Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:48 pm on 21 March 2023.
Here's a simple answer for the leader of the opposition: we will invest £70 million in capital investment in this sector, so that it can grow and take more children into childcare. There is not a penny piece, not a single penny piece, in the Chancellor's announcement of capital investment in the childcare sector in England. We will provide 100 per cent rate relief for the sector here in Wales: £10 million in rate relief to support the sector. There is not a penny piece in rate relief for the childcare sector in England either. We will introduce an extra 2,500 places for two-year-olds in Wales from April of this year, and another 4,500 new places for two-year-olds in phase 2 from September of this year.
When you add those two figures alone together, we are already—already—promising to do three times as much as the Chancellor is promising to do in England on a proportional basis. That is what we are doing in Wales. I'm not copying anybody else; this is devolved Wales where we make our own decisions. And the decisions we are making will do far, far more for far, far more families, and not on an aspirational basis, not on the basis that this may happen, some time in the distance when you know you won't be in power, we will be doing it in this Senedd term, with the money and the determination that this Senedd provides for it.