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11.54 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Mr. Paul Boateng): I congratulate the hon. Member for Taunton (Mrs. Ballard) on what I believe is her first Adjournment debate.
Mr. Boateng: She has indeed been fortunate to have secured two Adjournment debates in her short time in the House. I congratulate her on choosing, for her second Adjournment debate, a topic of importance. The question of how we train and support child care workers is one that raises issues that go to the heart of the nurturing of children and young people and the circumstances in which they are brought up.
The hon. Lady concentrated specifically on nursery nurses and nannies, which is an important matter, not least because it touches on people's own homes and the personal arrangements that they choose to make in respect of the upbringing of their children. I would submit that such factors put nannies in particular in a different category from the generality of child care workers, so the response is necessarily a different one.
The debate gives us the opportunity to highlight the considerable success of the Children Act 1989 in providing a proper regulatory mechanism for those who provide services for, or work with, babies and often with vulnerable young children. It also gives me an opportunity to signal to the House the way in which my hon. Friends in the Department for Education and Employment and I are taking forward the issue of rationalising and streamlining the regulation, inspection and enforcement of early-years provision. We have an opportunity to make a real difference through the interventions we make in lives of children and, in so doing, to add enormous value in terms of their capacity to benefit from education in later life. The child development and education aspects of this issue are obviously important.
About 100,000 child minders, 5,700 day nurseries, 16,500 playgroups, 2,500 out-of-school child care projects and 4,800 holiday play schemes are registered under part X of the 1989 Act. Regulation ensures that acceptable standards are in place for the safety of our youngest
children and for the reassurance of their parents. The range of standards in the Act and its guidance are important when children are cared for on the premises of others, be those day nurseries, kindergartens, playgroups, pre-school or the homes of child minders. They ensure that children in such care are looked after by suitable people in suitable premises.
The legislation was not intended to cover those who care for babies and small children in the children's homes. There is a balance to be struck, as I suggested at the beginning of my remarks, between the rights of parents to make arrangements for the care of their children in their homes and the safety needs of those children. To most parents, who often wish to call on informal care arrangements provided by members of their families, formal regulation would be an unacceptable intrusion. When parents ask the teenage child of a friend to help with babysitting, they do not expect the state to interfere in such arrangements.
The Act does not regulate carers such as nannies and au pairs. In such circumstances, it is vital for parents to check carefully all those whom they employ in their homes to care for their children. As parents, they must take on the responsibility of ensuring that the person employed to look after their children is fit and proper to undertake that most important of roles. No registration or regulation system can be a substitute for the care that a parent should take in making such decisions. However, we welcome the efforts of those, such as nanny agencies, who provide information so that parents can make an informed choice when they take the decisions that can be of such crucial importance to their children.
It is also important that parents should inform themselves of the qualities that they should seek in those who care for their children. The hon. Member for Taunton mentioned some of the agencies that make such information available to parents. We shall also consider how training opportunities for those acting as nannies and au pairs can be made more accessible. It is clearly desirable that such opportunities should be made available to people who choose to do such work so that they are better able to add value to the lives of the children for whom they care.
My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hall Green (Mr. McCabe) referred to the practicalities of registration, and the hon. Member for Taunton will, I am sure, recognise that we must take those into account. It is not practical to register every type of child care of short duration. Indeed, creches run for less than two hours a day or supervised activities provided on fewer than six occasions a year are not currently required to be registered and it would not be practical to require the registration of such facilities.
However, that does not abrogate the parental responsibility to check that children are properly cared for in such facilities. If parents leave their child at a creche at a fete or a similar event, they have a duty to ensure that the arrangements for caring for their child are satisfactory. It is not the role of the state to intervene in parents' lives in such a way.
A case was recently put before the House by the hon. Member for Doncaster, Central (Ms Winterton) concerning a problem faced by the social services in Doncaster. As a result, the local social services department has developed a good practice guide for
short-term facilities to ensure that they are safe and proper places in which to leave children. The hon. Member for Taunton has helped us with tonight's debate. We shall consider how such material might be disseminated and adopted more widely on the voluntary, good practice basis.
Similarly, it is a matter for the Department of Health and the Department of Trade and Industry how agencies that provide nannies for use in a domestic situation might best be helped to ensure that such nannies are the sort of people that we would want to work in our homes, looking after our children.
There are also important issues regarding the position of independent schools, the fact that they are taking care of progressively younger children, the role of social services departments in that regard, and the interface between social services departments and the Office for Standards in Education.
Obviously, we want closer co-operation between social services departments and education departments in relation to the early years. As a national child care strategy develops, we want arrangements to be made throughout Government that will protect and nurture the interests of children and their development while respecting the privacy of people's homes and the peculiarly personal relationship that will always exist between the employers of a nanny, an au pair or someone brought into the home to provide such services, and the child and parent.
I shall say one or two words in response to points raised by the hon. Member for Taunton and my hon. Friend the Member for Hall Green about the future regulation of the social care sector. We have committed ourselves to the establishment of a general social care council. That is an important step forward, not least because it assumes responsibility for the development of professional standards in social care, and the link between the development of those standards and training.
Inevitably, there will be an impact on the regulation and discipline of workers in child care. However, it is important to understand that the way forward will not necessarily involve nannies or those working in that type of private domestic capacity. The arguments as to the appropriateness of registration will continue, even after the council is established.
Undoubtedly, the surest way of ensuring that we promote an agenda that is about standards--about using every opportunity to improve the quality of child care available to our children in a number of settings--is to recognise the vital role in that regard of education and relevant training. Training should be geared to meeting the vocational needs of people seeking to enter this area of work. It should be firmly rooted in common sense and good practice and recognise the balances that must be achieved. We must ensure that a range of provision is available and that parents take informed choices.
The hon. Member for Taunton raises an important issue, to which the House will undoubtedly return from time to time. It is right that we should. I hope that the hon. Lady appreciates that, while we are not able to go as far as she wants regarding the registration of nannies, we recognise that it is an important issue. It must be monitored carefully and viewed within the wider context of child care provision.
It is important that, as we take this agenda forward, we ensure that the consultation process is open to a wider debate and a wide cross-section of views. It is also important that all those who have a stake in good-quality education and child care feel that they are in a position to influence the development of a regulatory system that meets the needs of the times in which we live--times in which people will increasingly look to order their lives by utilising a range of provision in this area.
Dr. Peter Brand (Isle of Wight):
Will the Minister also consider another group of vulnerable children who are not currently protected either by the Children Act 1989 or education legislation? The parents of those children are not in a position to exercise the judgment to which the Minister referred. Such children come to this country to learn about the British way of life and the English language and, at present, have no protection. I am very worried about some of the domestic placements that are made for those children.
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