David Laws: 30-hours free childcare policy ‘utterly nuts’
Former schools minister says free childcare for working parents operates as “negative early years’ Pupil Premium” benefiting the wealthy, and almost prompted him to resign from the Coalition.
The government’s policy of giving working parents 30-hours free childcare but denying it to disadvantaged parents who are unemployed is “utterly nuts”, David Laws told the SCHOOLS NorthEast Summit.
The former Liberal Democrat schools minister, who now chairs the Education Policy Institute, branded the offer a “negative early years’ premium” benefiting wealthy parents, and said that when the policy was proposed by the Conservatives while the Coalition government was in power, it prompted his only threat to resign from government unless it was dropped.
Read the full article in the Tes.