EARLY years workers need £15 an hour, the TUC said today after campaigners warned the government’s £6.5 million-backed recruitment campaign for more staff is just “drop in the ocean.”
Labour said that the Tories had offered a “childcare pledge without a plan” after the Department for Education announced £1,000 bungs to new childcare staff just two months before it rolls out 15 hours of free childcare for working parents of two-year-olds.
The plans come under the Do Something Big trial taking place in 20 local authorities in England from April.
The free childcare hours are to be extended to working parents of all children older than nine months from September, with working parents of children under five to be entitled to 30 hours of free childcare per week from September 2025.
TUC general secretary Paul Nowak said: “This is too little, too late.
“It does nothing to address the retention crisis in childcare, or this Tory government’s chronic underfunding of the childcare sector over the last 13 years.
“Caring for and educating young children is skilled work, and the overwhelmingly female workforce deserves decent pay and conditions.
“Ministers must introduce a £15 an hour minimum wage for childcare workers, and work with unions to upskill staff and stop the race to the bottom on pay and conditions.”
National Day Nurseries Association chief executive Purnima Tanuku said: “It’s important to stress that this campaign comes too late to support nurseries with the first phase of the childcare expansion which begins in two months.”
Pregnant Then Screwed founder Joeli Brearley said: “A one-off payment doesn’t deal with the fundamental issue that early years professionals leave the sector because the pay is dreadful and the work can be hugely stressful.
“The only way to sustainably solve the staffing crisis is to increase wages.‘’
Jacqueline Stratford-Parker, co-owner of Puddle Ducks Pre-School in Alvingham, Lincolnshire, said that providers in the sector cannot get the staff as early years workers are paid a “pittance.”
Labour’s shadow education secretary Bridget Phillipson said: “Childcare staff are leaving in their droves, leading to nursery closures right across the country.
“Cheap bungs to new staff when existing workers are turning their back on this key industry will not magic up new places for parents.”
Education secretary Gillian Keegan said that the plans were “good for families and good for the wider economy.”
