• Lib Dems: Tory childcare provision just £1 per child
• Lib Dems: We can stop Johnson ramming through a Queen’s Speech and destructive Brexit
• Lib Dems: Home office to profit £4 million from nurse tax
• Lib Dems: Ivan Rogers exposes Johnson’s Brexit plan as a sham

Lib Dems: Tory childcare provision just £1 per child

The Conservative Party have set out in their manifesto that if elected, they would spend £250 million a year on expanding childcare provision for primary school children after school and in the school holidays.

However, the latest Government estimate is that there are 4,727,090 pupils in state-funded primary school meaning that the Conservatives’ announcement is worth a meagre £1.02 per pupil per week.

This is also equivalent to just 16 minutes additional childcare a week.

Following this, Liberal Democrat Shadow Education Secretary Layla Moran said:

Parents struggle to find childcare to look after their kids until they get home from work, both in term-time and in the school holidays. But Boris Johnson’s childcare offer is an insult to these families – he’s spending just £1 a week for every primary school child in England.

So, it’s no surprise that this is an unambitious, uninspiring childcare offer. It’s aimed at just 5% of children who go to primary school.

Liberal Democrats have a plan to build a brighter future for every child. We will give parents 35 hours a week of high-quality free childcare from the day they go back to work to the day their child starts school, including in the school holidays.

Lib Dems: We can stop Johnson ramming through a Queen’s Speech and destructive Brexit

Responding to the announcement from Downing Street that a Queen’s Speech would be held on 19 December if a Conservative government is elected, Liberal Democrat Deputy Leader Ed Davey said:

You would have to believe in Father Christmas to think Boris Johnson will get Brexit done without years more delay and uncertainty.

The only way Brexit could be done sooner than 2023 would be a No Deal exit in Christmas 2020 – but that would be a disaster for families and firms.

It’s not too late to stop Boris Johnson ramming through his destructive Brexit plans. The Liberal Democrats can deprive the Tories of a majority and stop them forcing their hard-right Brexit and divisive policies onto the country.

Lib Dems: Home office to profit £4 million from nurse tax

Following the Conservative’s manifesto commitment of ‘50,000 additional nurses’, which includes 12,000 nurses from abroad, the Liberal Democrats have discovered that this will mean the Home Office will profit over £4 million from the pledge.

The visa fee will be £464 for EU and international nurses. The cost to the Home Office of processing one of those visa applications is £317 if it’s in the UK or £127 if it’s made from overseas.

The Home Office would therefore make £4 million profit off the 12,000 nurses who are coming to the UK to work in our NHS to meet Boris’s demands.

Responding to this, Liberal Democrat Shadow Secretary for Health, Wellbeing and Social Care, Luciana Berger said:

Not only is Boris Johnson’s pledge for 50,000 nurses not true, but the Conservatives are trying to profit from taxing hardworking nurses.

Only someone as deceitful as Boris Johnson could dress up exploiting nurses as a gift to the NHS.

Our NHS currently relies on the hard work of 20,000 EU nurses and we are already desperately short of nurses. Many of those facing the nurse tax will come from the EU; to discourage EU nurses from working in the NHS when we already have a shortage, partly due to the 5000 nurses who have already left the NHS, makes no sense at all.

Liberal Democrats will stop Brexit to support our NHS workforce and invest £7 billion a year in health and social care to build a brighter future.

Lib Dems: Ivan Rogers exposes Johnson’s Brexit plan as a sham

The UK’s former Ambassador to the EU Ivan Rogers has given a speech today criticising Boris Johnson’s “diplomatic amateurism” and warning the UK is headed for a no-deal Brexit in 2020.

Responding, Liberal Democrat Shadow Brexit Secretary Tom Brake said:

Boris Johnson’s promise to get Brexit done has been exposed as the sham it is. His plan would either lead to a catastrophic no deal in 2020 or years more chaos and damaging uncertainty.

We can still prevent an economically ruinous Brexit that would damage opportunities for future generations. This election is a chance to deprive Boris Johnson of a majority so we can secure a brighter future in the EU.