Election 2015 Party Policy Guide: Early years and childcare

Conservatives

• Spend £350m on doubling the free childcare entitlement for all three- and four-year-olds from 15 to 30 hours where all parents are working
• Review the funding arrangements for the free childcare scheme, with a pledge to raise rates in areas where costs outstrip the price paid
• Introduce tax-free childcare in the next parliament - worth up to £2,000 per child per year - for parents who want to work

Labour

• Expand free childcare from 15 to 25 hours a week for working parents of three- and four-year-olds, paid for with an increase in the bank levy and estimated to cost £500m
• Introduce a legal guarantee for parents of primary school children to access wraparound childcare from 8am to 6pm through their local primary school
• Develop a new National Primary Childcare Service, a not-for-profit organisation to promote the voluntary and charitable delivery of quality extracurricular activities
• Restore the role of Sure Start children's centres as family hubs
• Create 50,000 new childcare places by requiring Sure Start children's centres to provide childcare by opening their facilities to charities and local independent providers

Liberal Democrats

• Goal of 20 hours free childcare a week for all two- to four-year-olds, and for all working parents from the end of paid parental leave (nine months) to two years
• Start by providing 15 hours a week of free childcare to the parents of all two-year-olds, followed by 15 hours free childcare for all working parents with children aged between nine months and two years
• Complete the introduction of tax-free childcare, which will provide up to £2,000 of childcare support for each child and include child­care support in Universal Credit
• Ensure that by 2020 every formal early years setting employs at least one person who holds an early years teaching qualification
• Recruit more qualified early years staff and extend full qualified teacher status terms and conditions to all those who are properly trained
• Increase the early years pupil premium from £300 to £1,000
• Encourage the integration of children's centres with other community services
• Improve the identification of special educational needs and disability at the earliest stage, so targeted support can be provided and primary schools are better prepared for their intake of pupils

Commentary

To win the vote of working parents, the parties have been playing a game of one-upmanship regarding childcare pledges. All are promising to increase the amount of hours offered under the government-funded free childcare scheme for three- and four-year-olds, with the Lib Dems vowing to broaden its remit so that all two-year-olds could access free care.

There are few costed funding commitments in any of the parties' manifestos, so the fact that all have pledged to spend hundreds of millions of pounds on expanding free childcare over the next parliament is significant.

But this boon for early years could also have far-reaching consequences for other services. Analysis from the Institute for Fiscal Studies suggests the Tories' spending pledge on free childcare, coupled with its commitments to protect health and schools spending, will mean cuts to unprotected departments, including local government, will be 15.3 per cent by 2018/19.

Labour and Lib Dem pledges to extend free childcare would not result in such deep cuts in unprotected department budgets as their overall debt reduction plans are less ambitious, says the IFS.

Download the full CYP Now Party Policy Guide