Labour is considering plans to create thousands of nursery places within existing primary schools as part of a signature offer to voters at the next election.
Sir Keir Starmer’s party has commissioned former Ofsted head Sir David Bell to help find new ways to increase levels of childcare provision, which has plummeted in recent years.
The number of registered childcare providers in England fell by 20,000 from 2015 to 2022, according to data from Ofsted.
In so-called “desert” areas like Sunderland, there are as few as 12 childcare places per 100 children under the age of five, according to The Times, which first reported on the story.
Under Labour’s plans, the new centres would be integrated into existing schools as part of what the party claims will be a “modernised childcare system” available from the end of parental leave to the end of primary school.
Local councils would be encouraged to set up their own nursery provision in existing primary school buildings in a bid to reduce costs while allowing schools to integrate their nurseries into the wider early years education programme.
Other details have yet to be set out, but Labour said the policy will be fully funded.
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Asked about the funding, frontbencher Emily Thornberry told ITV’s Good Morning Britain: “That’s why we need to have a proper review. One thing I can say to you is that anything we announce will be properly funded.”
She said that the strategy to expand childcare provision “will be in our manifesto”.
“What we have announced today, we have persuaded an outstanding person who is an expert in this field, a man called Sir David Bell, who will start a review into this for us.
“We will look at how we can have a proper strategy for dealing with the issue of childcare, because it is simply withered on the vine.”
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Sir David Bell was the chief inspector of Ofsted from 2002 to 2006, and went on to be the top civil servant at the Department for Education.
The issue could become a key battleground at the next election, expected in 2024.
The UK has some of the highest childcare costs in the world, and experts have warned that the most disadvantaged children are at risk of missing out due to the nationwide shortage of provision.
The government has introduced an expansion of free provision, under which working parents of two-year-olds will be able to access 15 hours of taxpayer-funded childcare from April.
From September 2025, working parents of children under five will be entitled to 30 hours of free childcare per week.
However, critics said this was undermined by capacity issues.
A Labour source said: “Childcare hours are no use to parents if they can’t get places – that’s why families are sceptical of what the Tories have offered, particularly in places Labour needs to win at the next election.”
Labour has previously pledged to reform the childcare model rather than “tinker” around its edges, with Bridget Philipson, the shadow education secretary, saying the scale and ambition of the plan will be like “the birth of the NHS”.
She has visited Australia, Ireland and Estonia to study their childcare systems.
In Australia, the Labor Party won last year’s general election after nine years out of power, with one of its key commitments being a £2.9bn pledge to reduce the cost of childcare for working families.
