Nursery fees ‘to rise by £1,000 this year’ as childcare providers struggle with costs – forcing parents to quit work
The soaring cost of childcare in the UK is revealed in new figures today, suggesting nurseries will raise fees by £1,000 this year.
A survey of 1,156 providers by the Early Years Alliance found nine out of 10 expect to increase fees, typically in April, and by an average of 8% – higher than in previous years.
Cost of living – latest: Semi-skimmed milk and children’s jeans – the details behind inflation
UK childcare costs are already among the most expensive in the world, with full-time fees for a child under two at nursery reaching an average £269 a week last year – or just under £14,000 annually.
An 8% rise would take that to more than £15,000.
Three and four-year-olds in England attending a nursery or childminder are eligible for either 15 or 30 free hours a week depending on whether their parents work, so their costs are a lot lower.
There are different schemes in Wales and Scotland.
But the concern is that by this stage many parents – particularly mothers – have felt forced to drop out of work or cut their hours.
Tory MPs have been pressing the chancellor to take measures to make childcare more affordable in the March budget in order to reduce pressure on families, and enable more women to re-enter the workforce.
But an option to extend free hours to all two-year-olds is understood to have been ruled out.
Most nurseries and childminders surveyed – 87% – said the money they get from the government does not cover their costs to provide the “free” hours – leaving them out of pocket.
More than half of providers (51%) said they had operated at a loss last year. A handful said they were looking at fee increases of as much as 25%.
Becky Burdaky, 26, from Wythenshawe, Greater Manchester, told Sky News she had taken the “daunting” decision to leave her job in sales after having her second child, Bobby, last year.
Her daughter Harriet, aged three, goes to pre-school near their home, but the family found the costs they would face for their baby son beyond their reach.
She will stay at home and they will live on the wages of her partner Steve, an electrician.
‘Not asking other people to pay for my kids’
Becky said: “When we looked into the fees it was £70 a day – it would have been all of my wage. With Harriet it was about £54, so that’s a huge difference.
“And if he was home poorly, I wouldn’t get paid but I’d still have to pay his fee. Once we sat down and worked it out I would have been paying to go to work.
“I never envisaged myself being a stay-at-home mum, you know just cooking and cleaning and bringing up children, as I’ve always worked.
Becky says she could be starting from the bottom again when she returns to work
“It’s our decision to have children – I’m not asking other people to pay for my children. And I definitely don’t want people’s taxes to go up because of it.
“But I think slightly subsidising the cost of fees so it’s affordable for working parents means we can work and contribute.
“You don’t know what it’s going to be like when you return to work, you’re starting from the bottom.”
The campaign group Pregnant Then Screwed surveyed 27,000 parents last year and found nearly two thirds paid more for childcare than their rent or mortgage.
Although childcare costs have risen significantly in recent years, many providers are struggling to stay in business – with 5,400 closing their doors in the year to August 2022.
Fees for the youngest children, aged under three, are often used to keep the nurseries in business, and the rising cost of living means parents are cutting back.
‘I’ve put my savings in to cover wages’
Delia Morris is the owner of Morris Minors pre-school in Croxley Green, Hertfordshire, where children used to start aged two but are now increasingly starting at three.
She is paid £5.41 an hour by the local authority for their free hours, but says providing it costs her around £7.
“Children come in later, when they are funded,” she said.
“That’s had a huge impact. I did raise my fees a very small amount this year but it doesn’t cover it because we only have one or two children doing a couple of sessions a week [that parents pay for].
“I’ve had to put my own savings in to cover the wages last summer, and the staff had to drop a session.”
As to what the government should do, she said: “They have to put money in. It’s difficult to say, but I have to be realistic that if I can’t make ends meet I will have to close and that’s it.”
Delia Morris says the government should provide extra funding for childcare
Neil Leitch, chief executive of the Early Years Alliance, said the organisation had closed half of the 132 nurseries it operated in the last four years.
“They are exclusively in areas of deprivation, which seems to fly in the face of any levelling up agenda. These are families and children who would benefit most from support and care,” he said.
According to the OECD, the UK tops the table for the proportion of a mother’s income taken up by childcare costs – based on two children in full-time care.
‘The gender pay gap just explodes’
Christine Farquharson, education economist at the Institute for Fiscal Studies, said childcare costs for two-year-olds have risen twice as fast as inflation in the past decade – with a lasting effect on women’s pay.
“We ended up in a situation where the youngest children have the highest prices they’re ever going to pay, with the least access to government support,” she said.
“And it’s coming at this critical moment where parents are making decisions about whether or not to go back to work after they’ve been on parental leave.
“When mothers – and it is mostly mothers – make that choice to step back from the labour market it’s not just those few years. The gender pay gap just explodes and literally takes decades to come back to anything approaching the situation before they became parents.”
Proposals, championed by Liz Truss, to increase the ratio of children looked after by each adult, have attracted opposition from nurseries and parents.
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But Tory MPs are pressing the government to help parents with the cost of childcare by reducing business rates for nurseries or extending free hours to two-year-olds.
Robin Walker, chair of the education select committee, said some of the existing schemes are not working effectively – such as tax-free childcare – for which uptake is only around 40%.
Universal Credit claimants are also eligible to have up to 85% of their childcare costs funded but are put off by having to make upfront payments.
“There is money there that isn’t being used,” he said. “Upfront payment for Universal Credit and tax-free childcare are putting a lot of parents off using them at all.
“The government is already spending more than any previous government has in this space, but other countries in Europe are spending more particularly in the 0-2 age bracket.
“If we were to make the case for more investment it would unlock those opportunities for people to continue in the workplace and stimulate children in the early years.”
If they win power, Labour have promised an expansion of childcare from the end of maternity leave until the start of primary school.
Shadow education secretary Bridget Philipson told Sky News this would be a “key battleground issue” at the next election.
A Department for Education spokesperson said: “We recognise that families and early years providers across the country are facing financial pressures and we are currently looking into options to improve the cost, flexibility, and availability of childcare.
“We have spent more than £20bn over the past five years to support families with the cost of childcare and the number of places available in England has remained stable since 2015, with thousands of parents benefitting from this.”
World
Body of missing rabbi Zvi Kogan found in UAE – as Israeli PM says he was murdered in ‘antisemitic terror incident’
The COP29 climate talks have reached a last ditch deal on cash for developing countries, pulling the summit back from the brink of collapse after a group of countries stormed out of a negotiating room earlier.
The slew of deals finally signed off in the small hours of Sunday morning in Azerbaijan includes one that proved hardest of all – one about money.
Eventually the more than 190 countries in Baku agreed a target for richer polluting countries such as the UK, EU and Japan to drum up $300bn a year by 2035 to help poorer nations both curb and adapt to climate change.
It is a far cry from the $1.3trn experts say is needed, and from the $500bn that vulnerable countries like Uganda had said they would be willing to accept.
But in the end they were forced to, knowing they could not afford to live without it, nor wait until next year to try again, when a Donald Trump presidency would make things even harder.
Bolivia’s lead negotiator Diego Pacheco called it an “insult”, while the Marshall Islands’ Tina Stege said it was “not nearly enough, but it’s a start”.
UN climate chief Simon Stiell said: “This new finance goal is an insurance policy for humanity, amid worsening climate impacts hitting every country.
“No country got everything they wanted, and we leave Baku with a mountain of work still to do. So this is no time for victory laps.”
The funding deal was clinched more than 24 hours into overtime, and against what felt like all the odds.
The talks were rocked from the start by the incoming presidency of climate denier Mr Trump, the moment Argentina’s team were recalled back to Buenos Aires by their right-wing president and a controversial letter that sent shockwaves through the United Nations.
Pic: AP
The fraught two weeks of negotiations pitted the anger of developing countries who are footing the bill for more dangerous weather that they did little to cause, against the tight public finances of rich countries.
A relieved Juan Carlos Monterrey Gomez, climate envoy for Panama, said there is “light at the end of the tunnel”.
Just hours ago, the talks almost fell apart as furious vulnerable nations stormed out of negotiations in frustration over that elusive funding goal.
They were also angry with oil and gas producing countries, who stood accused of trying to dilute aspects of the deal on cutting fossil fuels.
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Climate-vulnerable nations storm out of talks
The UN talks work on consensus, meaning everyone has to agree for a deal to fly.
A row over how to follow up on last year’s pledge to “transition away from fossil fuels” was left unresolved and punted into next year, following objections from Chile and Switzerland for being too weak.
A draft deal simply “reaffirmed” the commitment but did not dial up the pressure in the way the UK, EU, island states and many others here wanted.
Saudi Arabia fought the hardest against any step forward on cutting fossil fuels, the primary cause of climate change that is intensifying floods, drought and fires around the world.
Governments did manage to strike a deal on carbon markets at COP29, which has been 10 years in the making and will allow countries to trade emissions cuts.
‘Not everything we wanted’
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The UK’s energy secretary, Ed Miliband, said the deal is “not everything we or others wanted”, but described it as a “step forward”.
“It’s a deal that will drive forward the clean energy transition, which is essential for jobs and growth in Britain and for protecting us all against the worsening climate crisis,” he added.
“Today’s agreement sends the signal that the clean energy transition is unstoppable.
“It is the biggest economic opportunity of the 21st century and through our championing of it we can help crowd in private investment.”
Protesters at the summit in Baku. Pic: AP
Read more:
Azerbaijan president hails oil and gas as ‘gift from God’
UN climate summits ‘no longer fit for purpose’
The Azerbaijan team leading COP29 said: “Every hour of the day, we have pulled people together. Every inch of the way, we have pushed for the highest common denominator.
“We have faced geopolitical headwinds and made every effort to be an honest broker for all sides.”
At least 20 people have been killed and 66 injured in Israeli strikes on central Beirut, Lebanese authorities have said.
Lebanon‘s health ministry said the death toll could rise as emergency workers dig through the rubble looking for survivors. DNA tests are being used to identify the victims, the ministry added.
The attack destroyed an eight-storey residential building and badly damaged several others around it in the Basta neighbourhood at 4am (2am UK time) on Saturday.
The central Basta neighbourhood in Beirut
The Israeli military did not warn residents to evacuate before the attack and has not commented on the casualties.
At least four bombs were dropped in the attack – the fourth targeting the city centre this week.
A separate drone strike in the southern port city of Tyre this morning killed two people and injured three, according to the state-run National News Agency.
The victims were Palestinian refugees from the nearby al Rashidieh camp who were out fishing, according to Mohammed Bikai, spokesperson for the Fatah Palestinian faction in the Tyre area.
Israel’s military warned residents today in parts of Beirut’s southern suburbs that they were near Hezbollah facilities, which the army would target in the near future. The warning, posted on X, told people to evacuate at least 500 metres away.
The army said that over the past day it had conducted intelligence-based strikes on Hezbollah targets in Dahiyeh, in Beirut’s southern suburbs, where Hezbollah has a strong presence. It said it hit several command centres and weapons storage facilities.
Pic: AP
Israel has killed several Hezbollah leaders in air strikes on the capital’s southern suburbs.
Heavy fighting between Israel and Hezbollah is ongoing in southern Lebanon, as Israeli forces push deeper into the country since launching a major offensive in September.
According to the Lebanese health ministry, at least 3,670 people have been killed in Israeli attacks there, with more than 15,400 wounded.
It has displaced about 1.2 million people – a quarter of Lebanon’s population – while Israel says about 90 soldiers and nearly 50 civilians have been killed in northern Israel.
Read more:
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‘Dozens’ of Palestinians killed in Israeli airstrike
Meanwhile, six people, including three children and two women, were killed in the southern Gazan city of Khan Younis.
Some 44,176 Palestinians have been killed since the start of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, according to the Gaza health ministry.
The ministry does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its count, but it has said that more than half of the fatalities are women and children.
The war began when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel on 7 October 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking another 250 hostage.
US envoy Amos Hochstein was in the region this week to try to end more than 13 months of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, ignited last October by the war in Gaza.
Mr Hochstein indicated progress had been made after meetings in Beirut on Tuesday and Wednesday, before going to meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and defence minister Israel Katz.
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