‘make childcare free from age one’

FREE child care should be available from the age of one, according to the latest entrant to the Welsh Labour leadership contest.

Ogmore AM Huw Irranca-Davies, the Welsh Government’s Minister for Children, Older People and Social Care, said his party needed to renew itself with a bold vision for the future.

He said Wales should aim to have the best package of child care, preschool education and infant health care in the world. But he acknowledged it would take time to deliver all the elements, and it was likely to be a project for two Assembly terms.

Mr Irranca-Davies’ idea would see the Flying Start programme for two to three year olds – currently only available in the deprived communities – rolled out to all children.

There are four key elements to Flying Start:

Quality, part-time child care for two to three year olds amounting to two and a half hours a day, five days a week for 39 weeks. In addition, there should be at least 15 sessions of provision for the family during the school holidays.

An enhanced health visiting service, with one full-time-equivalent health visitor per 110 children aged under four in the target areas. The primary function of the Flying Start health visitor is to support the family in the home, assessing both the child and the family in terms of high, medium and low risk). Flying Start health visitors should continually assess those families identified as medium and high risk, and make appropriate referrals.

Access to parenting programmes, with every family offered formal parenting support at least on an annual basis.

Speech, language and communication, with every family having ongoing access to an appropriate language and play group.

Making such a programme available to every child would give all the best chance of developing and reduce the number of problem children who would later be at risk of getting involved in crime.

Increasing the availability of free child care firstly to two-year-olds and then one-year-olds would make it easier for their parents to return to the labour market, Mr IrrancaDavies believes.

There would, however, be no obligation to take part in the scheme.

Such an offer would rival provision in the Nordic countries, where taxation is notably higher than in the UK and other western European countries.

Under Welsh Labour’s rules, candidates