School-based Nursery Capital Grants

Laura Trott Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd April 2025 Commons Chamber

[Laura Trott (Sevenoaks) (Con)]

We welcome the Education Secretary’s announcement, but let us be absolutely clear: the policies that she is talking about represent investment of £37 million, but the Government are taking away half a billion pounds from nurseries by failing to compensate them for the national insurance increase. That will have a catastrophic effect on nurseries up and down the country, which will be forced either to close or to put their prices up. “Catastrophic” is not my word, but that of the Early Years Alliance, following Labour’s national insurance bombshell on the childcare sector.

In her statement, the Education Secretary said that she inherited a “pledge without a plan”—what a load of nonsense! It is our plan that is delivering the expansion of funded childcare this autumn, and our plan that she today confirmed has already halved costs for under-threes, according to independent research. That is our plan, Madam Deputy Speaker, but it is her plan that is shutting nurseries up and down the country, and that will put up costs for parents.

Just last week, I hosted a roundtable with some of the unsung heroes of the sector—nursery owners. Many were in tears, struggling with very real decisions about whether they can keep their doors open. One of the owners shared with me that she is stopping her own salary so that she can continue to pay her staff the amount they deserve. Another owner was having sleepless nights worrying about how she would provide proper care for the children now that she can no longer afford the staffing costs, thanks to this Government’s decisions.

It is clearly absurd for the Government to ask the sector to absorb the increases in national insurance while keeping fees the same. The consequences of that are entirely predictable: nurseries will have to either close or put up their prices. A recent survey by the Early Years Alliance said that, sadly, around 400 nurseries that it spoke to may have to close because of this Government’s jobs tax. That is what the Education Secretary’s No. 1 priority looks like. Parents will lose out too. According to the National Day Nurseries Association, increases to national insurance contributions will force nurseries to raise their fees by 10%. Those are the obvious consequences of this Government’s decisions.

Will the Education Secretary finally admit today how much the jobs tax is costing the childcare sector? Will she monitor the impact of closures that happen thanks to her jobs tax on childcare availability? On the specifics in her announcement today, will she confirm the locations of the school-based nurseries and how they were chosen? Were they chosen on the basis of surplus primary places or are they in areas where we need more childcare provision? If it is the latter, how were they identified?

Those nurseries will be based in schools, so is it her intention that they will mimic the school timetable, or will there be year-round provision and will their hours be longer than the school day? Will school-based nurseries be compensated for the impact of the jobs tax? If so, what will she do to address the inequity that that will cause with other providers?

As the Early Years Alliance has said today

“if the government is truly serious about breaking down barriers to opportunity, it must come to the realisation that increasing school-based provision can only ever be one piece of the puzzle. Failing to recognise this will simply mean that more families lose out.”

It is right: under this Government, more families will lose out.

While I welcome the Education Secretary’s announcement, the reality is that Labour’s decisions are making childcare more expensive and harder to find—[Interruption.] Hard-working families will bear the brunt of this Government’s failure. It is time for the Education Secretary to stop making broken promises and actually make early years her No. 1 priority.

[Bridget Phillipson]

It must be profoundly draining for the right hon. Lady to come to the Chamber when faced with such good news and to bring such studied, forced negativity every single time. Six weeks ago, I was in the House delivering the news that we are supporting hundreds of schools across our country to open free breakfast clubs, and we got much of the same studied, forced negativity then. Today, not nine months into this Government, we are beginning the roll-out of school-based nurseries, as we have promised to the people of this country—[Interruption.]

I spoke about visits, and the hon. Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston (Neil O’Brien) should go and visit the school-based nursery that will shortly be opening in his constituency. I never hear from Conservative Members that they will be visiting those nurseries or breakfast clubs, so maybe they could take time out of their busy schedules to go and do precisely that. The only priority that they have is to bring back tax breaks for private schools, taking away resources from our state schools. That is the one idea that they have. Their idea of fresh thinking is to spend money they did not raise on plans they did not make.

On the questions asked by the right hon. Member for Sevenoaks (Laura Trott), we are investing £8 billion in expanding early years entitlements, alongside doubling the early years pupil premium, a £75 million expansion grant and compensation for school-based nurseries. The contrast between this Government and the Conservatives is like night and day. I am proud that at the Department for Education, under a Labour Government, it is week in, week out the Department for hope—the hope of a brighter and better future for our children and our country.

We have free breakfast clubs, a cutting-edge curriculum for all our children, the biggest overhaul of children’s social care for a generation, funding for up to 10,000 new school places for children with special educational needs and disabilities, backing for up to 10,000 more apprentices to qualify, new improvement teams in our schools, a new allowance for kinship carers and new support for expanding foster care. That is the difference between this Labour Government and the Conservatives. We are the party of hope. If the Conservatives’ recent leadership contest was anything to go by, they cannot decide if they are the party of fear or the party of despair.