Labour’s Shadow Education Bridget Phillipson today announced that
Sir David Bell, the former Chief Inspector of Ofsted, and the
former Permanent Secretary at the Department for Education, will
lead a major new review to shape Labour’s modern childcare
system, as part of its plan to drive “high and rising standards”
in education.
In her speech to Labour Party conference, Phillipson said that
new investment in early years “must come with ambitious reform to
drive up standards across education in the long term” so
Labour can better integrate early years care into the wider
education system and deliver its aim of ensuring that half a
million more children to hit early learning goals by 2030.
Labour said its review would develop a plan for the widening of
childcare eligibility promised by the Conservatives at the 2023
Budget, look at ways to increase the amount of primary
school-based nursery provision due to falling birth rates and how
to build on Labour’s victory in the Levelling Bill to remove
restrictions on local authorities from opening nursery provision.
The review will consider major reform of the childcare workforce
as well as inform Labour’s plan deal with the lack of available
childcare in England where there are two children for every
childcare place.
Labour said that the Conservatives had no plan to improve the
quality, location or availability of childcare they had promised
families despite proposing to pay for around 80% of childcare
delivered in England.
Labour’s intervention comes amid warnings that soaring nursery
closures and growing problems within an overstretched and
demotivated childcare workforce could see the Conservatives fail
to deliver their pledge.
Labour said that its plan was a marked contrast to the
Conservatives’ short-termism and showed Labour was a credible
party of government which would not make promises that it could
not deliver.
The party said that the review would carry no cost and that any
policies implemented on the recommendation of the review would be
fully cost and funded as is the case with all of Labour’s
pledges.
, Labour’s Shadow
Education Secretary, said:
“Our ambition starts, as education starts, at the beginning of
all our lives: our childcare system must be about life chances
for children, as well as work choices for parents.
“That is why I am determined that new investment in childcare
comes with ambitious reform, to ensure early education is
available in every corner of our country for every family and
every child, to drive up standards for our youngest children and
for the amazing people who support and teach them.
“And that focus on high and rising standards, is why today I’m
announcing that Sir David will lead Labour’s work to develop the
plan we need, for the workforce we need, for the qualifications
they’ll have, for the settings where it’ll happen, to deliver our
ambition for a modernised childcare system, from the end of
parental leave to the end of primary school.
Sir David Bell, Chair of Labour’s Early Years
Review, said:
“I am delighted to have been invited to chair Labour’s Early
Years Review, which will inform the landmark creation of a new
modern childcare system that embeds quality and availability
throughout early years education.
“It’s only through that relentless focus on high and rising
standards and the better integration of early years into our
wider education system that Labour will meet the ambitious aim of
half a million more children meeting early learning goals by
2030.
Ends
Notes
Sir David Bell
In a career spanning over 40 years, Sir David Bell has held a
number of major posts across the education system. Between 2012
and 2018, he was Vice-Chancellor at the University of Reading.
Previously, he was Permanent Secretary at the Department for
Education for six years, serving four Secretaries of State and
three Prime Ministers. He also served as Her Majesty's Chief
Inspector of Schools for nearly four years. He became the
Vice-Chancellor and Chief Executive of the University of
Sunderland on 24 September 2018. Sir David began his career as a
primary school teacher and later became a head teacher.
Sir David Bell KCB DL | The
University of Sunderland
Nursery closures soared by 50% last year, putting the
Conservative Government’s plans to
expand free childcare in peril. Some 216 nurseries in England had
to shut in the 12 months to September, up from 144 in 2021/22.
Source: Tory plans to extend free
childcare could be scuppered as 50% more nurseries shut - Mirror
Online
If the Conservatives deliver on their early years eligibility
policy announced at the Spring Budget, the Department for
Education will be paying for around 80% of childcare in England.
Source: https://ifs.org.uk/news/childcare-reforms-create-new-branch-welfare-state-also-huge-risks-market
