27/04/2022
Dear Mr.Boris Johnson,
No, Just no.
We are absolutely disgusted in your comments today regarding wanting to ease health and safety rules in childcare to help ease financial costs - this is not the answer.
Your government supported Millie’s Mark and helped to form it - a mechanism to help keep children safer in nurseries and now you flippantly make comments like this.
The childcare sector needs support, it needs help.
Reducing health and safety measures in childcare is not the answer.
Make a stand and reduce fuel costs, help our families by making industries cap fuel costs at home at an acceptable rate, find ways of reducing fuel costs for travelling and train costs for people getting to work.
Take a pay cut mate, all of you - take a pay cut, stop giving yourself pay rises at the expense of us, the normal people. Stop claiming expenses on your second houses and on your travels.
You have children. Plenty of them, so you know what it likes to leave you children in childcare. It’s nerve wracking, it makes new parents cry, it’s heartbreaking having to do it because we need to go to work.
Why would you not want your youngest children to be safer in a place where they may spend a good part of their week? Do you not want your babies to go to childcare knowing that they are in the safest hands possible? Or will it never happen to you?
Funny how we all think that. We didn’t think it would happen to us.
Maybe you should take a minute out of your schedule and meet me, talk to me for 5 minutes, a little person that has lost a child whilst they were in a nursery.
We will never ever know what happened to our daughter properly, we will never know the ins and outs of that day. What we do know is that the childcare sector needs as many health & safety rules as possible to keep our children safe, yours included. As parents, we need to know that our children are being looked after by efficiently run childcare establishments with specially trained staff.
The employees of nurseries are amazing, you know how we know that? Because we meet them
on a daily basis. You don’t.
They come on our courses, many of them when they don’t legally need to do so because they want to train, they want to know what to do if an accident happens, they want to be able to help our children because they love their jobs, they love our children and they would do anything for them. They’re amazing.
The coalition attempted to overturn the ratios in 2013 but plans were abandoned after they were opposed by Nick Clegg and unsupported by parents.
Experts have already advised you not to do this but you joke about childcare and tell ministers to get on with reducing costs… abysmal.
Labour's shadow education secretary Bridget Phillipson said the proposal would "drive down quality whilst making no difference to availability".
And Lib Dem education spokesperson Munira Wilson said Mr Johnson has chosen to "cut corners and endanger our children", instead of addressing this issue "head on".
Childcare staff are stressed enough whilst looking after our children, this is only going to cause them even more stress and you’ll be the reason why, you and your thoughtless attitude.
Oh and Boris, take a look at this photo - this is Millie, our daughter, we haven’t seen her smile for nearly 10 years, we haven’t been able to cuddle her or laugh with her and we haven’t been able to see her grow into a beautiful young girl, instead - we visit her resting place.
This is not the answer, make cuts elsewhere instead of potentially endangering our children - including your own.
