Debate contribution: Childcare Strategy

Debate contribution by Ms Kate Nicholl on 3 November 2025.

MLA

Ms Kate Nicholl

Party at the time

Alliance Party

Date

3 November 2025

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Private Members' Business

Heading

Childcare Strategy

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5213769

Read the official Assembly record

Text

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I really welcome the opportunity to speak about childcare, which I do at any opportunity. No one in the Chamber will dispute the fact that affordable, accessible, high-quality early learning and childcare is vital for families, for gender equality and for our economy. My comments will largely be about the economic side, because, if we are truly serious about achieving that type of early learning and childcare, our focus cannot begin and end with reducing parental fees. So often, the conversation centres on that. Affordability is absolutely one side of the equation. I should declare an interest, because I avail myself of the Northern Ireland childcare subsidy scheme. I am very well paid. I have three children, and my childcare bill, with the subsidy, is £2,600 a month. If that is how much we are paying, I honestly do not know how so many families are managing to pay for childcare at the moment. The other part, however, is sustainability: sustainability for the people and places that deliver childcare every day. Childcare is not a luxury or a personal choice. Rather, it is essential economic and social infrastructure. It enables parents to work, supports children's development and underpins our productivity as a region, yet the people who deliver it — early years educators, childminders and assistants — are among the lowest paid, despite often doing the most precious work in our economy, which is nurturing and shaping the next generation. That has to change. I will share some information from a local provider who contacted me recently. Their story reflects what I hear across the sector and what, I know, other MLAs hear. The provider, who runs a few day-care settings, describes growing and unsustainable pressures. Recruitment is in crisis. They report a chronic shortage of applicants. People do not turn up to interviews, and, if they do, many leave their post within weeks. The provider pays above the minimum wage, but the rising national minimum wage has narrowed the pay gap between qualified and unqualified staff. That makes it impossible to reward skills or experience properly. That director told me:

"We can't raise wages without raising fees, and that's the cycle families blame us for even though it's beyond our control."

The vetting system is described as being cumbersome, paper-based and inconsistent. Health declaration forms can take weeks for GPs to complete, often at the applicant's cost, and that delay means that settings are left short-staffed. The provider also points to financial challenges. Providers here cannot register for VAT, so they cannot claim for essential costs. They manage multiple funding streams, from tax-free childcare to employer voucher schemes, with payments that often arrive without remittance advice, thus making reconciliation a full-time job, and one can add to that the strain of multiple staff being on maternity leave. We talked about how many women work in the sector. In one setting, five senior team members were off at once, and the result was very difficult for the provider. Those complaints are not isolated but, rather, speak to a system that has evolved piecemeal across Departments without a coherent plan. That is why having a strategy is so important and why it is so important that Departments work well together. It is great that there is a task force, but, my goodness, the lack of goodwill in this place at the moment is shocking. We have heard that the business side sits with the Department for the Economy and that the Department of Health is also responsible for a big part of it. There therefore needs to be goodwill between the Ministers so that they can work together and deliver. That really struck me today. When I became an MLA, my very first question was on the review of minimum standards. I was told that it was coming in a couple of months, but it is still not here. It is really important that we have a strategy, that it be joined-up and that there be delivery. As my colleague so perfectly said, we can keep talking about childcare, but we need to deliver on it. I will briefly mention the registered childminding sector. Patricia Lewsley-Mooney is an expert on that and a fountain of knowledge. She told me that one childminder told her that she employs an assistant to support three children with additional needs but that the rise in costs have made doing that almost impossible to sustain. Those are exactly the people whom business support funding should help: those providing inclusive care that keeps parents in work and children in stable, nurturing environments.

I welcome the childcare academies. I have a free idea for the DUP. There is so much more that communities and councils could do. Work is already happening in the 11 council areas, but what about our parks and the space that is being used? How can we utilise that more? If you take that forward, I promise not to take credit for it. So much more could be done with councils, especially because of their grassroots reach and the work that already shows collaboration across Departments. It is the kind of joined-up approach that our amendment calls for. Yes, families need affordable childcare, but affordability will mean nothing if there are no qualified staff to deliver it or if providers cannot keep their doors open. We owe it to the parents who need childcare to work and to the educators in nurseries, preschools and living rooms across Northern Ireland —

— who make that possible every day.

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

Assessment

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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.

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