Liz truss

Friday

Donna Edmunds

Childcare for all: a necessity not a luxury

How many small children do you think you could look after? Three? Four? Maybe not even one without someone else on hand? It’s a question Liz Truss says she is asked regularly, although as she points out, no one asks her Department of Health colleagues whether they could perform keyhole surgery. That’s the problem with the current debate around childcare: it’s too emotional. Tired parents, nerves frayed from watching their brood run riot throughout the house ask themselves ‘how could anyone look after a group of small children all day?’ Feeling overtakes fact, which makes reasoned discussion impossible. Take this comment by Justine Roberts, Mumsnet Founder and CEO: ‘There’s a

Thursday

Isabel Hardman

The Tories failed to make the case for relaxing childcare ratios: no wonder the policy bombed

Two ministers appeared in the Commons today to explain two different reforms. One is at the very start of its legislative life, appearing in yesterday’s Queen’s Speech, while the other one appears to be doddering about on its last legs after months of fanfare. Liz Truss found herself summoned to the despatch box to explain her plans to relax childcare ratios in order to drive costs down after it emerged Nick Clegg wanted to block them. This isn’t a great surprise: the reform has excited strong opposition from the sector and parents. But what is strange is that the government never really made a great deal of effort to be

Thursday

Sebastian Payne

The View from 22 — Francis Maude and Liz Truss on Margaret Thatcher

How does Margaret Thatcher’s legacy impact Tory MPs today? This week’s Spectator magazine contains a 16-page supplement considering the premiership of Baroness Thatcher, both high and low points. On this week’s View from 22 podcast, Francis Maude debates whether Thatcher was the original moderniser. One of the few ministers to serve under both Thatcher and David Cameron, Maude offers his insights into what Thatcher thought of the present-day Tory party, why she actually avoided some particular battles, and how she is seen by the Prime Minister, who Maude suggests is completing the Thatcherite project. The Children and Families minister Liz Truss — a self-proclaimed Thatcherite — also joins us to

Tuesday

Isabel Hardman

Liz Truss: the minister fighting the ‘Where have all the women gone?’ debates

The government’s childcare announcement, fronted by the formidable Liz Truss, is another attempt to appeal to working mothers and to spread privilege by removing some of the barriers for women who want to return to work after having children. Never mind that Labour and a left-leaning think tank complain this isn’t as generous for low-earners as it is for those on higher salaries: the intention is to cut back on the staggering cost of childcare with parents claiming back £1,200 per child (the previous scheme was per household). Labour is anxious about this too: the party knows it left government with an extremely expensive childcare offer, and has been hard

Tuesday

Isabel Hardman

Truss’ truncated childcare announcement highlights mid-term review weaknesses

Controversial though her proposals to relax quotas for childminders and nursery staff may be, no-one disagrees with Liz Truss’ central mission to reduce the cost of childcare. The opposition know affordable childcare will form an important part of their 2015 offer, and have also been visiting countries such as Denmark to pick up some tips. It’s also worth noting that Truss is only relaxing quotas in so far as childcare providers can take on one or two more children per staff member: a nursery worker will be allowed to look after four babies instead of three, and six under-fives rather than four. Similarly, a childminder will be able to look

Wednesday

Camilla Swift

The Spectator Parliamentarian of the Year Awards | 21 November 2012

The Spectator’s Parliamentarian of the Year awards are being held this afternoon at the Savoy Hotel. In total 14 awards were presented by Michael Gove, Secretary of State for Education, who was invited to be  guest of honour in recognition of his parliamentary achievement. The award winners were: 1. Newcomer of the Year – Andrea Leadsom MP (Con) 2. Backbencher of the Year – Rt Hon Alistair Darling MP (Lab) 3. Campaigner of the Year – Rt Hon Andy Burnham MP (Lab) 4. Inquisitor of the Year – Rt Hon Margaret Hodge MP (Lab) 5. Speech of the Year – Charles Walker MP (Con) & Kevan Jones MP (Lab) 6.

Sunday

Isabel Hardman

The childcare battleground

The coalition wants to remove blockages to people returning to work, and one of the most complex problems is the cost of childcare. The Observer covers a report due out this week by the Resolution Foundation, which claims that it is barely worthwhile for a second earner in a family to work full-time because of the high cost of childcare. But though ministers from both parties agree that the costs of nursery care and childminders are a problem for parents who want to start work, or increase their working hours – and have set up a commission on childcare to investigate this issue – the solution may not be one

Monday

James Forsyth

Bust-up postponed

A coalition bust-up was avoided today by Vince Cable’s absence from the Commons for the urgent question on the Beecroft Report. Tory MP after Tory MP got up to make warm noises about a report which Vince Cable has been gleefully trashing, describing one of its proposals as ‘bonkers.’ That Cable couldn’t make it back in time from the north of England to appear at the dispatch box will have been a relief to the Tory whips; one of them was distinctly concerned about how the Tory benches would treat the Business Secretary when he heard about the UQ earlier. Indeed, it was telling that when Chris Heaton-Harris attacked Cable

Tuesday

James Forsyth

Money for Maths

If you get the incentives right, the rest should follow. So Liz Truss’ push for a subject premium should be applauded. If sixth form colleges received more money for pupils studying Maths, it is reasonable to assume that they would encourage more of them to do it. At the moment, colleges receive more money for people doing Media Studies than Maths or English on the grounds that the equipment required to teach the subject makes it more expensive. But, frankly, this is perverse. I expect that nearly every employer, including newspapers, would rather that their employees had Maths A-Level than Media Studies. Truss’ other point is that more money for

Saturday

James Forsyth

The two types of Tory modernisation — and which one’s on the rise

There have always been two types of Tory modernisers. Both wanted to talk about issues that the party had neglected — public services, the environment and the like. But the soft modernisers were more prepared to compromise ideologically, to go with the flow of the age. The hard modernisers’ interest, by contrast, was in applying Tory thinking to these areas. Michael Gove’s education reforms are, perhaps, the best example of hard modernisation in action. As Charles Moore puts it in the Telegraph today, ‘Mr Gove offers an attractive combination — complete loyalty to the Cameron modernisation, but a Thatcher-era conviction politics as well’. Encouragingly, the balance within the Tory party