Childcare features prominently in both major parties’ plans for work and personal finance. Keir Starmer wants to make early-years provision as universal as possible while the Conservatives claim they’re already transforming childcare and increasing funding to both boost children’s development and get mothers back to work.
Labour’s pledge is to boost the number of available nursery places in England by 100,000, by using empty classrooms in existing primary schools. These will reportedly be run by the schools themselves, or local private providers as opposed to the government investing in state-run children’s centres with properly qualified and remunerated staff.
