Meeting of the Parliament 29 September 2016
I am grateful to the minister for that. However, we already know some of the feedback. The Conservatives are responding to what has been a long-term campaign from many parent groups about what the nub of the problem is.
I will raise something else. If we went to the system that we propose, we would get rid of the problem of birthday discrimination that the SNP persistently seems not to want to deal with. If the SNP is absolutely committed to closing the attainment gap, which I believe it is, we should not tolerate such a system. It is clear that some children are receiving the full two years, some children are getting 18 months and another set of children is getting only 15 months. Changing the funding mechanism could get rid of some of that difficulty, which is a serious problem for many parents.
Notwithstanding that or today’s report, we recognise that no party is in a position to afford to do everything that it would like to do, so we believe that, in the short run, we have to focus on the families who face the toughest challenges. There is a thread of agreement there with the Scottish Government. That is very important.
I will finish by pressing the Scottish Government hard, because I would like it to commit to radical reform that would free up the system, reduce the inequalities and put the focus firmly on the quality of care delivery rather than on the numbers game of more and more hours of provision, welcome as that may be. We are in a qualitative argument. There is no use in debating the numbers game if we cannot provide flexibility that works to ensure access for all parents and all our youngsters.
I move amendment S5M-01703.1, to leave out from “almost doubling” to end and insert:
“increasing free entitlement; agrees, in light of the evidence related to the earliest signs of the attainment gap, that the priority should be extending hours to a higher proportion of disadvantaged one- and two-year-olds, and believes that, in order to address the growing challenges of increasing the provision and quality of childcare, the Scottish Government should be radical in its approach by adopting a fully-flexible voucher system that is wholly responsive to parental demands for different kinds of childcare and early learning and that removes barriers to the supply of places.”
14:52Motions, questions or amendments mentioned by their reference code.