Debate contribution: Childcare Strategy

Debate contribution by Mr David Brooks on 3 November 2025.

MLA

Mr David Brooks

Party at the time

Democratic Unionist Party

Date

3 November 2025

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Private Members' Business

Heading

Childcare Strategy

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5213731

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I welcome the opportunity to speak to the motion on childcare. I do so with a sense of pride at the progress that has been made to support families across Northern Ireland, not least by this Minister. The extension of the Northern Ireland childcare subsidy scheme was an incredibly important initiative that is already making a tangible difference to the lives of parents and children in every corner of our country. By extending the scheme to include all school-age children, the Minister has increased eligibility by an impressive 60%. That means that thousands more families will now have access to vital support that helps them manage the cost of childcare. For many people, that support is the difference between being able to work and not. It is a promise made and a promise kept. The DUP is serious about tackling the issues that matter most to people. It is serious about helping our working families, and few issues matter more to working families than the affordability and availability of childcare. As has been mentioned, we have discussed the topic many times in the Chamber for that reason. As a result of that initiative, which the DUP Minister championed and led on, working parents are now seeing savings of up to 32% on their childcare bills. That is not rhetoric; it is delivery. It is the practical difference that good government can make when the focus is on what really matters. For too long, parents in Northern Ireland have been paying over the odds for childcare. Many families have felt that the system did not work for them and that it was too expensive and too inflexible. This scheme gave that foot up. It is not a magic wand. It does not remove every challenge or financial strain, but it helps to ensure that more parents are not forced to choose between career and family and that children are given the best start in life. While we can take pride in the progress made, this party is clear-eyed that challenges remain. The Minister has committed to launching the comprehensive early learning and childcare strategy, which is mentioned in the motion. That is to ensure that the childcare that we provide is affordable not only today but into the future. That is a commitment in the Programme for Government, and I am confident that we will see this Minister acting, as he has said, sooner rather than later on the implementation of that beyond its consultation. The £25 million support package announced for 2024-25 represented the most significant expansion of early years investment in decades. That was not an afterthought but evidence of the drive of this Minister and this party to deliver on the commitment to support hard-working families and to build a stronger and fairer Northern Ireland. Our goal is to support every child and to empower parents to provide the best start for their children; to back working families so that parents can continue their career and see benefit not disadvantage from that and, in doing so, strengthen communities. That is why the Minister supported early years with a 10% uplift in 2024-25 and 11% in 2025-26 to stabilise Sure Start as its faces rising costs and increases in National Insurance and to expand the service to another 2,500 families alongside the other programmes that we are aware of such as Toybox, the pathway fund and others that target the key early years and aim to address educational inequalities and underachievement. At times, Sinn Féin speaks out of both sides of its mouth on some of these issues. There is, of course, a commonality in what we support and what we want to see, but it wishes to create political hay and narratives out of motions such as this with simple demands for more, and sooner. However, the public are not fools. Sinn Féin holds the purse strings. This party recognises that the entire Executive face financial challenges and that, at times, there is not enough resource to fund all ambitions and pressures across Departments, so we should be careful about giving hope to people that there is enough resource. The Education Minister is clear on childcare, on SEN education and on the schools estate. He is laying out the plans to address the need. We have seen that in SEN education, where he has not only laid out ambitious plans for the future but has sought to find innovative ways to meet need in the short and medium terms. Indeed, we heard in the Chamber today that Sinn Féin is an impediment by refusing to table SEN issues at the Executive. The Education Minister has said that he could do more, and more quickly. If the Sinn Féin Finance Minister has the funds to spare, I am sure that the Education Minister will be a willing and keen recipient. The implication of the motion is that the Minister is not already working as he is towards that which is being demanded. However positive the Minister's plans, ultimately money talks, and, when the rubber hits the road, resourcing or the lack thereof from the Department of Finance will obviously dictate the scale and pace of change.

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker.

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

Assessment

Not flagged

Jev’s structured answers

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 13:47 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

Disagree with this assessment?

Classifications can be challenged. A person reads every challenge, and any change is recorded publicly above with its reason.

Challenge this classification