Labour appeared stumped when, earlier this year, the government announced it would be drastically increasing its ‘free’ childcare provision. Given it was a policy that shadow education secretary Bridget Phillipson was rumoured to be considering, her party would now need to find a way to outdo itself. Now, we have a clearer idea what its ‘signature offer’ to voters might entail.
At present, all parents of pre-school children over the age of three are entitled to 15 ‘free’ hours with registered providers. From April 2024, this will expand to all over-twos, and from September, to all children over nine months (the point at which Statutory Maternity Pay ends). If the rollout continues into the next Parliament, then from September 2025 all working parents will be able to claim 30 hours of free childcare a week.
Some parents are doing a poor job of raising their children but it’s not obvious the solution is to put more toddlers in pre-school
There are many, many flaws with this arrangement. Politicians seem to have little clue what they are trying to accomplish through their involvement in the childcare sector. Lowering costs for parents might be a reasonable goal, but this would be best achieved through light-touch regulation. But raising standards – as the government also aims to do – could mean more red tape. Increasing female labour market participation might be a worthy goal, but research from the Institute for Fiscal Studies has found that the anticipation of free childcare does not substantially influence parents’ childcare decisions.
Efforts to achieve the above, oft-contradictory, objectives has left Britain with some of the highest childcare costs in the developed world – despite subsidies which cost the taxpayer around £6 billion a year. By some estimates, that figure will reach £10 billion once the free provision is broadened.
Because the government pays below the market rate in some areas for the free hours, many providers have struggled to stay afloat: in the academic year 2022-23, there were 216 nursery closures in England. This, inevitably, reduces the number of places available: the total estimated number of Ofsted registered childcare places dropped by roughly 10,000 between 2021 and 2022. In so-called ‘desert’ areas like Sunderland, there are as few as 12 childcare places per 100 children under the age of five – and here’s where Labour’s rumoured plans come in.
Labour is considering creating thousands of nursery places within existing primary schools as part of what they claim will be a ‘modernised childcare system’ available from the end of parental leave to the end of primary school. Using existing schools to house new childcare centres may sound like a cost-cutter but in reality it won’t be. We can expect more administration staff. Schedules will suit the workforce, and be of little help to working parents: such nursery schools are only likely to be open during school hours during term time. They will effectively be union run, with all the predictable demands that brings: the TUC, for instance, is already calling for a sectoral minimum wage of £15 per hour.
Labour insist their proposals will be fully costed. One assumes, as with its many other spending plans – on ‘green prosperity’, signing bonuses for teachers, overtime for doctors and nurses – it will be funded by measures such as ending non-dom tax status or slapping VAT on private school fees. Given how much those tweaks are expected to raise, this is wishful thinking.
But even if the costs weren’t a concern, the principle would be. Already, nurseries are assuming the role of educator when the majority of parents are simply looking for happy, safe environments with engaged staff. The overly-elaborate Early Years Foundation Stage framework, introduced in 2008, leaves nursery workers spending hours observing and photographing toddlers which could be put to better use.
It’s all exasperatingly unnecessary. We don’t need a plan for childcare like the ‘birth of the NHS’. Labour, which wants to put ‘early years on an equal footing with schools’, may believe there is no problem that cannot be solved by expanding the benign state, but the Tories should balk at the idea of the government superseding the role of parent. Some parents are doing a poor job of raising their children, as James Daly MP articulated in more crass terms recently, but it’s not obvious that the solution is to place more toddlers in highly-regulated pre-school settings.
We need a fundamental rethink. Childcare – which encompasses nurseries, childminders, pre-schools, nannies – is an important part of the UK economy. It employs around 600,000 people. Close to half – roughly 4.5 million – of young children are in formal childcare. It can provide opportunities for toddlers to socialise and enable parents to work. But the combination of regulation and subsidies has limited choice and lowered quality. Like quack doctors selling snake oil, politicians have taken the lack of results from their interventions as an excuse to double the dose.
We should give parents freedom to make decisions according to their personal circumstances by getting the state out of the sector. Unfortunately – for the taxpayer and, more importantly, children – this looks increasingly unlikely.
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