THANK YOU! After over 113,000 of you signed our petition demanding an independent review into the cost and affordability of the early years sector, on the 13th of September our Childcare Change Now campaign in collaboration with Grazia and the Juggle finally made it to a Westminster debate. A huge thank you to our collaborators in getting us to parliament, and the MPs who represented us so well.
Despite the shocking findings from the 20,000 parent strong (thank you again) survey we ran showing that
- 97% of parents believed that childcare in the UK was too expensive
- 1/3 of parents said that they paid more for childcare than their rent or mortgage (This proportion rose to 47% of respondents from a Black or minority ethnic background)
- only 16% of the women said that childcare had not affected their seniority or income at work.
and so many more depressing statistics
Unfortunately (and unsurprisingly) the Government said that it didn’t make sense to launch an independent review right now, as it would not be done in time to feed into the current government spending review.
So we’re just gonna call it a day then. OF COURSE NOT! We’re just getting started. We are writing a letter to the government asking them to commit to commissioning an independent review, and gang, we’re going to need your help- tweet your MP and let them know that we’re not giving up, and that we need childcare change now.