Working parents deserve a childcare system that actually works

Families need properly affordable childcare – not just 15 hours-worth of vouchers, says shadow education secretary Bridget Phillipson

Bridget Phillipson: ‘If I become education secretary, childcare will be my number one priority’ (Getty Images)

In 1789, Benjamin Franklin said there were two certainties you could rely on in life: death and taxes.

But he missed out a third: that you can always rely on the Tories to lie through their teeth to cling on to power.

The last four years have seen a high watermark for dishonesty. They promised 40 new hospitals that turned out were not anywhere near 40 in number, were not new, and were not even hospitals. They promised not to raise taxes, and yet we now have the highest tax burden in 70 years.

Now they’re lying about Labour’s childcare plans. Be in no doubt: Labour will not take away childcare entitlements parents have been promised – including the 15 hours of free childcare for children over two.

But the ongoing Tory childcare debacle proves yet again that you cannot trust a word the Conservatives say.

Last year, after months of Labour running on the need for a reformed childcare system that better supports families, the chancellor stood up at the despatch box and made a solemn promise to parents to give them more funded childcare hours.

More support for parents struggling under the weight of unaffordable childcare costs, often more than the cost of a mortgage. More women in work. Who could fail to welcome such a pledge?

The problem is that it was all a great big lie.

That’s because the Tories knew full well that they have pushed the childcare system to the brink of destruction over the last 14 years. They knew they simply could not deliver to every parent the childcare that they promised – and yet they promised it anyway.

Early years places are down by 40,000, because providers have gone bust, buffeted by years of underfunding. Parents are now paying as much as £153 a week – and that’s where childcare even exists. Nationally, there are three children for every childcare place – and in parts of the country, such as the North East, it’s even worse.

The childcare sector has warned for a year that further rollouts past April are simply undeliverable, given the unrelenting pressure they face. Nurseries have said that they will have to withdraw from the new scheme altogether – that is, if they don’t go bust first.

It’s no surprise, then, that parents up and down the country are now finding that they can’t cash the cheques the Tories have written. The chancellor and the education secretary still won’t guarantee to parents that they will get what’s due to them.

Parents will no longer be fooled anymore by empty promises from Tory snake oil salesmen that bear no relation to their daily struggle to get children into a nursery or to find a childminder.

Nor, as by-election after by-election makes clear, do they have any time for the Tories’ baseless slurs against Labour.

Labour wants a system that delivers more affordable, accessible childcare for more families.

It’s why we asked the respected former chief inspector of schools, Sir David Bell, to lead a thorough review of the childcare system and put together a plan for delivering those promised entitlements to all eligible families, giving parents choices about work and children the best start in life.

If I become education secretary, it will be my number one priority. I will always fight tooth and nail for more investment in our education system, which is why I welcome the additional investment the government committed at the Budget last year.

But the public are fed up with the Tories’ broken promises. They want change – and they will get change with Labour.

It’s time the prime minister called a general election so Labour can get on and give families the childcare they desperately need and deserve.

Bridget Phillipson is the shadow secretary of state for education