Oral evidence: School holiday poverty, HC 2459
Oral evidence, 3 July 2019.
Ian Mearns
Good morning, and welcome. This is a joint meeting of the Department for Work and Pensions and Education Select Committees, and we are here to look at the issue of, among other things, holiday hunger and the effect that school holidays have on families where their children are in receipt of free school meals. Can I ask that the panel introduce yourselves, please, beginning with Dawn? If you can just say who you are and where you are from, please.
Dawn Taplin
Hi. I am Dawn Taplin and I am from the Wirral. I am with Birkenhead North Development Trust, St James Centre.
Anne Newbould
Hi. My name is Anne Newbould. I am also from the Wirral, and I also work at Neo Community Centre.
Karen Rotheram
Hello, I am Karen Rotheram. I am also from the Wirral, with the St James Centre.
Nichola Salvato
I am Nichola Salvato. I am from Sussex, and I am with Save the Children.
Ian Mearns
Thank you very much indeed. We will kick off with a question for the whole panel. What have you found to be the biggest challenges for you and your family during the school holidays?
Dawn Taplin
Money, activities, feeding your child while you are off in holidays, and childcare.
Ian Mearns
Can anyone add anything to that?
Karen Rotheram
Childcare, money worries.
Nichola Salvato
Childcare. Childcare costs. They are fluctuating. It is quite difficult to manage during term time but it can really increase enormously during the holidays. My child is school-aged so it is not full-time, but it can increase to more than £1,000 per month for childcare costs. I claim Universal Credit and work. I was working full-time and I have reduced my hours to try to manage those costs, but it is coming up with the full upfront costs as the rate goes up and down.
Ian Mearns
How easy is it for you to manage without free school meals for your children during the school holidays?
Dawn Taplin
It is not. I have to go to the St James Centre and they help. They have Looby’s Lunches, so that provides a meal for my son. They also have Feeding Birkenhead, so we also have to go there as well. I would not manage without them.
Ian Mearns
Is that the same with everyone?
Anne Newbould
Yes.
Nichola Salvato
We are not entitled to free school meals.
Ian Mearns
Has anyone needed any support to cope without free school meals for children during school holidays? It goes without saying, doesn’t it?
Dawn Taplin
Yes.
Ian Mearns
Have there been times when you really were wondering just where the next lunch is going to come from?
Dawn Taplin
Yes, there have. Yes.
Karen Rotheram
Obviously, you have to manage your money. Some weeks are worse than others, when you have bills coming out, other things, and you are literally looking to see—you have to add more money on to a food bill. It becomes quite stressful, very stressful.
Dawn Taplin
In the holidays you are spending more because the child is not in school and you are entitled to the free meals, so you are doing a bigger shop, and children need activities. You are spending more that way.
Anne Newbould
They eat more at home, don’t they?
Dawn Taplin
Yes.
Anne Newbould
They eat more because they think it is there, so they are eating all day, whereas at school they would have their set times of eating. Trying to get the odd treat as well is hard.
Chair
Can I just ask, how many times are you hungry, particularly during the summer holidays? Do you go hungry to make sure your children are fed?
Karen Rotheram
As a parent, you do eat less because obviously children are the priority. I know times when I have sort of had less to eat because I want them to have what they should have during the day.
Anne Newbould
Yes, I will agree with that. Last summer—
Dawn Taplin
Yes, I would agree.
Anne Newbould
You feed them first, and then whatever is left you have.
Chair
Is there always enough left over for you?
Anne Newbould
There is always cereal, isn’t there?
Chair
You fill up with cereals?
Nichola Salvato
Although we do not get free school meals, because I am challenged by the childcare costs, definitely something that I do is I do not buy such good-quality food. Like the ladies said, cereal or cheese, eggs, bread. You are managing on the basics.
Lucy Powell
Thank you so much for coming. We all have kids and it is a real nightmare, isn’t it, in the school holidays? Can I just ask, are your children—you three because you have already said—school-age or pre-school?
Dawn Taplin
Yes, my child is school-age. Yes, yours is.
Anne Newbould
Yes.
Karen Rotheram
Yes. One is school-age, and one has left school, who is waiting to go to college in September. He has been off school since June, so that is a big gap to fill until he goes to college in September.
Lucy Powell
That is a nightmare, isn’t it? Yes. An absolutely horrendous teenager probably as well. I have one of those. For you, is it possible for you to pay for holiday clubs and things like that in the school holidays, the long summer holiday?
Karen Rotheram
We are lucky that we have a centre that does activities for a very, very low cost. For example, I have a son who likes football, but you are looking at £40 or £50 a week for him to go to a football school for a week, and it is just not possible.
Dawn Taplin
We cannot afford that.
Lucy Powell
You cannot afford that. With the school holidays and having to manage the kids in the school holidays, is that something that is a massive barrier for you to work?
Dawn Taplin
Yes, it is. I think if we had not had the centre, we would not be able to do it. I rely on the centre quite a lot.
Anne Newbould
For me, obviously I help run a centre now, but last summer, thankfully, because my child is a looked after child so I am a foster parent—
Lucy Powell
Well done.
Anne Newbould
There are not many benefits to that, I will be honest, but one was that we got part-funded placement in the Hive, Youth Zone in Wirral, which was really useful because I had to carry on working over summer part-time. It fitted in around her and my hours of working because we were both there at the same time, so it did not eat into her and my time. I could not have afforded to work and have her looked after.
Lucy Powell
Sure. I know it is a false choice in a way, but what would help you the most, do you think? Some free activities that have meals included, or some extra money over the summer?
Dawn Taplin
Yes. Extra money to put in towards childcare and activities would help a great deal.
Lucy Powell
Yes, or a mixture of those free—
Dawn Taplin
Yes, or having them available. Yes.
Lucy Powell
Maybe the school could run them.
Dawn Taplin
Yes, because I work in a school, term time. My child is in the school, so I have applied for one in the centre, but now I could not do that job because I work term time. It is like overcounting the days. I cannot be here and I cannot be there. I am trying to get a bit more work in the holidays, so it crosses over one another.
Lucy Powell
Yes. Do you get the Universal Credit childcare component as well?
Dawn Taplin
Yes.
Lucy Powell
How does that work for you? Is that working okay?
Dawn Taplin
Yes. It is not great because I might get paid five hours a week but I am doing 25 hours voluntary a week while my son is in the school. I do more voluntary work than paid work. I am a single mum at home so I have nobody for childcare, so it is a bit of a nightmare. It is not good.
Lucy Powell
Do you get the Universal Credit childcare component? Would you need that?
Karen Rotheram
I just think the whole thing is a nightmare. A lot of things you have to pay for upfront. You have the six weeks’ holiday, but then you have the added pressure of thinking, “Well, how can I save up X amount to put them into something?”
Anne Newbould
You are in debt before you start.
Karen Rotheram
Yes, it is like another debt. Obviously you get it back, but you have to—
Lucy Powell
Yes, and then you have to buy the uniform as well. At the same time of year, you have to buy the uniform. Do you get any help with uniform costs?
Karen Rotheram
No.
Dawn Taplin
No. My circumstances changed in October, so I went to a one-stop shop, and they stopped my money and put me on Universal Credit and told me to wait six weeks for my money. While I was waiting, they told me to go to the food bank because I have a nine-year-old son to feed, and I had just started work so I had to wait a month for my wage. I went to the food bank and the lady asked me, “Have you got your bank statements?” I said, “Pardon?” “Have you got your bank statements so we can help you?” We were sat there asking for help, and they wanted me to prove it, and I thought that is terrible. I had gone to a one-stop shop for a voucher for a food bank, and they asked for all my bank details to prove I had no money in my account, when I am sat there asking for help. I thought, “How is that help?” Then they told me at the Jobcentre, “You have to wait six weeks so you can have a loan. You can have a bit of money now, £900 upfront, if you pay £100 back a month”. I could not afford to pay £100 back, so then you are straight away—
Anne Newbould
You are in debt.
Dawn Taplin
Yes.
Lucy Powell
Yes. I suppose I had not thought about that. Being transferred on to Universal Credit just for the summer holiday would be an absolute triple-whammy, wouldn’t it?
Dawn Taplin
They stop every payment, yes. Then you go to the food bank and they do not help you.
Chair
It was not the food bank that did not help you, it was going to the one-stop shop, before you got the voucher.
Dawn Taplin
The one-stop shop. The lady behind the counter said, “Can I have your bank statements to prove you have no money?” In the end, only because I know a community centre, I went through the line of using them to get a voucher, but I thought people out there do not know they will help, and they should not treat you like that when you are there to ask for help, and I needed it.
Thelma Walker
Thanks very much for coming in and talking to us. You have touched on this already in terms of keeping your kids occupied during the holidays and extracurricular, as you call it, activities. If you were to compare what your children can do and what they are offered during the summer holidays, or any holidays indeed, compared to when they are at school, what would you say the big difference is?
Karen Rotheram
A huge difference. The primary school that my son goes to operates a breakfast club for a very minimal amount. They have after-school activities nearly every day, so he is able to participate in after-school activities. That helps tremendously in term time because you do not have that worry. You can put him into school and pick him up later.
Thelma Walker
What do you notice is the difference in your child? Do you notice anything in their behaviour?
Dawn Taplin
Yes, their behaviour changes. I think my son’s behaviour changes in the holidays because he is not—
Karen Rotheram
They do not have the structure.
Dawn Taplin
Yes, they do not have that routine like in school. There are no activities if you do not have the money to take them, so it makes a big difference.
Karen Rotheram
I think children like structure. They like to know when they get up, breakfast, and what are we doing at dinnertime, teatime? They like structure.
Thelma Walker
Would you say that they miss some of their peers, some of their friends?
Dawn Taplin
Yes.
Karen Rotheram
Definitely.
Anne Newbould
That is where it was really useful for me last year having the Hive, because my little one knew that you went there at 8.00 am. She had her breakfast, she saw her pals and stuff, and then we finished at 1.00 pm. That was every day, so she knew at least in the morning and it kept that getting-up-in-the-morning, like you do for school, routine going. It was easier when we went back into school in September for her to just carry on and go back into school.
Thelma Walker
I know we have all the money issues and all of that, but would you say there is additional stress on you as mums because you feel perhaps guilty that you cannot offer—
Dawn Taplin
Yes.
Anne Newbould
I often feel guilty. My little one will say to me, “Can we do that and do that?” I say, “Not this week, babe, because we haven’t quite got the pennies yet, but when we have, then we will”.
Thelma Walker
Would you say the schools are supportive, maybe through that period of time, signposting you to the right support?
Anne Newbould
Some are.
Karen Rotheram
Yes. The primary school my son goes to does work closely with the local centre, so they do advertise what the local centre does. It is very community-based.
Thelma Walker
Do any of your schools actually give out the vouchers? Do you use any vouchers?
Dawn Taplin
No, you do not get any. They do not help you. They do not help you in that way, do they, the schools? No.
Thelma Walker
Would that help? In my area, we have gone up from 21 schools registering to 34 this year, so schools register and have vouchers that they give out so there is some support. Would that help?
Anne Newbould
I imagine it would, if there was more access. Like Dawn was saying, it is how it is dealt with. Myself, I have had to get a food bank voucher when—
Dawn Taplin
It is the way people judge you when you are asked, when you have to stand up and you are going to ask for help, and then it is, “Bring your bank statements in”. We would not be here if I did not need the help.
Thelma Walker
Exactly, yes. Are there any activity programmes that have been helpful? Have you participated in anything?
Anne Newbould
Sometimes when we have big event days in the parks and stuff. I know, myself, when I used to run groups in our childcare centre, a lot of families used to come to ours. We used to do two event days. Parents would come to that and we would provide a picnic and stuff, a teddy bears’ picnic. It was a way to get healthy food in. That kind of thing does help, but it is only a little snapshot in a day or two days a week. If they do not have access to anything else, it is a long time in between.
Thelma Walker
Do your children talk to you about how they are feeling during the summer holidays? Children sometimes close down a bit, don’t they? Do they talk to you?
Karen Rotheram
When I had a nearly full-time job, I had to send my youngest son to relations, which was two hours away, because that was my childcare, and he absolutely hated it because he was away from everyone. He was away from home. He did not see his friends. He does talk to me.
Anne Newbould
There is a worry about this social isolation.
Dawn Taplin
Karen, didn’t you say they wanted your 12-year-old to look after the other child? The other child is losing his childhood to look after the other one.
Karen Rotheram
Yes. That is why I went to relations because the Jobcentre said to me, “Why can’t your 12-year-old look after the eight-year-old?” which I think is absolutely ridiculous.
Dawn Taplin
He is still a child.
Karen Rotheram
He is still a child himself, so that is why he was sent to relations for a few weeks just to ease the pressure.
Anne Newbould
In order for you to get the support and help that you need financially or whatever, you have to be shown to be working a certain number of hours, but in order to do that you have to have childcare or somebody whom you can trust to look after your child. There is an impact also for your self-esteem and everything. I have always worked, and I have always worked full-time. Now I am a full-time foster carer. I am not going to stop that. This is what I do, I work, but I have to work where it is flexible around meetings and everything else. I do not want the child that I am looking after to think, “Oh, it is all right, you do not have to work”.
Thelma Walker
I think it is the earlier point I made about the fact that it impacts on you.
Dawn Taplin
Yes, stress, feeling guilty.
Anne Newbould
Then when they say, “Oh, my mates have been to so-and-so”, and you are like, “We cannot go that day because I have to work”. That was all I seemed to say last summer, “I am sorry, sweetheart, I have to work”.
Chair
Nichola, would you like to come in on this?
Nichola Salvato
Yes, I guess so. I am very similar to these ladies. I work as a benefits adviser. What the lady was saying at the end about the food banks: I often refer people to food banks, and that is really not uncommon to find that there is an issue about having to prove. They are not as easy as you might think to access. I definitely see that. Being a lone-parent family is a challenge in itself but working as well is stressful. You have to be resilient, determined, organised. You really have to be on all of it. You want the compensation for the sacrifices that you are making, the guilty and worry that you are not around for your children. You want there to be some compensation that you are not still financially excluded. You are doing it because you want to support your family, you want to provide for them and you want them to be able to access and have the experiences that other children have.
Thelma Walker
Would you appreciate the schools having a bit more of a say or support?
Nichola Salvato
I think so, yes. For example, there is often an offer from school, “If you struggle to pay for this activity or that activity, talk to us”. Nobody wants to stand up and say, “I am poor”. Nobody wants to be seen like that. It is not a comfortable thing to have to do. If there was something that you did not have to stand up and single yourself out as that person or that family, that might be useful.
Anne Newbould
There are expenses over the year. We have just had to pay for a leaving school sweatshirt, which is great and I would not deny her, and that is fine, but then also school photos, again, with the whole year. It is year 6. If there was a way of them saying, “This is going to happen then, this is going to happen then”, from September, if you just put £1 in a week, then at least you have some of the money towards it or whatever. If everybody did it or everybody was given that offer, so it was not just to people who are poor or not well off, if everybody was given that option to have a little tontine where they saved up for things—
Dawn Taplin
Yes, like a trip, £95 for one night, and your child comes out with, “I want to go on that trip, all my friends are going”. I cannot afford that trip for £95.
Emma Hardy
Thanks everyone for coming in this morning. I just wanted to ask about that myself because I used to be a teacher. In the school I was at, they used to cover the costs for people who could not. I just wondered if, in your experience, as you have just mentioned, Dawn, have your children had to miss out on residential trips, on music lessons or on extracurricular activities because of the expense of them?
Anne Newbould
Some of the expenses that occur for my looked after child fortunately are covered, but not all of them. I still have to find quite a lot of money to cover certain things. School will get a certain amount of money in relation to her, but they are not very forthcoming in saying, “Right, it is okay, and we will use that money for it”. I have to—
Dawn Taplin
Unless you ask for help and you say, “I am struggling as a parent. Would you be able to do this?” They would possibly put a little tiny bit in a pot but they would not pay for the trip, so your child would not be going on that trip. I would have to say to Thomas, “Sorry, we cannot afford it”.
Emma Hardy
Is that the same for not just the overnight ones but the daytrips as well and when they have the music lessons and the football practice?
Dawn Taplin
Yes, you have to pay it all online. Yes.
Emma Hardy
Your children are missing out on these experiences?
Dawn Taplin
Yes. He has missed out on a trip last year, yes. He couldn’t go.
Emma Hardy
Would you prefer a system where, if your children are qualified for pupil premium and the school is getting this money, they would just automatically cover this?
Dawn Taplin
Yes. Yes, we would. That would be fantastic, yes, because he was let down. He was crying. All his friends were going on it, you know.
Anne Newbould
That would help no end. I know obviously pupil premium has certain criteria and it is for certain things, but it would be handy as a parent or whatever to know what those things are and what is and is not covered.
Dawn Taplin
Yes, what we have. Yes.
Emma Hardy
The school will get pupil premium money for your children.
Dawn Taplin
Yes, they do. Yes.
Emma Hardy
I am just thinking of ways that we could take away you having to ask, whereas if you qualified for pupil premium you would, therefore, have free trips. Would that be better?
Karen Rotheram
Yes, that would be better.
Anne Newbould
Rather than the child missing out on a trip, I will miss out on something else that I do not need.
Chris Stephens
My question is going to be particularly around the six-week summer period and the cost of school uniforms as they are growing or they are moving school from the wee school to the big school. It is just to ask you about that, about the costs of that and if there is any assistance that is out there that you have had to rely on. School uniform banks are on the rise for my constituency as well. It was just to ask about that.
Karen Rotheram
That is another huge pressure in the six weeks’ holidays, getting the uniforms. Like you say, especially if they are going from primary to senior school, you are talking in the hundreds of pounds, and you do not get any help for it.
Anne Newbould
Yes, I would say the same. I have been quite organised, unusually for me, this year. Once I knew what school we were going to, I started getting bits in. Each time I went shopping, so to Asda or whatever, I would get a couple of shirts or whatever. I have built it up. Fortunately, a friend of mine’s daughter had started at the school that my little one is going to, and then they moved, so we have brand new blazers and everything else. That saved me a massive amount of money.
Lucy Powell
Quite a few places do grants and things for school uniforms, but clearly not where you are.
Anne Newbould
You have to fit certain criteria to be able to get that. Quite often you do not.
Nichola Salvato
It is a discretionary thing, whether your local authority runs it or not.
Lucy Powell
It is discretionary, yes. Sorry, just to quickly follow on from that, if a secondary school had a particularly expensive uniform, so it was a certain type of blazer that is £60 or whatever and you had some certain type of trouser and certain type of shoes, would that put you off choosing that school for your child? Would the cost of the uniform be a decision for you in terms of which secondary school to pick, do you think? Have you ever thought about that? Some people have said to us about that.
Karen Rotheram
Yes. There are some schools in our area where the uniforms are very overpriced. You are looking at £80 to £100 just for a blazer and a pair of trousers or something.
Anne Newbould
They only use certain suppliers, so you have to go to that one.
Lucy Powell
Some people have said to us that some schools do that deliberately so that only posh kids go there. Have you ever thought about that?
Anne Newbould
There is certainly an element of that, I believe.
Chair
Do you think all schools should be compelled to draw their school uniforms from supermarkets?
Dawn Taplin
Yes. That would help, wouldn’t it? It would lower the cost.
Karen Rotheram
Yes, definitely.
Ruth George
Thank you very much and thank you for being so honest and open with us about your situations. It really helps us to be able to make the best recommendations we can.
Dawn Taplin
Can I just ask what your next step is now, then? Us coming in here and talking. What will happen?
Chair
We will come to that at the end and we will tell you.
Dawn Taplin
Super.
Chair
Thanks for giving me notice.
Ruth George
One thing I was going to ask, having been a single mum myself, summer holidays do have a big pressure on you. My local council says that it sees the rent arrears going up in the school holidays, and August is its worst month for payment. How do the summer holidays impact on your finances then for the rest of the year? Does it mean that you get behind?
Anne Newbould
You are paying it off for the rest of the year, aren’t you? Then there is Christmas, so you have another debt then. Then there is, say, a birthday or whatever, and it is just this constant cycle of trying to play catch-up, which you are never going to do. You are never going to catch up.
Dawn Taplin
You are constantly taking one bit of money out of one pot and putting it the other, but there is no money left. Do you know what I mean?
Karen Rotheram
Then you are in debt, which most people are in anyway.
Anne Newbould
I do not worry about it anymore, debt.
Ruth George
Do you find it gets worse over the summer, then?
Dawn Taplin
Yes.
Karen Rotheram
Yes, it does, especially the six weeks’ holiday. Your mind is constantly thinking about money for the children, money for this, money for that.
Dawn Taplin
You are stressed, yes.
Anne Newbould
You are not stressed because they are home. You are not stressed because they are off school. That is the nice bit. Do you know what I mean? That is nice, and you can say, “Come on, we will just go out to the park” or whatever. It is that added pressure, “My mates have been to this” or whatever. You are just like, “No chance”.
Chair
Nichola, would you like to come in?
Nichola Salvato
I am working, so my child is going to be looked after during the summer holidays. I have had to reduce my working hours to manage the upfront costs for childcare but nevertheless I think for August it is going to be around £750 that I have to find on top of my rent, food, travel costs, all of that. I am very conscious that even though I have reduced my hours, which has reduced my childcare costs and will give me some time during the holidays with my daughter, I am not going to have the funds to be able to do the things that I would like to do with her in that small amount of time.
Anne Newbould
It is trying to balance it out, isn’t it?
Nichola Salvato
Yes, and the impact of that on her. She is going to be in childcare that she does not want to be in anyway. She wants Mum around. She wants to be seeing her friends and for us to be doing things, so she is not going to be able to do that. Then, with the little bit of time that I do have, there are just not going to be funds available for us to do the activities that would be really nice and that I think, when you are working hard and doing all that juggling, you want to be able to do at the end of it.
Ruth George
What would you like to see Government doing to improve the situation of managing to get by over the school holidays? Is it around childcare and the cost of it and the upfront costs? Is it around provision, around support to work?
Nichola Salvato
I just think for you to be able to access childcare costs in advance would resolve the difficulty for me, I really do. To have to find between £500 and £1,500 in advance is just—and it is ongoing. It is not just at the beginning of when you start a job. It is ongoing. Every six weeks you have some kind of holiday, whether it be one week off the children have or two weeks off. Half a term lasts six or seven weeks, so every six or seven weeks you are doubling your childcare costs. That would change my situation entirely, not having to find that. For it to be funded in some way, whether it is a direct payment—I know the aim of Universal Credit is to get people responsible for managing their own money and so on. If they want to make the payment directly in the way that they do with tax credits or directly to the provider, although I know that there are issues with providers and whether there are enough places and where the direct payments are, that would really resolve the situation I think for working families.
Chair
To manage your own money, you have to have the money in the first place.
Nichola Salvato
Yes, exactly. Absolutely.
Anne Newbould
Exactly. You cannot manage money that you do not have, can you?
Nichola Salvato
No.
Ruth George
It would not actually cost Government any more. It is the same amount of money. You just get it in advance rather than in arrears.
Nichola Salvato
Exactly, when we need it.
Dawn Taplin
We cannot pay for a school trip, so we are not going to be able to pay for childcare. Let’s be honest.
Anne Newbould
It is simplifying the system. It is so complicated. I just do not bother because there is no point. It is so complicated. I manage on my own, thanks.
Karen Rotheram
The system is very complicated and you do not really get it explained to you. When they are helping you to look for work, I think they should look at your circumstances more: how old are your children? What hours can you work around your children, around holidays? We all want to work, but I do not think we get the help and they do not explain things to you. They just say, “Right, look for work. There is a job. Bye”.
Nichola Salvato
Yes. I think as well there is an idea that the flexible support funds and the budgeting advances and things like that are a solution, but the flexible support fund, for example, is only available to single parents who have been working for less than six months. For childcare costs, that is. There are many families on low incomes where both parents work and need help through Universal Credit. For example, in my situation I have been working for longer than six months so I was not able to access the flexible support fund. I have perhaps once or twice seen people at the beginning of a Universal Credit claim not take out the advance, so you cannot access any budgeting loans or anything like that if you are still paying off an advance. It is very rare that people do not take some amount of money at the beginning of a claim. You have a year before you can access any kind of budgeting loan or anything like that.
Dawn Taplin
Then you are £100 a month in debt, too, because you have signed that form. £100 coming straight out of your Universal Credit once it is sorted, then you are in rent arrears for your rent or whatever. It just goes in a vicious circle then.
Nichola Salvato
Being a working parent, as I said before, is really challenging. You really do have to be determined and resilient. We all want to be the best parent that we can be. On top of all that juggle of trying to meet your children’s needs, trying to give what you have to at work and all of that, on top of that you have the added stress of poverty even though you are working. Your ability to parent well and be emotionally available, even if you do not have any money to do anything, just being at home and messing about and having fun and having a good relationship with your kids, all of it is just massively—
Karen Rotheram
It can affect your mental health tremendously.
Nichola Salvato
Absolutely, yes.
Karen Rotheram
It really can affect your mental health and how you are thinking, which is not good when you are with your children.
Ruth George
I was just wondering if it had got worse under Universal Credit to tax credits, which might just follow on. I think your children are not very young, so you have been in this situation for a while. Is it different under Universal Credit to how it was under tax credits?
Nichola Salvato
Absolutely.
Dawn Taplin
Yes.
Karen Rotheram
Awful. Awful. Absolutely awful.
Nichola Salvato
Even though under tax credits your entitlement was lower in terms of percentage, because you could claim it in advance, because you could declare it, even though you are only getting the 70% as opposed to potentially 85%, it is a world of difference. I would 100 times rather have 70% in advance than 85% but have to find it first. I am not even on a terrible wage. I cannot imagine what it would be like on minimum wage trying to find £1,000 on top of everything else.
Chair
Karen, of the two, if you had a choice, you could have a wish, tax credits or Universal Credit, which system would you choose?
Karen Rotheram
Tax credits, definitely. Universal Credit is awful. Also, you are waiting every month to see how much they are going to pay you.
Anne Newbould
It is a gamble each month.
Karen Rotheram
I do not even know how they work out how they pay you. I really do not.
Dawn Taplin
I think they just click a button and go, “Pay you that today”.
Karen Rotheram
I think they just pick a number. Some months you might be £50 less than the month before. There is no explanation as to what they are doing. Because it is all online now, you send them a message to query something and it might be five weeks before they reply to you. It is awful.
Anne Newbould
You cannot budget.
Chair
Anne, what is the difference between the two for you?
Anne Newbould
For me, with tax credits, you knew what you were getting. You knew what you were getting each month, so you could plan. You could budget. As you say, if you do not have money, you cannot manage it, can you?
Dawn Taplin
You had a set amount.
Anne Newbould
With Universal Credit, for me, like you say, I was advised to apply for it by my social worker. I applied for it. I got an advance, because I literally had no money.
Chair
Anne, so your circumstances did not change? Your social worker advised you to claim Universal Credit?
Anne Newbould
Initially, to get tax credits. They said, “They do not do that anymore. It will be Universal Credit”. “Yes, yes, go get that. That will give you some additional income, blah, blah, blah”. Off I toddled to the Jobcentre and signed up and stuff. I had not done that in 30 years, so even that itself was hard work. I signed up and everything, got an advance eventually and they went through everything. Then, I think about six months down the line, because I was working part-time as a dinner lady, I think I did an extra couple of shifts as a nursery nurse, because that is what I do. Because I was a few quid over, I did not get anything. For about three or four months, I got no support at all, no additional support. I literally got what I get as a foster carer, which is not really a huge amount, to pay a mortgage, a car and feed a child. In the end, they said, “We don’t really know why you’re coming here, Ms Newbould”. I said, “No, I don’t, because I can’t claim any childcare because she’s not my child. I can’t claim any child tax credits because she’s not my child, because I am supposedly getting a fee that covers that, but it doesn’t. I don’t know why I am coming. It is actually costing me more money to come here”.
Chair
How many months has your income been the same as the previous month, when they are paying you something on Universal Credit?
Anne Newbould
I was, in theory, on it and logging on every day and stuff for about 10 months.
Dawn Taplin
You don’t, do you?
Chair
Dawn, what is your experience between tax credits and Universal Credit?
Dawn Taplin
I feel tax credits worked a lot better. Universal Credit, I feel the same. You do not know what you are getting paid. It is not a very good system.
Chair
From your experience, how many months have you had the same money and how many months has it been—
Dawn Taplin
Probably the first month I got paid, I knew what I was getting, and then you do not. That was your advance, so they tell you what you are getting. Other than that, you do not know what you are getting.
Chair
Every month it is—
Dawn Taplin
It is like juggling two balls. You do not know what you are getting. If work asks you, “Would you do a couple of hours?” “Yes, I will do it.” You do it, and then it affects you that way, where you have lost money on your Universal Credit, so then when you are getting paid, you are like—
Anne Newbould
You don’t actually get that money that you have earned. Do you know what I mean?
Dawn Taplin
It goes out of your Universal Credit.
Anne Newbould
You lose that money, those two hours that you have worked. You effectively lose it. It is just bizarre.
Dawn Taplin
It just does not work. It does not work. It is not a very good system.
Ruth George
I was just going to ask if it stops you wanting to take on extra work.
Karen Rotheram
It does. It does.
Ruth George
We were always told by the Government, “Universal Credit is there to help you take on extra work”.
Anne Newbould
That is the slogan, isn’t it? “This is to support you into work.” As I say, I have worked all my life. I know how monthly pay works. I am not daft. It is a big, long month when you have nothing.
Nichola Salvato
When you are not earning lots of money, it is a stretch. The thing with Universal Credit is that the actual, fundamental principle of it is not necessarily a bad thing but there are lots of administrative difficulties. Something that I see is that there is a massive, enormous training need for Jobcentre staff. Once you get your head around how to work out a Universal Credit claim, it is not that difficult but none of that information is passed on to claimants. People are not able to know in advance, work out in advance. One of the things is Universal Credit does not tell you how much you are going to get until seven days before you get it. It is not too tricky to figure it out but this information is not passed on for people. One of the things in terms of stress and poverty and all of that is being able to plan. Although it might work in terms of working for the Government and directly fluctuating according to people’s earnings, it does not work on a stress level for people because there is no way of us knowing or that information is just not widely shared. It is a tricky calculation. It is not that difficult but it is very different from the previous system. There is a bit to it.
Anne Newbould
Also about the system, it is just so impersonal. The idea of doing it online and everything else, I get that. It works quite well, apart from the messaging system. “This has not worked for me. Why isn’t this right?” That can take a while. I get the modern era and everything else, doing it online, but that just makes it so impersonal. When you are writing a message to say, “I haven’t been paid anything. I’ve got no money. What do I do?” and somebody says, “Well, there is not a lot we can do”, that really does not help at all. I cannot fault the people that I went to in the Jobcentre in Birkenhead. They are amazing. The staff there have been brilliant, but, as you say, they can only tell you so much. They only have so much information themselves. If they have not been informed properly what the whole system is, they still do not know. They still do not know how it is going to work.
Dawn Taplin
The thing is when I changed from tax credits to Universal Credit there was an overpayment because my circumstances changed. They never told me. They just popped into my journal and took the money out of the pot so that when I got paid—they took £70 out of my account because I had had an overpayment because it had changed over, and they did not even know that month.
Marion Fellows
I have listened to a lot of evidence in the last four years serving on the Education Committee and I have never heard anything as compelling and honest as I have heard from you ladies. I really want to thank you, because real living experience absolutely informs the best kind of report from a Select Committee. Thank you. I am finding it quite difficult and challenging because I can only relate to my own local authority and what happens there. North Lanarkshire recently—I think it was a year or so ago—started up a thing called Club 365, and it is now open every weekend and all through the holidays for children who get free school meals to go along from 11.00 am, I think it is, until about 1.30 pm. They get a meal, they get activities. It is amazing. It is wonderful. It is backed by funding from the Scottish Government. When I was listening to you earlier on talking about the centre, is it all voluntary organisations that help?
Dawn Taplin
Yes. It is a charity, the centre, yes, at St James Centre. They help. There is a lady who is a teacher, who goes in her own time and provides lunch for children. Then the centre helps with activities. You pay 50p and the children get their lunch included.
Marion Fellows
I should say that the local authority, my local North Lanarkshire Council, works in conjunction with the local voluntary organisations as well to provide an all-round service. I am struggling to see where local government and central government play any major role in this in England.
Dawn Taplin
Yes. I think we need a little bit of help with activities, without the strain.
Anne Newbould
Without local charities, particularly the likes of St James, the Hive and Neo, without those kinds of centres, I personally would be in deep trouble.
Marion Fellows
It is great that that work is being done, but it probably needs more input from central and local government.
Dawn Taplin
Yes. We would not survive without them, would we? They are like our backbone.
Karen Rotheram
They are like your support system. There is somewhere to go.
Anne Newbould
There are set days that you know you can go there, and the kids are fed, and fed well, and so are you for a change.
Heidi Allen
That is perfect because that is exactly what I was going to ask. One thing that we have already recommended to Government is this issue of childcare costs being paid retrospectively, which is totally bonkers. It has to be paid upfront and I cannot believe that the penny will not finally drop and they will not change that. I was struck by what you said, Nichola. In the summer holidays it is like double, isn’t it? If you are trying to keep in work, it is double.
Nichola Salvato
Yes.
Dawn Taplin
Yes.
Heidi Allen
Not putting money in the Government’s pocket and spending it for them, though it is always a fun thing to do, it strikes me that in the holiday periods—it is not just the summer, is Easter, three weeks, presumably you have a couple of half-terms, Christmas. Should there be a recommendation that not only do childcare costs get paid upfront all year around, but an additional amount that you could claim upfront, even if it is a modest amount because some of it might be in conjunction with a charity or a local authority? It is an additional chunk so that it is a fun activity. It is not just about parking them at childcare. It is a day out or—
Dawn Taplin
It would be nice just to say to the children, “Let’s go here for the day, and we are there with you”. Experiences. The children love that, going out somewhere.
Anne Newbould
We are not saying we want to take them to somewhere that day, somewhere that day, but at least—I don’t know—once a week maybe go somewhere nice, or whatever, two weeks.
Heidi Allen
What you are asking is very modest. It is just not parking them somewhere, isn’t it? Just doing something like children should in the holidays.
Dawn Taplin
Yes, as a family together.
Anne Newbould
Yes. As I say, we are not expecting it every day because no realistic family does that anyway, do they? To be able to say, “I know we are in work at the beginning of the week, but on Friday we are going to go here”.
Karen Rotheram
So they know there is something to look forward to to do with the family.
Heidi Allen
It is a blend of traditional childcare but it is a slightly different thing for holiday periods?
Dawn Taplin
Yes.
Karen Rotheram
Yes.
Chair
Can I ask a last question? Would it help you if we changed the school year, say to have a four-term year and much shorter holidays, the same holidays but spread differently over the school year?
Dawn Taplin
No, because we are still going to have that issue in the holidays. There is no way of changing it. It is still—
Anne Newbould
You would still have same amount, wouldn’t you?
Chair
With all the problems you have, you would still prefer to have the long summer holiday?
Lucy Powell
Is that when you go on holidays, if you can ever go on holiday? You do not go on holiday?
Dawn Taplin
No, we do not go on holidays.
Nichola Salvato
Unless somebody else pays for it
Karen Rotheram
It is too expensive in the six-week holiday even to think about planning something like that.
Lucy Powell
The reason I slightly shirk is that when people say about changing school holidays, for me, what that usually means is one of my kids’ schools will have different holidays to my other kids’ schools. Do you know what I mean? At least you have a known quantity with this six-week holiday. I do not know.
Chair
We could standardize school holidays, couldn’t we? Anyway, it is not for us to have a conversation—
Ian Mearns
On your idea, Chair, I am afraid to say that a number of years ago, probably 20 years ago now, I chaired a commission on behalf of the Local Government Association looking at alternatives to current school term arrangements. We came up with a number of alternatives, all of which were roundly rejected.
Chair
Very good. I am immensely grateful to you, as the Committee is. You asked me a question, Dawn. We have a role of writing reports, of trying to make sure they are unanimous. We have two Committees here, DWP and Education, and then we, as MPs, have a job to try to persuade the Government to actually implement those recommendations. I would be very surprised if the recommendations you have been making to us this morning do not feature at the top of that report. I am immensely grateful to you, as we all are. Thank you very much for coming.
Dawn Taplin
Thank you. Examination of witnesses Martha Mackenzie, Director of UK Poverty Policy, Advocacy and Campaigns, Save the Children; Abby Jitendra, Policy and Research Manager, The Trussell Trust; Sophie Howes, Senior Policy and Research Officer, Child Poverty Action Group; Megan Jarvie, Head of Coram Family and Childcare; and Ema Wilkes, Director, Neo Community.
Chair
Very good. Thank you also for coming this morning. Can I start with you, Ema? Might you introduce yourself and go down the panel so that we can register you for the transcript?
Ema Wilkes
I am Ema Wilkes, a mum of three young children on the Wirral, and I run Neo Community.
Martha Mackenzie
I am Martha Mackenzie. I am the Director of UK Poverty Policy at Save the Children.
Megan Jarvie
I am Megan Jarvie, Head of Coram Family and Childcare.
Sophie Howes
I am Sophie Howes. I work in the Policy and Research Team at Child Poverty Action Group.
Abby Jitendra
I am Abby Jitendra, and I am the Policy and Research Manager at the charity the Trussell Trust.
Emma Hardy
Good morning, everybody. Thank you for coming. First question. What do you think are the biggest drivers of poverty and hardship during the school holidays? Do you think the Government are aware of all the additional pressures that parents face during the school holidays? Shall we start with Ema?
Ema Wilkes
I think a lot of pressure is put on especially low-income working families, and it is a hidden pressure a lot of the time that I don’t think everyone is fully aware of. We talk very much about full universal payment—free school meals were mentioned quite a lot in that previous discussion—and about clubs that are open every day for all the children on free school meals, which is amazing and I am not saying they should not be, but we are forgetting the low-incomes that are not eligible for free school meals but cannot afford to pay their school dinner money. The children do not have full packed lunches and are being checked on by the teachers and are being called in to say, “You did not have enough in their packed lunch this morning”. That was what was in the cupboard, and that happens a hell of a lot. So many provisions in the holidays are available in the bigger deprived areas with the statistics that back it up, but especially in the Wirral and Birkenhead—we have Feeding Birkenhead, which we are all very proud to be part of, but there are many pockets where we cannot stretch the community sector and third sector any further. We have estates that are walking for half an hour to get to these provisions or they are paying bus fare, so even though we are making those activities free, we have areas like Noctorum that cannot get to other areas, and we are all trying to pull together to make it happen. There is a lost section, I feel.
Martha Mackenzie
We heard it from our brilliant panel earlier. Mums are telling us time and time again that it is this issue of upfront childcare costs under Universal Credit, which is particularly acute for parents of three and four-year-olds. We have done a little bit of work to look into this further. Because childcare costs are so volatile, that upfront payment is not just a problem in the first month. It is a huge problem in summer holidays as well. Parents are having to find in some cases up to an extra £100 to cover those costs. You look at the fact that most low-income families, well over three-quarters, do not have any savings. That is a huge financial burden. We are hearing from parents that it is just a cycle of debt. We have a released a new report today, and it is just constant debt. That is what we are hearing from mums: having to borrow from friends and family, take out loans and potentially reduce hours or leave work altogether. For us and the mums we talk to, we really need to crack this issue of upfront cost to stop a downward spiral in the school holidays.
Chair
Martha, would you tell us a bit more? How does the £100 extra arise?
Martha Mackenzie
Because childcare costs are so volatile, we are seeing that when you have to find those upfront costs and then be reimbursed, you are not being reimbursed enough for the next month. The school holidays come along, and most providers only offer the free hours entitlement 38 weeks of the year and it is during term time. A school holiday comes along, you do not have the free hours entitlement anymore, so your costs spike massively. This is a really interesting thing. A lot of other costs under Universal Credit are much more permanent. You know how much you are paying in rent. You know broadly what utilities and food costs, whereas childcare is nothing like that. Parents are seeing it fluctuate month to month, so you cannot budget. When something like a holiday comes along, the provider is not offering that free childcare entitlement, and you suddenly have to find up to £800 a month extra to cover those costs, which is money that people just do not have lying around.
Megan Jarvie
I would agree with Martha. At Coram Family and Childcare we know a lot about those pressures of holiday childcare costs, that they will more than double during the holiday, and that causes huge pressure on families. What we see is that has a double-whammy effect on families living in poverty. If they stay in work and continue to pay those childcare costs, their outgoings spike up massively, as you were saying, and they have no money, basically. They are skint. What we actually see is more common is that families cut back their working or stop working entirely during the holiday, so incomes plummet. Either way, they are stuck in that really difficult position. If they choose to stop working or reduce working, then they have those additional costs of activities during the holidays as well, which then penalise them further. The second part of your question was whether there was enough recognition of the school holidays. The way to look at that is: is policy adequately adjusting to those extra costs during the school holidays? As you were saying about Universal Credit, it is simply not. It is not made for those costs that go up and down. Tax-free childcare, on the other hand, is very, very well designed for fluctuating costs because you can pay the same amount in each month and a different amount out when your costs go up. You can use it kind of like a savings account. We know that that is targeted towards the higher end of incomes, so it is the people who are least at risk of poverty who have the system that copes best with the holidays, whereas 30 hours and Universal Credit are not quite there yet.
Chair
It is like Universal Credit. If you are middle class, the system can work quite well for you. You have these fluctuating incomes. Sophie, please.
Sophie Howes
I will not repeat what has already been said about childcare because I think that has been covered really comprehensively. At CPAD we feel that those financial pressures over the holidays are really three things: childcare, which has already been talked about; activities, so providing enriching activities to your children; and then food. Any response from the Government really needs to address all three. We feel quite concerned that the current response from the Government is very focused on child hunger and food, so food being the driving force. We are not saying that is not important but we think it really needs to be provided within the context of provision that does address childcare needs and does provide those activities as well. One of the main reasons why we think that is important is that provision that is just about food can lead to stigmatising provision. We think it is really important that we are addressing all of those needs within the context of universal, inclusive provision, rather than this kind of, “Let’s go into these deprived areas and let’s offer food to children who are eligible for free school meals”. That is just not going to cut it.
Abby Jitendra
Not to repeat what the other panellists have said, food banks in the Trussell Trust network have seen some of the busiest summers over the last few years. We just put out some statistics for Northern Ireland and Scotland, and we will be putting out statistics for England and Wales shortly showing that this summer is due to be the busiest on record for our food banks. Eighty food banks in our network last year carried out some kind of food and activity sessions to help people. We know that independent food banks and other third sector organisations are doing the same. We can really see that there is a need for activities, for food, for support during the holidays. In terms of drivers, definitely childcare, additional activities. It is definitely the case. It is something that our food banks and people whom they serve tell us day in, day out. Fundamentally, the issue is about parents all year round not having enough money to cover what we would all consider are the very, very basics. We saw the mums in the previous panel talking about the five-week wait for Universal Credit. That is one of many delays and insufficient levels of benefits that Universal Credit has built into the system. There is so much that we can do during the holidays to provide support and so much that the Government could do to provide support during the holidays. Fundamentally, if people cannot afford the very basics like food and activities all year round, the problem is only going to continue.
Emma Hardy
Thank you. I am just going to go back to what Sophie said because I was struck by the mums that we were talking to just before about how their children are missing out on activities and missing out on those extracurricular experiences, missing out on music, missing out on all the things like that. I was quite interested with you saying this is not just about feeding children but also providing them with some worthwhile and enriching activities as well. I just wondered whether anyone else on the panel would like to expand on that point or add to what Sophie said.
Ema Wilkes
We run holiday provision and we are very pleased to be able to do as much as we can. Last summer, for instance, we worked across the network with hundreds of families and we did not restrict it to free school meals. It was any child that needed that provision. As a third sector, with the funding that was available and the numbers that were needed, it was £1.71 per day, per child, that we fed children. Breakfast, lunch, snacks, dinner to take home, and we did activities, and we went to make holiday memories. That is what is so important for us, even today, bringing some parents down. The children are out at the museum. The children are going on a tour around Parliament. It is not about coming to talk about experience without those children having some memories. That is really important for us. Even if it is literally going to Birkenhead Park, putting loads of blankets out and having a massive community picnic, which we are doing in August. That does not matter if the doctor’s kid is sitting there or the child that possibly does not have dinner in the fridge. It is about everyone being inclusive, everyone being able to put something in if they have it, not put it in if they don’t, but no child feeling excluded. You do not want the child that is still sitting in the street, in the bedroom, looking out the window, and none of the other kids are playing out because they are all with us or they are all at school doing an activity. My children, I have a four, a seven and a nine-year-old, and everything you are saying about childcare—because I have chosen to work within the third sector and I will never change what I do, it is a passion, but my children struggle and I have to have childcare support. I know from personal experience. My children have just come home with lots and lots of information from their school of £40 a day football club. My little girl wants to go and play violin now, and she wants to do this and she wants to do that. There is nothing in that pack, even as a parent that has given them all the information of what we are doing, to say, “There is also this that costs you 50p. There are free activities at the church hall”. It is all those ones that are going to come into schools and do the lovely big free activities because they have advertised all summer for them. I do not want any child left out. We always talk about the children in poverty. Actually, the doctor’s and the consultant’s kids and all of them, their parents are out working very long shifts, the same as someone working in Tesco. That child still needs the interaction with their peers, and that does not mean going to a summer camp and not seeing their families. That means being within a community, and a strong community, rich or poor. Everyone is together to make a difference.
Martha Mackenzie
That is something that both your Committees have talked about previously. Those early years of a child’s life are the most important developmentally. We know that children growing up in poverty are already starting primary school significantly behind their peers, and then that gap risks widening. High-quality childcare can play a really important role in closing that gap and making sure that children do have access to enriching educational opportunities, but that six weeks over the summer is a really big gap and if children do not have access to that kind of childcare or those kinds of activities it really can have a knock-on impact on the attainment gap.
Emma Hardy
What Ema has described sounds absolutely incredible but I am very aware that this is not across the country. Would anyone like to comment on the patchwork geography of provision that there is across the country?
Megan Jarvie
It is something that we do research on, whether there is enough childcare, and we find that only one in four local areas have enough holiday childcare for the families that need it. There are some areas where it is considerably below that, some are above it and there are some groups of children that are most likely to miss out. Disabled children have the lowest availability. Only one in eight local areas have enough holiday childcare for disabled children. To touch on what you said before, we also know that quality is very variable. School-aged childcare can play an important role in opening up extracurricular activities and new experiences but it is based on what you can pay for and it is very different what different families get. Whereas during term-time there is a bit more uniformity in children’s experience, that can be vastly different during the holidays. The parents we talked to, particularly ones who will see marginal financial gains from working—they might only be £2 better off per week—say, “I am only going to do that if my children are going to get something from their experience in childcare”. It is important to focus on the quality as well.
Sophie Howes
At CPAG we have done quite a lot of research on extended schools as a policy model and lots of that research has tracked essentially the decline of extended schools after ringfenced funding was ended. There are still schools that are trying to limp along with providing some of that provision, before and after-school childcare and then holiday childcare, and providing enriching activities and food in the context of that.
Chair
Sophie, can I just say on that, Ema, our experience in Birkenhead has been an extension of schools, hasn’t it, providing food before school?
Ema Wilkes
Yes. Almost every school does it in some way. It is not something to be proud of that we do it, £1.71 and that the schoolteachers are coming in in their own time, volunteering, but a normal working day is 9.00 am to 5.00 pm, there is always going to be a gap for kids and it has to be done.
Chair
It is not desirable in one sense because it is dependent on raising the money to do it but where there is a will—
Ema Wilkes
Well, there is always a way but—
Chair
Birkenhead has shown that the extended school model continues.
Sophie Howes
Yes, definitely, and in some local areas it is good but that is not the picture across the board.
Chair
Sure. I agree, yes.
Sophie Howes
Breakfast clubs and after-school clubs are probably a bit more comprehensive. Our research shows that the holiday provision is where it really drops off, schools staying open and providing some kind of holiday childcare. That is where schools are not providing as much. That very localized picture is concerning. We think that schools, as institutions within the community that nearly all children are accessing that are non-stigmatising, that are universal, are a really good place to invest some of that money, thinking about what a more comprehensive provision would look like.
Abby Jitendra
Just jumping in on that, our holiday clubs model that we have developed at the Trussell Trust, along with food banks, is specifically trying to counter some of the issues to do with stigma and people finding it difficult to put their hands up and say, “I need help”. We focus the model around food being alongside activities. The focus is very much on activities. Families can come. There is no, “Are you deserving of this?” Anybody can come along. You come along with your parent and you are given some kind of enriching activity. We had a food bank come and speak to you, Frank, and others last year, talking about some incredible things that they do with fresh food and surplus food, making incredible meals with children. It is an enriching experience, something that they can remember, alongside obviously being able to get a good meal and being able to be fed for the day. Fundamentally, again, the voluntary sector is piecemeal. It is completely based on the expertise of the volunteers at the time, who is available and what resources they can rustle up from the local area. It is an amazing example of ingenuity in local areas but fundamentally it does result in a postcode lottery. One of the things that the Trussell Trust did last year was advise the Department for Education on their holiday food and activities programme. Some of the recommendations that we made were based on the model of holiday clubs that we had developed, saying that this cannot simply be about food. This needs to be about activities. You need to have best practice guidelines and part of it needs to be bringing up to standard the areas that do not have provision that is the best quality or has the most coverage. We welcomed it when we saw the Department for Education announce it but fundamentally £2 million is not going to cover the kind of need that we on this panel and the previous panel are seeing in the communities that we work in.
Chris Stephens
Martha, just to pick up on your earlier answer to Emma there about childcare costs, some of the written evidence that Save the Children have submitted is eye-opening to say the least. Particularly the one that sticks out is the average childcare bill example you have given us, where there is an increase from £57 a week to £135 a week per child. Someone with two children faces an additional bill of £150 a week. How are parents possibly managing during the school holiday when you get that sort of increase in childcare costs?
Martha Mackenzie
I think we heard from our panel this morning that they are not. That is a huge part of the problem. In theory, childcare under Universal Credit is more generous and yet unanimously parents wanted to go back to the old system because of that impact of upfront costs and just how damaging it is. We have touched on this a bit already but it does feel like it becomes a cycle of debt and constant borrowing. We know that the Government has suggested some solutions but for us these just do not go far enough. It is great that the flexible support fund is now available to cover childcare costs but it is only for jobseekers and it is only really available in that first month. You knock on the debt but then it is not there to cover those school holiday costs. It is the same with those budgeting advances. Most people will not have that option in school holidays. You are left reducing hours or potentially dropping out of work altogether, which is what most parents do not want to do because of the importance of being in work, the self-esteem and the long-term income opportunities that come with that. It feels like a catch-22 that this is a system that is meant to be supporting people into work but these childcare costs come along and it is making it much harder. What we are hoping to see is recognition that it is a system problem before this is rolled out to potentially 500,000 families. How can we correct that problem by paying the money in advance, either to parents or to providers, to stop this huge burden that arises over the summer holidays?
Chris Stephens
Thank you for that. There is also a snowball effect, is there not? You will have heard me ask the parents about school uniform costs that take place in that six weeks, whether they are going from the wee school to the big school or whatever it is in the child’s development. Is there any evidence that you have picked up, Martha, about the difficulty of school uniform costs as well as the additional burden of childcare?
Martha Mackenzie
We have not heard from parents directly about school uniform costs but we are hearing a sense that it is having a knock-on impact on quality of life throughout the summer. These are just such large sums of money that people do not have lying around.
Sophie Howes
We run a project called Cost of the School Day, which is primarily in Scotland but we are hoping to bring to England. That is looking at all of those financial costs, recognising that school is free to attend but there are lots of financial costs that parents are picking up with sending their children to school, uniform being one of them. We have done research that has shown that parents are really struggling to meet those costs and I can get you copies of that research if that would be helpful.
Chris Stephens
That would be helpful, Sophie. Abby, I know that the Trussell Trust in my area help with organisations, school uniform banks and things like that. Have you seen an increase?
Abby Jitendra
Yes. I said that a fifth of food banks in our network last year helped with holiday food or holiday clubs but all food banks will give additional food during the holidays. If they need to, they will give additional support. They will help out with things like school uniform during that time and obviously, in winter, things like warm clothes. We do have some data on which food banks are doing that. We do not, unfortunately, know whether that has increased but against the backdrop of an increase in demand for food banks anyway, a record increase, I would imagine that would increase. I can get you some more specific figures.
Chris Stephens
Thanks, Abby. Back to you then, Martha. Are there any significant variations in the nations and regions of the UK when it comes to childcare costs or is that pretty consistent across the board?
Martha Mackenzie
It is high everywhere. We do see some variation. In the figures that we released today looking at what the impact of the summer holidays is, in the north-west that increases about £530 per month whereas in London is up to about £800, but right across the board these are really high costs. We are in Parliament today with 11 mums, all of whom are campaigning on the issue of upfront costs, and obviously you heard from Nichola as well. They are from right across the country, different regions, different nations, and they all speak to this knock-on impact of high childcare costs.
Megan Jarvie
One of the things that we look at in our research is the different regional costs of childcare and we do see big variation. There is, on average, about a 30% change between the different regions but also within a local area there will be huge variation. We ask about the lowest and the most expensive cost provision and there will be up to a four times difference. One will be four times the expense of the other, which speaks to the point I was making before that there can be real differences in what is available. It is a hyper-local market. You go to childcare that is down your road, you do not travel right to the other side of the borough, and therefore even in a low-cost area you might only have high-cost options.
Martha Mackenzie
Just to add to that, we talked a little bit earlier about the fact that for a lot of parents that free entitlement is not available during the holidays and that is why it spikes. Some providers do have the option of stretching the entitlement so that you have more consistency, but very few maintained nurseries, which the vast majority of low-income families use, offer that stretched opportunity because they are tied to schools. Again, it is that knock-on impact. The nurseries that are available to low-income families are also the ones not offering these opportunities to even those costs out across the year.
Chair
Ema, can you tell us something about school uniform costs?
Ema Wilkes
Yes. I was going to say that we have very varied school uniforms in our area. At the secondary school especially, it is the perfect knit skirt that has to come from a certain shop. We are all for hand-me-downs and all of that as the kids grow, we do not like waste, but when you are starting a new school in year seven those kids want to walk with their heads held high and be really proud. We all walked in with blazers that would last two years, but you want that. They do not want to come from a Facebook sale or a car boot sale. We have handed out uniforms and we will always do that. As you said, Trussell Trust down there, you will give extra food in the summer holidays and you will give uniforms. So will we, until we have no more. The food banks are amazing in the holidays. We have a social supermarket, community cafes and things, but we have to send people to the food bank for extra. They will, but we know at one point our local food bank was spending £5,000, I think, on extra food because they did not have enough. We are all buying ridiculous amounts. We have all put cereal into the schools to make sure all the kids at least go home with cereal and juice. Then everyone is worrying about the school uniforms. Even for three primary school uniforms—my little one starts in September—I spent £350 last month just so it did not hit me in the summer holidays. That was on three little kids’ uniforms. They are in primary school. It is a ridiculous expense. It would help if schools, if they are going to go with one provider, bulk buy and take the big cost. I remember when I started secondary school you went into the big hall and were told, “Here, buy your tie, buy your blazer, buy this badge, buy this PE bag”. They are not doing that anymore and even in the business climate, if anything, bulk buying saves money. Put the pressure on the schools rather than the parents and the children. I hate the word “poverty” but it is poverty and the children are constantly holding that stigma of poverty. You have children who are saying, “Are we all right for the leccy this week?” I have eight-year-olds who know when Mum is getting paid and when they can do this. “My skirt’s broken but I’ll get a new one next month. Can you put another safety pin in it?” It is not fair.
Chair
Do you think we should suggest to schools that they do not have a single provider and that you can build up a school uniform from the supermarkets?
Ema Wilkes
I think you should cap the cost of school uniform. It does not matter if it comes from supermarkets or a main provider. A school uniform is something to be proud of. I am not saying we should not have school uniforms because I think it is very important for children personally, but it should be a capped amount. As I think someone over there said before, it is becoming elitist again. There were boaters when we were in school in certain schools. It does not matter if that is the free school or the private school, they should all be equal. Kids should have an equal start in life. Education is the one thing we say is equal. Therefore, there should not be hidden costs in it. My child misses out on a lot for that reason.
Heidi Allen
Just on that, I remember that at my school “nearly new” was the thing we had. Any left-over uniform from any pupil who had moved on just got piled up and then we came into the gym and you found a piece. It was not always the best fit or you would have to unpick people’s names or whatever, but that was normal and I am slightly surprised that does not happen universally now. My question really is about the way the Government offers these childcare support schemes. The two broad policies for childcare costs are Universal Credit and also the 30 hours for three and four-year-olds. Talk to me just generally about whether you think those schemes work. I know today is specifically about the differences in school holiday time but I am curious. In particular, the 30 hours for everybody is utterly bonkers to me. Why would the taxpayer be funding that for everyone? Give me your views generally on those two aspects of the Government contribution to childcare costs and what you think could be changed.
Sophie Howes
We would have more to say about Universal Credit than the offer to three and four-year-olds, and it is echoing what has already been said about costs needing to be in advance being one of the main issues. I do not think I need to say anything more about that. In terms of responses to that, we would exercise some caution in terms of direct payments to childcare providers. We are not against that but we need to be careful about making sure that the autonomy for those decisions stays with the claimant. We see a worrying trend of this idea of just handing over money directly to providers, providing families with food vouchers or this sense of not trusting people to spend their own money. That is a worrying road to go down.
Heidi Allen
That should fit nicely with the ethos of Universal Credit, shouldn’t it, because the whole point of that is—
Sophie Howes
Exactly. It undermines the Government’s own argument in a way because the idea is that people should be financially budgeting. If that was a recommendation that the Committee was considering, I think it would be helpful to just make sure that the choice to do that stays with the person.
Chair
Sophie, I do not think any of us are talking about vouchers.
Sophie Howes
No.
Chair
What we are saying is that a mother or a father who wants childcare can go to the childcare provider and that would activate for the provider the payment from the Government.