Speeches by Bailey.

“I do want to pay tribute again to John and Katie, Gigi’s parents, for their brilliant campaigning on this. They have bravery and courage. They have just been phenomenal. It has been a huge privilege to work with them on this question of safe sleep. We have done several things. We are updating the EYFS from September to…”

“It has saved working families a significant amount of money; £8,000 a year is really significant and is making a big difference. It also has labour market impacts. There are more people in work. As a consequence, that is massively positive. I would agree with you that, of course, there are still expenses. There are sti…”

“That is a really great question. The first thing I would say is something I hear a lot from families. They are really fed up of the fragmented nature of everything that happens in the infrastructure around children. As a one-year-old or a mum, you do not realise that you are in a healthy baby service; you do not realis…”

“Thank you very much, Chair. It is a really great pleasure to be here. Thank you for this inquiry, which I am really looking forward to reading the outcome of. I am here with Chris Armstrong-Stacey, who is director of early years in the Department of Education. Have I mangled your job title or is that correct?”

“Very good. Thank you for the opportunity to say a few brief opening remarks. It is great that we are meeting today, almost exactly a year since we published the Best Start in Life strategy; it was a year ago yesterday. I thought it would be a good opportunity just to reflect briefly at the outset on some of the things …”

“I agree with you entirely about the problem. There are some wonderful examples of good practice in local authorities. Hubs can be brilliant hubs for the pulling together of all of the services. Some of the best examples I have seen are places where you are in the hub; the parents are having a cup of tea downstairs and …”

“Yes, absolutely. Chris, you may want to come in on this in a moment. On health, I strongly agree about the benefits of health integration. I am really pleased that we have healthy baby services in so many local authorities now. I am really pleased that the Department of Health and Social Care has committed to that bein…”

“I love maintained nursery schools as well. I think that they are brilliant. I talk about them a lot, as Chris will attest. My boys went to a brilliant maintained nursery school. They are consistently best practice across the sector, because they do all of the things that you say. They have SENCO. They have a teacher. T…”

“Yes. It was my great pleasure to speak at their conference, not recently but a few months ago, and I would very much like to continue that conversation. Your suggestion of some more structured engagement with maintained nursery schools is a good idea, Chair, and one that I will take away, because I hugely value the con…”

“The funding has gone in for this year, which is 2026-27.”

“The process of the early education and childcare review is a multi-year one. We will work on that as quickly as we can. I cannot be specific, I am afraid, but it is through that process that I would expect that those kinds of decisions would be taken.”

“I am really worried about this. It is something that I have picked up a lot with parents who I have spoken to. I also worry that we need to understand more about the problem, because I do not think that the data that we have is sufficient to understand where there is a challenge. Essentially, what is happening is that …”

“That is the crucial crux of all the questions about the early education system, to be honest. You have to be able to do both.”

“The Secretary of State is talking about her personal ambition. She is talking in broad terms about the future that she sees for the system. We are working through the early education and childcare review on these big questions, and it would be through that process that we would be able to set out further detail as a Go…”

“Money has gone in this year; £47 billion into the inclusive early years fund is already with settings, and so there will be an immediate benefit. We are working rapidly on the training programmes that we want to see rolled out. We are working hard on responding to some of the bigger questions. There will be a need to d…”

“Yes, and the practice that you have described is completely unacceptable. It should not be happening, and chains should be taking every effort to talk to and communicate with parents. In answer to your question, we will absolutely consider that. It is a really good suggestion. As part of the wider measures that we are …”

“What I would say is that it is important that we set that long-term direction and ambition, because we do not want to keep making piecemeal changes.”

“That is a really important question. Overall, we do not think that there is a sufficiency problem with childcare. As I said earlier, 93% get their top three choice. There is lots of provision, and the sector has responded magnificently and expanded hugely to the extension of the entitlements. There are places, sometime…”

“The Secretary of State is setting out her ambition for where she would like to see the system. It is right that we have an ambition for where we want to see the system go in the future. Of course, we need to make sure that the policy decisions that we are taking in the meantime drive towards that long-term ambition, an…”

“I think I have had the same conversations with the same people. The experiences of their children are unthinkable, and the bravery that they show in advocating for change is remarkable. I do recognise the importance of what they are describing and discussing in terms of the ability, as I said earlier on, for a parent t…”