A message to Rishi Sunak, from parents everywhere

No one wants childcare ratios to be increased… so why is it even on the table?

Mumblings of increasing the ratio of children to staff in childcare settings have been rattling the walls of parliament for weeks. Dressed up as a sheep in wolf’s clothing, this is the policy of parents’ nightmares, masquerading as a solution for the eye-wateringly expensive childcare system – the second-most expensive in the world, no less.

Right now, parents are struggling to pay the bills: for 62 per cent of parents, childcare costs are the same as or more than their mortgage, and one in four parents are skipping meals or forgoing heating or fuel to be able to foot their childcare bills.

This isn’t a handful of parents, these are big numbers, and it gets worse because the cost of childcare is even preventing parents from having desperately wanted pregnancies: 61 per cent of mothers admit that the cost of childcare was a reason for their decision to have an abortion. What is going on?

Parents are up in arms. Taking to the streets in their thousands, mums, dads, and children, in our protest aptly named “March of The Mummies” across the UK to demand better; to demand more from our government; to demand access to good quality, affordable quality childcare.

Parents are furious, but none more so than Lewis and Zoe Steeper, whose beloved son Oliver died in an incident at nursery aged nine months old. After hearing the suggested policy to increase ratios, they set up a petition to rally people together to fight back, and they have amassed an army of more than 108,000 angry parents who are saying no.

Relaxing ratios in childcare settings is neither an “ambitious” nor a “new” plan. It’s one that was thrown out by the coalition government in 2015 because it was discovered it would reduce the quality of early years education, while not actually decreasing costs for parents.

Parents aren’t asking for their children to be in larger groups so that they can save a few quid. They are asking for access to the same quality and affordable childcare that other parents are afforded around the world. Like in Canada, where parents pay a maximum of $10 per day for quality childcare.

While it is positive that the government has recognised that it needs to take action to tackle rising childcare costs that are pricing mothers out of work and plunging families into poverty, the plan to potentially relax ratios is not an effective solution to this problem at all.

It does not address the wider structural problems facing our early-years sector; including growing numbers of provider closures, a growing lack of available and accessible places in some areas of the country, and a worsening workforce recruitment and retention crisis.

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Asking staff to look after more children will not enable the 84 per cent of nurseries that are struggling to hire more staff to entice new talent and retain precious staff, nor will it ease the consciences of the childcare providers themselves, who don’t want that; or the 85 per cent of parents who do not want to see ratios increased.

It will reduce the quality of childcare and early education at a time when children need greater individual care and support – not less.

And these cost savings won’t necessarily be passed down to parents due to the colossal underfunding of childcare spaces by the government, which is the reason that thousands of nurseries have closed already this year – buckling under relentless financial pressure.

The debate about introducing ratios will take place on Monday (14 November), in parliament. The eyes of hundreds of thousands of parents, nursery workers and child practitioners will be watching, desperately hoping that this ridiculous notion will be thrown out once and for all.

If the government moves ahead with this policy, it could well be the straw that breaks the camel’s back – a price we will be paying for decades to come.

Lauren Fabianski is the campaigns and communications manager for charity Pregnant Then Screwed