Labour would address the shortage of childcare places and look at how to ‘drive up standards’ in the sector, the shadow education secretary, Bridget Phillipson, told Grazia today.
‘I want to make sure we’re responding to the fact there are too few childcare places across our country and how we drive up standards in the sector too. So, better progression for staff working in early years and childcare. If we get that part right it means when children arrive at school they’re already well prepared for what comes next,’ she said.
‘My worry is that unless you’ve got a really strong plan around getting more people into the sector and driving up standards in the sector, we’re just piling more pressure on a system that just isn’t working,’ she adds.
‘We’ve already got a situation where there’s two children for every childcare place in the country. So, we’re looking at how we give councils more powers to create childcare places, particularly in those communities where they need it more, where there are real gaps in childcare deserts.'
This follows the Grazia x Pregnant Then Screwed campaign for childcare reform, which saw the Education Select Committee commit to a review of our childcare and early years sector in England at the beginning of this year, after our petition with Pregnant Then Screwed was signed by over 100,000 of you.
In March, the Government announced a 'childcare revolution', introducing 30 hours of free childcare for children from the age of nine months.
Phillipson was speaking to us at a school in Kent, where she and Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer set out Labour’s Mission on Opportunity, the last of Labour’s five policy missions.
On whether their plan to drive up standards in the sector would eventually lead to childcare being made cheaper - or free, like a number of other countries manage - she said: ‘I think you have to address together the cost and the quality of childcare and early years education. We’re looking very carefully at what we’ll say ahead of the next election but this a really big priority for me. It pulls back our children and means they don’t have the best start in life. It damages our economy and makes life really difficult for working parents, particularly working women.’
Earlier this week, the Guardian reported that more graduate teachers would be brought into nurseries and there could also be more nursery places in primary school settings, under plans being considered by Labour. At the moment, nurseries are struggling to recruit and retain staff, who can receive higher wages elsewhere, which is forcing some childcare settings to close.
Joeli Brearley, founder of Pregnant Then Screwed, was also at the event today and told Grazia how pleased they are to see childcare forming such a fundamental part in Labour’s mission, should they reach Government.
But on the graduate-trained early years practitioners she said: ‘I’m not necessarily convinced that’s what parents want. They want to know their children are going to be happy, safe, well looked after in a childcare setting, and if we’re looking at training practioners to graduate level, this is four or five years off.
‘What we really want to see from Labour is a commitment to reducing the cost to a sustainable level to families, while also increasing pay for childcare practitioners, offering them progression routes and ensuring that the sector is stable and robust, because, sadly, under the Conservative party, we’ve seen the deterioration in the number of nurseries, we’ve seen the workforce feel completely deflated and unloved and badly paid and they’re leaving the sector in droves, which makes their promises not deliverable.’