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Alun Cairns urges Welsh Government to follow England with childcare pledge

16 Mar 2023 4 minute read
Former Secretary of State for Wales, Alun Cairns. Picture by Number 10 (CC BY-NC 2.0).

A former Conservative Welsh Secretary has urged the Labour Party to “encourage their colleagues in Cardiff Bay” to follow the Chancellor’s childcare plans for England, announced in yesterday’s Budget.

Jeremy Hunt pledged £289 million of funding for wraparound childcare provision in schools in the Spring Budget, meaning that working parents in England will be able to access 30 hours of free childcare per week from when their child is nine months old.

The policy could free up 60,000 parents to return to work, as well as raising the hours worked by mothers already in work.

However, the childcare plans will only come into operation in stages which won’t be completed until beyond the next election in September 2025.

Alun Cairns, MP for the Vale of Glamorgan, said: “We need to remember that 50% of the Welsh population lives within 25 miles of the border with England and Wales.

“On that basis, unless the Welsh Government follow the Conservative Government’s lead, then my constituents and their constituents will start feeling the pain of far greater incentives that are seen in England.”

Jeremy Hunt defended the speed of the rollout and told Sky News: “This is the biggest transformation in childcare in my lifetime.

“It is a huge change and we are going to need thousands more nurseries, thousands more schools offering provision they don’t currently offer, thousands more childminders.

“We are going as fast as we can to get the supply in the market to expand.

“But it is the right thing to do because we have one of the most expensive childcare systems in the world and we know it is something that is a huge worry, for women in particular, that they have this cliff-edge when maternity leave ends after nine months, no help until the child turns three and that can often be career ending.”

Labour is currently projected to gain the majority of votes in the 2024 general election and it has been predicted that the  Welsh Tory’s could be completely wiped out in Wales.

If the Chancellor’s childcare commitments were to become a reality, fears have also been raised that childcare providers would not be able to cope with the increased demand.

Belated

Finance Minister, Rebecca Evans said the Welsh Government would consider how best to use the consequentials from the childcare announcement to best meet the needs of people in Wales.

She said: “We are already rolling-out a phased expansion of our childcare offer to two-year-olds as part of our Co-operation Agreement with Plaid Cymru.

“We will be carefully analysing the detail of the announcements made today and will be providing more information about what they mean for Wales in the coming days and weeks.”

Plaid Cymru said it welcomed the belated funding for childcare in England, but also said it must lead to “full consequential funding to Wales”.

Plaid Cymru Treasury spokesperson Ben Lake MP said: “We are already on the front foot thanks to Plaid Cymru, with free childcare for two-year-olds extended through our Cooperation Agreement.

“The Labour government must now go faster and commit to using new funds to deliver Plaid Cymru’s policy of universal childcare in full.”

Jeremy Hunt said the new Budget is aimed at increasing the numbers of people in work and the productivity of British firms.

The size of the economy is still forecast to shrink this year with living standards the worst on record and the tax burden remains on course to be the highest since the Second World War.

Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves said the Government is “a bit late to the party” when it comes to childcare.

She added: “And now they’re saying after the next election there’s going to be more support for childcare.

“Well, absolutely, because we hope there’s a Labour government after the next election, and we will make childcare and working parents a priority.”


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GW Atkinson
GW Atkinson
1 year ago

All this is about is the English government using taxpayers money to help big companies so they can add extra hours onto peoples worktime. This is just about profits for the rich because they effed brexit up and we have lost millions of immigrant workers. Plastic kindness from a bunch of corrupt toffs who pretend to care about children while criminalising child refugees.

R Brickman
R Brickman
1 year ago

Maybe Mr Cairns should be pressing for the £5 billion HS2 consequential to help fund this childcare provision? Oh, and there might be enough left to fund the new St Athan station he says he has been campaigning for.

Mab Meirion
Mab Meirion
1 year ago

Has Cairns just fallen to Earth along ET and David Bowie…

As Ben says Plaid are on the case…

To paraphrase Geldof give us our bleeding money…

Mab Meirion
Mab Meirion
1 year ago
Reply to  Mab Meirion

Barclay finally comes up with the goods, something the government could have done weeks ago. So how many folks died while Barclay played tough guy, seriously how many to add to the total avoidable deaths has this bunch of criminals sacrificed in their macho game playing. If there were an honest and honourable justice system uncorrupted by Fat Shanks and his cronies the ringleaders of the Tory party would all be on remand awaiting trial by now. Raab can you feel the rope around your neck…

Frank
Frank
1 year ago

Is this little weasel still around? I thought we were well rid of him. As R. Brickman wrote, he should be chasing our £5bn. If he was seen to be doing that he may regain some credibility not that he has ever had any!!

Kerry Davies
Kerry Davies
1 year ago

Cairns wants the Welsh government to “to follow the Chancellor’s childcare plans for England” which may or may not be introduced three whole years after Wales led the way last September.
Just how out of touch with reality is it possible for him to get?

Llyn
Llyn
1 year ago

This is a tried and tested tactic of the Welsh Tories. New policy announced in London without any costings – immediately start jumping up and down and catastrophising about the WG implementing in Wales. Strangely have never heard Cairns mention child care before today and certainly never mentioned the current more generous child care offer in Wales. Also, let’s wait and see if this policy provides what is currently promised.

Malcolm Jones
Malcolm Jones
1 year ago

Hey let’s not forget that 180million pounds he gave Wales that works out just over 50pence a person a week for the two years that it runs for SAY NO MORE

Y Cymro
Y Cymro
1 year ago

Again we see the hypocritical “Welsh” Tory MPs like Alun Cairns want Wales to ape England like a stuck record. But I don’t hear similar calls regarding Welsh infrastructure spend. All we get is copy & paste rhetoric without the funding. See, we in Wales don’t have a magic money tree to shake or bat phone to the English Treasury like England’s Tory government has at it’s disposal. Imagine what we could do if we controlled our water resource and benefitted from the sale of water to our English customers. Also, don’t forget the billions denied to Wales with HS2… Read more »

Brian
Brian
1 year ago

Alun Cairns the archetypal Dic Sion Dafydd.

Fi yn unig
Fi yn unig
1 year ago

Cains telling Wales to follow England and we had better do what he says or he’ll wave his ‘anti English’ card at us again.

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