Chancellor Jeremy Hunt has claimed that the Government is ‘on track’ with its plans to expand childcare for parents, in response to Labour claims that it has a dossier that shows that the Conservatives’ plans are ‘in absolute tatters’.
Labour says its dossier reveals that more than 180,000 childcare places across England could be at risk from more than 3,000 nursery closures due to the Tories’ ‘botched’ childcare offer.
The dossier carries details of providers from across different regions of England warning of disappointment for parents due to a lack of places, lower quality early years education due to systemic underfunding and expressing anger at a Conservative commitment, which one nursery owner describes as written ‘on the back of a ***** packet’.
Shadow education secretary Bridget Phillipson has written to the Chancellor to demand guarantees for parents that the childcare offer made in last year’s budget would be delivered as scheduled and without parents incurring additional charges, dubbing the offer a ‘pledge without a plan’.
