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Notices and Press Releases

Daycare Trusts : Minister announces new Health in Pregnancy Grant at Daycare Trust conference

Daycare Trust has welcomed a new grant for pregnant women announced at its conference today by Treasury Minister Jane Kennedy MP. In her first speech as Financial Secretary to the Treasury, the minister announced that, from 2009, all expectant mothers will be entitled to a Health in Pregnancy Grant worth £190 and available from the 25th week of pregnancy.

“Daycare Trust campaigns for increased support to parents in the early stages of family life, so we are delighted that Jane Kennedy chose her keynote address at our annual conference to announce this much-needed extra money for women in pregnancy. We know that the health of mothers during pregnancy is a very important predictor of children’s outcomes, so we welcome this extra boost for expectant mothers, which will help give children the best start in life,”said Alison Garnham, Joint-Chief Executive of Daycare Trust.

The Minister said: “We know that a healthy lifestyle is important for all women in the later stages of pregnancy, and we recognise that this is an expensive time for families. To support those extra costs, in April 2009 we’ll introduce the Health in Pregnancy Grant, a one-off payment that all pregnant women will be able to claim once they’ve had the appropriate health advice from a health professional like their midwife.”

The conference, which was sponsored by The Children’s Mutual, brought childcare providers and policy makers together to debate the critical issue in childcare today – how to drive up quality in childcare without passing the costs on to parents.

This conundrum, believes national childcare charity Daycare Trust, is at the heart of many issues that afflict the UK’s childcare market, and yet it’s one that some other countries appear to be solving.

Earlier, the conference heard from Karl le Quesne, a Senior Manager at the New Zealand Ministry of Education. New Zealand is half way through a far-reaching programme of public support for its youngest citizens. Helen Clark’s Labour Government has been raising the quality of early childhood education settings by boosting the qualifications of staff - 100 per cent of whom are to be qualified and registered teachers by 2012.

It is paying for this, and a recent offer of up to 20 free hours of early childhood education for every three- and four-year-old, through public funding direct to the education providers. Public spending on early childhood education has more than doubled in the last five years.