Cwestiwn ysgrifenedig WQ91944

Childcare is a key priority for the Welsh Government and there are a number of policies aimed at supporting childcare and play settings with overhead costs to enable them to offer reasonable rates of pay to their staff. This includes the extension of 100% business rates relief, until 31 March 2025, which will save registered childcare providers around £10m in overhead costs.

We already invest more than £100m per year through our funded childcare programmes. The Childcare Offer for Wales saw its rate increase to £5 per hour following a review and engagement with the sector in April 2022. This represented an increase of 11% and at that time we committed to reviewing the rate every three years. The next review is scheduled to take place in 2024-2025 and steps have already been taken to engage with the sector’s Cwlwm partners and Local Authority leads to build the necessary evidence base to inform the review.

We are also investing heavily to expand childcare and early years provision to all two-year olds in Wales in line with our Programme for Government and the Co-operation Agreement with Plaid Cymru. Nearly £120m has been allocated to improve childcare availability, boost Welsh language provision and fund free part-time places. The funding includes £46m for the current phase of the expansion of part-time Flying Start childcare; £70m for improvements and essential maintenance available to all childcare settings and £3.8m to support more childcare providers to improve their Welsh language provision.