He was grammar-school and Oxbridge educated and is a vocal campaigner for faith schools). As well as serving on the Education Select Committee, Hinds also chaired the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Social Mobility, which published a report, ‘7 Key Truths About Social Mobility’. The report identified the early years as one of three important areas for influencing social mobility and called for policy-makers to prioritise: earlier identification; strategies to target the hardest-to-reach children; parenting programmes; and early years staff development.
If Hinds delivers on the priorities he set out while on the backbenches, this could be good news for the early years sector and for social mobility. But the sacking of Justine Greening was a clear signal from Number 10 that they want someone to deliver on their flagship manifesto policies – including expanding grammar schools, lifting the faith schools cap and reviewing schools admissions. If Hinds wants to pursue early years reform with vigour, he may face resistance from the top.
The reshuffle also saw the sacking of early years minister Robert Goodwill. While unconfirmed, it is understood that Nadhim Zahawi will be responsible for early years in the DfE. Mr Zahawi was elected in 2010 following a career in business, including co-founding the polling company YouGov. But while he has enjoyed a seemingly successful career, like his predecessor he does not have any background or expertise in education – let alone early years.
At the Nursery World Business Summit in November, I was concerned to hear Mr Goodwill talk about differentiating education and care when offering the 30 hours. There is a grave misconception that it is desirable to separate education and care in the early years. Such an approach would require providers to stipulate when they will provide education and when they will provide care – assuming the two are distinguishable in the first place – and would restrict the times and days that parents could access their allocated hours.