Has Labour really U-turned on childcare?

Is Labour U-turning on another big spending pledge? Last week, shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves scaled back the party’s £28 billion green energy spending plan to take account of a tougher economic picture. Today, reports suggest the party is planning a similar retreat on childcare, dropping plans for a universal system in favour of means testing.

The reality is a bit more complicated. Shadow education secretary Bridget Phillipson has made a big play about the party’s childcare offer to parents, to the extent that she told the Sunday Times that it would be ‘like the change that we saw post-1945 with the creation of the NHS’. Perhaps the NHS reference has led some to believe that early years provision under a Labour government would be entirely free. Party sources, though, say Labour has never made a specific pledge of universal free childcare and that it is examining a number of policy options for its manifesto including possible targeting of support.