The next group is group 5, and this group of amendments relates to additional charges and rates of payment. The lead amendment in this group is amendment 13, and I call on Janet Finch-Saunders to move and speak to the lead amendment and the other amendments in the group—Janet Finch-Saunders.

Amendment 13 (Janet Finch-Saunders) moved.

Diolch, Llywydd. During Stage 2 of the Bill's proceedings, we highlighted the inconsistencies between the Welsh Government's aim for the Bill to reduce barriers to employment through the childcare offer and the technical nature of the Bill. Nowhere is this more evident than the additional charges for snacks and consumables, which we believe will still present an added barrier for parents, particularly those on low incomes, to fully access the offer. Ultimately, this actually contradicts the primary aims of the Bill, as outlined within the explanatory memorandum, so we have re-tabled amendments 13 and 21. I again note that the Welsh Government guidelines within the pilot areas allow childcare providers to charge fees to parents of up to £37.50 per week, amounting to £7.50 per day, based on the cost of three meals a day. So, for parents who take up the full offer, this would mean finding an extra £1,800 a year. Not only do Welsh employees have the lowest take-home pay in the UK, but those in receipt of benefits eligible for free school meals do have extremely low incomes, meaning this is simply unaffordable.

Despite the Minister's assurance at Stage 3 that, in reality, parents who take up the offer would, weekly, receive 15 to 20 hours of childcare, meaning a maximum additional charge of £13.25 per week, this still adds up to £636 per year. Therefore, we still support the position of Care Inspectorate Wales, which noted that additional charges could make the offer unaffordable for some families who are on low incomes.

We've also heard emerging evidence that, in one pilot area, some childcare providers had started to charge parents when they had not done so previously. The Welsh Government's own evaluation of the offer has shown that 15 per cent of childcare providers interviewed had introduced additional charges as a result of this offer. Worse still is that some childcare providers whose fee was higher than the £4.50 per hour provided by the offer have even introduced additional charges to make up for a shortfall in revenue.

Now, obviously, we welcome the Minister's responses at Stages 2 and 3, which stated that guidance on additional charges would be revised to strengthen the Welsh Government's position ahead of national roll-out. It is also significant that the draft administrative scheme includes references to new guidelines for local authorities on additional charges, and we note the Welsh Government's efforts in warning providers not to charge top-up fees for three to four-year-olds, with the threat of removal from the offer if this is breached. However, we still remain concerned that the definition of 'childcare' so heavily relied upon by the Minister within the draft administrative scheme, which has been ably described in more detail by my colleague Suzy Davies AM, actually includes supervised activities. Charges for these, we argue, should therefore be paid for under the offer. Furthermore, the first evaluation for early implementers has clearly shown that providers who have introduced additional fees are actually unaware that applying charges in this way is not part of the Welsh Government guidance. The evaluation also notes that, in some cases, the additional charges actually replace some of the affordability barriers that the offer aims to remove.

Whilst the draft administrative scheme mentions that additional charges may not be imposed for the provision of funded childcare, the ancillary charges are still present, meaning that there is a way for childcare providers to make up the difference. Nor are the guidelines provided, meaning that the National Assembly for Wales is currently unable to assess whether this could be prevented from happening. Therefore, I urge all Members here today to vote in favour of this amendment. Not only would you be being fair to parents on low incomes who are striving to cover childcare costs, but it would help to eliminate some of the barriers to employment that have, sadly, been incidentally caused by the offer.

Now, amendment 33 requests that the Welsh Government publish and monitor information relating to additional fees, including snacks. As explained under amendment 13, charges for extra provisions can prevent some parents from taking up the offer and having to find up to £1,800 a year should they be charged full price for 30 hours a week, 48 weeks per year. However—and this will be a running theme throughout the majority of these amendments I have tabled—all of the Minister's assurances here are unable to be scrutinised or debated upon at a later stage by the National Assembly for Wales due to the fact that they are being left out of this Bill. We are re-tabling this amendment, as, by refusing it at Stage 2 on the basis of creating additional burdens on providers and local authorities, the Minister contradicted his own assertions at Stage 1. Moreover, the inclusion of guidelines on additional charges within the draft administrative scheme, as well as the fact that the Minister has said that he would take action if top-up fees are charged for three to four-year-olds by removing childcare providers from delivering the offer, suggests that monitoring of potential barriers will take place. Therefore, data collection has to be used to underpin this.

The early indications from the Welsh Government's own evaluation is that some childcare providers have admitted to charging additional fees since the offer was introduced, and we believe firmly that, as such, a duty to publish information is very necessary to ensure that a robust review is undertaken. Therefore, the Minister must provide this institution with the opportunity to see the data the Welsh Government will inevitably collect on additional charges, rather than simply relegating it to a possibility under the administrative scheme's operation. And I urge Members, again, to vote with your conscience and vote accordingly.

Amendment 32 requires the Welsh Government to publish and monitor the hourly rates paid for childcare and the foundation phase elements of the offer. As currently enacted, the Welsh Government's 30-hour-a-week childcare offer is maintained on a dual stream—the foundation phase nursery early years education and the childcare offer—with at least 10 hours a week to be funded by early years provision through local government revenue support grants. Now, we heard during Stage 1 that a dual setting can create unintended consequences, such as transportation between the provider offering childcare and early years education.

However, of particular concern is that there is a huge difference between the hourly rates paid for non-maintained early years education and the rates the Welsh Government is intending to pay for the childcare offer, with the offer providing substantially more than what is paid to early years education and foundation phase nurseries. The offer grants providers with £4.50 per hour for childcare, which is much higher than the £1.49 to £3.50 per hour estimated by Cwlwm and the WLGA to be offered to early years providers. Therefore, it is clear that these variations could have a negative impact on early years education by crowding out providers. This has been borne out in the pilot stages by the evaluation. Such variations could have a negative impact on early years education—something that was actually admitted to by the Minister at Stage 1. So, through such disparity in payment, the WLGA also stated to the Children, Young People and Education Committee that concerns had already been raised in pilot areas that early years education could become crowded out because of the childcare element of this offer.

I have re-tabled this amendment as the Minister's assertion that it would be too onerous on Welsh Ministers does not outweigh the importance of scrutinising the impact of the offer on early years and foundation phase provision. We are also aware of the Cabinet Secretary for Education's promise at Stage 1, but we are looking closely at the possible impact on foundation phase provision, including structural and financial issues that might impact on effective delivery and the quality of provision. The publishing of hourly rates, we still contend, is an important part of this evaluation. Thank you.

The Minister to contribute—Huw Irranca-Davies.

Diolch, Llywydd. Let me say some important things at the outset. First of all, in terms of the £4.50 an hour rate, the majority of providers considered when we got to this rate that that would be an appropriate and adequate hourly rate. In fact, the first year has actually shown that that is considered by providers an appropriate rate to provide childcare and as commercially viable.

Now, we have looked at the option of funding providers at a higher rate to cover some of the additional charges, but let's be frank here, we immediately run into problems and questions about, within the funding envelope, either limiting the offer to fewer parents or to less time—there is a choice to be made. It's been our intention, in designing the offer, to create a childcare offer that offers as much childcare as possible to as many parents as possible within the funding envelope available, and if I could shake that money tree and get the £800 million that we were short over the last decade, then maybe we'd have more to spend on this, and we could do even more again, and we could deal with the earlier suggestions by Siân Gwenllian, and so on. We could do all those things, but we haven't got it.

So, we note that a number of these amendments, or similar ones, were tabled during Stage 2. Amendment 13 and consequential amendment 21 relate to excluding the parents of children who could potentially be eligible for free school meals from paying additional charges. I think we already have sufficient measures in place to safeguard parents against being unreasonably charged, and I would say this is very different from what is happening within the England offer. So, we've issued very clear guidance to providers about additional charges, which Janet referred to. We've published guidance to local authorities as well on what the upper charging limit should be. This will help ensure that any charges being made are within a reasonable range, and it's very different to that position in England, where there's no upper limit.

We will publish revised guidance to strengthen our position, learning from the early implementing period on additional charges ahead of national roll-out of the offer. So, we will learn, we will discuss it with the committee, with the Assembly, learning from the findings of the evaluation. Here, in our offers, providers must take account—must take account—of our guidelines on additional charges. We've said, for example, that parents must have the option of providing a packed meal rather than pay for a meal provided by the provider, and bear in mind some providers do not provide food or do not cook food on their premises, and so on. It varies from provider to provider.

Parents should also be able to opt their child out of paid-for off-site activities and participation in such activities. They cannot be compelled to take part and charged for it. Providers have also been told very clearly that they are not to charge parents any hourly top-up fees for three and four-year-olds who are accessing the services under the terms of offer. This is very different and much clearer in the guidance than in England. If a provider is found to be in breach of this agreement and is charging hourly top-up rates, we will take action. They could ultimately be removed from delivering the childcare offer. And we've also said to providers, Janet, that they should not be treating parents who are receiving childcare under this offer any differently from other parents accessing their services. Providers should not charge parents who access this offer more for any additional elements than they charge parents who are not accessing the offer.

Now, I should say as well we should be careful now not to jump to conclusions at this very early stage in the offer's implementation. In reality, the number of hours of childcare from which a child will be benefiting under the offer is likely to range between 15 and 20 hours per week. In the worst-case scenario, where a child is benefiting from the full 20 hours of childcare per week, a parent should not be required to pay more than £15 per week in additional charges if providers are operating in line with the guidance from Welsh Government. It's likely to be much less, actually, and that's what we're hearing. That's what the first-year evaluation suggested—the majority of providers are not making charges at all there. Now, bear in mind this stands against parents who are telling us first hand, face to face, that they are saving because of the government-funded nature of this childcare—£200 to £250 a week they are better off because of the government-funded childcare.

Now, we will of course keep the issue of additional charges under review—regular review. But, from an evaluation of the early implementation, we know it's only a small percentage of providers who are charging for extras. If we listen to the sector itself—for example, what Cwlwm said in the response to the Stage 1 recommendation—we should not be telling providers what they can and cannot do in terms of additional charges. So, there is a fine balance to be struck here. Our guidance is very strong and explicit, but saying to them 'no charges', well, that has implications, and they wouldn't go with that.

Now, in response to amendment 32, I can give assurances we will be publishing the hourly rate paid to providers in the administrative scheme, so we have every intention of being open and transparent about that. Amendment 33 would require the Welsh Ministers to publish an annual report on the additional fees charged to parents under the offer. Now, look, I've said I'm keen to monitor additional charges as we move forward, and I think this is something we can test sufficiently through our evaluation exercises. In this regard, I'd be very reluctant to support an amendment that places onerous, bureaucratic requirements on the Welsh Ministers where there is no benefit to the people that we serve within this offer. To produce annual reports on additional charges, for example, would be heavily reliant on third sector and third parties to provide the information to inform the reports, putting the bureaucracy on them as well as us, and we'd have no way of guaranteeing the accuracy or the reliability of the data.

So, I'm not prepared to support this group of amendments, on the basis that we are already taking all necessary action—very different from the England offer—to manage and monitor the issue of additional charges. We're already planning to publish the hourly rate in the administrative scheme. The evaluation of the first year of implementation has recommended further guidance to providers to ensure a consistent approach to charging for additional hours across all childcare settings, and this is something we'll do. And we'll also be reviewing our charging structure for the offer before full roll-out in 2020. So, on that basis, we may have a point of disagreement here, but I would urge Members therefore to resist this group of amendments. 

Janet Finch-Saunders to respond. 

Diolch, Llywydd. Move to the vote, please. 

The question is that amendment 13 be agreed to. Does any Member object? [Objection.] We'll proceed to an electronic vote. Open the vote. Close the vote. In favour 18, no abstentions, 25 against. Therefore, amendment 13 is not agreed. 

Amendment 13: For: 18, Against: 25, Abstain: 0

Amendment has been rejected

Siân Gwenllian, amendment 8, formally? 

Amendment 8 (Siân Gwenllian) moved.

Yes, formally. 

The question is that amendment 8 be agreed to. Does any Member object? [Objection.] We'll open the vote, therefore. Close the vote. In favour 18, no abstentions, 25 against. Therefore, amendment 8 is not agreed.  

Amendment 8: For: 18, Against: 25, Abstain: 0

Amendment has been rejected