Party aims to gain support from professional parents in Tory strongholds by scrapping restrictions on opening local authority-run preschools
Labour will allow hundreds of new state nurseries to be built across the country to cut childcare costs for working parents, The Telegraph has learnt.
Under radical reforms being drawn up ahead of the next election, local authorities will be promised new powers to establish maintained nursery schools which offer a high standard of free education and care to preschool children.
The planned legislation to end existing barriers to opening new local authority-run nurseries in England forms part of Labour’s long-term ambition for an extensive universal childcare offer it hopes will win support from professional parents in Tory strongholds who are struggling to cope with childcare costs.
Bridget Phillipson, Shadow Education Secretary, said: “Parents and families in areas like the south east and right across our country, but including in those seats which I’m determined Labour wins back next time, they want to see a real push around childcare support.