SNP's free childcare plans branded a 'gimmick' in education debate
PA MediaThe SNP's plans to expand free childcare have been criticised by Scottish Labour and the Scottish Conservatives as a "gimmick" and lacking in detail.
But the SNP said it had already delivered 1,140 hours of funded childcare for all three and four-year-olds and wanted to build on this if it was returned to government after Thursday's Scottish Parliament vote.
Representatives from six political parties were debating education on the BBC's Sunday Show.
Research from campaign group Pregnant Then Screwed found that two-thirds of mothers surveyed in Scotland said childcare costs were the same or more than their income, and around half felt it did not make financial sense to work.
The SNP government currently pays councils more than £1bn to deliver 1,140 funded hours of care to three and four-year-olds as well as eligible two-year-olds.
Education Secretary Jenny Gilruth said her party, who have been in government at Holyrood for almost 20 years, was already saving families £6,000 on average per child per year.
But they would go further if re-elected.
If her party returned as the next Scottish government, Gilruth said it would deliver an additional half a billion pounds of extra childcare funding, which would cover 52 weeks of childcare from nine months old until the end of primary school.
However, this will continue to be dependent on the family's income.
'Another election gimmick'
But Meghan Gallacher, of the Scottish Conservatives, said the SNP had made broken promise after broken promise while in power.
She said their plan to expand funded childcare was just "another election gimmick" and the current policy was not working for parents and childcare settings.
Gallacher added that parents couldn't even get their third choice of nursery, yet the SNP was saying they would expand the offering.
Expanding free childcare relies on the private sector expanding as well to provide places for children as fast as demand rises.
This can leave some areas where there are not enough places to accommodate what children are entitled to.
Gallacher said this was something that the SNP had promised before but failed to deliver. However Gilruth said they had built on early adopting communities.
Paul O'Kane, from Scottish Labour, said the SNP had used "every excuse under the sun" but the party had had 19 years to improve education.
He said local authorities, who run schools in Scotland, had been "cut to the bone".
The 1,140 hours did not deliver the flexibility that parents needed, he added, and the new plan to expand childcare lacked details, including on how it would be funded.
O'Kane said Labour would increase tax-free childcare.
He added there would be more funding for Scottish schools coming from Westminster as a result of extra funding from the UK government to schools in England and Wales.
Getty ImagesThe Greens are also promising increased childcare entitlement.
Mags Hall told the Sunday Show that her party was promising free universal childcare for babies aged six months and up.
She said this would help parents in education and those out of work to have time to prepare for job interviews, and it would be largely funded by replacing the "broken" council tax system.
Hall said that other parties were proposing limited or means-tested childcare programmes.
Willie Rennie, of the Scottish Liberal Democrats, said workforce planning was needed to improve childcare.
His party has proposed an increased offer for younger children in working families to provide a greater incentive to get parents back to work.
Rennie added that childcare was a major barrier for getting people back to work.
However, he said his party was not making a wider free offer because there was a budget deficit looming at the end of the next parliament.
Currently, it doesn't pay to go to work, he added.
Angela Ross, of Reform, said the other parties were offering "lots of freebies" that taxpayers were having to fund.
She said bureaucracy had to be reduced and savings had to be made, which could be diverted into education.
Ross said her party wanted to incentivise people to work and cut income tax to put more money back into people's pockets.
