Contribution
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Pritchard. I thank the hon. Member for Sherwood Forest (Michelle Welsh) for highlighting this issue and setting the scene incredibly well. Early years are the foundational building blocks for our society. I read recently about the Shaping Us campaign, led by the Princess of Wales, which strongly focuses on the need for early years support. The campaign highlights that:
“During early childhood, from pregnancy to the age of five, our brains develop at an amazing rate—faster than at any other times in our lives. Our experiences, relationships, our surroundings at that very young age, shape the rest of our lives.”
I subscribe to that not just because the Shaping Us campaign stated it, but because my youngest son Luke and his wife Rachael are staying with us with their two children—Freya is five, and her birthday was Saturday, a week ago, and Ezra is two and a half—and I can honestly say that the two of them absorb everything that happens around them like a sponge. Ezra is not able to speak yet, but he clearly understands everything said to him; we have to be careful with our language and with what we insinuate and do, because he is watching. Freya is the same.
I can absolutely understand why the years from pregnancy to the age of five are so important. Because children are by their very nature innocent, whenever we are having a bad day, they manage to cheer us up with a smile, a hug or whatever it may be. Those things mean a lot to their grandad.
The importance of the early years is well documented and accepted, and this House needs to play a greater role in supporting people to provide an environment for children that ensures that we raise a generation of happy children and highly functioning adults. That responsibility is incredibly important.
I am pleased, as always, to see the Minister in his place. The Minister does not have any responsibility for Northern Ireland—he will probably say, “Thank goodness for that”—but he interacts and exchanges ideas with the Minister from the Northern Ireland Executive. This great United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland has a wealth of ideas, and it is good that we can exchange them between the different regions.
Childcare costs, particularly for full-time places, have increased significantly, with some providers experiencing a 14% rise since 2021. According to Employers For Childcare, 43% of providers describe their financial situation as “struggling” or “distressed”. It is essential that parents have access not simply to people who watch their children, but to people who help their developmental progress.
In Northern Ireland, approximately 79% of women with dependent children are economically active. That is a good figure—that means that they are employed or actively seeking work. The spin-off of that, which may sometimes be negative, is that they are entrusting their children to other people, who will spend a lot of time with them. The atmosphere needs to be bright, engaging and, above all, safe. In many cases that will be provided by grandparents, family members and those who have available time.
Nurseries are having to take more children to balance the books, and they need greater support. I want to tell Westminster Hall about some of the things we are doing in Northern Ireland. Childcare is one of the most significant bills faced by many families across Northern Ireland. My party, the Democratic Unionist party, saw that—not that we are better than anybody else, by the way—and our Minister acted on it, so some credit can be given to our Minister for doing so. We instigated a survey of 1,000 parents, which found that nearly 85% of people had their return to work impacted by childcare costs. In other words, people go back to work early because they need the money, or they can put it off a bit longer if granny and granda, uncles and aunts, or other family members will help out.
Almost a quarter of parents also say that childcare costs consumed nearly a full wage in the household. Those figures are incredibly scary. The most recent Employers For Childcare survey highlighted an average cost of some £170 a week, which represents a significant financial hurdle, yet Northern Ireland lagged behind other UK regions in supporting working families, so we decided to do something. The DUP was determined to change this situation, and subsequently brought in the Northern Ireland childcare subsidy scheme in September 2024—it will be a year old come this September. It provides a 15% subsidy for childcare costs to support working parents with children who have not yet started primary school. The NICSS is a really good scheme, not because it was introduced by our party, but because it helps everybody, irrespective of whether they vote DUP in Northern Ireland. That is what politics is about: delivering for all, irrespective of whether people vote for us on the ballot paper.
The childcare is delivered by registered childcare providers participating in the tax-free childcare scheme, or TFC scheme, including daycare providers, playgroups, childminders and approved home child carers. The overarching aim of the scheme is to help working parents with the affordability of childcare costs. The Northern Ireland Executive has agreed that the subsidy scheme will target working parents who are eligible for the tax-free childcare and who have children who have not yet started primary school. It is really important that we have that scheme in place.