Liz Truss has won the Conservative leadership contest to become our next Prime Minister

The former foreign secretary had taken a significant lead over former Chancellor Rishi Sunak in the past couple of weeks and has now won the ballot by around 21,000 votes.

In her acceptance speech, Truss told Tory members that she will deliver “a great victory for the Conservative Party in 2024.” If she doesn’t call it early, the next election will be January 2025.

Earlier in the Summer, Liz Truss pitched herself as the “education Prime Minister” with a plan to support the education sector and aim to give working parents access to childcare around the school day and extend the range of providers who accept government childcare entitlements.

Purnima Tanuku OBE, chief executive National Day Nurseries Association (NDNA) said: “The new Prime Minister will have a lot on her plate but high on the agenda has to be the early years sector. Liz Truss and her new Secretary of State for Education need to put children at the heart of their agenda, especially the youngest who need more support than ever.

“Children’s early education and care are absolutely crucial to their life chances. We know that a child’s first five years count and we need to see the Government invest in their early years education for the valuable returns seen later in their life.

“The early years sector is facing an immediate crisis. The vast majority of providers are fighting to stay afloat amid a storm of rising costs, soaring energy bills and workforce shortages. We have seen a 65% increase in the numbers of nurseries closing since April and the majority of closures happening in areas of deprivation. This is a frightening picture with the challenging winter months still to come.

“Our nurseries and their workforce must be supported, if the sector is not working then the rest of the economy cannot work. Liz Truss has promised action on bills but this must include early years providers. We also need to see nurseries being made exempt from paying unfair business rates and VAT. Employers also need help to address the recruitment and retention crisis in the early years workforce, not changes that will make it harder and more stressful to work in this vital sector.

“Our nurseries do amazing work every day to give our children the foundations for learning and lifelong skills, preparing them to be caring and productive citizens of the future. Nurseries also enable parents to work, which is vital at a high of high job vacancies.

“The new Prime Minister has a short window to bring in the support needed to save early years settings or we will continue to see alarming loss of providers and children’s places.”

Commenting, Neil Leitch, chief executive of the Early Years Alliance, said: 

 “There is no doubt that Ms Truss takes on this role at a critical time for the early years.  

“Rising energy bills, an acute recruitment and retention crisis and the lasting impact of the pandemic – all against a backdrop of years of government underfunding – have left our sector in crisis.   

“If we are to have any chance of avoiding an early years catastrophe, it is vital that the new Prime Minister puts forward an ambitious plan for the early years: one that commits to adequate long-term funding, focuses on the needs of the child and recognises the early years workforce as the high-quality and hard-working educators they are.”  

“And while we know that during her time as early years minister, Ms Truss advocated for the relaxation of ratios, we hope against hope that the time that has passed since has given her a greater understanding of value of quality early education, and that the best way to solve the challenges facing the sector is not to deregulate it, but rather, to invest in it.  

“For so many years now, the early years sector been undervalued, underfunded and underappreciated. Now is a real opportunity to ensure that the sector rises up the government’s priority list rather than continuing to fall further down it. We hope that the new Prime Minister takes it.”