The UK Government has recently suggested it may increase the ratio of children each looked after by nursery staff. But seeing education devolved in Wales, such plans, if given the go-ahead, such a move would only apply to England. So will Wales follow suit? Or will it take its own path?
First of all, let's look at the UK Government's plans. Boris Johnson's administration has been looking at ways to ease costs for families during the cost of living crisis. London ministers were already looking at increasing the number of children each staff member at a nursery can look after, as part of a wider set of measures to improve the quality of childcare and ease costs.
And on Wednesday, April 27, the Prime Minister's official spokesman said Mr Johnson told ministers "there was more to do, including in areas like childcare, to further ease pressures for those who need it most and to get even more people into high-skilled, high-wage jobs". He declined to give more details about the plan, saying it was "live policy work taking place and I'm sure we'll have more to say in the future". However it is understood no decision has yet been made on ratios by the Department for Education.
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These early plans prompted questions as to whether the Labour led government in the Senedd would take a similar approach, or not. The Welsh Government's economy minister Vaughan Gething was asked on BBC Two's Politics Live programme about the issue.
He said: "I don't have a problem with saying are there creative ways to help families through the cost of living crisis. But actually the problem here is we're reaching for the most obvious distraction point rather than dealing with the central issue of you put more money in families' pockets. That's the challenge because it's the deliberate avoidance of financial support for families that's really an issue here.
"Childcare is devolved here in Wales and we won't be cutting the ratios because there's no evidence that will improve the quality of the childcare or the availability of it as well. It's both about how you support parents who want to work or need to work, but also the quality of the provision itself makes a huge difference for children as well. Our vision is high quality childcare that's also affordable, there's nothing in this floated proposal that does anything to advance that and we won't be doing it here in Wales."
