A mum desperate to find her daughter a nursery place said she was "absolutely blown away" after asking her MP for help - claiming he Googled the issue then suggested local mums should set up their own childcare. Carla Brain's daughter has only been offered one day a week at her local nursery in Keynsham, but even that place is not available until 2025.
They are among many families struggling to find nursery places in the town near Bristol, and they are now calling on intervention from Bath and North East Somerset MP, Jacob Rees-Mogg. Worried about the severe childcare shortage they are facing in their area, 140 parents have now signed a letter to the Conservative MP asking for action.
However, when Carla went to meet Mr Rees-Mogg at his Keynsham Baptist Church surgery, she felt disappointed by his face-to-face response. Carla, who began putting down deposits at local nurseries when she was still pregnant, now remains without much hope of finding a full time place for her one-year-old daughter.
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She is in touch with other mums in Keynsham who are struggling financially due to the lack of available childcare in the area, preventing them from returning to their careers. Carla explained the situation to Mr Rees-Mogg but said she was stunned to see him pull his phone out of his pocket and begin to ‘Google’ nurseries in the local area.
She expected the father of six to have more understanding but claims he told her that he had no solution and that he was “clueless” about childcare. A representative of the MP has explained his response and said during surgeries he "may well [use] Google...to see if there is an immediate solution or at least something that can help in the short term or influence the representations that he takes on the constituent’s behalf".
The representative said he is aware of the childcare issues both locally and nationally and "suggested that parents might want to join together to find a solution", adding that some parents have already approached him saying they intended to do just that.
GB News presenter Mr Rees-Mogg spoke on the channel in February about fatherhood and said he "couldn’t give tuppence" about the criticism he faced in 2017, after he admitted he had never changed a nappy. He said he "enormously loves being a dad" and was grateful for the support of his children's nanny, who had also been his own nanny when he was a child.
Carla said: “I thought he would be more helpful because he has six children. All the nurseries I contacted in the area were saying there was a childcare crisis but he claimed to know nothing about it.
“I’m a first time mum and I tried getting my daughter into a nursery when I was pregnant but I would have needed to put her on a waiting list two years before I was pregnant to get a place. You’re testing fate by putting the name of a child that doesn’t exist on a waiting list.
“I’m really career focused, my job is a big part of who I am - I never realised that this area is so bad for someone who wants to work and have kids. As I looked into it I saw that it’s a problem across the UK, with most countries in Europe having better childcare facilities.
“Here you have to pay through the nose to get it and even if you can afford to pay for it, you can’t get it. The whole of my maternity leave was like 'operation childcare' which sent me into a frenzy - I rang all the nurseries and everyone was saying the same, that they were having staffing issues.
'Tried every single nursery'
“I booked an appointment with Jacob Rees-Mogg and I gave him all the information that I have been spending the last four months of my life looking for childcare. He then got his phone out of his pocket and started Googling childcare in our area and asking if I’d tried various nurseries.
“I have got a phone with Google on, this isn’t the solution. That was infuriating because I’d just told him that I had tried every single nursery. When I went to see him he said that he had no idea and that he had never heard of this [issue].
“There are so many groups that I’m in with mums who want to go back to work but can’t because there isn’t any childcare. Then he said, ‘to be honest, I don’t know what the solution is here, I don’t have a solution.’"
She claimed he told her that "I’m a father of six children and I’m as clueless as they come when it comes to childcare". She said when asked about the potential to create government-run nurseries to address the shortage, he said it was better that they are privately-run.
Carla said she feels the solution is opening more nurseries and hiring more staff who are better paid, but she claimed Mr Rees-Mogg suggested to her that "local mums set up your own childcare". She added: "I think it is ridiculous, why should I quit my career to provide childcare?
“It would not be viable legally, I am not a childminder, I am a mother. For the economy I pay a lot of tax in the job I am in.”
MP's full response
In response to the points raised by Carla, Mr Rees-Moggs's senior parliamentary assistant, Melissa Cathcart, said: "Where constituents attend surgeries [Mr Rees-Mogg] will often seek to address the issue directly as soon as possible and may well Google the issue that they have raised to see if there is an immediate solution or at least something that can help in the short term or influence the representations that he takes on the constituent’s behalf.
"He suggested that parents might want to join together to find a solution – this is in fact something that some parents have sought to do and he has been contacted by constituents seeking to open childcare facilities in Keynsham to address the shortage of places for their own children and others locally.
"Mr Rees-Mogg made representations on [the constituent's] behalf and the response that he received from Bath and North East Somerset Council set out the steps that they are taking locally and the steps that the Government are taking nationally but also explained that ultimately childcare providers are private bodies. They are regulated but cannot be forced to operate.
"Nurseries are generally privately run but places can be funded by the taxpayer through the provision of 30 hours of free childcare, they cannot be forced to accept more children. Most cannot expand their capacity as they are struggling to recruit staff - even with the increase in the ratio of adults to children announced by the Government which has enabled nurseries to care for more children with an increase from four children to five per adult for two-year-olds in nurseries and pre-schools."
'New provision in Keynsham'
Paul May, spokesperson for children and young people at Bath & North East Somerset Council's Liberal Democrat Administration, said: “Nationally the early years education and childcare sector is experiencing a challenge to recruit and retain staff and so the council has been working with local providers, colleges and employment agencies to encourage people to join or return to the sector.
"Very recently we have been supporting potential providers who have approached us about opening new provision in Keynsham, subject to them being able to find appropriate premises and sufficient staff, so we are hopeful that it will not be long until the gap in provision is filled.
“Legislation regarding who should be a provider states that the market must be able to find a solution first, whether that is private, voluntary, independent, childminding or school run provision. A council can only be a provider as a last resort, subject to sufficient demand, economic viability and without unfair subsidy so it is equitable with the rest of the providers operating within the existing market.”
A Department for Education spokesperson said: “We recognise the cost pressures that childcare can create for parents. This is why we are making the single biggest ever investment in childcare in our country’s history which will provide families with access to high-quality, affordable childcare from nine months to when they start school.
“Ofsted’s latest official statistics show that the number of childcare places available to families in England has remained broadly stable since 2015 and standards remain high, with 96 per cent of providers rated good or outstanding.”
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