ALT “While we welcome the £1.8bn in funding for the ongoing childcare expansion, along with the additional funding for breakfast clubs, the sector and families need clarity on how increased staffing costs will impact their overheads and potentially their childcare fees. We are surprised that a Budget that focused on economic growth and long-term success did not have more in it for early education and childcare. Childcare is essential to enable parents to work, businesses to function, and the economy to grow, but early education is also about shaping our future citizens – the people that will work in that future economy. That vision was conspicuously absent from today’s Budget. We hope that the Spring Spending Review will reveal more of Labour’s ambition for early years including how it will reform the system so it delivers for every child.”