Meeting of the Parliament 28 May 2014
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.