Meeting of the Parliament 27 May 2026 [Draft]
Thank you, Presiding Officer. I welcome you to your post. I also welcome the cabinet secretary to her post.
I will begin on a point of consensus with the Scottish Government: I believe in expanding childcare provision across Scotland.
Throughout the previous parliamentary session, I repeatedly called on the Government to expand the early learning and childcare from nine months onwards for working parents. In 2023, I believed that those calls had finally been heard when the then First Minister, Humza Yousaf, announced a pilot to expand childcare to children from nine months onwards. However, since that announcement, despite my trying repeatedly to establish what progress has been made, there has been little to no clarity on that point.
I believe that there is an opportunity to reset relationships and work constructively across parties to find solutions. First, however, the Scottish Government must provide answers and explain—not just to parents but to the Parliament—why it failed to deliver the expansion that it had previously promised. Right now, too many parents simply do not trust that the Government can deliver.
During the election campaign, I had the privilege of serving on a cross-party steering group led by Pregnant Then Screwed Scotland. Together, we discussed how childcare could better support parents, particularly mothers, and explored practical ways to improve the current system.
One statistic that I have pulled out today from the state-of-the-nation survey that Pregnant Then Screwed Scotland conducted should concern the Scottish Government: 66.8 per cent of Scottish mothers did not believe that the Scottish Government would deliver on expanding childcare provision.
Behind that statistic is a simple reality. Parents feel that the system is not built around modern day life. Parents are doing everything that they can to stay in work, provide for their children and build a future for their families, but childcare costs are making that harder.