Oral Answers to Questions

Tulip Siddiq Excerpts

Wednesday 28th February 2024 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

On Monday we launched a consultation on the largest ever roll-out of new bathing water sites: 27 potential new bathing waters in England, including an extra one on the River Teme in Ludlow in my right hon. Friend’s constituency. He is right that substantial improvements have been made in recent years. Almost 90% of designated bathing waters in England now meet the higher standards of good or excellent, up from just 76% in 2010; all part of our plan for water which, alongside those on the Conservative Benches voting for the strictest storm overflow targets and plans for unlimited penalties for polluting water companies, was opposed by the Labour party.

[Tulip Siddiq (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab)]

Q9. The parent of a two-year-old in the UK is currently spending more than £14,000 a year on a full-time nursery place. Last year the Prime Minister promised parents that in April 2024 there would be a new free childcare offer. With only a month to go, parents do not know whether they can access that offer, because of staff shortages and the lack of childcare spaces. Will the parents to whom the Prime Minister made that promise be able to accept the offer that he talked about last year, or is this another example of a broken Tory promise?

[The Prime Minister]

We are delivering on what we said, which is 30 hours of free childcare a week for working parents of children from when they are nine months old until they start school. That is the largest ever expansion of childcare in our country’s history. Perhaps the hon. Lady might want to have a conversation with her Welsh Labour colleagues, who were given the funding to deliver childcare expansion in Wales, and what have they done? They have pocketed the money instead of matching our plans to support parents in England.