North Yorkshire nurseries warn parents about a rise in fees
It's to help pay for an increase in employers' national insurance
Parents in North Yorkshire are being warned about a potential rise in nursery fees.
Childcare providers say they'll have no choice because of the increase to employer's national insurance contributions announced in the Budget.
A poll by the Early Years Alliance found of 1,007 senior staff in nurseries, preschools and childminders in England - 95% said their setting was likely to raise fees for non-government funded hours if cost pressures from NI and minimum wage rises were not adequately funded or addressed by the Government.
Nearly nine in 10 (87%) said they were likely to introduce or increase charges for optional extras - such as meals, consumables and trips, and around three in five (61%) said they were likely to introduce or increase restrictions on when early entitlement funding can be claimed.
Two in five (40%) said permanent closure of the early years setting was likely, the poll found.
Nancy Kotecha is the owner of Osbaldwick Montessori in York: "I was shocked, really, because they kind of labelled it a Budget for working people, but all the working people who haven't been affected by the National Insurance, will be impacted because everybody, all industries, will have to put their prices up to cover the costs."
"There are other things as well that they can do to support us...there are lots of nurseries in Wales and Ireland that don't pay business rates and you know it would help nurseries if that could be put in place."
Neil Leitch, chief executive of the EYA, said: "We are in the middle of the biggest expansion in the history of the early years sector, one that the government says is key to supporting parents to work and in turn, boosting the economy.
"It makes absolutely no sense, therefore, for the Treasury to turn a blind eye to the potential impact of these changes on our sector when it knows full well that a failure to act will, at best, push up prices even further for parents and, at worst, push the sector to the brink of collapse."
Among the third of survey respondents who calculated the impact of the NI hike on their provider, the poll suggested that the changes will result in additional costs of over £18,600 per setting per year on average.
What do the Government say?
Last week, Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson told MPs in the House of Commons that the Government would announce whether early years funding rates for age groups would change to reflect the national insurance hike.
She said: "We will be setting out more detail on funding rates in due course."
Ms Phillipson added that the Government will provide £8.1 billion for the early years entitlements in 2025/26.