We’ll make new childcare plan work, vows Rishi
NURSERY parents grilled Rishi Sunak yesterday over whether there are enough places and workers for the demands of his new childcare scheme.
The Prime Minister insisted that capacity was growing and said he had increased the rates paid to nurseries.
He added the country was ‘moving towards’ a programme to fund care for children from the end of maternity leave to the beginning of school.
On a visit to the Aldersyde Day Nursery in Hartlepool, Co Durham, Mr Sunak met some of the first two-year-olds to receive 15 hours of free care a week.
Asked by one parent if the system could cope, Mr Sunak
‘The future looks bright’
said: ‘We’ve seen an expansion over the last year of the number of people working in the sector and of the number of places.
‘That’s why we wanted to have a gap between announcing the policy and it coming into force, because you needed that expansion to happen.’
He told another parent that it would ‘take time to invest in the sector and expand the number of places, because it’s such a big change’.
The PM said: ‘We’re moving towards a system where parents will have 30 hours of free childcare from the time maternity leave ends at nine months for their little ones, all the way to four, when they start school.
‘We’ve fully funded the programme and the future looks bright.’ His comments came as Labour faced questions about its childcare policy.
The party has said it will keep the 15 hours of taxpayer-funded care for two-year- olds introduced on Monday.
But education spokesman Bridget Phillipson has refused to commit to plans beyond that. The party has commissioned former Ofsted chief Sir David Bell to review the Government’s childcare scheme and is awaiting his findings.
Education Secretary Gillian Keegan has written to Ms Phillipson warning that some parents had told her they were wary of taking jobs or promotions because of the uncertainty over childcare in the future.
At the weekend Ms Keegan said the Government was ‘on track for more than 150,000 children to take up government-funded places’.
In her response to the minister’s letter, Ms Phillipson wrote it was an ‘outright lie’ that Labour would remove future childcare entitlements.
She added: ‘ Parents have reported for weeks their difficulties in navigating the chaos of the Conservatives’ botched childcare pledge, leaving many unable to access places.’