2. Will the Minister make a statement on the extension of free childcare? OAQ(5)0067(CC)

I thank the Member for Monmouth for his question. Our childcare offer will provide working parents with 30 hours of Government-funded early years education and childcare for three and four-year-olds for 48 weeks per year. We will begin piloting the offer in specific areas of six local authorities in September of 2017.

Thank you, Cabinet Secretary. Whilst we welcome your proposals to extend provision, I wonder what consideration you’ve given to enabling parents to use their free hours more flexibly. In most cases, the current provision of 10 free hours weekly must be spread, as you know, over five days, so that’s around two hours a day. Who can travel to and from work and get any work done within two hours? I’m sure you’ll agree we should be making it easier for parents to return to work and contribute to our economy. So, will you give more consideration to making those free hours far more flexible?

I agree with the Member in terms of the ability of parents to have some choice and the ability for flexibility in the system. Ensuring that we have good-quality childcare and services is a discussion that I continue to have with the education Minister, and other Ministers within Government, and the pilot schemes will enable us to learn from that programme.

Thank you, Cabinet Secretary, for your response on the question. I certainly welcome this initiative as yet another example of the Welsh Labour Government delivering on its manifesto commitments. We’ve heard, increasingly in recent years, of the adverse impact of the Government’s austerity measures and welfare cuts for many in our society. I talked about, yesterday, the in-work poverty becoming a reality alongside poverty experienced by those not in work. For some in work, they’re limited by the hours that they can work and the type of contracts that they can accept, and so, even for those able to take full-time work, the cost of childcare for many is too great.

A recent study revealed that, where the average number of children living in poverty across Wales is 28 per cent, in my constituency of Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney it’s 31.8 per cent. So, that’s of concern to me. So, can the Cabinet Secretary confirm, therefore, that the Government’s childcare offer is being viewed as a key component in the Government’s strategy on improving prosperity across Wales and that reducing the cost of childcare for working parents would be a significant factor in moving more children out of poverty?

Indeed, and the Member is right to raise this very issue. There are two components within my department, and we’re moving that out across all our intervention opportunities around economic well-being and jobs, skills and growth for communities and individuals, but also the well-being of an individual as well, tackling issues around adverse childhood experiences and well-being. The childcare pledge is a fundamental part of the jigsaw about enabling people to get into work and, hopefully, it will allow some parents to increase the hours they’re able to work, with in-work poverty being a problem that the Member has raised before. But it is an ambitious programme, and it is one of the most effective ones in the UK in terms of delivery, and we look forward to the pilot starting in the autumn of next year.

One of the drivers of the free childcare policy, of course, is now the prominence that’s been given to early intervention or prevention—the welcome prominence, I should say—and given of course that the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015 as well is leading us in that direction, which, again, is something that I would welcome—. But with that in mind, what discussions have you had with the Cabinet Secretary for Education regarding the pupil deprivation grant, because I’d be interested in understanding the rationale whereby young children—reception- age children—receive barely half the sum that older children are allocated, and maybe it would add more value to the childcare policy if that was front-loaded?

I think that’s an interesting prospect from the Member. I’ve been having many meetings with the education Cabinet Secretary. We’re looking at the manifesto, which is very clear in terms of its proposal for delivering for three and four-year-olds. What we’re looking for is a seamless progression between foundation phase and childcare, but also looking beyond that to our whole offer for young people, which is something that we are constantly aware of—making sure that we have maximum intervention opportunities with the limited funding that we have available.