Examination of Witnesses - Sam Royston and Alison Garnham gave evidence.

Childcare Payments Bill – in a Public Bill Committee am 3:51 pm ar 14 Hydref 2014.

Danfonwch hysbysiad imi am ddadleuon fel hyn

Q 123

Photo of Anne Main Anne Main Ceidwadwyr, St Albans

We will now hear evidence from our final panel of witnesses this afternoon, from the Children’s Society and the Child Poverty Action Group. Because we have been running a little early, we have plenty of time, but obviously we can finish when the Committee feels that it has exhausted its questions. I ask the witnesses to introduce themselves for the record.

Alison Garnham: I am Alison Garnham, chief executive of the Child Poverty Action Group.

Sam Royston: I am Sam Royston, head of policy and public affairs at the Children’s Society.

Photo of Anne Main Anne Main Ceidwadwyr, St Albans

I do not know whether you were in the room before we began, but the acoustics in here are pretty poor, so we ask you to speak up if you can. Some of us, myself included, are struggling to hear some of the witnesses.

Photo of Lucy Powell Lucy Powell Shadow Minister (Education)

Are you okay with us calling you Sam and Alison?

Alison Garnham: Indeed, yes.

Sam Royston: Yes.

Q 124

Photo of Lucy Powell Lucy Powell Shadow Minister (Education)

Sam, I have asked you this before, but so that everybody else knows, Sam is Sue’s son—not that it matters—so he is as across the issues as his mum. First of all, by way of introduction, can you say a little about your own views of the scheme—its upsides and any concerns that you might have from your respective organisations? We will start with you, Sam.

Sam Royston: Sure. The first thing to say is that we welcome any additional support with child care costs to help families ensure that work pays. We have three principal concerns about tax-free child care. The first is the balance of support with child care costs and additional money found for helping families with child care costs. We are slightly concerned, as an organisation that works with some of the most disadvantaged families and children in the country, that tax-free child care, because households in receipt of child care costs for universal credit or tax credits are not entitled, will not provide additional support for that group of households.

That is not to say that we do not recognise that some higher-income households also need extra help with child care costs, but given the amount of money being spent on introducing tax-free child care, we feel that it could have been better balanced towards some of the lowest-income households.

The second thing is that as an organisation that works principally with some of the lowest-income households, we are concerned about the interaction in support between households receiving child care support through universal credit or tax credits and tax-free child  care: in particular, the problems that some households may face moving between the two systems. Our third concern is about parity of treatment of households on universal credit and tax credits, compared with those on tax-free child care.

We welcome some of the really helpful tools given for budgeting for households on tax-free child care, particularly payments in advance of having to pay out child care costs. We would like to see households on lower incomes treated in the same way, and we are concerned that many of the families that we work with are going to struggle, particularly with their first payment of child care costs on moving into work.

Alison Garnham: I do not have much to add to what Sam said; it was pretty comprehensive. We agree entirely with the points about the alignment of the two schemes. The way in which the two schemes interact has been one of the biggest problems with the legislation that is coming forward.

I agree with Sam that we really welcome any new money for child care costs, and it is incredibly useful, but our concern is that out of the £1 billion, most of it goes to the top 60% of earners, and most of that goes to the top 40% of earners. There is an issue there about what the rationale is for the scheme, and whether some of the money could be used more strategically—for example, to expand free entitlement, to expand extended schools and to work on improving quality across the sector. That is desperately needed, particularly for the lowest-income families, where improvements in quality have the longest-term impact on children’s outcomes.

Policy Exchange did some calculations about clause 10 and the level of income you are taking into account. For example, if you were to cap tax-free child care at £60,000, it would save £238 million, a not insignificant amount of money. Some of that could be used to deal with some of the alignment issues that I am sure we will get on to, such as how you deal with families with disabled children and why tax-free child care deals with any number of children while universal credit deals with a maximum of two. There are other alignment issues like that.

Q 125

Photo of Lucy Powell Lucy Powell Shadow Minister (Education)

Excellent. Those are some of the issues that we discussed earlier as well. Alison, perhaps I could just ask you to expand a bit on the final point you were making there about the income level and where you see that having most impact on people’s decisions to go back to work; about how under the current system up to £160,000 per individual could be as much as £300,000 per household; and about decisions to go back to work and where you think some of those lines would be better drawn.

Alison Garnham: For families with one or more partners on up to £150,000, there is no clear evidence, as far as I can make out, that tax-free child care would have any impact on increasing their labour market participation. At that level of income, decisions are not being determined by child care costs. However, at the other end of the labour market, they certainly are. Child care costs act as an enormous barrier to paid work for low-income families, and they act as a barrier to progression in work and staying in work.

The figures on child poverty are really stark. If there is a couple with nobody in work, the child poverty rate is something like 71%. If one person works full time, it  drops to 29%, but if both are able to work it drops to 8%. The gains in terms of reductions in child poverty and labour market participation are clearly enormous, and child care costs are a really important part of that.

One of the other things that has happened is that help with child care costs has reduced, and under universal credit it will reduce again. We are very grateful that the Government have increased from 70% to 85% what will be on offer, but there are a number of other problems that still need some work. For example, in our work that we produced recently on the cost of a child, we discovered that very shortly, even a one-earner family with one child will hit the ceiling on child care costs in universal credit, so there is an issue about whether the ceilings need to be increased under universal credit.

There is also an issue that for disabled children—I am sure other people have already raised this—the costs are higher and therefore there is a case to be made for having a higher child care cost ceiling for disabled children. Also, as I have just said, under universal credit help with child care covers only one child or two children. Tax-free child care applies to any number of children. There is a case there for aligning the two schemes, either by reducing the provision in tax-free child care or by increasing it under universal credit. That would not, in fact, require an enormous amount of money.

The other area that needs attention is where parents need to go into training. So you may have one partner working and one partner training, and that would disqualify them from tax-free child care. Equally, in universal credit you cannot claim child care costs when you are in training. So that is another area where we think some of the money could be invested to benefit low-income families.

Q 126

Photo of Lucy Powell Lucy Powell Shadow Minister (Education)

Do you have any statistics on how many families that might affect? At the moment, they might get vouchers or some help if they have one earner, but if the other partner is in training, in education or on a course, they do not. Do you know how many families we are talking about, roughly?

Alison Garnham: No.

Q 127

Photo of Lucy Powell Lucy Powell Shadow Minister (Education)

I have asked a few people; no one knows. That is fine.

Sam, on this issue of fairness and the kind of spread that you said is one of your main concerns, have you anything more that you want to add, in terms of that cut-off of income and where that sits in relation to the impact on the labour market?

Sam Royston: Our principal concerns with regard to fairness are about payment and delivery. We think there are several things that have been done with the introduction of tax-free child care that will be beneficial to many of the households receiving support, and that is particularly true of using top-up accounts, so that the claimant pays in and HMRC pays in to top up those payments. So those households receive the support they need prior to paying out their child care costs.

We are really concerned that many of the families we are working with will not get help with child care costs through universal credit until after they have both paid for and used their child care, and that they will require an up-front loan or some form of assistance for their first payment of child care costs. We are really worried  about the message that that sends to the lowest income households—that the first thing you need to do when moving into work and taking on child care is to get into debt. We do not think that is going to help, either in terms of supporting the children in those households to get the best outcomes or in terms of increasing parental employment.

Q 128

Photo of Maria Miller Maria Miller Ceidwadwyr, Basingstoke

Thank you for your thoughts so far.

Alison, you were talking about the challenges that parents with disabled children face in getting into work and staying in employment, and that is really regardless of their income levels. We heard a little earlier this afternoon about the differential in costs between providing child care for a disabled child and for a non-disabled child: some £11 to £20 an hour versus considerably less for non-disabled children.

Is there a chance here to explore a little more the opportunity to support parents with disabled children into employment through this Bill, and also to stimulate the market? When I speak to parents with disabled children I hear that they find it difficult to get the right child care, and that that is often why they fall out of employment. Could you reflect on that and give us some ideas about how we can use this opportunity?

Alison Garnham: There are two points about that. One is that at the moment tax-free child care proposes that support for families with disabled children goes up to the age of 17, but it would make sense for that to go up to 18, because the care needs do not go away at 17, and that would be parallel then with universal credit, where the scheme does go up to children aged 18. That is another kind of misalignment thing.

Regarding the costs, you are absolutely right. Child care for disabled children is both much more scarce and much more expensive, so there is a case to be made for perhaps allowing a higher percentage of costs to be covered through tax-free child care for parents with disabled children. Again, there is a similar thing in universal credit. From our perspective, we want to look in parallel at universal credit too, because in universal credit there is no different ceiling for parents with disabled children. There is a case for that too, so that both schemes could mirror each other.

In terms of supply, it is very difficult for providers to invest in specialist care for disabled children, even though they are required to; under the Disability Discrimination Act, they are required to respond to a need if it presents itself, but that will involve extra costs, so you can see why those costs are perhaps getting passed on to parents. Some support with that would be really useful.

Q 129

Photo of Maria Miller Maria Miller Ceidwadwyr, Basingstoke

Have you done any work on assessing the availability of specialist child care support for disabled children in the nursery sector?

Alison Garnham: We have not, but I think that the Family and Childcare Trust has done in the past. When it does its child care cost surveys, it asks local authorities whether they have sufficient child care for disabled children, and it is one of the areas where they repeatedly report that they do not—child care for disabled children but also for older children and for people working atypical hours. Those are the typical points where local authorities report a dearth of provision.

Q 130

Photo of Catherine McKinnell Catherine McKinnell Shadow Minister (Treasury)

An issue that has been considered today is that the parents we are talking about—who you particularly are here to represent—have challenges with paying for child care. That is influenced by the supply side in the market and the rising costs that we have seen. I have two points. First, what impact do you see the Bill having on the supply side of child care? Secondly, will there be sufficient supply to meet the demand when additional parents are looking for child care as a result of the Bill, as is anticipated? Will they be able to find it?

Alison Garnham: It is really difficult to talk about market impact because there is an imperfect market operating in child care. For higher-income couples, the child care market probably does operate as a market, but for lower-income families, it really does not; it is completely dysfunctional. In the most low-income areas, there is least supply and the lowest quality supply, which is the opposite of what you would want. It does not function terribly well. Can you repeat your question?

Q 131

Photo of Catherine McKinnell Catherine McKinnell Shadow Minister (Treasury)

What do we do about increasing the supply side? Will the Bill do enough, or should the Government be doing more to support supply side?

Alison Garnham: The worry about tax-free child care is that it cannot do much to increase supply because it is essentially demand-led. Therefore, it is vulnerable to increasing costs. It cannot limit those costs. I suppose you could introduce mechanisms to try to do that. You could introduce mechanisms to try to use the money to increase quality—for example, giving people more money if it is a higher-quality setting. That is generally quite difficult. It is widely recognised that the countries that produce both high-quality and low-cost child care are those that fund their supply sides. My general thought is that that should be the direction we are going in with new money.

Sam Royston: I can say that the Children’s Society delivers eight or nine nurseries as part of Sure Start children’s centres—a small component of all the services we deliver, but an important one none the less. Many of those are in some of the most disadvantaged areas of the country, often with high levels of unemployment. Unfortunately, I do not think that this policy in particular will help, in those areas at least. It may help in some areas where it encourages some middle to high income potential second earners to move into employment and, as a result, use child care, but most of the families in areas of the highest levels of deprivation will not be entitled to tax-free child care because they will be receiving tax credits, or universal credit if they move into work. Part of the solution has to be ensuring that tax credits and universal credit child care components work effectively. I come back to the concern that payments in arrears could result not only in an impact on parents getting into child care debt, but suppliers having problems with child care arrears because parents are struggling to pay. There is also a concern that in many areas across the country, we hear anecdotally at least, local authorities that used to subsidise child care provision in areas of very high disadvantage no longer feel that they are able to do so. In some ways, that was quite an effective measure in delivering support for those child care facilities, because it provided that—

Photo of Anne Main Anne Main Ceidwadwyr, St Albans

I think we are wandering off somewhat. Is there anything else that you wish to add that is in line with the Bill?

Photo of Catherine McKinnell Catherine McKinnell Shadow Minister (Treasury)

Sorry, that threw me a little. There is an issue in terms of the Bill and whether it is able to address some of the challenges.

Q 132

Photo of Charlie Elphicke Charlie Elphicke Ceidwadwyr, Dover

Sam, I wanted to get it clear in terms of what you were saying about how a different political choice should have been made about the Bill and that there should have been more provision for the least well-off. Will you confirm that, under universal credit, in 2016 people will get 85% of costs to a maximum of £7,752 for one child and £13,296 for two children?

Sam Royston: There is certainly no question that child care support for people on the lowest incomes is higher than child care support for people on the highest incomes. There is no question about that at all. The question is where additional support should be targeted. Despite that support with child care, the families that we find struggle most none the less with the cost of child care are the ones on the lowest incomes. Even though they are paying out a smaller proportion of their child care costs, they are still struggling more than families on, say, £60,000 or £70,000, which is why Alison’s point about reducing the income threshold for receipt of help through tax-free child care to £60,000 or £70,000 seems a strong one. Those families on the lowest incomes, despite that extra help, are still struggling. That is why we think that that is where the extra support should be targeted.

Q 133

Photo of Charlie Elphicke Charlie Elphicke Ceidwadwyr, Dover

I represent a deprived constituency and many of my constituents, many of whom work hard and are just above the benefits threshold, do not get any help. They say, “I pay my taxes, but I get nothing back and no support for this. It is really unfair.” Do you accept that for them more for the middle is important and makes a difference to their lives?

Sam Royston: Of course, there is some support for those groups, such as the three and four-year-old offer. We welcome that the three and four-year-old offer is now a universal early years education offer. That seems a progressive step forward. However, we have got to put things in the context of which group we are talking about. Households in receipt of the child care element of tax credits or that are receiving child care through universal credit could very easily have household incomes of £35,000, or even £40,000 or £45,000 a year. We are not talking just about the very most deprived and disadvantaged households; we are talking about households that are relatively up to low-to-middle incomes. Actually, if you want to provide extra support for many of that group of your constituents, the best targeting would be through tax credits or universal credit.

Q 134

Photo of Lucy Powell Lucy Powell Shadow Minister (Education)

I am going down the same line of questioning, for the purposes of everyone in Committee fully understanding this. The figures that the hon. Member for Dover highlighted in terms of the full value of the child care component of universal credit is for those on the very lowest incomes, but as incomes go up to, say, £35,000 or £40,000 a year, the figure tapers off significantly, so the full value that we were discussing there would not be available to a family with a household income of £35,000 a year, for instance. Moreover, as Mr Elphicke  mentioned, for those just above the threshold, they might have child care costs that are only around £5,000 a year maximum per child and therefore would actually qualify for, say, only £1,000 a year. So I think what you are describing is a more progressive system where that taper is perhaps a bit shallower, but it extends beyond those who currently qualify, or you bring the taper of tax-free higher up so that that overlap then—do you want to expand on that for me?

Alison Garnham: Then you would take in more of those people just above universal credit. If you made universal credit more generous, it would take in some of those families. But as you pointed out, it is tapering out at that level, so people are getting a small contribution towards their child care costs. In fact, for most people on tax credits currently who claim the child care element, their average payment to help with child care costs is £55 a week, so people tend to self-manage and claim relatively small amounts. Part of the reason for that is because the proportion they still have to pay—the 30%—is a lot for them to find, particularly in an expensive area like London, where 30% of a lot is a lot. They struggle to pay the proportion that they have to pay themselves, so they tend to be self-limiting and claim less than you might expect them to claim.

Q 135

Photo of Lucy Powell Lucy Powell Shadow Minister (Education)

Or alternatively, as we heard earlier today, possibly make the tax-free scheme, the child care accounts, open to families in receipt of universal credit or tax credits, so you level off the crossover of those two schemes, possibly funded by thinking about lowering the amount. Is that what you were talking about?

Alison Garnham: Yes. At some point in the future, you could think about having a single scheme. It is probably a long way off, but you could have a single scheme outside of tax credits or universal credit. It could either be administered nationally or at local authority level. In New Zealand, they do it that way, and in that way they can make the payments sensitive to level of quality, how many hours you have used and so on. But we are a long way from that, because the two schemes are so misaligned.

Q 136

Photo of Charlie Elphicke Charlie Elphicke Ceidwadwyr, Dover

To deal with the tapering issue as you come off it, do you think it should carry on until, say, £40,000, £50,000 or £60,000, as it did under tax credits and that that would be a better system? Is that your case?

Sam Royston: I think one option should at least be considered—there should be more room for consideration; I welcome sessions such as these to go through some of that thought process—and one option to consider is providing tax-free child care to those households on universal credit and providing a lower universal credit entitlement that is topped up with tax-free child care. So they have got the same amount of support, but they have received it through a combination of universal credit and tax-free child care. Then, as Lucy says, the process by which you come off universal credit would not mean you then needed to claim tax-free child care separately. You would already be on it. So it would give a smooth transition process out of universal credit and on to tax-free child care, making the two systems much more clearly aligned than they are at the moment.

Q 137

Photo of Charlie Elphicke Charlie Elphicke Ceidwadwyr, Dover

To be clear, your preference would be to reduce the threshold where universal credit ends—bring that down—but then have a longer taper for child care support.

Sam Royston: Effectively, yes. Provide, for example, a 65% or 70% child care element of universal credit, then top that up for those households with a 20% child care provision through tax-free child care. They would effectively be getting the same amount as the Government currently propose, but their support would be better aligned between receiving support for universal credit and receiving support after your income has grown enough to have left universal credit.

One of our really big concerns is that a lot of the families that we work with aspire to get off benefits altogether. Many of them will never do that, but many of them will aspire to get to that level of earnings. One of the challenges with the way in which tax-free child care works at the moment is that it makes that transition all the more complicated, because when you move off universal credit, you then have to claim tax-free child care. You have to decide at what income threshold it is appropriate to make that transition. If your income falls again, it could be difficult to switch back on to universal credit. Having the two systems work more closely in parallel could help some of those families who aspire to move beyond the universal credit income limit.

Q 138

Photo of Charlie Elphicke Charlie Elphicke Ceidwadwyr, Dover

Lastly, do you think it is welcome that universal credit is entirely separate from child benefit, that child benefit will continue to be paid separately and that child maintenance payments will not affect universal credit?

Sam Royston: Right now, there is probably enough in universal credit. Having child benefit as a separate system guarantees that, at least for the transition period while universal credit is introduced, people will continue to get child benefit if universal credit stops or if there is a problem with payment. That would be my principal concern. We work with families who, for whatever reason, have had their tax credits stopped and are effectively relying on child benefit to continue for a period. If child benefit was moved into universal credit, I would be very concerned—

Photo of Anne Main Anne Main Ceidwadwyr, St Albans

I think we are moving somewhat off the subject of help during the transition period.

Q 139

Photo of Catherine McKinnell Catherine McKinnell Shadow Minister (Treasury)

Your explanation of universal credit has been helpful. On the interaction between the new child care proposals and universal credit, and on the implementation of the scheme in practical terms, some concerns have been expressed about the time frames that are currently in play. This was obviously promised to be rolled out by 2015, and there are question marks over that timetable. There have also been a lot of question marks over the universal credit timetable. Will you say something about the impact on the families that you are talking about? When will they receive this child care support? What will be the impact of any delays in delivery?

Sam Royston: The most important thing is to ensure that any additional support is delivered as quickly as practicable without creating enormous problems in the  transition period. I welcome the Government’s approach, particularly with regard to universal credit. They are taking their time in making what will be a massive change for many families. That is the right approach. Yes, we want to see extra support, such as the 85% for people on universal credit, introduced as quickly as possible, but we also want to make sure that families do not get into a mess because the system is introduced too quickly. I will leave it up to the civil servants to decide the speed that they think represents the right balance between those two things.

Alison Garnham: There are some issues in the interim period. Parents getting tax credits who are working fewer than either 24 hours or 16 hours, depending on whether they are a couple or a lone parent, are not currently entitled to help with child care costs at all. They will be waiting quite a long time before universal credit comes along. There is an argument for allowing that group to claim tax-free child care in the interim.

Q 140

Photo of David Heath David Heath Democratiaid Rhyddfrydol, Somerton and Frome

You have mentioned disadvantaged areas several times. I tend to think more in terms of disadvantaged people, who are sometimes not in disadvantaged areas, as you will appreciate. Do you want to say anything about non-cost barriers to accessing child care? Do you have any thoughts about how we could improve access to child care in areas where that is not easy? Secondly, the working elements of a family may have atypical working days. How can we make it easier for them to access child care?

Alison Garnham: Gosh! That’s the whole child care system. In the most disadvantaged areas, one of the difficulties is that providers find it difficult to survive. They often are not making any profit, or indeed are making a loss, because there are not sufficient paying customers to cross-subsidise the ones who are paying through tax credits. One of the things they perhaps need is more subsidy to enable them to function in those areas. Otherwise, they tend to go out of business. One of the good things in disadvantaged areas, and we are now talking about areas rather than individuals—

Q 141

Photo of David Heath David Heath Democratiaid Rhyddfrydol, Somerton and Frome

You are back to disadvantaged areas, but I am asking you to concentrate on people.

Alison Garnham: You are right. Access to children’s centres and also the role that the maintained sector plays in all areas are really important. I think it is true to say that a higher proportion of children from disadvantaged backgrounds gain access to their free entitlement through the maintained sector—their local school. That is where the highest quality of child care is, so that is a really good thing. The problem is that there is not enough of it. Liz Truss has talked about increasing the number of spaces available at local primary schools in maintained sector nurseries, because that is where the quality is and there is real demand for those places.

Sam Royston: There are obviously a lot of disadvantaged people living in non-disadvantaged areas, and it is very important to ensure that those families are supported. As an organisation that often works in some of the most disadvantaged areas, one of the problems we find is that living in a disadvantaged area can further disadvantage the individual. Enabling sustainable child  care provision requires, in many cases, a reasonable level of local employment so that you can get paying child care customers and families using child care provision for employment purposes, and thus subsidise that support. Where employment rates are low, child care providers often struggle a great deal because they cannot get those working families to support them. That then has knock-on effects for the individual wanting to move into employment; they cannot get access to child care because the child care provider shut down as there were not enough people in employment. It is a cycle of disadvantage. More needs to be done to effectively target some of those providers in those most disadvantaged areas and ensure that they are able to continue, even if employment rates are low. That is why I come back to things such as local authority subsidies. We need to ensure that, even where employment rates are low, child care providers are able to continue because they are getting extra help from the local authority.

Photo of David Heath David Heath Democratiaid Rhyddfrydol, Somerton and Frome

I will not continue on this, but I invite you at least to consider that a poor family in a deeply rural area is a lot poorer than one in an area where there is a lot of access to provision.

Q 142

Photo of Maria Miller Maria Miller Ceidwadwyr, Basingstoke

I was interested in your point that, once we have lost child care, we have lost it. If it is not used, it is gone. What has your experience been in Wales? Under the current provision, employer-supported child care support for over-eights cannot be used in anything other than the local authority provision. It also cannot be used in the private, voluntary or independent sector. Have you seen any problems with child care providers in that part of the United Kingdom as a result of that stipulation? Have you had any dealings with the Welsh Government about how they will handle this new tax-free child care?

Photo of Anne Main Anne Main Ceidwadwyr, St Albans

Is there a link to the Bill about the devolved functions?

Q 143

Photo of Maria Miller Maria Miller Ceidwadwyr, Basingstoke

Sorry, Mrs Main. This is directly to do with the Bill and what will happen in the devolved areas. I wondered whether you have had any dealings  with the Welsh Government about how they will amend the way things work in Wales to ensure that this tax-free child care is available to families there in the same way that it is available to families in England.

Alison Garnham: I think they are working on a new strategy at the moment in Wales, but I do not know what the timing of it is. Typically they have had a different child care structure there. Their child care strategy was different from England’s: they had Flying Start, which was what they called the free entitlement, and a different set of arrangements in their private, voluntary and independent provision.

The general point to make about Wales—and Scotland, in fact—is that they have less child care available and, actually, it is quite expensive, particularly in Scotland. To a certain extent, they have another job to do to get to the same position as the rest of the UK.

Photo of Anne Main Anne Main Ceidwadwyr, St Albans

If there are no further questions from Members, may I thank the witnesses for their evidence? We have now come to the end of today’s proceedings. We will meet on Thursday at 11.30 am to hear further evidence.

Photo of David Heath David Heath Democratiaid Rhyddfrydol, Somerton and Frome

On a point of order, Mrs Main. Can I just check that we are still meeting at 11.30 am on Thursday, given that the first witness has been deleted?

Photo of Anne Main Anne Main Ceidwadwyr, St Albans

Yes, according to the front of the amendment paper, we are meeting at 11.30 am and at 2 pm.

Photo of David Heath David Heath Democratiaid Rhyddfrydol, Somerton and Frome

Further to that point of order, Mrs Main. We agreed to an amendment to delete one of the witnesses at that session. Does that change the time?

Photo of Anne Main Anne Main Ceidwadwyr, St Albans

I am informed that they were part of a larger panel and that the panel will still go ahead.

Ordered, That further consideration be now adjourned. —(Priti Patel.)

Adjourned till Thursday 16 October at half-past Eleven o’clock.

 Written evidence to be reported to the House

CP 01 Low Incomes Tax Reform Group

CP 02 4Children

CP 03 Child Poverty Action Group

CP 04 Citizens Advice

CP 05 National Day Nurseries Association