Alliance responds to research showing parents in households earning less than £50k are leaving the workforce due to the cost of early years places

The Early Years Alliance has issued a comment in response to research from campaign group Pregnant then Screwed showing that one in five parents in households earning less than £50,000 a year are leaving the workforce due to the cost of early years education and care. 

Commenting, Neil Leitch, CEO of the Early Years Alliance, said: 

"We believe that every family, regardless of their income or background, should be able to access quality early education and care, but the fact is that years of underfunding have left many providers with no choice but to increase their fees just to keep their doors open.  

“This has made it increasingly difficult for families on lower incomes to access affordable places, and so it comes as absolutely no surprise that so many parents in these households are being forced to leave the workforce as a result. 

“With the upcoming expansion of the 30-hour offer set to disproportionally benefit higher-income families, the inequalities that we are already seeing will only worsen going forward. Worse still, if the offer isn’t funded correctly, we are likely to see providers forced to increases prices for those families not eligible for the funded offers, or risk going out of business entirely. 

“It’s clear that our early years system is fundamentally broken.  We urge the government to recognise the severity of the situation before the situation gets even worse."