The first is that childcare policy has become an increasingly important issue for politicians. Although steady and sustained progress was made in expanding childcare and nursery places during Labour's years in office, the fact that costs are still high and rising for millions of working parents, while all the time their living standards are falling, has meant that childcare has shot up the political agenda.
The political parties are now competing for attention on childcare in ways that would have been unthinkable 20 years ago. This is good news for those people, like me, who believe that creating a universal pre-school childcare and early learning system along Nordic lines is a key strategic priority in Britain. It means we are now arguing as much about the 'how' and 'when' of improvements to childcare, as the 'why?'.
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