Children’s Commissioner for England calls on Government to make early years central to COVID fightback - Tulip Siddiq's response

Tulip Siddiq MP, Labour’s Shadow Minister for Children and Early Years, responding to the Children Commissioner for England’s report on early years services and call for an “emergency rescue package to prevent thousands of nurseries from going under”, said:

“This report confirms that the Government's chronic underfunding of early years has hit disadvantaged children the hardest. The childcare sector is now on the brink of collapse due to Covid-19, and we know that it is nurseries in deprived areas that are most likely to close.

"The Government must urgently provide targeted support for the childcare sector to prevent a wave of nursery closures, which would devastate working families and set back our economic recovery."

Ends

Notes to Editors

• The Children’s Commissioner for England is today (Friday 17 July) publishing a report looking at the provision of early years services for children across the country, alongside a warning that many nurseries are at risk of closure, hitting the life chances of some of the most vulnerable children and holding back the economic recovery following lockdown. The accompanying press release (embargoed until 0001 Friday 17 July 2020) calls for an “emergency rescue package to prevent thousands of nurseries from going under”.

• Yesterday (Thursday 16 July), Tulip Siddiq MP visited a nursery in London with Shadow Education Secretary Kate Green MP to warn that thousands of childcare providers could close without targeted financial support for the childcare sector, highlighting that mass childcare closures could lead to many parents, particularly mothers, losing their jobs, setting back our economic recovery from coronavirus.
  https://labour.org.uk/press/labour-warns-of-setback-to-economic-recovery-without-targeted-childcare-support/