The Labour Party has pledged to support working parents by creating 100,000 new childcare places and more than 3,000 new nurseries as part of its childcare plan. Spare school classrooms will also be turned into ‘school-based nurseries’ estimated to cost around £40k per classroom. This will be funded by the tax breaks from private schools.
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said, if elected, his party will ‘create the childcare places needed to turn the page and rebuild Britain.’
‘After 14 years of Conservative government, too many children are starting school already behind, and too many parents are being held back from fulfilling their career ambitions,’ he added.
Labour said the ‘available and accessible’ childcare will also include free breakfast clubs at every primary school in Britain. The party also pledges to help our children to ‘achieve and thrive’ with a new focus on language skills and maths from the start and they plan to deliver half a million more children hitting the Early Learning Goals by 2030. They will also support and recognise staff working in these areas and have commissioned Sir David Bell, former Ofsted head, to look at how they can improve childcare standards.
‘The Tories have broken childcare, so Labour will fix it. Labour has a clear plan for childcare and early education, giving every child life chances and every parent work choices,’ Labour said in their pledge. ‘Because after 14 years, all our children deserve better than a promise the Chancellor made, which even he won’t guarantee. Labour is determined to deliver not just more childcare, but better childcare and early education – for the best start to every life.’
Shadow Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson vowed to ‘fix’ the struggling childcare system if Labour wins the general election on 4 July. ‘The 3,300 new nurseries we announce today will be key to delivering Labour’s mission for half a million more children to hit the early learning goals by 2030, giving them the firm foundations from which to succeed,’ she said.
Labour’s childcare pledge builds upon the Conservatives’ childcare scheme, which has been extended so working parents of children aged between nine months and three-years-old get 15 hours of free support a week from September. This will be increased from September 2025 to 30 hours.
With 85 percent of mothers struggling to find childcare that fit around their jobs, leading many to stop working, Labour’s pledge has been welcomed. ‘It’s about time childcare became an election priority. We need to see childcare given the prominence it deserves in every party’s manifesto and we need to see genuine, long-term commitments that last beyond this election,’ said gender equality charity The Fawcett Society.
Pregnant Then Screwed founder Joely Brearley welcomed the ‘first stage plan’ to reform the education sector. ‘There is little point in reducing the cost of childcare for parents if they cannot access a place, and with long waiting lists and childcare deserts across England, it is imperative we do not continue to paper over the cracks,’ she said.