We now move on to item 5, which is the debate on Stage 4 of the Childcare Funding (Wales) Bill, and I call on the Minister for Children, Older People and Social Care to move the motion—Huw Irranca-Davies.

Motion NDM6899 Huw Irranca-Davies

To propose that the National Assembly for Wales in accordance with Standing Order 26.47:

Approves the Childcare Funding (Wales) Bill.

Motion moved.

Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. I move the motion formally.

I’m very pleased to open this Stage 4 debate on the Childcare Funding (Wales) Bill. We introduced this Bill to the Assembly in April because we wanted to create a simple, once-for-Wales process to check a person’s eligibility for the childcare offer. What we have before us today is a Bill that is going to enable us to do just that.

During the passage of this Bill, we’ve gathered valuable evidence and we’ve debated in some detail matters of detail, matters of current and future policy that are beyond the parameters of this narrow Bill, but I’m really grateful to members of the Children, Young People and Education Committee for participating throughout in this debate and for their thorough scrutiny of the Bill. I’d also like to place on record my thanks to the Constitutional and Legislative Affairs Committee and the Finance Committee for their valuable input, and I’m grateful to key stakeholders as well for the written and oral evidence provided, which has helped to inform and develop our thinking.

I’m grateful also to all three committees particularly for those recommendations during Stage 1 that quite rightly made us reflect on the drafting of the Bill and which ultimately led to Government amendments during Stage 2 and Stage 3. May I also thank all Assembly Members for their engagement and their observations during the Stage 3 proceedings only last week. 

Now we've seen this Bill evolve over recent months and I consider it to have been considerably improved thanks to the input of stakeholders and Assembly Members. What we have in front of us today is a Bill that imposes a duty on the Welsh Ministers to provide funding in respect of the offer, leaving beyond any doubt this Government's commitment to the offer. We have responded to calls for greater clarity of purpose by passing amendments that make it clear who we consider to be eligible children for the purposes of the offer. And we've built into the Bill a provision that will require the Welsh Ministers to review the effectiveness of the Act and the arrangements for the administration of the offer and to publish a report. I'm also pleased we've been able to address some minor technical and drafting inconsistencies along the way.

Could I also extend my thanks to the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, the Secretary of State for Wales, the Home Secretary and the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions for their support in developing this Bill. I am particularly grateful to HMRC officials for having worked so closely throughout and so constructively with my officials during the pre-introduction and the scrutiny stages. I'm pleased that we are now in a position where all the necessary Minister of the Crown consents are in place, and I look forward to working with UK Government departments and with the Secretaries of State as we develop subordinate legislation to give effect to this primary legislation. I'm also delighted to be able to help steer this Bill through its final stages and onto the Welsh statute book.

My final thanks, Dirprwy Lywydd, go to the unseen and often unsung small heroes in the offices and corridors of Cathays Park and Tŷ Hywel—the policy and legislative and other officials and advisers who do so much to bring forward our legislation, aided and sometimes brought forward despite the challenges posed by Ministers and others. They know that our approach is to reach out and to work constructively with AMs and others to start with a good Bill and to shape an even better piece of final legislation. I believe we have, all of us, done so, and I therefore commend this Bill to the National Assembly for Wales.

It is a pleasure to speak in the final stage of the Childcare (Funding) Wales Bill. However, this is one of a long succession of Welsh Government-led Bills that have simply just not cut the legislative mustard. Following along the food theme, my colleague Suzy Davies has frequently said that this is a Swiss-cheese piece of legislation—that there are too many holes in what is a framework Bill, outlined in entirely permissive, uncertain terms.

I have looked back at the contributions made throughout every stage of the Childcare (Funding) Wales Bill, and there are persistent themes that keep cropping up. I would hope that this is the last time that we as Assembly Members, scrutinising as opposition and cross-party groups, come across the same concerns in future legislation going forward. We again see before us a sound policy implemented through swiftly created legislation but without the necessary scrutiny mechanisms, through the continual use of secondary legislation. This Bill was at Stage 3 before we even saw a copy of the report of the first year of early implementer authorities. It was also at Stage 3 before the duty to fund the offer was finally applied by the Ministers. Welsh Conservatives wholeheartedly support the policy of funded childcare in Wales. Indeed, we had it within our own manifesto. But there is too much left to secondary legislation and an administrative scheme that is outside of our input or an appropriate level of scrutiny powers.

Furthermore, two key policy areas are left off the face of the Bill, potentially leaving it as an empty vessel. The offer itself, while written all over the explanatory memorandum and promised by the Minister throughout stages 1, 2 and 3, is not here before us. The age of the qualifying child is also absent, again left to promises and the administrative scheme. Essentially, leaving these two important areas off the face of the Bill gives us no clear baseline to start from. We need to start from a point of certainty, even if it is to be amended in years to come. We do not accept the Minister's reasoning that leaving essential elements to secondary legislation would provide more flexibility. Instead, we have argued throughout that there must be a trade-off between flexibility for the Executive and the right for scrutiny by the legislature. Our amendments at Stage 3 would have provided this balance.

The Minister has further stated that this is merely a technical Bill, which should not include wider policy areas. It is not. As drafted and amended, it goes beyond that narrow intention. As I have noted during Stage 2 and Stage 3, the primary purposes of the Bill have been clearly outlined within the explanatory memorandum—to support the Welsh economy and to support a number of additional purposes, including increasing employment and improving the social well-being of children. If this Bill was merely a mechanism for HMRC to assess applications, why say all that in the explanatory memorandum?

Throughout evidence we have heard that the Bill's primary aims could have been further bolstered through a number of necessary amendments, including provision of wrap-around transportation, extending the offer beyond working parents, and to prevent barriers to taking up the offer, such as additional charges. To place these on the face of the Bill would have given parents and childcare providers a clear signal that Welsh Government would be under a duty to enable more families to access the offer. I would have left it there had the review clause to this Bill been sufficiently drafted to include the powers of the legislature so we could review it at a later date. However, nowhere does it say 'independent' or 'to lay before the National Assembly for Wales'.

Now, we know the Minister's commitment to an independent evaluation at Stage 3, but, at the very least, we would have expected that any report should be available for the Assembly, as the legislature, to scrutinise and to approve. It is unclear from the review clause drafted by the Minister whether an independent review would happen under a future Welsh Government in five years' time, as well as the role of our Assembly in designing that review. The Welsh Government needs to answer these questions, not its own, for our constituents to have confidence in its eventual findings. For all of our efforts to ensure that the Bill had a review clause that would have covered the concerns raised by not one committee, but two committees, about the Bill, or at the very least a sunset clause, all of these have been unceremoniously rejected by the Minister. It is, therefore, very disappointing that the National Assembly for Wales—yes, this legislature—has been dismissed yet again.

My colleague Angela Burns warned the Welsh Government during the final Stage of the Public Health (Minimum Price for Alcohol) (Wales) Act 2018 that future Assembly Members will view it poorly if credible, consistent and outcome-focused evidence to enable proper scrutiny is not collected. Welsh Conservatives abstained from that Act during Stage 4, purely on the basis that it included a sunset clause. Therefore, we again issue this warning on overuse of skeleton Bills. You have rejected key areas that need to be reviewed, including the operation of the administrative scheme, whether the Act has any effect on increasing employment, in line with its aims, and the capacity of the childcare workforce to deliver this offer. Minister, you are an Assembly Member as well as a—[Interruption.]—as well as being a Minister in this Government. You need to convince your own constituents that you have not just listened to scrutiny as a Minister, but— 

[Inaudible.]—please.

Llywydd—Deputy—while we are supportive of the offer, and the use of HMRC to assess applications, it is for these reasons that Welsh Conservatives reject the motion. We will not be supporting it. Diolch yn fawr.

Thank you very much. Llyr Gruffydd, as a member of the Children, Young People and Education Committee, as my predecessor, scrutinised this Bill in detail, and I, as a current member of the committee, have had an opportunity to scrutinise it also. We, as Plaid Cymru, tabled a number of amendments in order to seek to make the Bill more meaningful, but we were very disappointed that those were rejected. We are of the view that the Bill discriminates against some of Wales’s poorest children. Children whose parents aren’t in work don’t qualify for 30 hours of free childcare, and the children of parents in education and training don't qualify either. And the aim of our amendments was to include children from those families in this provision. I believe that omitting them does discriminate against them and that that is unfair, it is wrong and counterproductive.

Evidence demonstrates that giving the best start in life to young children is crucial to their development, and attending care placements of high quality is one of the best ways of giving that best start to children from poor families. I am aware that there are other schemes available, but those schemes are non-statutory. Some rely on your postcode rather than need, and there is confusion and lack of awareness about the nature and availability of this provision. There has been an opportunity lost to include an important cohort in legislation—an opportunity that would have meant that we wouldn’t have needed to have parents who are seeking work or are in training and education find their way through the whole plethora of schemes available, and that everyone would be able to access childcare under simple legislation that would include all. We therefore believe that the Bill is deficient as a piece of legislation and is contrary to the principles of equality and the principles of the well-being of future generations Act, and we will therefore vote against the legislation today.

Thank you very much. Can I call on the Minister for Children, Older People and Social Care to reply to the debate?

Thank you, Dirprwy Lywydd. Well, look, I'm a fairly easy going and generous minded person, but I'm slightly disappointed by the Conservative and Plaid Cymru response to what I think has been a constructive approach to the passage of this Bill. Can I just say, in voting against this Bill, it is voting against what we already know from the pilot areas is putting £200 to £250 a week into the hands of households—predominantly, by the way, women in those households, often those in the lower socioeconomic groups within our communities? You are voting against that.

I'd say to the Conservatives: you are voting against something that is not wholly dissimilar from what you had in your manifesto. But, actually, this Bill is not to do with the policy offer and I think—[Interruption.] Just a moment, Suzy. This is not to do with the policy offer per se. This is, I repeat once again, a narrow, technical Bill to actually enable HMRC to deliver eligibility and applications into the scheme and to lift the burden off local authorities who are currently doing it under the pilot schemes. Local authorities are asking us to take this burden off them. Now, of course, there is a wider debate around not only current but future direction of policy, but to vote against what is delivering a success story right across Wales in all areas that are piloting this, as witnessed by the fact that we have those areas that are not currently within it queuing up to say, 'Can we be part of it?'—well, you are doing a disservice to your constituents.

If I can just finish on this: it's been described as a Swiss-cheese framework—[Interruption.] Sorry, I will come back, but it's been described as a Swiss-cheese framework Bill. A framework Bill indeed does not fill in all the gaps, but it is appropriate in response to committees, which have said, 'Can we get the balance right between the flexibility of this Bill to actually change in future?', hence why it is underwritten not only by regulations but by an administrative scheme so that we can flex it as we learn from the pilots. So, I'm a little bit—. As an easy-going fellow, I'm a little bit upset at the slightly begrudging, as we approach Christmas, response. Suzy, I'll give way.

Thank you for giving way on that. I think you know what I'm about to say, Minister. When it comes to the policy—you say this is a technical Bill; the explanatory memorandum expands that beyond that by some considerable margin. If you were so confident in this policy, which you say is being shown in the pilot areas, it should have gone on the face of the Bill, and then we would not have to just rely on trusting the Government; we could have relied on a piece of legislation that would enforce it. 

Well, Suzy, I thank you for that. But, again, you've missed the fact that, in response to Stage 1 and Stage 2, we brought forward Government amendments to put a duty to fund this childcare offer, and the details then that you are requesting will follow, because of that need for balance and flexibility, within the regulations and also the administrative scheme. Now, if you put it on this Bill, if HMRC turn around tomorrow and decide that, as part of the eligibility, they change conditions with DWP, we would have to come back to primary legislation. So, I do understand you keep on having the argument, 'Let's put everything on the face of a narrow, technical Bill', but I think we have it right here. Now, there was somebody—Llyr.

Thank you. I appreciate you accepting this intervention. I just wanted to have it on record, actually, that our concerns in relation to this proposed legislation reflect those of the children's commissioner. So, it's easy enough for you to stand here and say that we've got it all wrong; it's not just us, and I am surprised that you're taking such a dismissive attitude to some of the comments that the children's commissioner has made. 

Well, Llyr, far from dismissive. I think I've made it clear at committee and elsewhere that the discussion about where we go in future in terms of the wider childcare offer—not, by the way, in terms of the points that were raised by Siân previously, which are to do with parents who are in education and training who would not automatically fall within this offer, but I went through in detail at previous Stages exactly where there was already provision, and the fact that we were going to look at not only bringing that provision together but enhancing that provision for longer in terms of the future as well. So, I'm not dismissive of that at all. In fact, I've engaged with that thoroughly.

But this comes back to the point made by Suzy and others a moment ago. Within the explanatory memorandum for this Bill, we referred to the offer. It's necessary to do that, even though it's a narrow, technical Bill. We referred to the wider offer. But this offer does not stand on its own within Wales, it stands alongside Flying Start; it stands along with what we do with Parents Childcare and Employment, PaCE, for parents who are in work and in training; it stands alongside Families First, Children First and many other initiatives. And there is, indeed—. As I've said to you previously, Llyr, far from being dismissive, I think there is a wider piece of that seamlessness that we need to aim towards within Government, but this is, ultimately, a narrow, technical Bill to put in place HMRC and to lift the burden off the shoulders of local authorities, who are currently doing it. 

So, with those remarks, finally, Dirprwy Lywydd, could I ask Members to support the motion, support this Bill at Stage 4? And I look forward, then, to bringing forward subordinate legislation during 2019.

Thank you. In accordance with Standing Order 26.50C, a recorded vote must be taken on Stage 4 motions, and so I defer voting on this motion until voting time. 

Voting deferred until voting time.

We do intend, now, to have voting time on the Government business that we've just discussed. Unless three Members wish for the bell to be rung, I am going to proceed to voting time. Okay.