Meeting of the Parliament 28 May 2014
Given the progress that we have made on childcare, and our ambitions to do even more, we will absolutely reject Kezia Dugdale’s motion this evening.
Members should be in no doubt that our childcare plans would boost female participation rates and the economy. The European Commission, the OECD and various experts all agree on that. A European Commission report from 2009, based on a study of 30 countries, concluded:
“Empirical studies of the relationship between childcare costs and labour force participation are consistent with this prediction; when costs go down, labour force participation goes up, especially among mothers.”
The SPICe briefing, which was published on 3 April, states:
“there are currently 64,000 economically inactive women in Scotland with children aged 1-5. The second and third of the Scottish Government’s modelled scenarios require 68,000 and 104,000 inactive women to enter the workforce.”
However, the next sentence on page 26 states:
“In order to achieve the modelled scenarios, the policy would need to influence the labour market decisions of a larger group of women, which could include:
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women who do not currently have children or who have children aged under 1 year or over 5 years, and
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future groups of women, either before or when they have children (which could extend the timescale of the impact)”.
In other words, SPICe recognises that the policy operates over more than one year and that women who re-enter the labour market as a result of free childcare stay in the labour market even when their children get older. Without the help that we propose, too many never come back into the labour market.
That point is made in the Scottish Government analysis that was published on 12 January, which noted:
“Such an expansion is modelled to take place over a number of years. However, the impacts of such a policy on output and taxation will build over time.”
SPICe, of course, recognises that, every year, around 55,000 children are born in Scotland. Their mothers will benefit year on year.
I turn to the points that Kezia Dugdale raised this morning in her press release about our proposals. For her and her party’s information, I point to the robust evidence and analysis on which our childcare policy is premised: the growing up in Scotland research and an international review of early learning and childcare policy, delivery and funding. In addition, our policy takes account of the OECD’s starting strong work, which highlights the best type of childcare system, and the effective provision of pre-school, primary and secondary education study.
In contrast, let us examine Labour’s recent performance on childcare. At the start of this year, Kezia Dugdale and her leader—who is in the chamber this afternoon—commenting on their spending preferences for the consequentials, said that they would invest in childcare to help 10,000 vulnerable children. Despite us pledging to help more than 15,000 children from August next year, Labour voted against those proposals.
On “Scotland Tonight” on 7 January, when challenged to say what she would cut to pay for her childcare pledges, Kezia Dugdale suggested removing funding from small businesses. The next day, her party colleague Patricia Ferguson confirmed on “Politics Scotland” that Labour would “certainly consider that”. However, when John Swinney said on 23 January, on “Question Time”,
“Kezia wanted us to increase business rates for companies within Scotland”
she protested:
“That’s not true. It’s not true.”
Kezia Dugdale is getting quite a reputation for saying one thing in public and another thing in public.
Labour today—Kezia Dugdale in particular—has made big play of SPICe’s commentary on our proposals, so we too have asked SPICe to analyse Labour’s proposals for 25 hours of childcare. Given what Ms Dugdale said this morning about not creating policy on the back of a fag packet, members can imagine my surprise and astonishment to read SPICe’s conclusions on Labour’s policy proposals:
“Labour party researchers have indicated that they are still in the process of deciding the policy details and funding”.
Kezia Dugdale rose—