UK PM Rishi Sunak under fire for planning to drop Liz Truss’s childcare reforms

UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is facing dissent from the Tory MPs over his plans to shelve an overhaul of England’s childcare system. Senior Conservative MPs have warned Sunak that childcare reforms need to be prioritised as it is too expensive for parents. Reports suggest that Sunak is likely to put the reforms on the backburner and the scale of reforms is also expected to be much smaller now.

Sunak is believed to be scrapping changes to the childcare system that his predecessor Liz Truss had come up with. Her plan included increasing free childcare by 20 hours a week and relaxing limits on staff-to-child ratios which limit the number of children one adult can look after.

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The cost of childcare in England is currently the second-highest among developed nationsand Truss hadpromised that the reforms will help bring them down considerably.

Robin Walker, chairman of the Commons education committee, said, "Aserious set of policieswas needed on the issue." On the other hand, a source close to Truss has reportedly urged Sunak not to scrap the childcare reforms. Meanwhile, officials at 10, Downing Street have denied reports that the PM is shelving the reforms.

Several prominentTory leaders have lashed out at Sunak and called on him to “knock [it] on the head quickly”.

Simon Clarke, the former levelling up secretary, said that “childcare is hugely and unnecessarily expensive in England and we should do all we can to support working mums”.

A source close to Truss told The Times, "Excessive bureaucracy is making childcare in England increasingly unaffordable for many parents. The system needs to be reformed in order to boost growth and opportunity. Junking Liz's plans for this critical policy area seems economically and politically counterproductive."

Siobhan Baillie, the Tory MP for Stroud, echoed Clarke's views and said that “parents, childcare providers and employers need the complex and expensive childcare system reformed”.

“Liz Truss rightly wanted to be bold on childcare and while I’m personally not convinced that changing ratios and just expanding existing schemes is the right approach, the message should clearly be that decent reform is still coming,” she wrote on Twitter.

Currently, all three and four-year-olds can get 15 hours of free childcare a week during term time. Some families can also claim up to 30 hours.

Truss was planning to increase the amount of free childcare to up to 50 hours a week. She also wanted childcare support money to be given directly to parents rather than to the facilities providing the service.

A report by Coram Family and Childcare Trust puts the figure for 50 hours of childcare each week at £265 on average in nurseries across England. The figure rises to £358 each week in parts of central London.

(With inputs from agencies)

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