 большое. The next item of business is a debate on motion number 1703 in the name of Mark MacDonald on the expansion of early learning and childcare provision. Do members who wish to speak in this debate to press the request to speak buttons please? I call on Mark MacDonald to speak to and move the motion. Fourteen minutes please minister. Presiding Officer, this SNP Government has done more than any previous devolved administration i ni chi hynna reuaethio yn yr UK i gwaith o bwysig unig In 2014, we legislated to further increase this entitlement to free early learning and childcare provision to 600 hours annually. We also extended entitlement to all two-year-olds who are looked after or in kinship care and then to those two-year-olds in families on low incomes. The Children and Young People Act also placed duties on local authorities to consult parents and families as well as to provide flexibility and choice. In short, we have achieved a lot but there is more to do to achieve our ambitions. It is worth reminding ourselves why our policy of provision and expansion of free entitlement for all three and four-year-olds and over a quarter of two-year-olds matters. The OECD has identified participation in early learning as a key policy to promote economic growth, higher productivity and social equality. The expansion to 600 hours has helped to reduce costs to families and helped to protect household budgets. Changes that we have made since 2007 save families an additional £780 per year. It is also enabling more parents to return to work, education and training, thus boosting family incomes. Scotland currently has a higher female employment rate than the UK as a whole and the fourth highest in Europe. International evidence also highlights the positive benefits of early years provision in helping to support more women into work. While the economic benefits of our approach are one of the drivers, they are not the primary reason for seeking to expand and improve the provision of early learning and childcare. High-quality early learning and childcare can play a vital role in our overall approach to narrowing the attainment gap. It is my ambition to prevent children from starting school with any substantial gap in attainment at all. It means that additional support needs can be identified and addressed earlier, minimising the need for additional support in education. Studies in the US also suggest significant social benefits from participation in early learning, with vulnerable children being less likely to be involved with the criminal justice system as young people and adults. That is why the Government is determined to transform early learning and childcare in this Parliament, expanding free entitlement for all three and four-year-olds and eligible two-year-olds from 600 to 1140 hours annually by 2020. It is also why we have described and will continue to describe this policy as our most transformative infrastructure project. No other policy has such potential to change children's lives, the fortunes of their families and the prospects of our economy in the short and long term. That is absolutely a policy with a purpose, and it is essential that we get the expansion right. We now have a substantial evidence base upon which to build. On Tuesday, we published a financial review, which provided a comprehensive picture of the current early learning and childcare landscape in Scotland. The review contributes robust data to our existing evidence base and will support our work to develop the funding and delivery models that will give effect to our transformative expansion plans. The review highlights that 125,000 children and their families benefit from the free entitlement to early learning and childcare each year. The early learning and childcare sector is diverse, with around 3,700 providers offering funded and non-funded provision, 46 per cent run by local authorities, 29 per cent by the private sector and 25 per cent by the third sector. There are around 5,600 childminders currently operating, and partner providers in the private and third sector play a key role in offering funded entitlement, accounting for around 1,000 of the 2,500 settings offering the entitlement. The review highlights that the costs of delivering provision are relatively more costly within local authority settings compared to partner provider settings. However, the gap appears to be overwhelmingly explained by the relatively lower rates of pay in partner settings. We estimate that around 80 per cent of practitioners and 50 per cent of supervisors in partner settings are paid less than the living wage. I note the National Day Nurseries Association released a comment yesterday that it wants to see this Government's living wage ambition realised across the sector as part of the expansion, and I am keen to work with them and others to make this happen. In terms of the funding situation that has been highlighted today by the BBC, where the money allocated does not all appear to have been spent as intended. It would be for local authorities to account for their own spending, but it is clear that this Government has met its commitments to fully fund this policy, and we will use the learning from this review to inform our choices for the future. Liz Smith, I am grateful, and I tend to agree with the minister about that point. Would he, however, accept that the Scottish Government has some responsibility to find out exactly what has gone wrong? Mark McDonald? I have had discussions with COSLA, and those are discussions that I will continue to have. Obviously, we want to ensure that, where we put both a policy in place and funding to follow that policy, that funding benefits those children that we want it to benefit. I absolutely take on board the point that Liz Smith makes, and she should be reassured that the Scottish Government continues to be in discussions with COSLA in relation to that. If the policy is to fulfil its potential, it must be developed around key universal and underpinning principles. I have identified four key principles that I consider central to delivering a policy that benefits children and families. These are quality, flexibility, accessibility and affordability. Quality is absolutely central to achieving the best outcomes for our children. It means ensuring a high-quality experience for all children and complements other early years and educational activity to close the attainment gap. It recognises the value of those we entrust to give our children the best start in life. It encompasses supporting positive child development and helping children to develop their cognitive, social and behavioural skills. Helping those children who stand to benefit the most, resulting in a narrowing of the attainment gap and a highly skilled and diverse workforce who are working in physical environments both indoor and outdoor, designed to maximise the experience for children. Flexibility means ensuring that the expansion supports parents in work, training or study and that patterns of provision are better aligned with working patterns, whilst delivering that in a way that maintains a high-quality experience for the child. It encompasses effective partnerships between public and partner providers, a range of delivery options that meet the needs of parents and carers across all of Scotland, including improved links with working hours, strengthened cross-authority working and implementing a more accessible system for parents and carers to secure early learning and childcare for their children, exploiting the benefits of digital technology. Accessibility refers to the geographical location of the provision. It must be as convenient as possible for families to access, but it also incorporates the need for children with complex and additional needs to be offered appropriate, accessible early learning and childcare experiences. It encompasses targeted investment to boost capacity in current areas of poor availability and areas of deprivation, innovative new capacity being delivered by the private and or voluntary sectors. For example, there are opportunities for closely located employers working together to offer early learning and childcare provision close to the workplace. Encouraging expansion within the social enterprise sector and exploring how community empowerment could be utilised to encourage and develop community-led provision, particularly in remote and rural areas, and finally developing appropriate provision for children who have additional support needs within their locality. Affordability means ensuring increased access to affordable early learning and childcare, which will help to reduce barriers to participating in the labour market that some parents face. That encompasses delivering a funding approach that sustains a range of provision for families, ensuring the cost of additional paid-for hours do not act as barriers to employment, training or studying, ensuring that we deliver on time and within budget, paving the way for long-term financial sustainability, and improving integration with wider services such as hub-type provision for a range of services for children and families are located. Daniel Johnson On that point of integration, in terms of affordability and flexibility, the key issue for a lot of parents is that too much of the provision is half-day and they are having to mix and match. That is a fundamental cost. What is the minister going to do to address that point? Mark McDonald As I have said, there is a requirement within the 2014 act that local authorities must consult with parents and must have due regard to flexibility. I think that it would be fair to say that in a number of areas we have seen shifts in terms of the offer that is being made to parents. I accept that there is more that needs to be done. I think that the expansion provides greater opportunity for that kind of flexible approach and I will go on in my speech to outline how we will be taking that forward further. We are at a pivotal moment in the development of our policy in early learning and childcare. Just as children have one real chance at childhood, which we in this chamber share our responsibility to support, we have an historic opportunity to create provision which gives our children's educational and economic prospects a solid foundation for success. Fundamentally, I believe that all the parties in this chamber broadly support our policy. There may be degrees of disagreement on its extent, its approach and how to achieve it. However, I see that as a strength, not as a weakness. It is good that we can debate the detail of the policy having collectively signed up to the principle. Organisations, providers and, importantly, families have a view on what needs to happen to realise our ambition to ensure that every child benefits from their free entitlement to early learning. I want to hear from the diverse range of views and not just within the confines of today's debate. I want to consider the variety of ideas, views and experience that exist out there to ensure that we get the blueprint behind this policy absolutely right. That is why today, Presiding Officer, I can announce that we will undertake a consultation on our blueprint for early learning and childcare, which will begin on Friday 7 October. Once we have analysed the responses and determined our approach, I will report back to Parliament on the next steps. I want to be clear that this is a genuine consultation. We have a better understanding of what is working well with regards to existing provision and where we need to think more carefully about how we take forward expansion. Within that, what is becoming clear is that in order to deliver universal entitlement while also focusing resources where they can have the most impact for children and families, there might not be a single model that meets all needs. Instead, a more blended approach to funding and delivery might be what we should be considering. Quality will remain paramount, but I especially want to know more about what approaches work well to create the flexibility and choice that we need while also improving accessibility in its widest sense. I hope that we will see a positive engagement with the consultation that can help to ensure that the final approach that we take delivers the best possible experience and outcomes for our children. In the meantime, we will also get on with delivering on commitments already made that support our ambition. Our delivery model trials due to be launched in January will help to determine best practice in local level delivery. We have committed to ensuring nurseries in the most disadvantaged areas will benefit from an additional early learning and childcare graduate or teacher by 2018. To support that, we will increase the number of early learning and childcare practitioners undertaking the BA Childhood Practice degree from autumn 2017, and I will continue to keep Parliament updated in our progress towards that ambition. Good design guidance for early learning and childcare settings is being developed for publication by next summer, utilising up-to-date intelligence from the Care Inspectorate and Scottish Futures Trust. We will develop a new induction and professional learning framework for childminders to deliver best practice in the profession. We will continue to take steps to ensure that provision is appropriately tailored to suit the needs of eligible two-year-olds. I have already said that this is a policy that commands broad support in principle both in this chamber and across Scotland's communities. I believe that today's debate and the consultation that we are about to undertake will help to ensure that we give Scotland's children not just a better today but a better tomorrow as well. I move the motion in my name. I now call on Liz Smith to speak to and move amendment 1703.1 up to nine minutes, please, Ms Smith. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer, and I move the amendment in my own name. This is, I think, the eighth time in the recent past that the Parliament has engaged in a full debate on the early years programme, alongside, of course, the many sessions and ministerial statements on the same issue. It is a sign that reflects exactly what the minister has just said about the issues of prominence, but it is also a sign that it continues to present the Scottish Government with some of its most significant challenges, if not entirely this whole Parliament. As I think the publication this week of the report makes very clear from which we learn, even though we might dispute some of the figures and exactly whose fault some of the underspend might be, that underspend has obviously taken place. I can well understand how some parents this morning, when they saw that news, might wonder exactly what has happened and why they might be a little perturbed about it. The feedback from last week's early years Scotland conference, which obviously included some of Scotland's foremost thinkers in this whole area, made plain what exactly the policy challenges are, as well as reiterating the very compelling and consistent evidence about the importance of the early years programme. I think that there is unanimous agreement about the challenges that we face, but perhaps less agreement about how to confront those challenges. Let me set out the policy commitments from the Conservatives and also push the Scottish Government hard to make one very important and radical change to adopt perhaps another Scottish Conservative policy, which they have said publicly they are very keen on because of the feedback from parents, but which I notice does not actually appear in the Scottish Government's motion this afternoon, but I will come to that a bit later. In the first instance, let me deal with the very earliest years, even those pre-birth, and let me restate our very firm commitment to the midwife and health visiting system, a system that we think currently commands an overwhelming trust of the public because it delivers some of the finest personal family care in Scotland thanks to a very dedicated and professional staff. The Scottish Government has rightly pledged to create 500 more health visitor posts, but that still leaves many professionals with huge case loads, and we know too that there are some in different areas that are issues about recruitment. Evidence from abroad suggests that we should actually be looking to extend health visitors up to seven years old rather than just five years old, but clearly that demands a major spending commitment. If that can only be a longer term aimed just now, then perhaps there are some other things that we can do in the short term. Part of that is to address neonatal care because we all know that a recent report from the Royal College of Pediatrics and Child Health identified an overworked staff, cancelled appointments and insufficient medical cover in some children's wards. We also heard what they said about staff not getting enough time off to study for the crucial training courses and qualifications that they need to do their jobs properly. There are serious concerns there, but let me turn specifically to childcare and nursery provision. Can I set this against the changes that were announced recently to schools policy? The Scottish Government has a laudable aim to deliver 600 hours of free childcare, but the reality is that that provision of places remains a problem. That is because the majority of funded places are made up from three-hour slots, exactly as Daniel Johnson set out, where we have something that can only happen in many schools in term time and which forces some families to use private providers, even if that is not their first choice. On top of that, a number of local authority places can only be purchased in partnership nurseries for which there is sometimes a capping policy. We know from the work that has been carried out by authorities, education experts and parents' groups like fair funding for our kids that there are serious pressures in provision. Pressures that, despite the Scottish Government's commitment to increase the number of hours provided, are in our opinion putting barriers in the way of the really flexible access for parents when it comes to choosing a place for their child. The net result is that both choice and flexibility are heavily constrained. Here lies a contradiction in the Scottish National Party policy. Cabinet Secretary John Swinney has said unequivocally that the best education needs to be based on strong pupil teacher trust and that that is greatly enhanced when staff are liberated to follow their own professional instincts and when schools enjoy greater autonomy. If that is true and I wholeheartedly agree with him in that respect, then surely that is also the case for the childcare and nursery provision. If the Scottish Government is now committed to the principle of freeing up our schools primary and secondary and acting upon what it called a plan for Scotland 2016-17 in which it says it wants to spend a million on testing out different delivery models, something that the minister hinted at, then why will it not also properly free up our nurseries and our childcare facilities? Is it really committed to a child account that was being reported this morning? I will be very interested to know when the Scottish Government sums up if that is a specific pledge. Like parents, the Scottish Conservatives firmly believe that we need to completely free up the system so that there really is a genuine choice and no ability for local authorities to restrict places in the manner that has been flagged up by fair funding for our kids. At present, the mix of state, partnership and private provision simply is not working well enough. As a start, perhaps we should be looking to some of the more flexible local authorities, which at least recognise the problem, even if they are not completely able to solve it. In Edinburgh, for example, when it comes to nursery provision, a voucher is allocated to parents in the form of a number code, which the parents then pass to the partnership nursery in which they want to purchase a place. However, that sometimes does not happen in other council areas, therefore leaving parents with an unacceptable postcode. Or should we not be looking to a country like Sweden, which operates a wholesale and highly successful child voucher system, giving families the choice between public preschools and nurseries and approved private and voluntary sector childcare providers? Indeed, should we not actually be going even further to introduce a voucher system that allows the state money that is due to a child in his or her early years to be spent in units on registered childcare or nursery as and when the parents choose? That way, money would truly follow the child. It would be wholly responsible to parental demand. I am grateful to Liz Smith for some of the support of comments that she has made. In relation to the issues around funding, part of the reason why we are taking the opportunity to consult in relation to the blueprint is that we want to gain some feedback around the different approaches that could be taken with a recognition that there may not be a one-size-fits-all model. I know in the amendment that the Conservatives have nailed their colours to the mast on this, but part of the consultation exercise is going to be about looking at different approaches that could be taken and seeing what the feedback in relation to those are, so I can give that commitment to Liz Smith. I am very grateful to the minister for that. However, we do know what some of the feedback is already, and what the Conservatives are doing is to respond to what I think has been a long-term campaign from many parent groups about what the nub of the problem is. If we go to the system that we are proposing, we would get rid of the problem with the birthday discrimination, which the SNP persistently seems to not want to deal with. If the SNP is absolutely committed to closing the attainment gap, which I believe it is, then that is a system that I do not really think we should tolerate. It is quite clear that some children are receiving a full two years, some children are getting 18 months and another set of children are only getting 15 months. One of the ways of changing the funding mechanism would be to get rid of some of that difficulty, because it is a serious problem for many parents. Notwithstanding that, or today's report, we recognise that no party is in a position to completely afford to do everything that we would like to do. We believe in the short run that we really have to focus on the families that face the toughest challenges. I think that there is a thread of agreement there with the Scottish Government, because that is a very important thing. By pushing the Scottish Government really 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 just on the numbers game of more and more hours provision. Welcome, as it may be, but it is a qualitative argument that I think we are in. I think that there is no use in that latter debate about the numbers game if we cannot make the flexibility issue access for all parents and obviously for all our youngsters. I now call on Daniel Johnson to speak to and move amendment 1703.3. Mr Johnson, up to seven minutes please. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. This Parliament holds consensus as one of its key virtues. The procedures that we adhere to, the committee structures and even the architecture of the building were designed to promote agreement on the issues that are most important to Scotland. It is not always how it works out, but I think that we all agree that this is one of those issues where we do have agreement. We agree that tackling inequality is one of the key things that we are here to do and the role and importance of childcare in doing that is beyond dispute. I think that we all are aware of how stubborn the gender pay gap is. Women's pay is on average £175 less per week than male colleagues and flexible childcare is critical to helping working parents and especially mothers back into work. We know how critical early years education, as both the Minister and Liz Smith have already pointed out, is about developing children's education. By the time they reach school, children from the poorest families have a vocabulary on average of 3,000 words while their wealthy peers have a vocabulary of 5,000 words. If we are serious about tackling the attainment gap, then waiting until children at school is simply too late. That is why getting childcare right is so important, because without it we will simply not make headway in tackling these inequalities. I welcome the commitment that this Government is showing childcare, I welcome the free hours that are being provided and I think that it is right to deliver more. As Mark McDonald said, while much has been achieved, there is still much to do. In order to achieve those things, I think that we need some honesty about what is really being delivered, some realism about whether or not it is meeting parents' needs and those of our children. Most important, we need to know how the Government is going to achieve what is a massive expansion in capacity. We need three things. We need a plan. We need to know how this is going to work and how capacity is going to double. If I may be blunt while it is welcome that there is a blueprint that is being published in a consultation, that is not a full plan. Second, we need quality. Childcare has to improve children's education and wellbeing. Third, we need flexibility, because if childcare does not fit with how parents work, then frankly, we are barely getting started. Let's look to the plan. The First Minister has called childcare the biggest capital project of this department and she's right. It will cost more than Queen's Ferry crossing, more than the M8, M73, M74, more than any school or hospital. Its impact will be far greater. However, we don't know how much or where the investment is going, when it will be delivered or even who will be delivering it. Almost doubling the hours available will almost double the cost. It's the Government committing spending in revenue terms in extra £300 million or maybe £400 million a year, but the analysis this week just frankly doesn't spell this out. On staff, the Government again this week have said that they don't know how much it's going to cost to advertise, train and employ the promised extra 20,000 staff. Most childcare providers are not set up for even the provision to provide lunch. An expansion of current local authority nurses is going to take a huge capital injection, not just to double the size of the provision but also frankly to install hundreds if not thousands of kitchens. We need quality. The average full-time early years practitioner working in a private nursery is paid less than the living wage—a median of £771 an hour. But nurseries, according to the NDNA, are making a loss on their places. Rydyn ni'n fyddwch i'n cael ei bodi'n cael ei gweithio eich cyfnod i'r eich oedd o'r ddweud? Rydyn ni'n cael ei gweithio i'r ddweud? Y syniadau yn cael ei ddweud o'r ddweud i ddweud, ac mae'r cyfrannu cwrnod o'r calculiol yn cael ei ddweud i'r ddweud o'r ddweud. Felly, mae'n wneud i gweithio i'r eich oedd oeddyn i'r ddweud i'r ddweud i'r ddweud, a graduate with expertise in supporting children's language development. As we expand funded childcare, we have to ensure that the extra money is being invested that delivers higher-wage, higher-skilled, higher-quality childcare. We need flexibility. Labour's call is for the SNP to lift their sights to what the childcare commission and others have said should be Scotland's long-term vision. 52 weeks are not 38, 50 hours a week are not 30, for one and two-year-olds two and beyond the age of four. Flexible enough for parents to use so that they can go back to work, but childcare isn't flexible as it stands. It is something that the Government has to sort out as it expands provision. Local authorities and nurses are overwhelmingly half-day only, providing their care in three-hour, 10-minute chunks, once a day, either morning or afternoon, and not including school holidays. That's not how my working day runs or how many working parents' working day runs. That's the same length and the breadth of this country. Every parent is therefore topping up childcare provision, sometimes literally ferrying their children, asking grandparents or childminders to take children from free provision to paid-for provision. Imagine if it was totally flexible—a parent dropping their child off at 8am picking up at 6pm five days a week. If you were to start in January, your 600 hours would run out by the end of March. If it's doubled, it will only get you to mid-June, so we're only halfway there with half-day childcare. We also need to go beyond the age of four, because childcare issues don't go away just when a child goes to school. We need a plan for childcare that includes children beyond the age of four with proper wraparand care. A great starting point would be a breakfast club available to every child in every school. The arguments for breakfast clubs are clear and well rehearsed. Great for parents who work, train or study. Brilliant for children's nutrition and sets them up for the rest of their school day. Despite the fact that the proportion of schools with breakfast clubs is lower in Scotland than anywhere else in the UK, there is no plan from the Scottish Government to expand this provision. We hope that the SNP benches will back our amendment this afternoon. The Scottish Government is right to expand childcare. If those benches sound critical, it is because the current situation needs to be better. We need flexibility, we need more capacity and we need a plan for childcare. We need childcare that works for children, works for parents and works for working families. I am pleased to move the amendment in my name. I now call on Tavish Scott to speak to and move amendment 1703.2 up to seven minutes, please, Mr Scott. Thank you very much, Deputy Presiding Officer. I do enjoy the poshness of your voice on these occasions. I was sitting late last night watching a bit of Mark McDonald to appreciate this as a football fan. The highlights are Celtic and Man City from Glasgow, but just after that, the news channel came on. I was surrounded by papers for this debate and the Government's financial review and so on and so forth. What got me last night is the haunting picture of that young boy from Aleppo who had been gassed under one of the Russian or Syrian attacks on that—I was going to call it a city—it hardly exists anymore. I turned back to all the papers that were in front of me and here we are all asking for x100 million for this and x100 million for that. This is, by the way, not-party policy that I should quickly add. Quite a lot of me immediately thought, we should be discussing how to get humanitarian aid into that young boy's life as much as we ever should be about our own country. Maybe that was just the moment that I was in trying to think about childcare in Scotland, but I thought about childcare in Aleppo and thought, that's a different concept. They're just trying to be alive at the moment at this time. As Daniel Johnson and, indeed, the Minister have said this afternoon, there's a lot of broad political agreement for the direction of travel that is now being embarked on. There's an entertaining debate that Liz Smith has struck off this afternoon about vouchers. I seem to remember being a candidate in 1999 and that being the Conservative policy. That would have probably just shows that I'm pretty long in the tooth, deeply presiding officer about standing in 1999 remembering the same policy that you weren't advocating it. I should quickly add. But nevertheless, what Liz Smith was arguing there was how we provide enough flexibility in that and that'll be part of that debate. I don't seem to be terribly much doubt about the importance of making this big switch and big investment in our children's future. I wouldn't disagree with anything that the minister argued in terms of trying to do as much as possible to target those facing the greatest challenges in our society, whether in terms of their educational upbringing or in terms of the health inequalities, which we must be blunt, still very much exist in different parts of Scotland. So where children from the most deprived backgrounds start primary school, as Daniel Johnson was rightly pointing out, their vocabulary is on average 13 months behind their well-off peers. The OECD, much cited by all of us these days, has confirmed that these gaps widen as children move up the school system. That surely just is not acceptable. It has to be intolerable that we continue to see that, of course, yes. Liz Smith, if I'll too, Mr Scott, for taking the intervention, is not one of the reasons why it would be helpful to have a very flexible voucher system, is to get rid of some of the difficulties about this birthday discrimination, which prevents some of our youngsters from getting the full share of that nursery provision. Mr Scott. It may not be a good argument for it, but I can think of one or two others that are maybe not such good arguments for the voucher system, which I want to come on to, not least of which are the kind of area that I represent in Parliament. I want to make two other points by way of introduction. The first is that I want to recognise that the Government have moved their position on this. We have on these benches been arguing for some time about the importance of more investment in early intervention, and it is important to recognise that the Government has moved in that direction. I also think that it is important to cite Professor James Heckman's Nobel prize, which was worldwide recognition that improving a child's life chances happens by investment before the age of three. Research shows, and this was used in this example, that for every £1 spent before child is three, £11 is saved later on. I want to address the flexibility point that the Minister made, Liz Smith made and Dana Johnson made as well, in the context of rural and island areas. My amendment seeks to bring these points to Parliament this afternoon. What I want to ask the Minister to consider are three issues, which are probably arguable for the whole of Scotland, but are certainly arguable for the rural parts of Scotland in terms of how we achieved the very plan that Mr Johnson was pushing back at the Minister. The first is on workforce. As Audrey Edwards, who is an executive education officer for Shetland's Council, told me the other day, the council currently struggles to recruit appropriately qualified staff to our remota preschool settings. The further away from the central area of Shetland you go, not Aberdeen or Edinburgh, but the further away within Shetland you go, the harder that is. Therefore, the challenge of greater and ars of entitlement will become even more so. Therefore, what are the Government's plans to support workforce development in those most remote and rural areas? The Government is increasing the level of qualifications required as well, although maybe the Minister can come back to that in his wind-up to improve quality. I understand that point. We have heard it in other areas as well. I seem to remember a long argument about the care sector some years ago in Parliament, where again a previous Government was arguing that better qualifications did not necessarily help us to achieve more carers in communities right across Scotland. The principle of better qualifications is, of course, extremely laudable. There is also a concern there, I am sure not just in my local authority, but in others, about how that will impact on the ability to recruit to those areas. Yes, of course. I take on board the point that Mr Scott makes. It is about making sure that we get the right combination between the qualifications but also the career pathways as well, so that people know that there is the opportunity for them to develop within the profession. I think that making sure that we get that balance right might help to address some of those issues. That seems to me entirely the appropriate way forward. Finally, on revenue funding, a point that I am sure I will all make, where preschool provision has grown up at the moment and where there are no private partners or less, and that is maybe the point that to slightly counter Liz Smith's point about the complete freedom of the voucher. I would love to have all that freedom in places like Shetland but the reality is that the local authority is the provider and I am sure that is true of many local authority areas as well. Yes, there will be some private providers and yes, there will need to be a whole lot more. The boarders would be a good example as well, Deputy Presiding Officer. There will have to be a whole lot more but we will have to create that capacity. We will have to encourage that capacity as to be achieved. I hope that the Government would accept that there needs to be some mechanism in the revenue funding streams that are contemplating that support not only the increased hours but the change in the model of delivery as well that is also required. Finally, Presiding Officer, I just want to mention infrastructure. It won't be just the islands, it will be many of our primary schools right across Scotland who will need to build on in order to have the capacity to be a nursery for the whole day that has been described by a number of members who have already spoken. Possibly the minister might give some thought if not today in due course to how best the capital funds are going to be made available to the sector in order to achieve again the policy objective. I want to be very clear that we very strongly support the growth in the as that children will be entitled to for all the laudable reasons by speakers from across the front benches today. The plan, as Daniel Johnson very fairly put it, is now the most important aspect of the future. Thank you. We now move to the open debate. Speeches are up to six minutes, so there's a little tiny bit time in hands for those interventions. I will let you make it up. James Dornan to be followed by Annie Wells. Mr Dornan. There isn't a member of this chamber who would disagree with the fact that children are the key to the prosperous future of Scotland, and we've heard that from the three speakers to date. Every child in Scotland deserves high quality education. It's essential for there to be more teachers and childcare graduates to provide that quality of care, as well as provide protection for young children and assurance for parents. The private communities need more resources and staff to provide that quality care for families of low income. Increasingly the amount of time that children from disadvantaged backgrounds spend with high quality practitioners can contribute to our efforts to close that gap. Our aim is to provide every child with the highest standard of literacy and numeracy because we know that the young children who face the greatest disadvantages benefit most from high quality provision. There's nothing that Daniel Johnson said earlier on that I would disagree with. It would be fantastic to have that wrap around care at 50 hours, 52 weeks a year, but we're going from where we are just now to where we're proposing, which I would say is a considerable leap in something that we should be getting into. That is almost like an uncosted wish list and we could all make them. Support work with the Government and then let's look for more ambitious targets once we've got this in place would be my suggestion there. Early learning and childcare provision should fit around families' needs. Every family from a disadvantaged background must be given the flexibility to have access to affordable, high quality childcare. OECD and European Commission evidence shows that childcare costs are a barrier to participation. Expanding the level of childcare will help those with young children participating in the labour market. Not only will that help parents' work, but that would help the Scottish economy as well. As outlined in Scotland's economic strategy in March 2015, the Scottish Government will promote inclusive growth through support for a more diverse workforce by removing barriers to employment, for example lack of childcare. I was concerned to read today in the financial review about some local authorities who do not appear to be using the funding provided to benefit children and parents through childcare, and I take to think that that was indeed the case. However, it's not entirely clear from the financial review and the information presented which areas are doing particularly well and those areas where there might be issues around where the money is being spent. It would be helpful for me as convener of the Education and Skills Committee to know what's happening around the country and so I would welcome any information that the minister could provide to us with that when he's making his closing remarks. As convener of the Education and Skills Committee, we held an informal meeting greet, including an early years issues in RAPLoc recently. This included childminders, nursery staff, parents and community initiatives that support families. When I asked the group of parents from RAPLoc what the most important thing about early years policy is to them, the clear answer was that it should be flexible so that providers are able to tailor their service to meet the needs of the children and their families. When identifying flexibility and care, the role of childminders must be acknowledged. Childminders provide a service that often cannot be beaten in flexibility. Having spoken to childminders, I understand that these caregivers take their role very seriously and see themselves as much more than just a place to keep kids safe. Their educators, confidants and quite often are constant in the lives of children. Early learning and childcare can be provided by local council nurseries, nursery class in the primary school, private day nursery, independent school nursery, playground or that child. I understand that those caregivers can be a problem within local authorities who decide to have the early learning and childcare contracts, but only some of local authorities engage in those contracts with childminders. I encourage all local authorities across Scotland to re-engage with the childminding sector and to look more fervently at the extremely flexible arrangement for parents and the benefits of having an early learning and childcare contract with these childminders. That can only lend itself to tailoring care to meet the needs of every unique family and child. I am doubt that the minister would disagree with me if I said that, if we are serious about getting this 1,140 hours, we will not be able to do it without the childminding profession. Family workers also can play a key role in identifying families who may need additional support. They enable parents to understand the nursery and school enrolment system, and they are key in parents and carers understanding what free provision is available to the children. I was delighted to hear about the work that I did based in Stirling, providing training to parents inside a nursery facility. Training can cover anything from managing stress to helping to find pathways to added education and employment. That type of engagement with parents can only lead to a better and more stable life for a child. If a parent is supported to knock on effect on children and home life is invaluable and immeasurable, a child is led by an example in what better example to set to a child than by building up strong and confident parents. Earlier, childcare is not only imperative to set a child out in the right foot to their educational journey, or a way in which parents can return to the workplace. Earlier, childcare can take great strain off of parents who are struggling with physical or mental health issues. I spoke to a young single mother of two who shared her experience with me. This young mother had a difficult to manage heart condition, an older child with severe health problems, and both her parents and her main support were battling with cancer. In the verge of a mental health break, this young mother took her baby to a health clinic and identified that her mother would sink and quickly got the baby a place in local nursery. This mother was able to rest, the children were well cared for and the family and home life has dramatically improved. The mother is now a success. I was touched by how thankful this young lone parent was for the early years care provision that she told me saved her life. She wanted me to make it clear to this chamber that without that early years childcare she doesn't think that she would have been here today to tell me about other examples of additional support needs throughout every area of Scotland. Regardless of socioeconomic status or geography, families can be hit with all types of problems during the early years of a child's life. Postnatal depression is not the sole affliction of mothers of newborns and can indeed carry on for many years into the life of a child. The respite provided by outlets such as playgroups and nurseries can be the start of recovery for women and in some case men up and down the country. Early years childcare is also the first support needs of a child. Early intervention and addressing needs needs is often key in providing that child with right tools to a successful, stable and constructive learning future. I would like to thank the minister for early years from bringing this debate to the table and I welcome the expansion of hours in early learning and childcare to Scotland. It has been said before that education is not solely about earning a great living, it means living a great life. There is no doubt in my mind that by increasing the number of childcare, we will have a better future for all of us. Thank you. I call Ahie Wells, who is followed by Gail Ross. Ms Wells, please, six minutes. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. Rarely do we see cross-party support and consensus in the chamber and I am very pleased to see the Scottish Government echoing some of the Scottish Conservatives' policies to expand childcare provision. Whilst I welcome those policies, I do, however, look to my own party for the flexibility. Indeed, what is the point of a flagship policy of taking advantage of the policy that becomes for parents a logistical nightmare? Creating the best start in life for Scotland's children needs to be done in a way that is realistic of the funds available. It needs to be honest about how much things cost and, most importantly, it needs to prioritise help for those who need it most. Doubling childcare hours to 30 hours a week for all three children is, in theory, great. I want to ask the Scottish Government if this money could not be better spent in a more effective and socially just manner. As it stands, the Government's proposal childcare provision will be extended to a small proportion of two-year-olds 27 per cent. We want to see a higher proportion of two-year-olds receiving this as well as disadvantaged one-year-olds on to the system. We know the benefits of children in high-quality childcare at an early age, and we know how early on in a child's life gaps begin to grow between those from affluent and those from less-advantaged backgrounds. Understanding Glasgow reported as part of their indicators project that, in 2010, more than 10,000 children were receiving social work input, 9 per cent of the child population, and of those children, social work services supported over 2 per cent of the child population with one or more parents with a substance misuse of problem in 2009-10. The Scottish Conservatives often alternative use of the public money which focuses the attention of disadvantaged children as seen by our proposal for the creation of a crisis family fund worth £10 million. We believe that focusing money on early intervention and support to troubled families is the best way to ensure all children grow up in Scotland. Looking to help mothers get back into work is also important. There are parents in Glasgow who have came to me because they have found a job but they cannot afford childcare. Expanding the system to include a higher proportion of two-year-olds would surely ease some of the pressure. Sorry, I have quite a lot to get through. Sorry. A higher proportion of two-year-olds would surely ease some of the pressure from the gap that currently exists in order to pay and free childcare provision. I have been a working mother all my life dropping my son off at half seven in the morning and picking him up at half seven at night for many years. It is an expensive business and having to foot the bill alone does not really make work pay. Flexibility of childcare is also very important. Sorry, I am just wanting to get on with that. I cannot give you a little extra time as well as if you want to take it. However, childcare is also very important. While set hours a week again in theory is fantastic, hours are split into blocks of three hours and ten minutes. For the majority living hectic lives and for anyone working nine to five or shift-type part in work like I did in retail, the numbers are low-high, are unworkable and do not add up. The Scottish Government talks about flexibility in this motion but I see no evidence or no mention of how their flagship policy actually achieves that. Glasgow-based campaign group Fair Funding for our Kids has worked tirelessly to highlight this issue. Beginning their focus in the city, they now champion reform countrywide, arguing that families are not able to make the most of their entitlements because of the unsuitable hours offered by most council nurseries. They have shown that a whopping two-thirds of nursery places in Scotland are half-day only. We need innovation, like Liz Smith had said, something like the Swedish system of childcare credit and voucher system. Parents should be able to use their hours how they wish using a mixture of private, local authority and partnership care. This is the only way we will be able to accommodate any increase. As it stands under the Scottish Government's proposals, doubling childcare eradicates the one-day model made up of one morning and one afternoon session and a new 93 model will require huge investment in childcare, something not accounted for by the Scottish Government. We estimate 650 new nurseries will need to be built and 3,250 new nursery staff trained. The move to 30 errors a week will result in a 40 per cent reduction in available council places with 72,000 places needed to be found. Now on to mental healthcare provision for children, something that the Scottish Conservatives have addressed with their proposal for a £300 million investment in mental health and specifically for the children in our proposal a £10 million investment in a crisis family fund, as I mentioned earlier. The Scottish Government is currently failing our young people as official figures have shown and is struggling to meet the 18-week target set by the SNP for treating young people and children again, this is an area in which we have genuine consensus on its importance and is an issue that needs to be got right. To conclude, whilst we agree in principle to the Scottish Government's plans to increase childcare and mental healthcare provision it is the Scottish Conservatives who offer the innovation and focused approach required. Investment in our children needs to be affordable, flexible and most importantly, fair. Thank you. I call Gail Ross. Gail Ross. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I will say just before I start that my mother-in-law is one of the valued childminders that we have been talking about today. It is not a declaration of interest but she will be delighted that I mentioned her. You may get extra help now for that. There are a few things in life more important than aiming to give children the best start. They will grow into the leaders and makers of the future, the teachers, doctors, police officers, joiners, plumbers and childminders and, indeed, politicians. They will go on to inform and invent and it is our duty to ensure that they are given every opportunity to do so and I am glad to see consensus across the chamber today for this principle. We have made a commitment as the party of government to make Scotland the best place in the world to grow up and we believe that high quality childcare is one of that aspiration. Besides the obvious economic benefits that enabling parents and carers to go out to work brings, nursery education or childcare provision enhances development and gives children the best opportunity to achieve in later years. Presiding officer, childcare has been the topic of many a debate both in this chamber and in the homes of parents across the country. Since the SNP came to power, we have increased nursery entitlement from 412.5 hours per year in 2007 to 600 hours in 2014 but we are not stopping there because we believe that we can and should go further. We made a manifesto commitment to nearly double free early learning and childcare entitlement to 1,140 hours per year by 2020. We have also committed to closing the attainment gap in our education system. This investment in preventive spend and ensure all our children no matter where they are from or what their circumstances will have the chance at an equal start to their education. This is especially vital in our most deprived areas where children have less opportunity. As part of this roll-out we will ensure that every child in early education in the most deprived communities will have access to an additional teacher or childcare graduate by 2018. We know that this will bring massive benefits, confidence and equip every child with literacy and numeracy skills and this in turn will also address the attainment gap. Coming from my own area Highland Council's director of care and learning Bill Alexander is committed to making sure children all over our vast and diverse region are given the same access to choice but realise the challenges of delivery in remote and rural areas. Despite that, Highland Council has already made good strides towards flexibility. There are 13 childcare managers in post in their schools and many of them are now offering a level of choice that goes well beyond the fixed morning sessions. That is being well received by both schools and families. Cala and other partner providers also continue to work towards developing more choice and flexibility for parents. He has told me that there are many challenges involved in getting to 1,140 hours and with it even more flexibility. We have an infrastructure in place that we are confident about as well as working on this within Highland. We have agreed a collaborative framework with the other Northern and Island authorities in our Northern Alliance that will ensure that we share best practice and pull our efforts to deliver not only 1,140 hours but the best possible service for children and families. Those hours are not just about childcare and support for parents to get back to work. As I said, it offers a real opportunity to promote positive child development and assist and work in partnership with families. Highland are already planning on taking forward these various elements. They have a senior manager in place to oversee this and have deployed family resource co-ordinators into the areas. They have also reorganised their curricular support and it is proving to be very effective. Across the chamber we have agreement that it is great news for families all over Scotland who had struggled in the past to find quality, flexible, accessible and affordable childcare. By the end of this Parliament the benefit to families will be worth £1 a year compared to 2007. We will support parents and carers that want to return to work or study and pilot a range of different approaches to find out what works best in each area. Boosting the number of hours to 600 made a huge difference and saved families on average £707 per child per year but a lot of parents did make requests for further hours in choice and yes in many areas the system does need further work but the flexibility built into the system going forward will make a huge difference to many families. We will work alongside local authorities and other childcare providers to make sure that we are getting it right. That is what we said at the start getting it right for every child. Thank you very much. Monica Lennon to be followed by Gillian Martin. Miss Lennon please. Thank you Deputy Presiding Officer. I welcome the chance to take part in the debate today on the Government's plans to expand free entitlement of early learning and childcare provision from 600 hours to 1,140 hours for every three and four-year-old and eligible two-year-olds in Scotland. Working families across Scotland are facing a multitude of pressures when trying to balance their household budget and often the cost of childcare is a major contributing factor to that process. The Government's financial review of early learning and childcare tells us that if you are a working parent on a living wage, over half of your hourly wage only to go towards childcare costs alone and that is before you even think about other monthly costs such as your rent or your mortgage payment. For a single parent, say with two children under the age of five, the predicament suddenly becomes quite stark. Within this current climate it is therefore certainly not surprising that single parent households 23 per cent of them are the most likely to report that they are simply not managing well financially. Managing childcare costs can be a difficult and stressful task, particularly when parents are balancing their childcare commitments around work or study. That is why with colleagues around the chamber, as well as parents across the country, I welcome the Government's commitment to expand free entitlement. That is also why I hope, however, that today's debate will generate some much needed further consideration on how we can best serve the needs of parents and children in a way that provides not just affordable childcare but also childcare that is high quality and flexible. From conversations with parents in the central Scotland region, I represent the issue that I hear raised consistently as a top priority is the availability of affordable childcare that is also flexible enough to create a transformation of the childcare system. The expansion of free entitlement to childcare needs to fit around the daily lives of parents and we have heard others say so today. I would like to draw particular attention to a recent report published by the National Union of Students which collated the childcare experiences of student parents who we have not heard much about today. The findings show that the availability of affordable, flexible childcare is severely lacking. The report, The Bare Necessities, found that student parents face a significant shortfall between the childcare and student support funding that they receive and the actual costs of childcare. For college students, that range from between £20 up to £400 a month and an average of shortfall was £123. For university students that rose to between £100 and £1000 a month and an average shortfall of £382. Across both university and college the most common monthly shortfall was around £200. The reasons for that are diverse but they can also be linked to an information gap at universities and colleges and how many student parents they have which leaves them unable to offer targeted support. In fact, only three colleges and nine universities were able to provide such information to the NUS in their investigation. There were also issues around the differences in university and college term times in schools and the lack of affordable childcare and the essential support for student parents to access it. That means that student parents are potentially forced to miss significant amounts of study time or else pay out of pocket for extra childcare hours. I thank Monica Lennon for the points that she is making. I too have read that report and I can say that alongside Ms Somerville we have looked into whether not just in terms of the review of student support but also in terms of our work on the expansion there are perhaps some synergies that could help address the points that that report raises. It is very much on the Government's radar and we are looking into what can be done to address some of the concerns that have been raised. Ms Lennon. I certainly appreciate that clarification. I think that will be reassuring to the students that we have in mind because even just in the last couple of days one experience that has been shared with me by a college lecturer in the north east of Scotland was about a single mother of three children who has applied for various part-time courses but could only manage to get on a waiting list and was then told that numbers had been restricted because full-time courses were the priority. Child care provision is not enough for her to do a full-time course and to access a full-time nurse through a place you have to take her and her youngest child out of the local authority run nursery and use a private one which putting aside the expensive costs would be impractical for her to pick up her other children from school so these are the experiences that people are having day and daily. As a result she has found herself prevented from continuing her college education until her youngest child starts school and I think that when we look at the latest figures that are available from the Scottish Funding Council where we have fewer women in part-time study and further education there are warning signs there. I do not think that it is good enough that we still have parents who are being held back from contributing to the workplace or continuing their education due to childcare restrictions and I believe that this Parliament should make it our mission to ensure that we are doing much more to support parents to reach their potential. Expansion of free entitlement is a welcome move but as long as it only covers some of the costs or some of the year it still won't solve the problem of how we can achieve wraparound childcare to deal with the diverse pressures faced by families across Scotland. The fair funding for our kids campaign recently reported based on the FOIs of all the councils that 65 per cent of all nursery places in Scotland wear half days only. Early years provision is vital and as I said the extension of free entitlement is something that I support but it will only lead to a transformation in childcare if we make it flexible to parents' needs around work and study commitments and also keep in mind that childcare issues extend well beyond the nursery years. Extension of childcare for two, three and four-year-olds must go hand in hand with transformation of pre and after school care and I hope that today the Government will also support Scottish Labour's amendment regarding the important role that breakfast clubs can play and a child start to the school day. Truly transformational reform of the childcare system requires the Government to use the powers of the Parliament to invest in their vital public services and budgets. Only then will we see a childcare system that serves the needs of all. Thank you. I call Gillian Martin, Folla Valles and Jordanson, Ms Martin. Thank you, Presiding Officer. Thanks to the minister for taking this debate to the chamber and I hope that those are calling for us to do more. Could you put your microphone up please? Apologies. Thanks to the minister for taking this debate to the chamber and I hope that those wanting us to do more will reflect on how they might assist the Government to get more control of the mechanisms that will allow Scotland to do that. I am very interested to hear Annie Wells mention the Swedish Government as well because I was reading recently that the Swedish Government spends more in early years learning than defence so maybe we can stick £170 billion that might save on trident renewal into childcare. I wonder how many childcare there is. That will give us. The potential impact of childcare on the economy is a significant one. The economic debates around childcare programs have centered around cost and my contribution to this debate is going to look at the economic benefits of publicly funded childcare and I hope to bring us back to one of the core reasons on why the SNP put an extended childcare programme at the heart of its manifesto in May. It makes economic sense to make the pathway to work easier for parents and the measures outlined in this commitment to extend childcare places in a massive step in addressing issues around the gender productivity gap. Work of good, flexible and affordable childcare is a historical barrier to accessing work that pays. The financial dilemma of the working parent is something that affected me when my children were small. How could I earn enough to offset childcare costs and leave me with any income to justify my return to work, work that I loved and work that utilised the qualifications that I have, work that was in effect a return on the investment that the Government made in me with the free university tuition that I enjoyed. The answer for some is going part-time and that's less money for the parent and less money going into the economy. As we know, part-time work tends to pay less prorata and women often can't access part-time work that can measure it with their skillset and qualifications, particularly if they've taken a couple of years out of the workplace after childbirth. Another answer to ease the dilemma is another family member taking on childcare responsibilities and it's very common to hear of grandparents taking part-time or giving up work altogether to help out. That's less income for them and less money going into the economy yet again. We speak of mothers, for let's face it, even in 2016 it's usually the mother that tends to stay at home or go part-time when a financial dilemma hits. But lack of affordable childcare can also take grandmothers out of the workplace well before retirement age. We've an impact on two generations of female labour and a stubborn gender gap on participation, all because of the cost of childcare. Research has found that with a 50 per cent reduction in the gender gap in labour force participation it could lead to an additional gain in GDP of around 6 per cent by 2030, rising by a further 6 per cent again if the gap is completely closed. I'm going to take this opportunity to ask for more gendered data on productivity in Scotland. When we reflect on the success of this programme maybe in about five years' time I'd like to see the data evidence that I'm certain will show the productivity gap decreasing as a result of this measure. That data doesn't exist at the moment. It's helpful to look at other countries who have undergone similar schemes and the economic impact they have and one cursory search on the internet will reveal reams of studies on how free childcare policies of government around the world have dramatically increased a country's productivity. But we should be mindful that many of the studies that can be accessed who, of course, have full fiscal control like Norway, whose former Prime Minister cited free childcare and women playing a full part in the workforce as the main reason for their country's particular economic success. Yes, you heard right, childcare is the reason, not oil and gas, free childcare. For those from opposing benches asking us to do more and asking them how the programme is affordable should take note on those studies that they quote with gay abandon when they think about what Scotland's particular constraints are with regard to budgets. With increased productivity it's increased income tax contributions busting the myth that childcare is a cost when in fact it could potentially be a productivity and tax generation enabler. If you don't believe me look at the countries with the smallest gap percentage you'll find the common denominator is they have childcare programmes. With the easing of the childcare burden it's not just employment figures that we should be examining when we assess the impact of this programme. The lack of affordable and flexible childcare is the top issue that is raised in the conversations that I have with groups and women in business when we talk about the persistent gap in women in enterprise. Women who are a huge untapped resource. Any boost to the amount of women setting up business is wholly welcome. I'm going to leave you with one of my favourite stats. I'm not a fan of stats normally. It's estimated that if the same amount of women set up in business as their male counterparts the contribution to Scotland's GVA would be £7.6 billion. That is a significant amount and programmes like this are opening the door to that increase in productivity. Thank you very much. Alison Johnstone to be followed by the famous Johnstone. I welcome the opportunity to discuss the wider positive impacts that changes to early learning and childcare provision can bring us and how those positive impacts will only be realised if we ensure that the child is at the centre of the decisions we take and I'm pleased to hear the minister say that economic benefits are not the primary driver here. Research has shown that the best way to improve life chances begins in pre-conception and by ensuring that children have positive experiences in their early years. As we've heard, the greatest rate of child development occurs in the first five years of life and by the age of three almost half of our language capacity is in place and by the age of five when many of our children first enter primary school it's as much as 85 per cent. The evidence from psychology, neuroscience and biology is clear. Our experiences in our early years are the greatest determinant of capacity to grow into confident resilient adults able to handle life's ups and downs. I therefore recognise the urgent need that we have to improve the pay and conditions of our childcare staff who play an important role in providing the stability and positive learning experiences for our children in their earliest years. The financial review of early learning and childcare provision made clear that pay for childcare staff is substantially lower in the private partner provider sector. Average salary for practitioners in local authority settings is estimated at 28,000 but only 15,000 in partner provider settings. On average, for an early years practitioner the public sector spends two thirds more than the voluntary and 80 per cent more than the private on staff-related costs such as wages and pension. The same report says that this may be explained by a higher proportion of practitioners still in training in the partner provider sector but I think that this is too important simply to theorise about. I welcome the minister's comment regarding the need to tackle this. It is vitally important that we do so as free childcare entitlement is expanded. As welcome as it is, we do not want the expansion of free childcare to happen by increasing the number of low-paid childcare workers the vast majority of whom are women. This is a massively gender segregated career and I would like to understand what the minister proposes to attract more men into such a career. I am sure that we are all agreed that whether care workers are caring for elderly people, people with care needs and indeed children, they all play a hugely valuable role in society and we must reflect this in their pay and their conditions regardless of the sector that they work in. Another challenge of course is increasing the number of staff available making sure that there are enough qualified staff. The Fraser of Allander Institute estimates that an additional 20,000 qualified staff will need to be hired. Research from the EIS Union in February of this year shows that in particular, the presence of a qualified teacher in early years settings can have a range of positive outcomes for our most deprived children. Their sustaining the ambition report has shown that the number of general teaching council for Scotland registered teachers has fallen by almost 30 per cent over the last decade with one teacher for every 84 children. That appears to be due certainly in part to the scrapping in 2003 of the requirement for there to be one GTCS qualified teacher for every 20 children which has been replaced with an ill-defined requirement for all children to have access to a qualified teacher. Local authorities operate different guidelines and charging structures for the deployment of teachers and that has resulted in some partner providers choosing to have no teacher support and as a result the number of children with access to a GTCS qualified teacher as a proportion of three and four year olds was 82 per cent in 2015 a fall from 85 per cent in 2014. The EIS argued that qualified teachers are a core part of the early learning and childcare workforce giving children the best possible start as well as providing wealth for vulnerable children and families in poverty. The EIS survey of teachers found that they play an important role in the early level curriculum for excellence creating good transitions for early years to primary school co-ordinating with other agencies as part of GERFEC and taking on training mentoring, leadership and management responsibilities for the nursery team and while the Government's pledged to have an extra graduate in nurseries in the most deprived areas by 2018 is very welcome to encourage the Government to go further and examine how educational inequality at the earliest stages can be tackled by delivering meaningful access to a GTCS qualified teacher in every nursery. This was a Scottish Greens manifesto pledge that I was proud to stand on earlier this year. Finally, I want to urge that we recognise the opportunity that the expansion of early learning and childcare gives us to have a broader discussion on our values around childcare and whether, by considering the impact of the expansion as fully as possible, we can better support our children. I turn to the research of Alan Sinclair and his How Small Children make a big difference report. The report was done with the Work Foundation and it is part of the provocation series and some of the questions in it may be provoking. He points out that some parents may feel it is not choice financial necessity that requires them to have their children in childcare and no matter how high quality the childcare is that perhaps their child the day is a very long one for that child because they are struggling to juggle the demands of an increased workload and insecure job market along commute. I would ask that the expansion of childcare provision has to allow parents greater choice and flexibility to build childcare into their day-to-day lives. I agree completely with James Dornan that his comments regarding the need to invest more fully and consider childminding in this regard. Sinclair shows that the UK's ranking in the bottom 25 per cent of OECD countries for levels of child wellbeing and the roots of many of our social problems around educational attainment, health inequalities and alcohol misuse can be traced to what happens in the first five years of life and I welcome the fact that we are having this discussion within Parliament and I look forward to being involved in its continuation. Thank you. Thank you very much. There are a few occasions in the life of the Parliament when we as members get an opportunity to take part in something that will really transform the lives of Scotland's youngsters and their families. The proposal to offer 30 years each week of fully funded childcare for all three and four-year-olds and those two-year-olds most in need will give our children the best possible start in life. It will transform the lives of their parents too given many of the opportunity to return to work and it will provide up to 20,000 new jobs in the childcare sector and I endorse the comments made by Alison Johnstone to have more men working in the sector. It is such an important development for Scotland and I am sure that all members in the Parliament will be proud of the part that they play to support this policy. When I came here in 2007 the provision was around 400 hours per year or about 10 hours a week and the steady progress from that to 15 hours per week and now on to nearly 30 hours or a full week of funded childcare is quite astonishing and I think will be one of the finest achievements of the Scottish Government. The policy will help about 120,000 children and it will save families about £700 or so per child each year which I think Gail Ross my colleague mentioned a moment ago in addition to allowing families to get back to work. As early as January of next year the Scottish Government will start a programme of trials to test different delivery models to see what works best and to pave the way for this expansion and I hope that addresses a number of the points that the members were making today about having flexible models to deliver this. Of course with such an expansion costing £500 million there are a number of consequential impacts that will arise which we will need to be carefully managed and prepared for. We need professional training for the staff delivering the service including enhancing the role for child members which has been mentioned also by several members and we will need about 600 new early learning and childcare centres in order to deliver it successfully. One of the key issues to consider is how we make any arrangements as flexible as we can. It has to be possible to fit around parents working hours and employers too need to offer some flexibility so that every family who is eligible but who have working obligations can access this service fully for their children. We will rely heavily on our local authority partners to drive this forward and to make it the success that we all hope it will be. I am grateful to colleagues from Misteiser Council for sharing their experience and advice in advance of the debate today. They stress the importance of that flexibility in allowing parents to access any new arrangements with spare capacity having to be built in order to provide these patterns of flexible hours. Workforce planning will be crucial as they anticipate quite a movement from the independent and third sectors as the early years workforce expands up to reach this 20,000 additional posts we anticipate that we will need. It is part of their consultation that was carried out in January this year. Misteiser has found that 66 per cent of parents preferred the term time-sessional model of delivery but a significant 33 per cent wanted to see this more flexible approach perhaps offering longer hours or full days or some access across the calendar year. A model that supports longer opening hours will probably also lead us towards thinking about shift working patterns too and there will be a need to have some discussions around that if that is what we want to deliver. I think that the proposal to pilot the scheme for parents and low-income households using this deposit guarantee scheme is often a barrier as we all know and the plans to provide an additional qualified teacher or childcare graduate in every nursery are crucial interventions for those children and families who probably need this kind of help most. I also like the idea of encouraging early learning providers to set aside perhaps an hour a week to be spent outside running the daily mile that is described in the programme for government or perhaps some other outdoor activity which I am sure will be music to the ears of my colleague Mr Whittle who is not in the chamber but I am sure he is listening. The expansion of early learning and childcare has the potential to completely transform the lives of our young children and their parents in Scotland. It will help thousands of families to overcome many of the barriers that have been systemic in our society for generations and it will unlock doors and lead them on to greater opportunity. The fruits of this policy may not be evident for perhaps 10 or 15 years as these youngsters make their way in life but my hope in this Parliament at this time that we are here is that this once in a generation investment in Scotland's youngsters will genuinely transform their lives and make Scotland the fairer and more equal country that we are proud to hand over to that new generation. Thank you very much. Paul Jeremy Balford for all about Rona Mackay. Mr Balford. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. Can I declare that I am a city councillor here in Edinburgh? Can I agree with the minister that I think there is broad agreement in regard to the general principles amongst all parties but what we need to look at is how does it work in practice at the grass roots. We can have theory but if it is not working in practice then we need to go back and look at it again. I would like to pick up two points this afternoon. Firstly, one already raised by my colleague Liz Smith on capping. Most local authorities here in Scotland only offer free childcare in slots of three hours, ten minutes and only during term time. There is no option for parents to buy into extra hours for the rest of the day even if there is a capacity within that nursery for parents to have that service. A recent report by Fair Funding for our kids found that 65% of all nursery places in Scotland were half days only and 89% of all councillor nursery places for three to five years were half days only and only available during term time. In order to access this as a working parent you need to make alternative arrangements to drop off, pick up working days and obviously during the holidays. That patchwork of childcare is impossible for many families to manage and almost useless for most working parents. Although most local authorities buy extra spaces at private partnership nursery there is no requirement for them to buy enough places for all eligible children within their area. Thus again children miss out or have to move to another partnership nursery. Further challenges arise due to underfunding of private nurseries by local authorities. Either the partnership nursery has to make a loss per child or that is passed on to parents which then puts extra financial pressure on them and sometimes means they do not go into a career because it is simply not financially viable. It does beg the question is this policy a Scottish Government informs us aims to support parents to work, train or study especially those who need routes into employment and out of poverty during what it says on the packet. This is a Scottish Government policy that we all agree with surely therefor a Scottish Government responsibility to make sure that local authorities are able to provide 600 hours of childcare for three to five years. I would like to tell the chamber about one family's recent experience here in the Lovians trying to access funding for appropriate childcare. The family recently moved from Edinburgh to west Lovian where they were sending their son to a private nursery in west Lovian. The nursery was able to provide support to parents who were able to work. Unfortunately, their application for funding was refused as they informed that the council place available was close to their home but they would not fund the private nursery. The council did not seem to care what was best for the child or for the family. The family has found a solution. It appears that there is an agreement between councils for partnership funding. We now send our son to a private nursery in the west end of Edinburgh. It is not ideal because the son has had to leave the old nursery and lost some of the friends that we have had. It seems bizarre that west Lovian is willing to fund a private nursery out of the council area but not within it. Those may seem small issues to parliamentarians but to parents who are trying to make the system work it is just another obstacle. It means also that people who live in west Lovian that do not work in a neighbouring area do not benefit from this. For many of us working Monday to Friday 9 to 5 is simply an old model. It is a model of childcare that may have worked in my part but does not work today. In order to provide childcare sector which is fit for purpose we need to look at what people are doing with in retail healthcare, hospitality working patterns are changing. I was encouraged by a recent conversation with offices in a council who are thinking or bringing forward nursery care for six days a week and also looking at doing it during the holidays. In conclusion Deputy Presiding Officer let me ask the questions to the Government. How many three to five year olds are receiving 600 free care? How many women are returning to work as a result of this policy? How many partnership places are being capped? Is he in order to judge the policy success we need the bus data collected? But no one knows how many children are actually getting their entitlement. Fair funding for kids has repeatedly expressed the disappointment that the Scottish Government continues to claim 90% registration for funded childcare despite reassurances from the First Minister back in March of last year that she would find ways to improve the data when research suggests that around one in five children are actually missing out. If we want to design a solution that works for parents we need to understand the practicalities. I would urge the Scottish Government as we carry out this consultation to also carry out a national survey which looks at the socioeconomic background of service users. What child care provision parents are using? How can it be improved and see what transparency there can be? There is a level playing field for Scotland that will help to make this policy more successful and work for all families in our nation. I have been quite kind letting members run over but we will eventually not have any generosity left. I am going to call Rona Mackay. Do not take it personally, Ms Mackay, followed by Mark Griffin. The Scottish Government has said bridging the attainment gap for all children is its defining mission and rightly so. I believe that bridging that gap starts as early as possible in a child's life and that is why I am delighted that our Government is investing in expanding early years education. As we have heard in the chamber, our Government is doubling freely our early learning and childcare entitlement by 2020. The extension in provision will help around 120,000 children per year and will save families up to £707 per per child per year. It is an ambitious goal but one that we believe is crucial to implement as investing in our children is surely the best investment any Government could make. As the cabinet minister said as well as doubling the provision we are determined to deliver quality of that provision at the highest possible standard. Quantity without quality is not what we are striving for. Our childcare staff are not glorified babysitters, they are highly skilled professionals entrusted with the care and education of our children and the future generation of Scotland. Scotland is one of the few countries in Europe that employs multidisciplinary professional teams to support individuals or small groups. I am proud that the Scottish Government will pilot during 2017-18 approaches to providing support for parents in low-income households with the upfront costs of childcare. We will ensure that every child in early education in the most deprived communities has access to an additional teacher or childcare graduate by 2018. That, in my view, is bridging the attainment gap and I welcome those initiatives. Of course, our third sector agencies play a huge part in helping us to achieve our aims. Bernardus Scotland works with expectant and new mothers in the home and attachment-based approaches as does the excellent home start organisation. They believe that adopting a nurturing approach across learning and childcare should make a significant difference to children's attainment levels later in life. They agree that it is crucial that the investment in the expansion of early learning and childcare must include disadvantaged children and families as a central part of the system and that support should be continued for better attainment as they grow older. A nurturing approach to early learning and childcare helps children to learn, thrive and ultimately achieve better educational outcomes. Childminders 2 will be central to providing more flexibility and choice for parents as my colleague James Dornan has already said. We will create a new quality standard induction programme for childminders to deliver best practice in the profession. Our aim is to develop a high quality and crucially flexible early learning and childcare system that is accessible and affordable for all. In short, we want Scotland to be the best place in the world to grow up. A shining example of excellence in early years learning is Lullaby Lane Nursery based in my Bearsden constituency. Despite being open for just three years, there is just one nursery management today's 2016 training and development award at the Scottish Nursery Awards and I am very much looking forward to visiting them along with the cabinet secretary next month. They, along with other first class nurseries in my constituency such as Tower Nursery and Lensie, which is currently undergoing accreditation status, are exactly the models that we aspire to create throughout Scotland. I believe that parents are the best judge of how good a nursery is and I know that many of my constituents believe that the money should follow the child when it comes to nursery choice. While balancing the need to ensure that all nurseries in Scotland are of the excellent high standard we expect for our children, hence the need for nursery partnership with local authorities, there is a little confusion over how much autonomy local authorities have over funding placements. I am pleased to hear that the cabinet is looking at all options regarding funding and choices during the consultation ahead. We need nurseries that parents and children are happy with, ones that provide the best possible start for all our children, regardless of family background or circumstances. Our transformational increase in childcare is a remarkable achievement and once again we are leading the way against all odds. Despite an ever-decreasing budget handout from Westminster, the fact that Scotland punches way above its weight on this issue from the rest of the UK and many other countries, shows just how important investing in our children is to us in Scotland. I am proud that we are leading the way in this and I wholeheartedly support this motion. Thank you. Mark Griffin, followed by Bob Doris. Thank you, Presiding Officer. Transforming childcare is certainly one of the biggest challenges that we face and one with a big prize if done properly in terms of increasing economic activity and access to working crucially closing the attainment gap. Looking at the One Parent family Scotland programme for change, secondly, behind tackling attitudes and stigma that exist around being a single parent was the need to transform childcare to make sure that it is high quality, flexible and affordable. I recognise the commitment across the chamber to tackle the childcare challenges we face. One of the big challenges right now is that right across the country children are missing out on the 600 hours they are entitled to. We often hear in the chamber in government releases about an apparent 97 per cent take-up of free nursery places but I simply don't think that reflects reality and to quote directly from the fair funding for our kids campaign for parents who can't afford the high cost of private childcare, the half-day sessions available in council nurseries are often their only available option. Rather than supporting parents into employment this model of provision simply becomes another barrier to work. Few of us can find a job that will fit around three hours and ten minutes of childcare per day and that's fair funding for kids words. That's because in the real world the reality is that despite the promises of 600 hours free early education in childcare many working parents are simply unable to access the free places they are entitled to Mark McDonald I thank the member for taking the intervention I just want to be clear and I've made this offer to fair funding for our kids as well. If members identify within their local area a specific issue around a lack of availability and I'm not speaking about necessarily individual cases but a trend of lack of availability if they write to me I will investigate that and speak to the local authorities concerned so I want to make that commitment very clear here and now coming to me from members across the chamber those examples at present I can allow you the additional time Mr Griffin I'm sure that the personal testimony that the minister will see on the fair funding for a kids website I'm sure that they would be able to take forward a caseload of examples that he would be able to look at and I'm sure that they would more than welcome as the intervention in that but what I would say is that for many people many parents who work full time going back to that point that accessing a free space that's only available for three hours and ten minutes a day for 38 weeks a year simply isn't always an option and how many children are being offered places so inflexible that working parents simply can't access them how many children aren't able to access the free 600 hours at all because they attend a private nursery and all of the funded places have been allocated how many children are attending a nursery that isn't a partnership provider which means they aren't able to access funding at all and how many children are attending a pre-school nursery but not benefiting from the full 600 hours because the provision doesn't fit within the school day which means they miss out on the extra hours and the answer is that while we can speculate despite the fact that three or four year olds do have a right to 600 hours free early education childcare no one actually knows how many children are benefiting from this policy and fair funding for our kids have pointed out examples of where they believe double counting is going on and parents don't simply want to hear that we're on a journey to a better system and they don't want to hear that it will be sorted out by 2020 when their children will be at school they want the flexibility in place that means they can access the 600 hours that they're entitled to right now so while in today's debate we're calling for the Scottish Government to take the steps now to ensure 600 hours is a reality for every eligible child that doesn't fix the entire range of childcare challenges that families across Scotland face childcare challenges don't begin when children turn three or end when they start school the spiralling cost of childcare in Scotland continues to pose a headache for working parents and we pay more for childcare than in any other European country I think except for Switzerland and costs are rising in Scotland faster than anywhere else in the UK that time childcare for two children under five costs more more than the average mortgage many parents have no choice but to reduce the errors to make work pay or give up their job altogether if we're going to transform childcare then much more attention needs to be paid to the overall childcare challenges parents face what we need is that real childcare revolution that will transform the lives of parents promises of 30 hours in the future would sound more convincing to those parents who were entitled to receiving the 15 hours were actually getting it and I think it's time that the Scottish Government I've listened to the minister and I think what he's saying is that his ears are opening he's willing to make interventions on behalf of those parents who aren't getting that entitlement because of issues around flexibility that is well and I think it is time for the Scottish Government to deliver a childcare system that delivers for children, parents and for our economy that's one that puts flexibility and affordability at its heart and ensures that all our children have the very best start in life thank you Bob Dorris followed by Alison Harris thank you very much I very much welcome the publication of the financial review of early learning on the current landscape it is vital that we have a robust map of the baseline of provision that currently exists including not just the numbers of children and families currently benefiting from current provision and it is worth stressing that's more benefiting for more hours than ever before despite issues within the system that's just a fact I would say to people but also as the minister outlined the mix and the variety of childcare provision is also indicated that's about 46 per cent local authority provision with the bulk of the remainder being made up by private and third sector providers vitally we also need to know the bricks and mortar of childcare provision and that's where I'd like to make my first substantive point we must ensure that local authorities are currently, right now, examining the bricks and mortar of childcare provision what does current capacity look like what are the opportunities to expand that current provision not just local authority provision but also partnership nursery provision currently as things stand what does that exist in infrastructure potential look like and what are the opportunities to develop further provision new provision going forward in the future to make sure that the range of provision is suitable that it's in the right location and that it's suitably flexible local authorities have to be asking these questions and let me give you two examples in my constituency where I see there are opportunities to forward plan that are not always realised so I would point to a local childcare provider called Somerson childcare who operate from the Belgrade community centre in the Somerson community but also to other sites they're keen to expand they identified a former care home that is now sitting closed within that community they thought perhaps they would look at other childcare facilities and look at expanding forward to work in partnership with the local authority and government to help meet that increased childcare provision the local authority initially looked to discuss some of that but then decided to just take the capital receipt and sell it in the open market of course that's the prerogative of Glasgow city council that's their decision to make I merely make the point that it's the second time that Somerson childcare have identified a property within that community that would be suitable for purpose and it's the second time a property has been put on the open market for a capital receipt that might be short sighted because in the future there are going to have to be capital investment to bring the bricks and mortar to that community to expand childcare provision let me give a second example in my constituency in Royston where two wonderful local childcare providers at Rocks childcare in Rose Mountain Lifelong Learning are working in partnership with a local youth organisation Royston Youth Action to look at the possibility of combining a community sports hub at Glenconard park in Royston but also to see if it's part of a procurement exercise in getting money from different pots of cash if perhaps what we could do is have a co-located childcare facility there also some blue sky thinking about the best way to take forward meeting childcare provision going forward so local authorities all local authorities have to be challenging themselves the Scottish Government has to be working in partnership with local authorities to realise some of that actual work that has to take place now, not just in the future my second substantive point I'd like to make I suppose I should declare an interest because as a dad of an eight month old baby Cameron at some point in the future I suppose Cameron will benefit from expanding childcare provision we've looked at two nurseries neither of them are a local authority nursery to put Cameron into when my wife returns to working the NHS one is a partnership nursery one is not a partnership nursery we've no way of knowing if Cameron eventually qualifies for free childcare provision whether or not the current partnership nursery will still be a partnership nursery with Glasgow City Council we have no idea the reason I raise that as a point is not because of my personal case because I've had previous experiences by constituents who put a child, a baby into a nursery when mum goes back to work on the anticipation that a partnership place will be sustained I think there has to be better guidelines and more security for working parents to make sure that partnership nurseries sustain that status unless of course there's a direct significant deterioration and standards and I think that's something that has to be done another constituents case I've had is the local constituents in Glasgow who because of working patterns had to access local authority childcare provision or partnership childcare provision in eastern Bartonshire and I brought that case to the minister's attention that was initially not forthcoming but it's a two way process and Glasgow at times has not provided partnership places for eastern Bartonshire families that case was resolved by real positive constructive dialogue between local authorities and that's positive at the point, if ever local authority boundary shouldn't matter it's inflexible childcare provision and we have to look at that going forward as well couple of final points if I have the time I accept that there will always be a case where the childcare provision no matter how universal wonderful it is won't always meet with the working realities of parents I get that, I understand that but things are improving and once we get to the target that the current Scottish Government set we have to start looking at what a reasonable offer of childcare provision looks like and there should be some alternative system where parents can say to local authorities that might be trying to sweat the asset of local authority provision nursery places just to fill them up that no, we don't accept that that's a reasonable offer I think it will remiss of me if I didn't finish off by pointing out to Annie Wells the Conservative contribution earlier on today if you want to talk about lowering the cost of childcare for working families and the constituents that I represent I would draw her attention to the 2015 spice briefing that simply says 197,200 families totaling 346,000 children have been hit by changes to tax credits and I know families that are no longer in work because of Tory welfare reforms so if you come to this chamber and see how ethical your policies are in childcare, look at your own backyard it's not acceptable and it's not meeting the needs of my constituents Alison Harris followed by Jenny Gilruth Deputy Presiding Officer I'm delighted to contribute to this debate on a subject of great importance to every parent, grandparent and carer in Scotland Everyone wants the very best start in life for all our children and early learning and childcare plays a vital role in ensuring that Parents, when asked through the Scottish Government's own discussion paper what their priorities are in the provision of early learning and childcare made mention of a number of issues but three kept coming up Firstly, parents want to know the quality of that provision and that it is not being compromised by headline grabbing attention to hours of childcare Secondly, that their children are with qualified professional and motivated staff Thirdly, that the hours and services offered are fair, flexible and suitable to the needs of modern families Sadly, many of the reasonable hopes that parents have for children are not being realised by the policies of this Government Indeed, 600 hours of childcare provision are not being met in some local authorities Never mind the proposed increase in hours by 2021 Let me take the first example of birth to discrimination A problem that the SNP has failed to address despite the issue being highlighted by the Scottish Conservatives and Reform Scotland among others Birth to discrimination is the reason why so many children are not getting the headline 600 hours of funded childcare a year Indeed, the shortfall can run into as much as 200 hours a year Deputy Presiding Officer these are hours that Scottish children are not getting because of the inaction of the SNP Government hours that, once lost to a child they can never be replaced Birth to discrimination arises as funded childcare only starts the term after the child turns 3 This illogical approach from the Government means that children born between March and August receive a full 2 years funding Children born from September to December will only get 18 months of funding but for parents whose children are in February the SNP says that their child only qualifies for 15 months Why is your baby entitled to less childcare if it was born in the last day of February rather than the first day of March Illogical, yes Discriminatory, yes Plain daft, well it most certainly is Birth to discrimination needs to be addressed Deputy Presiding Officer I want to move on and at this point I think the words of a respondee to the Government discussion paper on ELC are well worth mentioning Parents should be able to choose an early learning and childcare setting subject to meeting nationally agreed quality criteria which best suits their child family working circumstances and locality rather than their council's choosing of where to fund the hours Flexibility of hours, location and provider these are very important to parents and supposing that they have a car and many will not they do not want to drive for half an hour to a council nursery if after five minutes they pass a perfectly good private nursery or pass by the door of a suitably qualified and registered child minder this does not make any sense on many counts including time, convenience and environmental impact councils and the Government need to do more to recognise the role of all involved in childcare council, private voluntary, they all have an important part to play and it is in no one's interest if failure to provide for increasing costs cause some providers to drop out therefore resulting in fewer places rather than more I commend groups such as the Glasgow based fair funding for our kids who highlight that the vast majority of local authorities are offering an hourly rate below the national average cost of a nursery place and not only that but the 89% of council run nursery care are half days only this is simply not flexible enough for modern lifestyles nor is it sustainable for long-term childcare provision only by working together across all providers can the increased expectations of parents be met parents do not want to travel miles they do not want to chase funding and have to relocate their children this is totally disruptive to the child and the parent I said at the beginning of this speech that everyone wants the very best for Scottish children I believe that it's great to offer as many hours as possible but they must be tailored to parents and children's needs they should not discriminate on the lottery of date of birth but be fair to all the patchiness of provision and the lack of flexibility that we now have in many areas leaves many parents frustrated and children short changed in their formative years Deputy Presiding Officer in meeting the needs of parents and Scotland's youngsters the government clearly has room for improvement and as such today I will be supporting the amendment being put forward by my colleague Liz Smith this afternoon and the opportunities that it offers to boost the quality and flexibility of childcare provision thank you The last of the open speakers Jenny Gilruth Can I start by nosing the Liberal amendment today which highlights that under current levels of funded entitlement only 7 per cent of Scotland's entire population of 2 euros compared to 97 per cent for 3 and 4 euros took up the funded ELC funding last year and whilst the financial review notes that overall roughly 125,000 children and their families benefit from free ELC each year there is clearly yet work to be done by the government to families of those eligible 2 euros to ensure that entitlement is collected a further concern in the financial review is the gap between staff payment levels and local authorities and those in private providers as has been highlighted by my colleague Alison Johnson and as others have expressed today I was certainly disappointed to note that 80 per cent of practitioners in partner settings are paid less in the living wage I share the minister's ambition to ensure that situation changes in the future I'm delighted that the minister has announced that ensuring that nurseries in the most disadvantaged areas will gain an additional ELC graduate or teacher by 2018 this action supports the professionalisation of early years education which for too long has not been treated in parity with its primary and secondary counterparts accrediting early years practitioners helps to build confidence in the system with staff and furthermore with parents and carers it also helps to make the vacation an attractive careers prospect Government is committed to closing the attainment gap in our schools and this announcement supports that aspiration by acknowledging the professional importance of early years education Early years education is not about babysitting we know that the formative zero to three years in a child's life are those that make the difference these are the years in which behaviours are formed and in which children develop coping mechanisms I've previously highlighted the work of the former chief medical officer for Scotland Dr Harry Burns in the chamber Dr Burns' research identifies the link between babies growing up in stressful and chaotic households and how they learn behaviours which stay with them for the rest of their life Quality early childcare therefore has a fundamental role to play in closing the attainment gap for Scotland's poorest children so in its totality as a report card on the delivery of ELC the financial review is clear there is room for improvement today's motion commits the Government to a manifesto promise to almost double free childcare but as we've heard today the way in which that childcare is delivered needs to be flexible there is an argument around geographical proximity and how that childcare is delivered in rural communities often in these areas childminders play a vital role I recently met with Maggie Simpson the chief executive of the Scottish Child Minding Association Maggie was keen to highlight to me the disparity nationally in how certain local authorities including Fife Council do not make use of childminders in the entitlement provision so 11 local authorities nationally have no contract with childminders to deliver early learning and childcare there is clearly an issue here with regard to flexibility and local authorities need to look critically at the ways in which they deliver childcare to ensure that it is flexible and it meets the needs of the populations that they serve I find it extremely hard to understand why for example Fife Council makes no use of childminders to fulfil its provision we are after all an urban and rural council area made up of lots of little towns and villages childminders often provide mums and dads and carers with the flexibility to come home from work later or to drop their children off on the way to an early morning shift local authorities should not look narrowly to direct parents to provision centred in local authority run nurseries because it best suits their needs indeed the Children and Young People Act of 2014 introduced a requirement on local authorities to offer more flexibility and choice over how those funded hours are delivered central themes in today's debate have been those of accessibility and affordability this is of particular importance to women in Scotland who remain the traditional caregivers in many families across the country yet we also know that this work is not valued in the same way that traditionally male work is one of the biggest barriers that women face is getting back into employment after having children the annual survey of hours and earnings recorded 42 per cent of women employed in Scotland work part-time 90 per cent of men that means that women are often prevented from promotion opportunities as part-time hours support their childcare needs indeed women account for 75 per cent of all part-time workers in Scotland only 10 per cent of senior managers in science, engineering and technology professions are women there is clearly an equality agenda here which I am sure that the Government's aspirations in terms of childcare delivery support within ELC employment itself gender stereotypes continue 97 per cent of childcare in early years education employees are women and 98 per cent of classroom assistants are female we need to place greater societal value on these jobs we need to ensure that more men are brought into early years education additionally as role modelling plays a vital role in developing aspiration in the next generation today the Government has committed to the publication of a blueprint to set out its milestones on early learning and childcare we need local authorities to play their role in delivering this transformational change that the Government has envisaged for childcare delivery but we can't gnarly look to councils to fulfil this obligation if the Government is to commit fully to its pledge to deliver 1,140 hours for each three and four-year-old today and those eligible two-year-olds then this blueprint should also consider staff pay in the sector as I've previously highlighted it must consider how to deliver the flexibility enshrined by the 2014 act and it must look at the best way forward in developing a supportive approach to childcare which will provide Scotland's children with the best start in life we now move to the closing speeches I call on Tavish Scott around six minutes please thank you very much it's always one of these moments when you start the round of wind-ups as to when you have to describe the debate as worthy or thoughtful or interesting or worst of all words in politics consensual which I suppose is an appropriate way to describe this to debate's debate we can't knock political lumps out of each other all the time which is just as well but it has been that and there have been many contributions across the benches which seem to me to say a couple of things the first is that looking at childcare over a number of years for too many mums and dads this is un-grandparents as others have rightly mentioned as well carers too this has always been a financial decision for the family or the single mum or the individual find the money to look after the child at some stage when that work balance becomes impossible and the important aspect to what Parliament and the Government are trying to create for the future is to take the money out of that equation in providing an entitlement to childcare for the long term so that we can make a genuine difference to people's lives and that's a laudable aim for any Government or any Parliament to seek to achieve now James Dorn the convener of the committee mentioned wraparound care I think he was the first member in today's debate to remember wraparound care I have to confess my kids don't always think I'm a modern dad and when I said I was doing a childcare to debate today my seven year old said to me wraparound care because one of the aspects that Alison Johnstone who I always invariably agree with in her contributions in this place made a strong point about it was the importance of men in terms of primary school teaching but also in terms of childcare as well I will not be the only constituency member who spend plenty of time drinking tea in staff rooms across schools in their constituencies particularly primary schools to learn about education, learn about the challenges that are currently going on and enable teachers who tend to be women and one of the aspects that a lot of my head teacher friends say to me again a lot of schools in my patch are led by brilliant women who are head teachers say we could do with more men being involved in primary school teaching but also as they look at how childcare is going to expand in childcare as well I think that's a well made a very well made point as was the point that Gail Ross made about the northern alliance I still haven't got my head round exactly what the governance reforms are that maybe none of us quite yet know what the governance reforms are in terms of education but Gail Ross made a good point about the benefits that the northern alliance can bring in terms of sharing ideas on how to deliver in this case childcare that seems to me self evidently the right way to take forward that particular change and to use expertise in her case in the Highland Council that can be beneficial to other authorities as well because there are many common issues across much of these areas the large areas of Scotland that many of us represent Alison Johnston also made a couple of points about children at the centre of decisions and that's how we should view these things and the wages and cost differential between the private and public sector a point that many members have raised this afternoon and the minister indeed addressed in his opening remarks I don't think that helps actually in that sense the voucher approach that some are articulating because if the cost if the differential in cost that is so self evident right now between wages that are paid in private sector nurseries and childminders is so different from the local authority setup then that for me makes some of the arguments about how in heck a voucher system would work given that financial system currently we're currently in Alison Harris said earlier on point I agreed with that we would need we would all need the range of provision in other words not just the public sector provision through nurseries but also private sector and certainly childminders as well for me that's absolutely the point about the growth in childcare that's going to be achieved here there is no way to achieve this it's not going to be remotely possible so I think the not so much the aspiration to see a much wider provision being available and to provide the flexibility that many members across the chamber have called for will be achieved but the necessity of that wider provision being available just in terms of the growth that we are expecting on the other amendments can I firstly say that I think the particular concentration as Diana Johnson mentioned on breakfast club seems to me entirely sensible I take James Doran's point and indeed one or two others Bob Doris made his point as well that there is an element of aspiration around the opposition parties well that's kind of our job that is actually quite perfectly reasonable I seem to remember good friends and colleagues in the SNP making exactly the same points when they were in opposition so I don't think the case for a particular point of view and my own my youngest son has definitely benefited from a breakfast club I have to confess in Diana Johnson's constituency so I take that point and I think it's entirely reasonable Liz Smith made many points I broadly agreed with particularly her opening remarks around health visitors and the very earliest stages of life and indeed before life I thought that was nearly a dangerous day to get into but she nevertheless made a serious important point there is a BBC or there is a news report out today which I think is important just to recognise about south of the border which recognises that childcare costs for parents could skyrocket in parts of England as nurses get less UK Government funding so there are always going to be those challenges and it might be important to recognise in whatever scheme there is devised those challenges do exist finally there's two points I want to pick up from the minister's opening remarks firstly the consultation and secondly the delivery model trials that I believe he mentioned in starting early next year I would encourage him to make sure that in how the Government are considering those one of those delivery model trials if that is the right expression is in a rural or island area to give the contrast and the context vis-a-vis the city or a larger more urban area of Scotland I think it would be important in terms of building up the right provision for the country and also in terms of the consultation will he just clarify that that will cover all the aspects in particular in terms of revenue funding that local authorities and particularly rural local authorities have raised today and I hope in that spirit many of these measures will be taken forward to achieve the growth in childcare that we all so clearly want to achieve Ian Gray very much, Presiding Officer, I have to agree with Mr Scott that this has been a very consensual debate it's really achieved almost a kind of meta-consensus where almost every speaker has commented on how consensual the debate is and agreed on that it's also a debate that we've had many times really before Liz Smith mentioned this at the start I think she said that we debated this topic eight times in this session and I think that can mean one of two things either means that this is of great importance to the Government and to all of us or it can mean that the Government sees an opportunity for self-congratulation in this topic and I'd rather think there's a bit of both if I'm honest in the choice of topic because we do agree because we do agree just how important early years and childcare are and there are two strands to that which different speakers I think have explored to different degrees the first and the minister made a lot of this quite correctly is the attainment gap Daniel Johnson I think illustrated perhaps most graphically when he talked about those different vocabularies 3,000 words and 5,000 words at the time of going to school that is a gap which we will struggle and probably never succeed in closing in later life so it does make enormous sense as the minister said to try and address it in early years the other strand of course is in allowing parents to go to work so that family income can be improved and that women in particular can resume their career and face, not face the disadvantages which Jenny Gilruth talked about in her contribution so we agree on how important all this is but actually across most of the chamber there's quite a lot of agreement on the problems that we face at the moment as well the difficulty of access and many members have talked about the work of fair funding for kids and I think we should simply acknowledge what a sterling job they have done in bringing over a number of years the reality of difficulties that parents have found in accessing their entitlement to 600 hours of funded nursery place they really have done a tremendous job and their key figure that some people have referred to because of nursery places are provided as half a day I think graphically illustrates how unsuitable that is for many who are trying to find a way to work Monica Lennon illustrated as well how difficult it can be for those again, usually young women trying to get to college and to study to do that because of the difficulty of accessing childcare we've talked a lot or many have talked about quality and if we are going to close that attainment gap of course this is not just about looking after children but it is about education and early years education and the minister talked about the commitment which was made some time ago now by the First Minister to have additional nursery teachers in the areas of deprivation if we don't open the champagne for that perhaps it's because we should remind him that the promise was that that would be something which would be available in every nursery class how come though it is that it falls rather short of what had originally been promised much of the contribution from the Government benches of course has been around the next stage which is the doubling of free nursery hours and that is a move which we support we absolutely support that it's a good thing it will surely go some way towards helping with some of those issues around half-day provision it may not solve the problem for every family but it must make it better so all of that is good our concern only is that we do need to see a plan of how this is going to be funded and how it's going to be delivered and the problems we've had with the 600 hours I think largely were because it was not really well thought out and planned out with councils in terms of its delivery and that's been the basis of some of the problems so it's welcome that we start with a blueprint early on about how the next phase is going to be delivered and in the passing in mentioning the delivery by councils in fairness to minister he didn't labour the point from the funding review about council spending less than they've been given on childcare but I just make the point when councils faced a reduction of 500 million pounds in their budgets in recent years I really think that that is an argument that's been prosecuted in a glass house using stones and they should probably stay away from it but our key point is the one that Daniel Johnson made which is the blueprint is also an opportunity to begin to plan beyond the provision of free hours for three and four year olds and some two year olds we have a blueprint for that already because the enormously important commission for childcare reform produced a suggestion and that suggestion was simply that the need for childcare which encompasses the minister's own four principles of quality availability flexibility and affordability does not end at age five it does not end at age five and no matter how good families childcare is for three and four year olds for too many of them that comes to a crushing end when the first child goes to school we do need access to all year round all age wraparound childcare much of that may not be able to be provided completely free but we should look at how we could provide it and ensure that it can be provided in a way which families can afford Mr Scott is right that is an aspiration and I'm sorry I have to disagree with Mr Dornan because the needs of parents the reality of parents and families lives cannot be simply curtailed to suit the convenience of the Scottish Government's current plans no matter how welcome they may be this is what this is what parents and families in Scotland need we're not saying deliver it by next year we're saying let's start planning now how it can be delivered and a significant step forward which I think we can afford would be today to support our amendment and commit to providing a breakfast club in every school in Scotland in Wales 96% of schools have a breakfast club so it must be possible in Scotland the figure is 72% it would cost something like £10 million, £13 million at most compared to the cost of a childcare policy compared to the cost of a childcare policy which is going to cost over £300 million per year that would be a sign to parents in Scotland that the Government is listening to what they need in the long term that would be a great thing to do and all we have to do is support the Labour amendment this evening Colin Ross Thompson around 8 minutes please Mr Thompson thank you very much and to start I'd like to declare an interest as a councillor on Aberdeen City Council and refer members to my register of interests in her opening remarks my colleague Liz Smith acknowledged the Scottish Government's laudable aim to expand childcare yet challenged the Scottish Government around which is simply that the provision of these places remains a significant problem particularly around flexible access for parents local authorities will have to deliver the Scottish Government's expansion of free childcare to 1140 hours by 2020 and we have to be conscious of the real challenges that they will face to meet the expectations of the Government from my own discussions with senior education officials it is clear that there is a very genuine concern about the ability of local authorities to deliver this commitment within the timelines available in Aberdeen alone with 3,500 new places having to be secured it will require 15 new nursery provisions to be built and to achieve the deadline work on these facilities should really already have started last year this is even more challenging when councils like Aberdeen face difficulties in relation to access to land to ensure that these provisions are built and in the right place further the programme for government states that 20,000 qualified practitioners will be required however in the northeast we are already struggling from a chronic shortage of workforce in both teaching and nursery Aberdeen in particular is struggling to recruit new nursery nurses staff predictions show that to meet the requirements of expansion the city will need an additional 67 qualified practitioners even if all 267 of them were in training right now for their qualification they would only be finished by 2020 therefore not qualified in time further with colleges having their funding cut resulting in a reduction in part time in flexible places the Scottish government is not making it easy for local authorities like Aberdeen to meet this challenge in the northeast have been clear with me that there needs to be a rapid expansion of private early years education however the government's current policy does not provide enough incentives for providers to move into the market as Ruth Davidson announced in February 2015 those of us sitting on this side of the chamber advocate parental choice and flexibility within the childcare system this involves a childcare credit so that parents can choose where and when they will use their entitlement for funded nursery provision in order to support them to combine work and family commitments Deputy Presiding Officer we learned this morning of a proposed child account to ensure that money follows a child rather than the institution this is welcome and if the Scottish Government is truly committed to it then this will show that Scottish Conservative arguments on flexibility and freeing up the system have finally sunk in though those of us on this side of the chamber are sceptical that he leopard has truly changed its spots Annie Wells in her contribution touched on a number of very important issues what Scotland's young people need is not mere political tokenism they need support and early intervention drawing on from her own experiences in Glasgow Annie talked about the need to support disadvantaged children and troubled families further reflecting on being a working mother to all her life and he made a convincing case for why flexibility in childcare is so crucial I welcome Daniel Johnson's remarks when he talked about flexible childcare being critical in helping mothers back into work and also that we have to ensure that parents who are able to get back to work have that support in childcare because if we don't then in his own words we've barely even started Tavish Scott interestingly spoke to the candidate back in 1999 when Conservatives talked about vouchers even then so I do thank Mr Scott for reminding the chamber that the Scottish Conservatives are always consistent Julian Martin focused rightly on an economic argument and I absolutely agree about getting people back into work but there does need to be a balance because research does show that children need to spend time with their family to avoid really young children finding themselves spending more time in an institution rather than with their family Bob Doris which was an interesting contribution because it didn't just take the party line but actually brought some sensible challenge to the government raising questions affecting his own constituency and I do hope that ministers were listening and will enact on those Alison Harris one of my other colleagues touched on another extremely important point which is the inequality and injustice with birthday discrimination as Alison describes this it is an illogical approach by the Scottish Government whereby your child is entitled to less care if they are born on the last day of February than if they were born on the first day of March and yes Alison it is just plain daft Jeremy Balfour in his contribution challenged what is a patchwork of childcare for working parents and he raised the issue of underfunding of partner providers who have staff working on very low wages which can compound already existing workforce issues I'll just finish this point and I'll take the minister particularly into the recruitment of new practitioners that is not an enticing proposition I'll take an intervention from the minister I'm grateful to the member for giving way and he'll know that I've said quite clearly in my opening remarks that I want to see the issue around pay in the private sector being addressed however it would be fair to say that the partnership rates are obviously set by local authorities until recently he was the vice-community of education in Aberdeen City Council has he done anything about this? Ross Thompson? Absolutely a waiting allowance and if the Scottish Government to support Aberdeen in a waiting allowance then that's exactly what we'll be able to do so I'm sure the minister will be keen to engage with me and other council colleagues in achieving just that for Aberdeen Deputy Presiding Officer it is absolutely right that we invest in high quality childcare alongside early intervention schemes as we have argued the priority should be 18 hours to a higher proportion of disadvantaged 2 year olds and disadvantaged 1 year olds in the first instance with a gradual expansion of part-time hours to all 1 to 4 year olds Scottish Governments have continuously argued that this is where childcare provision should be primarily targeted and that it should be flexible and responsive to parental demand The Scottish Government needs to radically reform the current system to widen choice enhance flexibility and improve affordability which ensures quality in its delivery Scotland's children deserve the very best start in life by accepting Scottish Conservative calls for reform for a flexible system which allows money to follow the child the Scottish Government can begin to make real progress in narrowing the gap in the life chances of children from poorer and more affluent backgrounds Thank you Deputy Presiding Officer I now call Mark McDonald to close the debate up to 5 o'clock Please minister Thank you very much I think that it would be fair to say that we have had a very interesting debate today with a number of worthy contributions of which I will try and encapsulate as much as possible I think that it would be helpful if I would begin by perhaps outlining the Government's position in relation to the amendments that have been lodged today We are not going to be able to accept the Tory amendment today I think that given that I have stated quite clearly that we need to undertake a consultation which will examine funding models it would be entirely wrong of us to pre-empt that consultation by nailing our colours to a particular funding model I think that Tavish Scott also quite rightly highlighted some of the potential pitfalls that could arise from the approach that the Conservatives are seeking to highlight Perhaps I could just develop a little bit further into my summing up and then we can get going in relation to interventions In terms of the Labour amendment I feel an alarming sense of deja vu in any way as a previous amendment that they sought to lodge where I agreed with much of it but in terms of the points I've made previously around our commitment to both flexibility but also autonomy around local priorities I don't think we can approach this from the universal breakfast club approach that they want us to commit to in terms of their amendment We will be accepting the Liberal Democrat amendment I would just clarify in terms of the 7% figure that relates to the total population of two-year-olds not the eligible population of two-year-olds However, I do accept that we have more work to do in that area but I also think that it's important that we do take time to understand issues around rurality and I think that Tavish Scott made a number of salient points in that regard Iain Gray said that today's debate was somewhat about self-congratulation and I know that Labour members would much prefer that every debate was about self-flagulation but I prefer not for our debates to too heavily mirror Labour party conferences in the chamber In terms of Ross Thompson's points and his summing up I myself visited one of Aberdeen City Council's series of events drop-in sessions for parents to discuss the future of early learning and childcare and the expansion plans that will be required which is taking place in my constituency My discussion with officials was remarkably more optimistic about the opportunities of the expansion than that which has been relayed by Mr Thompson on whether you reflect those through the prism of a half empty glass as he appears to do In terms of the points that have been raised in today's debate Liz Smith and a number of speakers made this point about the issue about a numbers game versus true flexibility and this is not about a numbers game this is about creating the capacity in terms of ours to deliver the flexibility which families are looking for it's not a zero sum game in relation to those Liz Smith, I'm very grateful to the minister for taking the intervention Could you just clarify whether in the consultation one of the issues that the Scottish Government will consider is this child account that was mentioned this morning Is that on the table? Mark McDonald The consultation is going to look at a range of different funding models we're currently in the process of getting the final consultation document developed but it will look at a number of different funding models and will seek views in relation to those but also the potential is there for individuals and organisations to suggest funding models which perhaps are not listed but they might consider more appropriate if they think that there is a different approach that can be taken I think as much as I can say at this particular moment in relation to what the consultation will say on Friday In relation to the points that have been made in the debate though a number of speakers spoke in relation to childminders I am very clear that I see a significant role of childminders in relation to the expansion plans that we're taking forward I'll be speaking at the Scottish Childminders Conference in Dumfirmland on Saturday and I will take the opportunity there to highlight what I see as a pivotal role that childminders can play in terms of helping us to achieve our ambitions In terms of the points made by the convener of the education committee seeking further information around the data that was captured in the financial review I will write to the committee as requested and would welcome the committee's input in terms of the on-going consultation In terms of the points that were made by Annie Wells she covered a much broader spectrum than simply the focus around the early years expansion and she spoke about the Conservative policy around developing a crisis family fund and I say that this Government has a range of policies specifically designed around early intervention and the point for us is to deal with issues before they get to the stage of crisis rather than having a fund in place to deal with crises that have emerged that's the approach that this Government will take Gail Ross highlighted the situation in Highland and the projects that have been developed there she also spoke about the work of Cala and I'll be addressing their conference in Inverness tomorrow morning and have visited them and I'm very encouraged by the work that they're doing in terms of developing workforce for early learning and childcare In relation to issues around gender, Gillian Martin I think made quite a very telling contribution in relation to tapping into the resource of women and enterprise I think there's a dual flexibility that needs to be considered here there is both the flexibility around childcare and the provision that we put in place for employers to look at the working practices that they offer to their employees around the flexibility that could be provided there which might help to address some of the issues which arise in these areas Daniel Johnson put this week that a number of the numbers in terms of take up register over 100% which I think is worrying and I think Gillian Martin made a very good point about the need for productivity data will the minister commit to rectifying the data in the report this week and some of Gillian Martin's points of data Mark McDonald In terms of data, we are confident that we are capturing data that tells us the picture of what is happening there are some issues that Daniel Johnson has highlighted around where specific local authorities are perhaps reporting children on more than one occasion but we think that from within that we can capture what is happening in terms of the provision uptake In terms of the points around the productivity data obviously that is not a ministerial responsibility of mine but I will commit to consulting with other ministerial colleagues around whether that is possible and obviously if it is then we will look to take that forward Alison Johnstone spoke about the issue that confined people she mentioned the work of Alan Sinclair and said that it can often be a necessity rather than choice that leads to children being in a childcare setting The reverse is also true in that it is often a necessity rather than choice that leads to parents to the workforce because of inability to access childcare and that is one of the issues that we are keen to address as part of the work that we are taking forward Willie Coffey asked for us to ensure that opportunities were there around play and outdoor activity He spoke about one hour a week to run the daily mile I'm not sure if that's measured on how long it takes Mr Coffey to run a mile but nonetheless I will say that we are absolutely committed to ensuring that children have opportunities for outdoor learning and also play-based learning very much built into what we are offering with early learning and childcare There are a number of members Jeremy Balfour in particular who raised specific individual cases and I say to members that if they cannot gain satisfaction through raising these with individual local authorities I am of course willing as a minister to look into what I can do Bob Doris mentioned a case that he had taken to me where we were able to instigate discussion between local authorities around their cross boundary arrangements Rona Mackay highlighted the good example of Lullaby Lane Nursery She mentioned that it was the cabinet secretary visiting I don't want to be the bearer of bad news but it's just me she's getting but I'm sure nonetheless it will be an enjoyable visit and I do look forward to having and I do congratulate them on their award-winning success and took the opportunity to do so at the time but she also made the very important point in all of this that quantity without quality means that we will not be delivering the best opportunities for our children and we have to ensure that as well as providing the additional hours and as well as providing the additional flexibility that at the centre point of all of this is the quality of provision that those children receive to ensure that they get the best possible outcomes as a result of our expansion A number of members Mark Griffin and Alison Harris said that they mentioned there are authorities where the 600 hours are not being met they didn't mention which authorities those were if they have evidence of authorities that are not meeting that entitlement our evidence would suggest that that entitlement is being met but if they have evidence of local authorities that are not delivering on that please do write to me I will take it up with those local authorities and find out what is being done because a number of colleagues Gail Ross for example and other colleagues across the chamber spoke about the flexibility that is being afforded in a number of local authority areas so it is not beyond the wit of local authorities to be able to deliver that flexibility there is an incumbency as part of the 2014 act for them to consult with parents and have due regard to flexibility so if it is happening in some places I don't see that there is a barrier to it happening in others therefore I'm keen to work with members and with local authorities to ensure that we can deliver that flexibility not just in terms of when we deliver the 1140 hours but also when it comes to delivering the here and now in relation to the 600 hour entitlement in general, Presiding Officer there has been a very positive debate there are obviously a number of points that have been raised and I just want to take a moment just before we finish to pay particular credit to Bob Doris who I think highlighted a number of issues that need to be addressed in terms of the continuation of partnership and I think that is something that we can do some work around in ensuring that there is maybe that long term certainty for parents that perhaps doesn't currently exist but he also highlighted a number of positive examples from within his own constituency where there is thinking outside the box taking place in terms of potential hub arrangements and also in potential for looking at new ways of delivering early learning and childcare both in terms of practice but also in terms of environment so I would pay tribute to Bob Doris for that and I thank him for taking those points to the chamber as always I remain committed Presiding Officer to listening to what members have to say in the consultation which we are launching on Friday next week we will give an opportunity for parties across the chamber and outside of the chamber to feed into the plans that we take forward and I very much look forward to continuing our discussions as we progress to ensure children have that very best start in life Thank you minister that concludes our debate on the expansion of early learning and childcare provision the next item of business is consideration of a parliamentary bureau motion I would ask Joe Fitzpatrick to move motion number 1693 on names and remits of mandatory committees formally moved the question will be put at decision time and there are five questions to be put as a result of today's business I wish to remind members that if the amendment to the name of Liz Smith is accepted the amendment in the name of Daniel Johnson falls the first question is that amendment 1703.1 in the name of Liz Smith which seeks to amend motion 1703 in the name of Mark McDonald be agreed are we all agreed we are not agreed Parliament will move to a vote and members may cast their votes now the result of the vote on amendment 1703.1 in the name of Liz Smith is as follows yes 30 no 92 there were no abstentions the amendment is therefore not agreed the next question is that amendment 1703.3 in the name of Daniel Johnson be agreed are we all agreed we are not agreed Parliament will move to a vote and members may cast their votes now the result of the vote on Daniel Johnson amendment is yes 32 no 90 there were no abstentions the amendment is therefore not agreed the next question is that amendment 1703.2 in the name of Tavish Scott be agreed are we all agreed no we are not agreed Parliament will move to a Parliament will move to a vote and members may cast their votes now the result of the vote on amendment 1703.2 in the name of Tavish Scott is yes 32 no 30 there were no abstentions the amendment is therefore agreed the next question is that motion 1703 in the name of Mark McDonald as amended is therefore agreed are we all agreed we are not agreed Parliament will move to a vote and members may cast their votes now the result of the vote on motion 1703 in the name of Mark McDonald as amended is yes 92 no 30 there were no abstentions the next question is that motion 1693 in the name of Joseph Patrick as amended to be agreed are we all agreed we are agreed that concludes decision time and I close this meeting