Education secretary and chancellor welcome new nursery places at Wigan borough school
Education secretary Bridget Phillipson and chancellor Rachel Reeves visited a borough primary school to hail thousands of new nursery places which will save mums and dads up to £7,500 a year.
The duo were visitors to St Stephen’s CofE Primary School in Astley on Thursday to announce that £370m will be spent on additional nursery places, to go hand in glove with the 30 hours of Government-funded childcare which starts this week.
It means that in the North West, 29 school-based nurseries are opening this month, including 11 in Greater Manchester.
In addition to St Stephen’s, the Wigan borough nurseries will be at Hindley Green Primary and St Peter's CE Primary in Hindley.
The cabinet ministers were visiting to announce that 4,000 extra school-based nursery places would be made available across England under the Government’s Plan for Change.
Some £37m has been ploughed in to expand 189 of the 300 Government-funded new or expanded nurseries to be set up and running this month.
And schools are being invited to bid for up to £150,000 of funding from a £45m pot to create another 300 nurseries – offering up to 7,000 more places – from September 2026.
Ms Phillipson said the Government would be working with local councils like Wigan to make sure they are involved in the bidding process.
“We know that really high-quality early years education is critical to giving children the best start in life,” she said.
“School-based nurseries can offer a nurturing and stable environment for children that carries through into primary and helping hand for working parents tackling dual drop off.”
Asked how the money for the scheme had been found, Ms Reeves said: “We did increase taxes at the budget last year.
“We got rid of the non-dom tax status, put VAT on private schools (fees), with all that money going to state schools where 93 per cent of kids are educated.
“We extended the energy profits levy and increased capital gains tax. We did all those things so we could fund important things like this, because my priority is making sure working people are better off.
“The money that we raised in last year’s budget was used in this year’s spending review to fund our priorities as a Government.”