 6 per cent rise in female employment. That is the problem, and I think that the SNP will find it very difficult to argue otherwise.
Willie Rennie, who made eloquent speeches, was absolutely right when he made it plain that the problem is a fundamental concern at the root of current policy. I pay tribute to Willie Rennie and Malcolm Chisholm for their commitment, over a long period, to making positive contributions to the debate.
Willie Rennie is quite right to say that it is not a problem to question; the whole point of a Parliament is to scrutinise. That partly explains the frustration that Kezia Dugdale rightly expressed when she opened the debate. There is a problem with a lack of scrutiny, which Tom Gordon encountered in responses to freedom of information requests. The difficulty that we have is not to do with the fact that we might hold different views; it is to do with the lack of scrutiny.
There are three essential aspects of policy development on childcare: its availability, its quality and its affordability. The minister has said that good progress is being made on the first two. Let us admit that that is true and let us rejoice in that fact. I do not think that that is in dispute, but there are questions about the affordability of the childcare that is being provided, as Alison Johnstone rightly said, because different local authorities take a different approach and there are wide variations across local authority areas. I think that we can probably get round that.
If, as a Parliament, we are to move forward in the way that we want to—and this has nothing whatever to do with the referendum—we have to accept that we must put forward credible and costed policy. It is against that that we will all be asked by the voters to make a judgment in deciding what we want to do in our manifestos. It is on that basis that we will support the Labour motion and Willie Rennie’s amendment.
17:11
I want to start by agreeing with Liz Smith and Kezia Dugdale. It is true that the first sentence of the motion will be retained by the amendment in Aileen Campbell’s name. As Liz Smith said, keeping childcare at the top of the political agenda is something that unites us. The Parliament will resolve to do that and I am sure that it will go on resolving to do so, regardless of the referendum result.
Childcare should unite, not divide, the Parliament. I am sorry to say that it is a measure of Labour’s failure in Scotland that, having lost yet another election this week, it seeks to divide the Parliament, yet again, on something that should work for us all. We all agree on the need for transformational childcare, but if a party believes that that can be achieved without the full fiscal powers of independence, it must come to the chamber with ideas about how it can be done. Instead, regrettably, in the first 14 minutes of the debate, we simply had an attack on others. In its entirety, Kezia Dugdale’s speech—I say so charitably—was a litany of negative girning. There were no proposals, nothing new and not even a timescale; there was just negativity.
Clare Adamson asked a germane question. She wanted to know whether Labour means it. To be fair, I think that it probably does. What we have heard today from Labour is a failure of politics rather than a failure of policy, even if its policy is, as SPICe has pointed out, out of date and threadbare.
There is a parallel with 2003. In 2003, I was a member of an Opposition that thought that the Labour Administration was evil, deceitful, idle and all sorts of other things and that we just needed to tear away the mask. We demonised our opponents and we lost that election. In politics, negative is always beaten by positive. That is an important lesson. The longer Labour fails to realise that, the longer it will go on losing elections, just as it did last weekend. Character assassination is not a policy. Hatred is not a policy. Resentment is not a policy. Pious hand wringing is not a policy. Action is a policy, and there is action aplenty from this Government.
Willie Rennie commended to us the importance of fact. That is a little rich on a day when Professor Dunleavy has questioned the Lib Dem approach to facts. The facts show that transformational childcare cannot be delivered under devolution as it exists. That is a fact. Mary Scanlon attacked me for my remarks on deconstruction, but I repeat them. The Tory approach is often, “We want this policy, but we don’t want the SNP to get the credit for it.”
Will the cabinet secretary give way?
No. I want to make a lot of progress, because this is an important issue.
The Tories say, “We’ll attack the Government for not publishing enough”, then they say, “We’ll attack it for resenting scrutiny.” They say, “When figures are produced, we’ll dismiss them without even considering them.” What the Opposition will not do is publish its own plans. It will not dare face the fact that there are limits to devolution and that some things can be delivered only by independence. It will deconstruct, undermine and destroy because it knows—
Will the cabinet secretary give way?
No—I want to finish this. It knows that what it wants cannot be achieved by devolution. That is why the Opposition is so scared. When the penny drops, it will become absolutely clear that the only way to achieve transformative childcare is through independence.
I take issue with the cabinet secretary about costed interventions. In its last two manifestos, the Scottish Conservative Party has given a full commitment on its costings. The cabinet secretary might not agree with our policy objectives, but we have given the costings and I would appreciate it if he would recognise that.
I do recognise that, but no one believed them. That is why the Conservatives were not elected.
When last month Donald MacKay gave evidence to the Economy, Energy and Tourism Committee, he said in his submission:
“No financially responsible Scottish Government would dare to implement the childcare proposals under the fixed block grant funding of devolution, unless they were prepared to take an axe to existing programmes when there was already strong downward pressure on the real value of the existing block grant.”
That is the truth and the reality of this policy: this cannot be done under devolution. What we have heard this afternoon is a measure of frustration—
Will the cabinet secretary give way?
Will the cabinet secretary give way?
No—I am sorry. I do not want to take either point, because Mr Bibby’s frustration that he knows that this cannot be delivered unless we have the powers of independence will show again.
Will the cabinet secretary give way?
The member is not taking an intervention.
Ken Macintosh talked about the sincere commitment of the Liberal-Labour Administration. The commitment was sincere, but we are now coming to the limit of what can be achieved under devolution. The truth in that lies in remarks made by Lucy Powell, Labour’s shadow minister for children, who, in talking about these policies, has said:
“Enabling women to go back to work who want to go back to work ... will increase revenues to the exchequer significantly, such that over time it pays for itself.”
If we do not have the fiscal powers or an exchequer, we cannot make the policy pay for itself. I am afraid that that is the truth of devolution.
However, when a person cannot face the truth, they twist the words. The SPICe briefing does not say purely what Labour says it does. Certainly there is a paragraph that starts off with those words, but in the very next sentence—the sentence that Labour has not actually quoted—[Interruption.] Labour members seem to find that funny; perhaps they have not read it. Perhaps the only bit that they were given was the bit that stood up Kezia Dugdale’s argument. The briefing says:
“In order to achieve the modelled scenarios, the policy would need to influence the labour market decisions of a larger group of women, which could include:
• women who do not currently have children or who have children aged under 1 year or over 5 ...
• future groups of women, either before or when they have children (which could extend the timescale of the impact)”.
In other words, SPICe recognises that the policy operates over more than one year, and that women who re-enter the labour market as a result of free childcare stay in the labour market even when their children get older. Without the help that we propose, too many will never do so.
I want to bring my remarks to an end with some thoughts on Joan McAlpine’s very wise contribution to the debate. She was quite right to draw attention to the contrast between the passionate ambition of what one might call transformative Labour and the managerialism of the current Labour party. Faced with what Jackie Brock from Children in Scotland has called “a game-changer” and extremely exciting, Labour retreated into the Bain principle of “If it comes from the nats, we don’t support it—not now, not ever.” Joan McAlpine said that Labour had no route map—that is absolutely true. In fact, it has no satellite navigation system, no gazetteer, no atlas, no compass—nothing to guide it at all. Its very principles have been lost in a fog of resentment about its electoral failure at the hands of the SNP.
As for what one might call, to use a local analogy, this haar of anxiety about the positive message of independence—independence is the vehicle that is going to transform childcare and so much else. There are limits to devolution and we have reached them. It is time to go forward with the white paper and independence.
17:19
Labour brought forward this debate because we are committed to supporting families with childcare and we want to see real action. A number of good contributions on how that can be achieved have been made. Malcolm Chisholm, Alison Johnstone and Liz Smith made very good speeches, and Willie Rennie and Jamie Hepburn made very important points.
As Kezia Dugdale said in opening the debate, we are having this debate because we recognise the need to develop a long-term strategy that improves and increases pre-school provision, expands wraparound care for primary school pupils, and achieves a consensus across party lines. That is why we have repeated our call from a year ago to tackle the issue on a cross-party basis in the form of a Scottish childcare commission.
As our motion says, we should all share a determination to put
“childcare at the top of the political agenda regardless of the referendum result”.
Childcare is not a constitutional issue; it is an important social and economic policy. It is not a reason to break away from the UK, particularly as powers over childcare have been devolved to the Scottish Parliament since 1999 and have been under the responsibility of SNP ministers for the past seven years. Unfortunately, the nationalists sought to make childcare a constitutional issue when they launched the white paper in November. If they want to make childcare a constitutional issue, they need to offer substance and evidence rather than wishful thinking.
The SPICe briefing entitled “Early Learning and Childcare” blew apart the SNP’s childcare claims. Today, we have heard the same old arguments with no new evidence from the Scottish Government, when it had the opportunity to give it.
I want to deal with some of the claims that the nationalists have made today and in the white paper.
Will the member give way?
I want to make some progress.
First, we heard the claim from the minister, from George Adam and from Stewart Maxwell that we need the powers of independence to improve childcare. That is not true. The SNP already has the powers to do that, but it has not used them until very recently.
We heard the minister say that the SNP’s ambition is to achieve transformational childcare. If the SNP has always been so ambitious about childcare, why is childcare provision lagging behind that in the rest of the UK right now? In August this year, 40 per cent of two-year-olds in England will get nursery provision, but only 15 per cent will get it in Scotland. That is some ambition.
Perhaps the biggest claim by the SNP that has been completely discredited by SPICe is that we need independence for childcare because it would then be completely self-funding.
Will the member give way?
The member is not giving way.
I have no doubt that more childcare can help more women into the job market if that childcare meets their needs, jobs are available, they have the skills that they need, and, crucially, going back to work suits their circumstances. The SNP has said that an increase in female employment of 104,000 would fund the policy. The very big problem that it has with that claim is that SPICe found that, in 2011, there were only 64,000 women with nursery-aged children who were “economically inactive”, out of whom only 14,000 wanted to work. We know that the SNP wants to suspend the rules of arithmetic in the referendum debate, but 14,000 and 104,000 do not go.
The new claim from SNP ministers and members today is that we should ignore SPICe—that there are more than enough women. We have heard the SNP making up lots of things ahead of the referendum, but the one thing that cannot be made up is human beings who do not exist. [Interruption.]
Order. Mr Adam!
There are at least anywhere between 40,000 and 90,000 missing mums for the SNP’s policy to be self-funding. That is enough mums to fill Hampden park or even Wembley stadium.
We now hear the claim from the SNP, without any evidence to back it up, that the policy will not happen straight away; rather, it will happen over time. Really? How long will it take for its policy to be credible—10, 20 or 30 years?
Christine Grahame said that there would be cuts to childcare if we voted no. Talk about scaremongering from the SNP. I would be interested to know whether that is the official SNP line. Will it really say that there will be no increase in childcare if we vote no in the referendum in September? [Interruption.]
Ms Grahame!
Christine Grahame rose—
I note that the SNP is not making any comment on that statement. Obviously it is not the official SNP line.
Mr Bibby—a minute.
Ms Grahame, I was not calling you; I was reprimanding you for shouting across the chamber.
Mr Bibby, please continue.
Mike Russell and Joan McAlpine said that we lacked the ambition of Nye Bevan. I would just say to Joan McAlpine that she is no Nye Bevan and to Mike Russell that he is no Nye Bevan.
Today was the opportunity for the SNP Government to come to the chamber and dispute the evidence from SPICe that its policy is unfunded and uncosted. The only new thing that we heard today was from Bob Doris, who said that Trident is going to pay for childcare. I thought that the policy was self-funding, Bob Doris.
Those are the things that the SNP has told us. However, what has it not told us? In terms of costings, I have asked the Minister for Children and Young People for the total cost of the policy before today, following the publication of the white paper, and again today, but she has consistently refused to answer that question. How incompetent is this Government when it cannot even tell us the total cost of its flagship policy? Perhaps that is not surprising given that John Swinney cannot or will not tell us 100 days before the referendum what the set-up costs of independence would be. [Interruption.]
Order.
I am happy to take an intervention if any SNP member wants to tell me what the set-up costs of independence will be. There are no takers. [Interruption.]
Order. Can we just settle down, please?
We know that SPICe has given us an answer on the costs of childcare; it has estimated that it will cost in the region of £1.2 billion and that it could be even higher, at £1.5 billion.
What else has the SNP not told us about the SPICe facts and findings? The modelling that has been published is not even directly related to the SNP’s childcare policy, because it does not consider whether that policy would cause an increase of 6 per cent in female labour market participation. There is no evidence whatsoever to suggest that the white paper’s childcare commitment would result in Scotland’s female labour market participation rate matching Sweden’s.
In addition, the SNP has based its figures on all women working full time, when we know that women want to work part time. The SNP does not base any calculations on the average female wage of £17,000 a year; it bases them on the £26,000 annual figure for men and women. The SNP does not tell us that in 2013 women’s gross average hourly pay was 17 per cent lower than men’s. There are many other issues to consider, too, including the potential downward pressure on real wages that SPICe identified.
There we have it: the SNP’s white paper childcare policies. Never have I seen such a demolishment of a misleading policy claim than the SPICe briefing in April. [Laughter.]
Order. Let us hear the member.
There are no full costings for the SNP’s policy and it is not self-funding. Where there are calculations, they are based on the wrong figures. Further, all is to be paid for without an increase in tax—at the same time as cutting corporation tax—and without cutting other public services by £1.2 billion.
The most revealing aspect of how little substance the SNP’s childcare policy has is the lengths that the SNP is going to in order to hide the figures behind the policy. The journalist Tom Gordon sought to find out under freedom of information whether ministers had modelled their childcare policies. He was told no, but then the Scottish Government quickly retracted that and said yes. But guess what? The Scottish Government says that it is not in the public interest to publish it. How can hiding the truth be in the public interest?
We have asked in written and oral questions for the modelling to be published, and we have done so again in this debate today. It is not that it is not in the public’s interest to publish the information; it is that it is not in the SNP’s interests to publish the full economic modelling and costing. Why else would ministers go to such lengths to keep it hidden?
I will ask one more time: will the Scottish Government publish all the economic modelling and costings? Yes or no? [Interruption.]
Order.
As the Government does not say yes and as it has not disputed the SPICe claims, we need to get back to using the powers that we have in this Parliament and form a cross-party childcare commission to look at the issues, identify the problems and fund the childcare that our families desperately need. It is regrettable that yet again the SNP chooses to put the constitution before childcare.
Thank you. That concludes the debate on Scotland’s future.
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