LONG READ How do the parties’ election manifestos stack up?

With just over a week to go until the General Election, there remain several questions surrounding the main political parties’ pledges and the impact they will have on early years and childcare.

Sector organisations have criticised the manifestos for being light on detail. Helen Donohoe, chief executive of the Professional Association for Childcare and Early Years (PACEY), said there is ‘perilously little detail in the Labour proposals for childcare’; while the Social Market Foundation accused the Conservative manifesto of not having any ‘credibility’ or ‘identity’, and ‘focusing on the next three weeks, not the future’.

The Early Years Alliance welcomed measures in the Liberal Democrat manifesto, but said that ‘ultimately, the devil is in the detail’ as information on how these would be implemented remains ‘scant’.

Nursery World poll

A snap X/Twitter poll by Nursery World reveals Labour is the sector’s party of choice. Of the 52 people who responded to the poll, more than half (56 per cent) said they plan to vote for Labour. The Green Party was the second-most-popular choice, receiving 17 per cent of votes, while the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats tied with 13.5 per cent of the total number of votes each.

LABOUR

Will Labour plans to convert unused classrooms into school-based nurseries be an opportunity or a challenge for the sector?

Labour has said it will convert over 3,000 unused classrooms into school-based nurseries to create an extra 100,000 places, to be run by private, voluntary and independent (PVI) providers or schools themselves (the figure includes the 85,000 places already promised by the Conservatives).

According to the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), an extra 100,000 places represents a 6 per cent increase on what is available currently and it would see the number of places within schools rise from 22 per cent to 27 per cent.

Labour has costed the policy at £135 million. Their manifesto states they would spend £35 million in 2028-29, which the IFS says is consistent with spreading the spending equally over four years.

It is not clear when the school-based nurseries – which are effectively classrooms, rather than whole settings – would be ready or whether the childcare provided would be term-time only.

Labour leader Keir Starmer told Sky News the nursery places would be ‘wrapped around primary schools’, a comment the National Day Nurseries Association (NDNA) called ‘extremely disappointing’ given the PVI sector delivers 86 per cent of the total number of early years places.

The IFS believes the plan could be a positive move. Associate director Christine Farquharson told Nursery World that the plan ‘sweetens the pot for providers delivering the new childcare entitlements, rather than relying on the market to incentivise providers’ to open new settings or expand.

However, she said if the programme is spread over the full parliament, most new places would be available after the full roll-out of the funded hours.

‘That makes sense if, for example, the party expects take-up to grow over time, but if there is going to be demand straight away for 85,000 new childcare places, as the Department for Education estimates, the demand would have to be met through other means, at least initially.’

Donohoe said ‘on the face of it’ the proposal to focus on school buildings is worrying for childminders, but said they have been reassured by Labour that childminders are ‘very much part of their thoughts’.

The NDNA said ‘any plans should be done in consultation with communities to ensure it is meeting the needs of local families and not duplicate or displace existing high-quality provision’.

It warned that threatening the sustainability of existing pre-schools and nurseries will not help children or families.

Courteney Donaldson, managing director of childcare and education at Christie & Co, said the capital costs quoted by Labour to convert classrooms into nurseries seem ‘woefully inadequate’. She said, ‘As experienced early education providers are only too acutely aware, the creation of high-quality enabling environments, designed to suitably meet children’s needs, comes at a cost.’ Similar to the NDNA, she raised concern over the duplication of services. ‘Lest we forget the impact the new provision had when Children’s Centres and neighbourhood nurseries opened, and the workforce crisis that then ensued.’

Will the converted classrooms be age appropriate?

The National Education Union (NEU) said ‘expansion into schools must maintain the early years’ unique character and should not be viewed as preparation for, or extension of, primary school.

General secretary Daniel Kebede told Nursery World, ‘High-quality early education requires age-appropriate, child-centred pedagogy, delivered in spaces suitable to the needs of young children.’

Kebede added, ‘Maintained nursery schools already deliver the highest quality of early education, but have experienced a huge cut to their real-terms funding. They continue to face the threat of cuts and closure. Labour must guarantee their long-term future within any plans for expansion.’

James Bowen, assistant general secretary at school leaders’ union NAHT, said, ‘In light of falling primary numbers, it is understandable Labour is exploring the idea of using spare classroom space for new nurseries.

‘We know this sort of conversion can work, and a number of our members have been through such a process in the past. There are clearly a range of questions and issues that would need to be worked through should such a policy come to fruition.

‘At the top of the list is the level of costs involved, and it is good to see Labour has said this would be properly funded.

‘Different models of provision will need to be explored, whether that be schools themselves running nurseries, or working with PVI providers. We also know from experience that converting a classroom to a nursery space is not straightforward and needs careful planning – that includes ensuring suitable access to the building, toilets, outdoor learning space and area for food preparation. Such challenges are not insurmountable but do need to be thought through carefully in each specific case.’

Separately critics have raised concern over the move to charge VAT on private school fees to fund the training of 6,500 more teachers as they believe it could have unintended consequences, for example, better-off parents moving into areas with good state schools and pushing out local families. This could lead to more children attending state schools, potentially impacting Labour’s plan to use classrooms as nurseries.

Will schools want to run nurseries?

The NAHT carried out a small snap poll of 50 schools and found that among 13 leaders not interested in opening nurseries, concerns about early years funding, a lack of staff and the cost of doing so were most prominent.

Among those polled, 22 school leaders said they had already converted classrooms into nurseries. Of these, around a third said it cost less than £20,000, while more than one in ten cited £20,000 to £40,000. Three leaders cited costs of over £100,000.

What should the next Government do to tackle child poverty?

Sir Keir has said ending child poverty is central for Labour and that he is ‘not immune’ to the powerful argument for scrapping the two-child benefit cap.

The Lib Dems and the Greens have both stated that they would end the cap, lifting 250,000 children out of poverty.

The Greens have said they will increase Universal Credit and legacy benefits by £40 a week and end the ‘bedroom tax’.

Labour’s plan for the National Minimum Wage to take account of the cost of living is welcome, but there are concerns how early years providers would pay for it without any rise in funding.

What about the early years workforce?

Labour’s major review of the early years launched last October, spearheaded by Sir David Bell, former chief inspector of schools at Ofsted, was warmly welcomed. It plans to include the workforce, but there has been no more detail.

When NDNA put its concerns regarding school-based nurseries to shadow education secretary Bridget Phillipson, she responded, ‘Should Labour win the trust of the British people, we will launch a comprehensive Early Years Strategy, developed through engagement with the sector, and building on the work of David Bell’s review.’

NAHT’s Bowen said there was a need to ensure there is a sufficient workforce available for any new nurseries. ‘We already know of the staffing challenges facing the sector and it’s something that would need to be a key part of any plan to expand nursery provision.’

NEU’s Kebede warned that any expansion is dependent on hiring qualified staff, ‘highly’ trained in early years practice, and that Labour should consider the impact of its policy on staff workload.

Conservative strategies include a recruitment ad campaign in February with £1,000 sign-up bonuses for new recruits in 20 local authorities, and early years bootcamps to fast-track individuals into the sector, but there are no figures to indicate their success.

The Lib Dems have said they would develop a career strategy for nursery staff, including a training programme.

CONSERVATIVES

Will the plan to cut National Insurance benefit early years staff?

The Tories say they will remove the main rate of National Insurance (NI) for the self-employed and reduce NI contributions for employees by a further 2p by 2027, in addition to the 4p cut in 2024. They want to abolish NI completely when financially possible.

According to the IFS, the change to NI will benefit those earning more than £242 a week (around £12,500 a year). For an employee on ‘average’ earnings of £35,000, the 2p cut would be worth £450 a year.

Donohoe said in theory the policy would help childminders, however, a ‘significant proportion’ do not make enough profit to reach the NI/tax threshold’. The cut could also impact staff who are receiving in-work benefits, she added.

Farquharson warned the plan to remove NI entirely for the self-employed could act as a ‘huge incentive’ for childcare providers to take on self-employed staff or attempt to reclassify the workers they already have’.

LIBERAL DEMOCRATS

Will the plan to cut the childminder registration process be successful in retaining and recruiting more childminders?

The Lib Dems would replace the three different current registration processes with a single childcare register, as well as commission a practitioner-led review to simplify regulation, cut administration and attract new childminders. Donohoe said, ‘Only the Lib Dems mentioned childminders explicitly and acknowledged the need to address the rapid decline, so we warmly welcome that.’

Will plans to nearly triple the Early Years Pupil Premium (EYPP) to £1,000 a year per child make a big difference to settings’ finances?

Farquharson told Nursery World that on its own, the EYPP makes up a relatively small share of providers’ budgets – just over 1 per cent of total DfE funding – so even trebling the payment is ‘unlikely to materially shift the financial dial in the sector overall’.

She added, ‘However, a more generous EYPP rate might change some providers’ decisions about which children to take on, more disadvantaged children will be more generously funded (in addition to local authority specific top-ups for disadvantage).’

Would the Lib Dems’ plan to reform the Child Maintenance Service be effective in cutting child poverty?

A consultation to reform the CMS was due to close in July, but there is no mention of it in the Conservative manifesto.

According to Gingerbread, the charity for single parents, research shows 60 per cent of single parent families living in poverty could escape the ‘poverty trap’ if they received the maintenance owed to them.

Chief executive Victoria Benson said, ‘There is over half a billion pounds owed to children in unpaid maintenance. Child maintenance payments need to be taken more seriously – in many cases they can be the difference between a family keeping their heads above water or plunging into poverty.

‘It’s not right that a government service is letting down so many families and is a key reason that children are going without. The CMS must be reformed to ensure it works for single parents and their children.’

Who gets your vote?

Kuen-Wah Cheung, early years professional, Brighton

So much has happened over the past 14 years that I feel it’s time to recall three salient points that are often forgotten: firstly, Liz Truss went from being a childcare minister criticising ‘chaotic’ nursery settings in 2013 to presiding over one of the most chaotic reigns as PM in living history. Secondly, despite early years settings being given the role of promoting fundamental British values, Boris Johnson’s Government from 2019 to 2022 very much undermined democracy, rule of law, individual liberty, and mutual respect and tolerance. Thirdly, not only have there been three Prime Ministers in just five years, but responsibility for early years has been passed around from junior minister to junior minister like it’s the booby prize in every Cabinet reshuffle.

So yes, I definitely want the Tories out, but who are the alternatives? I feel thoroughly unimpressed and uninspired by the Labour manifesto, particularly the bias towards school-based nurseries, but I can understand why Keir Starmer’s party are being so cautious generally.

As Labour seem to have the election sewn up, I feel it’s worth taking the riskto try to plant the seed to build an alternative platform for the future. That is why I will vote for the Green Party. The Greens aim to rejuvenate Sure Start, emphasise the importance of play in nursery education and understand education is a social good. The people in my city have been blessed to have been served by the first-ever Green MP, Caroline Lucas, over the past 14 years. She is now standing down, sadly. Hopefully, we can elect the second one.

Overview

Courteney Donaldson, managing director of childcare and education, Christie & Co

Governments over the past 20 to 25 years have failed to acknowledge the importance of early childhood education nor the forward-looking benefits and economic prospects for our country as a whole.

Despite being ‘essential community and economic infrastructure’, in the absence of a long-term childcare strategy, consecutive governments have largely left parents, independent organisations and voluntary providers to ‘do it for themselves’, setting up their own provision in the absence of governments providing essential infrastructure.

Evidenced by the composition of the day nursery sector, particularly in England today, historically parents who couldn’t access early childhood education for their own children took the initiative to provide these essential services themselves within their local communities.

While successive governments have introduced subsidies including early years entitlements, various funding streams over decades have had shortfalls. As for capital investment, we only have to look back to what happened with Sure Start, Children’s Centres and Neighbourhood Nursery Initiatives (NNI), all of which show how capital investment has been deployed, at great expense to the taxpayer, only for hundreds of the 1,400 NNI nurseries to subsequently close, often on the expiration of the three-year revenue funding, which as Nursery World reported in July 2008 was the initiative’s ‘Achilles’ heel’.

Over the past year, indeed since the Chancellor’s 2023 Spring Budget, day nurseries, early childhood education, ‘childcare’ and the early years workforce have frequently been front and centre in the press. From discussions on the BBC Breakfast sofa, newspaper headlines and features, through to politicians visiting centres – I can’t personally recall a period in the past 25 years whereby the UK early years sector has had the degree of press exposure seen in the run-up to this General Election. Cynically, it might take another General Election before we do so again.

• For more general election coverage and the party pledges, see www.nurseryworld.co.uk/news
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