Media Round-Up: March 2023

Latest:

The Guardian reported on another nursery closing its doors and interviewed WBG’s Sarah Ronan who reiterated that “the government should really be working to stabilise the sector, and that starts with realistic funding levels”.

Our Director Dr Mary-Ann Stephenson was interviewed by the Telegraph for a piece on what they refer to as the ‘childcare tax trap’. She emphasized: “It shouldn’t be this way, but often within households, the cost of childcare is set against a woman’s salary to decide whether it is worthwhile for them to return to work.”

Nadia Whittome MP wrote an article for shado on the Green New Deal, referencing our work on a green and caring economy.

Our response to the Spring Budget was picked up by:

• The New York Times: Britain Issues a Call to Work, With More Child Care an Incentive
• The Evening Standard: Is the UK’s childcare system too broken for Jeremy Hunt’s £4 billion plan to fix?
• Channel 4 Fact Check: Who will get 30 hours free childcare in England and when?
• The Guardian interviewed Sarah Ronan on the work that has been going on behind the scenes to put childcare on Hunt’s agenda: ‘A momentous moment’: campaigners hail Hunt’s childcare pledge – but vow to keep fighting
• The New Statesman published this long-read on childcare, the Spring Budget and the motherhood penalty, referencing our work on a Green and Caring Economy: The parent trap: how Britain became a very, very expensive place to raise a child
• WBG’s Sarah Ronan wrote an opinion piece for the Independent in response to the childcare annuncements: What’s missing from Jeremy Hunt’s childcare budget
• Sarah Ronan was on Sky News the morning after the Budget commenting on the childcare announcments – watch it here
• The Guardian: Hunt’s £4bn childcare boost welcomed but fears remain for struggling sector
• Sarah Ronan was on LBC talking to Lisa Aziz about the childcare announcements – listen back to it here (begins at 03:25:00)
• Our Director Dr Mary-Ann Stephenson was quoted on the failure to publish an Equality Impact Assessment in Voice Online: Hunt hides budget impact on Black community
• I news interviewed Shanon Pite, communications and external affairs director at the Early Years Alliance, who referenced our estimated shortfall of £1.82bn: Childcare changes: Nurseries warn they may have to increase prices of unfunded hours, nappies, food and trips
• WBG’s Lucie Stephens looks at why we need to move early years provision away from its current market-based model, and towards a shared vision and commitment to the greater public interest in this blogpiece for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation: Early years education and childcare is a public good – its operating model should be too
• The Conversation: Spring budget 2023: free early years places extended – but needs of children and staff must not be forgotten

Our call for a £1.82bn rescue funding for the early years and childcare sector ahead of the Budget was picked up by:

• Nursery World: Chancellor urged to boost childcare funding by estimated shortfall
• The New Statesman: Childcare costs are failing mothers and the economy
• Bloomberg UK: UK Working Parents are running out of options for childcare

Coverage on childcare ahead of the Budget:

• Interview with Sarah Ronan, WBG’s childcare lead, on childcare costs in the UK: ‘Childcare puzzle’: Which countries in Europe have the highest and lowest childcare costs?
• Sarah Ronan commented on childcare unaffordibility and its impact on women’s employment in this Guardian piece: UK women priced out of work by lack of affordable childcare, PwC finds
• WBG’s new joint analysis published with the Centre for Local Economic Strategies that found that the barriers to paid work faced by women mean almost £90bn of gross value added is lost to the economy in England, Scotland and Wales each year was referenced in this piece in the Guardian: Two-thirds of UK women say childcare duties affected career progression and the Municipal Journal: International Women’s Day: The local cost of barriers to women’s paid work
• WBG’s Sarah Ronan discussed all things childcare in an Instagram Live Video with Siobhan Baillie MP – you can watch it here.
• Listen to WBG’s Sarah Ronan in conversation with Kait Borsay on Times Radio’s Evening Edition on childcare and the Budget (begins at 18:00mins).

International Women’s Day:

• Acting Director Dr Sara Reis held the keynote speech at the first ever Women’s Policy Summit hosted by the Mayor of London Sadiq Khan ahead of IWD at Town Hall. She was quoted in this piece: Sadiq Khan urges government to commit to making all public bodies a ‘safe haven for women’
• Acting Director Dr Sara Reis commented on women’s economic inequality in a piece for IWD: Who would want to be a woman in Britain in 2023?
• Sarah Ronan commented on the gender pay gap in the Guardian: UK gender pay gap for higher-educated parents has grown since 1970s – study
• Dr Sara Reis on the gender divide in housing affordability in the Evening Standard: ‘The bank laughed and said I didn’t earn enough for a mortgage’: why women find it even harder to buy than men
• Referencing our work on a feminist green new deal, Nadia Whittome MP makes the case for a Caring Economy and a national care service in this piece in the New Statesman: Care is a Gen Z Issue
  
• Beka Diski, author of WBG’s Feminist Green New Deal was quoted in this IWD piece for the New Camden Journal: There’s still so much work left for us to do, warns granddaughter of rebel suffragette