Oldham Labour welcomes childcare review amid debt concerns

Speaking at the Labour conference in Liverpool last week, Bridget Phillipson, Labour’s Shadow Education Secretary announced that should the party come into power at the next General Election, a full review of the childcare system would be conducted.

Welcoming the review Cllr Shaid Mushtaq, Oldham Council Cabinet member for children and young people, said: “This review is long overdue. Oldham Labour has been clear that the current funding system isn’t fit for purpose.

Cllr Shaid Mushtaq believes a review into childcare is long overdue (Image: Oldham Labour)

“Simply extending a system that can’t provide the quality childcare places where they are most needed, and costs so much that parents are forced out of the workplace, won’t solve the problem.

“I am particularly interested in the possibility of local authorities being able to open early years provision and in better support for the people who work every day with our youngest children.”

He added: “Everyone agrees that getting early education right gives our children the best chance to succeed and Labour will deliver quality early education for Oldham."

According to a recent survey by Pregnant then Screwed, a charity that seeks to protect, support and promote the rights of pregnant women and mothers, one in four parents who use formal childcare say that the cost is now more than 75 per cent of their take home pay.

It also found that one in three parents who use formal childcare say they had to rely on some form of debt to cover childcare costs.

Speaking at the conference Ms Phillipson announced Sir David Bell, a former primary school teacher and former Chief Inspector of Schools, will lead Labour's work.

Shadow Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson speaks during the Labour conference in Liverpool (Image: PA)

She said: “Our ambition starts, as education starts, at the beginning of all our lives: our childcare system must be about life chances for children, as well as work choices for parents.

“That is why I am determined that new investment in childcare comes with ambitious reform, to ensure early education is available in every corner of our country for every family and every child, to drive up standards for our youngest children and for the amazing people who support and teach them.

“And that focus on high and rising standards, is why today I’m announcing that Sir David will lead Labour’s work to develop the plan we need, for the workforce we need, for the qualifications they’ll have, for the settings where it’ll happen, to deliver our ambition for a modernised childcare system, from the end of parental leave to the end of primary school.”

Data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, an intergovernmental corporation with 38 member countries formed to stimulate economic progress and world trade, shows that childcare costs in the UK are in the top three most expensive in the developed world.

laine Drayton, an Institute for Fiscal Studies Research economist and an author of a report which Labour claim ‘demonstrated that the Tory strategy failed the most disadvantaged children’, commented: “Childcare providers have seen significant increases in their costs over the last decade, but funding rates have failed to keep pace.

"Core hourly funding for three and four-year-olds fell by 17 per cent in the decade leading up to 2022/23, once rising costs of provision are taken into account.

“As the free entitlement expands, the government will be setting the price for more and more formal pre-school childcare hours – and the risks of getting the funding rates wrong will just get bigger and bigger.”

While Purnima Tanuku, chief executive of National Day Nurseries Association, added: “The more funded children that nurseries are taking, the more losses they’re making.

"On average, providers lose £2.20 - £2.30 per child, per hour.

“That’s the gap at the moment. Unless proper funding follows, all we’re doing is exacerbating the problem.”