Labour leader Keir Starmer and Shadow Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson have unveiled plans to make high-quality childcare available to thousands more families by creating over 3,000 new school-based nurseries based in primary schools.
Labour has made improving childcare for working families a key priority, with Bridget Phillipson already announcing the Party’s plans to deliver breakfast clubs in every primary school in England, as part of a modern childcare system from the end of parental leave to the end of primary school.
Labour’s plans will give children a better start to life, helping to prepare them for school. It will improve both the availability and quality of childcare for families in areas with severe shortages of available places, or childcare “deserts”, enabling more parents to work. The Party will also strengthen childcare regulation, working with Ofsted to ensure that the money government is spending on childcare is driving the best outcomes for children and families.
Paddy Lillis – Usdaw general secretary says: “Childcare is an economic and equality issue. However, like so many other things in this country after 14 years of Tory mismanagement childcare is broken. Parents need better and cheaper access to childcare, with the existing provision being largely unavailable and unaffordable for most low-paid workers.
“Labour’s policy offer to working parents is a game changer, which will help many more access work and secure the income they need to raise their children in healthy and happy homes, free from the fear of in-work poverty. Only Labour offers the change our members desperately need.”
Notes for editors:
Usdaw (Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers) is one of the fastest growing unions in the TUC and the UK's fifth biggest trade union with around 360,000 members. Most Usdaw members work in the retail sector, but the union also has many members in transport, distribution, food manufacturing, chemical industry and other trades www.usdaw.org.uk
For Usdaw press releases visit: http://www.usdaw.org.uk/news and you can follow us on Twitter @UsdawUnion