General election 2019: Early years

LABOUR

• Spend £4.5bn to provide full-time free early education to two-, three- and four-year-olds regardless of income
• Raise the two-year-old hourly funding rate to £9 by 2024 (the 2020 funding rate is set to be £5.44)
• Boost the minimum hourly funding rate for three- and four-year-olds to £5.60 by 2024 (the current rate is £5.36 and one sixth of councils are above this rate already)
• Invest around £1bn in creating Sure Start Plus, which will provide comprehensive support to new parents, and open 1,000new children’s centres in England

LIBERAL DEMOCRATS

• Provide 35 hours of free early education to two-, three- and four-year-olds regardless of family income 48 weeks per year
• Extend the free childcare offer to working parents from when a child reaches nine months up to the age of two
• Aim to raise hourly funding rates by 2024 to £7.22 for two-year-olds and £5.36 for three- and four-year-olds

CONSERVATIVES

• Reports suggest the party will extend 15 hours of free childcare a week to all two-year-olds representing an estimated investment of £700m
• It also reportedly plans to raise the funded childcare entitlement for three- and four-year-olds to 48 weeks per year from the current 38 weeks

COMMENTARY

Extending 30 hours of funded childcare to all parents, not just those working 16 hours a week, is backed by the Sutton Trust, which said the measure would improve social mobility. However, the Institute for Fiscal Studies concludes the Labour and the Liberal Democrats funding plans would be “immensely difficult” to deliver due to the high cost.

The IFS calculates Labour’s plans will cost an additional £2.6bn to deliver by 2024 at today’s prices, while the Lib Dems’ plans will cost £7bn extra – more than three times current spending.

The early years sector is warning the plans to extend funded childcare are unfeasible. Jonathan Broadbery, National Day Nursery Association’s head of policy, warns of an “arms-race of ever-expanding promises that cannot be kept”.

“It is vital any pledges are fully costed and part of that should involve telling nurseries and childcare providers the planned funding rates for the promised hours,” he says. “Nurseries already face a postcode lottery and the vast majority report that government money does not even cover their delivery costs.”

Neil Leitch, chief executive of the Early Years Alliance, welcomed Labour’s pledge to invest in children’s centres and reverse cuts that have seen 1,000 close since 2010. “These are vital and at times life-saving services for young families in disadvantaged areas and, of the 1,000 that have closed, many more have seen their services reduced to little more than underused contact points,” he says.

“No one says these centres are a silver bullet for tackling the problems that go hand-in-hand with poverty. But they remain among the most effective interventions we have in helping parents and children that would otherwise be hard to reach and any policy that supports them is a step in the right direction.”

• Read more from CYP Now's general election policy guide