Labour will give 30 hours fully-funded childcare a week to 6,350 2-4 year olds in Swindon.

This will save families thousands of pounds a year. It will be accompanied by opening a Sure Start centre in every community to “unlock the potential of all our children”.

Since the Conservatives entered government, 1,000 Sure Start centres have been closed, including all of our centres in Swindon.

Labour’s plans to radically expand funded childcare to 30 hours a week for all 2-4 year olds, which will save families thousands of pounds a year.

New analysis by the House of Commons Library, commissioned by Labour, found that under the expansion of funded childcare that Labour will deliver:

• the average parent of a two year old not currently eligible for childcare support would save over £5,000 a year
• parents with children aged 2-4 who are currently only eligible for 15 hours, would save over £2,500 a year.

This comes as new analysis shows childcare costs have risen twice as fast as wages under the Tories.

Evidence suggests that early years education for children below the age of four has a positive impact on the life chances of disadvantaged children, but overall disadvantaged children spend significantly less time in pre-school than children from more affluent backgrounds. The attainment gap between disadvantaged children and their more advantaged counterparts is already evident when children begin school aged 5, with a gap between them the equivalent of 4.3 months of learning. This gap more than doubles to 9.5 months at the end of primary school, and then more than doubles again to 19.3 months at the end of secondary school.

This is the real change that the next Labour government is going to bring to people’s lives. It’s going to make a big difference to working people with young families, with almost six and a half thousand 2-4 year olds in Swindon set to benefit from this policy.

Having raised my children here I know the pressures of juggling work with ensuring the children are well looked after – this policy is showing Labour is on the side of hardworking parents.

Investment in childcare and early years provision is absolutely crucial, yet in Swindon we know all too well you can’t trust the Tories. They closed all of our Sure Start centres – we’re the only town in the country without one. They cut more than a thousand Sure Start centres across the country. They told us time and again it’s impossible for the state to make people’s lives better by helping with childcare.

It’s time to bring that to an end. I want to see Sure Start Plus centres back in our town – that’s my pledge to hardworking families in Swindon.

Labour’s Early Years offer:

• Labour will reverse cuts to Sure Start and fund a new generation of Sure Start centres – Sure Start Plus – which will provide comprehensive support to new parents in every community in the country.
• £974m real terms cut from SureStart spending 2010/11 – 2017-18 (Data table 2.7 https://www.ifs.org.uk/publications/14369)
• Labour will invest £4.5 billion to radically reform childcare provision, making high-quality early years education available to all, whatever their income;
• Labour’s plans will see some families saving thousands of pounds a year, in particular those that are not eligible for or using other supports to meet the cost of childcare.

• As well as introducing 30 hours of funded childcare a week for all 2, 3 and 4 year olds, we will invest in additional hours at subsidised rates staggered with incomes. The very highest earners pay no more than £4 an hour for childcare, and those on the lowest incomes pay nothing;
• We will transition to a qualified, graduate-led workforce, in order to:

o   Improve child development, close the attainment gap, and improve the life chances of the most disadvantaged children;

o   Improve the pay and skills levels of childcare workers, who are overwhelmingly female and low paid

• Labour will end the fragmentation of the current system, transitioning to a single, supply-side funding model that will be simpler and more sustainable for both parents and providers.
• We will recruit nearly 150,000 additional early years staff, including Special Educational Needs Coordinators, and introduce a national pay scale, driving up pay for the overwhelmingly female workforce.

The Tories are failing the most disadvantaged children

• The attainment gap has stopped closing in the early years.  https://epi.org.uk/publications-and-research/annual-report-2019/
• For the most persistently disadvantaged pupils the gap has widened at secondary level. This means that these pupils – the very worst-off – are almost two years (22.6 months) behind all other pupils by the time they finish their GCSEs.
• https://epi.org.uk/publications-and-research/annual-report-2019/
• Over recent years, there has been a dramatic slowing down in the closure of the disadvantage gap to the extent that the five year rolling average now suggests that it would take 560 years to close the gap. However, the most recent data shows an increase in the gap in 2018 suggesting there is a real risk that we could be at a turning point and that we could soon enter a period where the gap starts to widen.
• https://epi.org.uk/publications-and-research/annual-report-2019/

• Evidence suggests that early years education for children below the age of four has a positive impact on the life chances of disadvantaged children, but overall disadvantaged children spend significantly less time in pre-school than children from more affluent backgrounds.

House of Commons Education Select Committee, Tackling disadvantage in the early years, 2019 https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201719/cmselect/cmeduc/1006/1006.pdf

• The attainment gap between disadvantaged children and their more advantaged counterparts is already evident when children begin school aged 5, with a gap between them the equivalent of 4.3 months of learning. This gap more than doubles to 9.5 months at the end of primary school, and then more than doubles again to 19.3 months at the end of secondary school

House of Commons Education Select Committee, Tackling disadvantage in the early years, 2019 https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201719/cmselect/cmeduc/1006/1006.pdf

The Conservatives’ offer

• Currently, all three and four year-olds, as well as around 40% of two year-olds, have an entitlement to 15 hours of free early education per week. The Conservatives have legislated to extend this to 30 hours for working parents of three and four year-olds.
• However, many families are not accessing their existing entitlements. The existing system is difficult to navigate and many providers refuse to accept children claiming their free hours.
• Most local authorities have reported that there are not enough childcare places for two year olds that are entitled to free childcare, for afterschool care or for disabled children.

“The majority of local authorities in England report that there is not enough care available in their area for two year olds entitled to free childcare, for after-school care, for disabled children, or for children whose parents work non-typical hours such as shift workers.” [Annual Childcare Survey 2017, Family and Childcare Trust, March 2017, p.4, https://www.familyandchildcaretrust.org/childcare-survey-2017]

• Early years education has a major impact on child development. Centre-based care of children between the ages of 18 and 35 months is associated with better language skills (NICHD and ECCRN and mathematics), [Sammons et al] and leads to academic benefits at primary school. [Sylva et al 2004] These benefits were found to be most pronounced for children from lower income families. [Love et al 2003] However, for the educational benefits to be felt, the childcare needs to be of a high quality.
• The Women in Business Council was established by government in 2012 to report on optimising women’s contribution to economic growth. Their report, “Maximising women’s contribution to future economic growth” was published in June 2013 and found that equalising labour force participation rates of men and women could add 10% to UK GDP by 2013. A boost to the economy of this size implies a full universal childcare scheme would be close to self-financing in the longer term. [http://womensbusinesscouncil.dcms.gov.uk/]
• Research by children’s charity 4Children found that 79.4 per cent of parents said that being unable to use their local Children’s Centre would make life harder for them and their families, and 34.4 per cent said it would make a “big difference” and that life would become “a lot more difficult.”[Source: Children’s Centre Census 2015, 4Children, October 2015, http://www.4children.org.uk/Files/28082f59-4cb8-4116-a476-a536009e5d05/Children_Centre_Census_2015.pdf]