As I sat listening to the Spring Budget, I felt genuine happiness for all the parents and campaigners who fought so hard to put childcare top of the Westminster political agenda.
I also felt deflated - particularly as the hopeful messages started to ping through from constituents and friends to see if this announcement was good for them.
No, I responded, with the exception of improvements to Universal Credit, parents in Northern Ireland cannot access free childcare like the rest of the UK. It felt cruel to add: and in the absence of an Assembly, we are unlikely to see any significant change soon.
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One of the reasons I ran for the Assembly was to try and help fix our broken childcare system. As Lord Mayor of Belfast I would visit women’s groups and hear how the lack of flexible childcare was a barrier to women gaining skills and employment opportunities.
I met exhausted grandparents who were doing what they could to ease the burden of their children’s extortionate childcare bills. I spoke to friends with kids whose “mum guilt” was exacerbated by the fact that they weren’t earning enough to justify childcare - but resented the prospect of stalling their careers.
I saw that childcare was not just a gender issue or a class issue but that it was glaringly an economic issue. And I saw that if politicians really want to make a difference then we have to be brave, but we also have to be honest about the reality of the situation.
So here’s the honesty: there is no quick fix.
The 30 free hours model in England does not deliver for everyone. If providers can afford to keep their doors open, and many can’t, then they often have to offset costs elsewhere. Skilled staff are not being paid enough and so leave the profession for better paid jobs elsewhere.
There’s no point in being given 30 free hours of childcare if it doesn’t reduce the cost or if you can’t use them anywhere. So as tempting as it is to reach for a soundbite policy which you can sell on the doors or fit in a tidy tweet – the truth is the 30 hours model is not working there, while our current system is certainly not working here – so what we need is bravery. Bravery and an overhaul.
Prioritising childcare reform shouldn’t be controversial. When you start viewing childcare as key economic infrastructure, you see how it only makes sense to invest in it properly. We know parents – mainly women – are being forced out of the labour market, this reduces tax take, impacts productivity and increases welfare spend.
The Women’s Budget Group estimate there are 1.7million women who are prevented from taking on more paid work because of childcare, they believe providing universal childcare could boost the economy by £28 billion.
It is hard to see any benefits to our system, but there is one: we have the opportunity to design a system that will work. We urgently need the Assembly up and running so we can deliver a fully costed childcare strategy and start to put in place measures which will give people what they deserve: affordable, flexible, and high-quality childcare.
These are conditions which should be attached to subsidising providers directly, including paying staff decent salaries. We do not talk about how some of the most important, precious work is done by staff who are on poverty wages.
During a recent conversation with a charity which campaigns for childcare, they discussed how they would like to see childcare professionals referred to as Early Years professionals and for them to receive the same pay as Primary School teachers. I want to have these discussions. I want to debate the models of other countries. I want to scrutinise fully costed models. I want us to innovate and reform our childcare system.
For all of this we need an Assembly, and we need to work together to reduce the burden of impossible choices parents face, value the childcare sector and most importantly ensure all children are given the best start to life. They deserve nothing less.
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