Labour’s intervention comes as the spiralling cost of childcare under the Conservatives, in addition to rising food, fuel and housing costs, is increasingly forcing growing numbers of parents out of work and see more children missing out on additional learning, and enriching activities.
 
Paddy Lillis – Usdaw General Secretary says: “Working parents, especially women, face huge challenges balancing work with caring responsibilities. Not having enough childcare for working parents risks reversing decades of progress women have made in the labour market and increasing the gender pay gap, as well as having a damaging impact on economic productivity.
 
“Our surveying of members has found that working families have been particularly severely affected by the cost of living crisis. With budgets tightening childcare is becoming increasingly unaffordable. 82% of parents said they felt financially worse off now than they did this time last year and that is only set to get worse.
 
“The majority of low-paid frontline workers are women. These essential roles have been undervalued and underpaid for too long. Women workers need decent pay, along with more affordable and available childcare. They need new family friendly rights that give parents and carers real choices to support juggling work and family life. A comprehensive childcare provision is essential to support working parents.
 
“As part of any new deal for workers we must have a substantial answer to the long-running childcare challenge. So we very much welcome Bridget Phillipson making this early commitment as part of an ambitious school improvement programme to build a future where children come first. It clearly shows that Labour is on the side of working people struggling to make ends meet while bringing up a family.”
 
Notes for editors:
 
Usdaw (Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers) is the UK's fifth biggest trade union with around 360,000 members. Most Usdaw members work in the retail sector, but the union also has many members in transport, distribution, food manufacturing, chemical industry and other trades.
 
For Usdaw press releases visit: http://www.usdaw.org.uk/news and you can follow us on Twitter @UsdawUnion