With Wales having the worst childcare offer in Great Britain, Leader of the Welsh Conservatives and Clwyd West MS Darren Millar has implored the First Minister to provide working parents with the support with childcare costs that they need.
Speaking in Tuesday’s meeting of the Welsh Parliament, Darren said hard-working parents from Wales are deliberately moving over the border to England where they can get free childcare support for babies from nine months old.
He therefore urged the First Minister to improve the childcare offer in Wales.
Darren said;
“Research by Coram Family and Childcare found that the parent of a child under two in Wales spends an average of £4,400 more per year to send their child to nursery on a part-time basis than over the border in England. That's £1,700 more per year than is currently the case in Scotland. This is due to parents in Wales getting less support with childcare costs than anywhere else in Britain.
“Can you explain to us today, First Minister, why is it that the Labour Party in Wales does not support or value hard-working mums and dads by providing them with access to more support with free childcare?”
After the First Minister tried to point out differences between England and Wales, Darren added:
“In England, you can get free childcare support for babies from nine months old. You don't get that support if you live in Wales. In Wales, most people don't get any financial support with childcare costs until their child is three years old, and the financial gap between childcare costs in England and Wales is likely to increase significantly because they're going to extend the offer and double the number of free hours for under-threes in September of this year.
“Your Welsh Government received £140 million from the UK Government to allow you to extend your offer and to make it at least as equal to the offer in England. What have you done with that money, because you clearly haven't invested it in childcare?”
He added:
“I'm not proud of the fact that we have working parents from Wales who are deliberately relocating to England in order to get support with their finances in terms of childcare. The reality is this: parents in Wales have the lowest wages, the highest childcare costs and the worst childcare offer in Great Britain."
Speaking after the exchange, Darren said:
“Under Labour, parents are worse off than elsewhere in the UK yet face the highest childcare costs. A Welsh Conservative Government will give more help to hardworking parents as part of our plans to fix Wales."
