Debate contribution: Universal, Affordable Child-centred Childcare

Debate contribution by Mr Gerry Carroll on 18 November 2024.

MLA

Mr Gerry Carroll

Party at the time

People Before Profit Alliance

Date

18 November 2024

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Opposition Business

Heading

Universal, Affordable Child-centred Childcare

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4656566

Read the official Assembly record

Text

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. High-quality, accessible and affordable childcare is one of life's basic essentials, but for too many families across the North, suitable and flexible childcare is too hard to find or the costs are simply far too high. Employers for Childcare reported that the average cost of a full-time childcare place in 2023 was £193 a week. Research by Melted Parents found that 80% of families spent more on childcare each month than on mortgage payments. For some people, juggling childcare with work just does not add up. Eighty-eight per cent of parents surveyed by Employers for Childcare had to change their work arrangements due to the cost of childcare, including cutting back on their working hours. Lower income households were much more likely to stop work altogether due to childcare costs. That leaves too many families dependent on a failing social security system, which has been ravaged by over a decade and a half of austerity, to get by. A lack of high-quality, accessible and affordable childcare affects us all, but it has particularly failed single parents and low-income families. Children who do not have access to high-quality early learning and childcare miss out on many things, including the early identification of special educational needs and disabilities. The damage does not stop there. Workers in the childcare sector are underpaid and overstretched, while small childcare providers struggle to break even. All of that is because our current political and economic system sees childcare as an individual or family responsibility rather than a collective social responsibility, which it is. We agree with the motion that the existing three-hour model does not go far enough to help struggling families. Parents in Scotland, England and Wales have access to 30 hours' free childcare a week. The fact that the preschool offer in the North is up to 22·5 hours a week reflects a shameful lack of action and ambition. What is even worse is that only 40% of children receive those 22·5 hours. The early learning and childcare strategy should be published as a matter of priority. For almost a decade, the North has been the only part of these islands without a childcare strategy. In that vacuum and without targeted investment, costs for families have continued to rise, with working-class families suffering the most. Our amendment calls for a more radical change: aiming for the goal of universal free childcare by 2030. Treating childcare as a free and universal basic service would mean better outcomes for children and parents. Seventy per cent of parents surveyed by Pregnant Then Screwed said that they would work more if childcare was free. It is definitely viable. The idea of universal basic services rests on the assumption that the main role of the state is to ensure that everyone's basic needs are met. That is not such a radical idea. If a state repeatedly fails to meet its citizens' basic needs, what purpose does the state serve? High-quality, free and accessible childcare is a basic need for every family with children. When seen in that way, as a basic public good, it seems obvious that access to childcare should not be determined by the wealth and working status of families. It also seems obvious to me that childcare should be available to all parents for as many or as few hours as they need. If we treat childcare as an essential universal basic service, workers should be given fair terms and conditions to reflect their responsibilities. Despite that, some in the Chamber will try to characterise the idea of universal free childcare — there has been an attempt already — as outlandish or unaffordable. However, there is more than enough wealth in our society to fund universal free childcare. Fair, progressive taxation would mean that the rich finally pay their fair share towards our public services. At the devolved level, the Executive could scrap rates relief for wealthy businesses. Stormont gave a £73 million handout last year to companies such as Coca-Cola —.

Sure.

I hope that your Minister can tell us how much it will cost when he responds. I know that the Member has an aversion to making corporations pay taxes. He should maybe explain his rationale for that. It is mind-boggling to me that he is happy for a company to have £2 billion sitting in a bank and that he is happy for people to struggle to pay childcare. Square that circle. Executive parties are making a conscious choice to prop up big businesses, which pollute our environment and often treat their workers poorly, at the expense of working-class families who are struggling to care for their kids. That is something that the Member for East Belfast is happy to maintain. Instead of placating the rich, we should be investing in community-led childcare services to allow providers to pay staff fairly and to provide free childcare to all who need it, whenever they need it. I urge Members to support the amendment.

834 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 11:31 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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