Free childcare for nine-month-olds available from next week - but rollout comes with "challenges"

Parents and carers of children aged nine months or over will be entitled to 15 hours of free childcare a week from Monday, the government has confirmed.

The plans to extend free childcare provision were announced by the then Conservative government back in 2023, with the first stage - 15 hours of childcare for two-year-olds each week - being rolled out in April this year.

A further expansion, which will see all children aged nine months to five years eligible for 30 hours of free childcare a week, is set to come into force in September 2025.

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Tory ministers had questioned whether Labour would keep its plans in place, but the now Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson made the commitment earlier this year.

And speaking ahead of the rollout, she said: "I've already said that early years is my number one priority. That's why we are delivering the childcare rollout I know will be such a help to hard-pressed parents."

However, concerns have continued to be raised about the capacity of the sector to absorb the uptick in childcare places - with an extra 85,000 places needed by next year to complete the rollout.

Chief executive officer of the Early Years Alliance Neil Leitch said the places weren't "free" as providers were having to subsidise the shortfall.

"They're having to charge for extras, for lunches that they wouldn't normally charge for in terms of fees," he told Sky News' Alice Porter.

"They're having to charge for outings, they're having to charge for nappies, they are having to charge parents who do not qualify for the so-called free entitlement at a higher rate to cross the shortfall."

Area manager for the Playday Nursery in Caversham Samantha Norris also told Alice Porter that there were "no spaces" in childcare centres, despite the new rules coming into force.

"There are internal waiting lists, external waiting lists," she said. "There's not enough qualified nursery staff, we're struggling to get them in the sector - so much so we've had to open a second site.

"Of course all the parents [that] are getting funding, they're all coming to us for more places - we haven't got them."

But one of the parents who uses the nursey Rhianna Kirby welcomed the rollout, saying: "It means both me and my partner can work. [It gives us] just a bit more flexibility, because it's been quite expensive without the funding."

The education secretary conceded the plan she had inherited from the Tories "comes with significant delivery challenges".

She added: "I must warn that for some parents it will not be plain sailing - and while I am excited to see children starting nursery for the first time, or parents being able to increase their working hours, the work for government starts now."

Ms Phillipson also pledged she and her team would be "working flat out" ahead of next September's extension to ensure it is possible, with work already under way with local authorities to address the areas most in need.