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Dear Deputy Doublet
We have just finished listening to the podcast of todays meeting, we would like to thank you and all involved at scrutiny for organising this meeting so quickly and for questioning the decision so rigorously.
We appreciate that you are very busy so will keep this brief. We will be one of the families who will be affected if this change is allowed to go ahead. We both work full time, we have 2 children aged 2 and 5. Our two year old currently attends nursery for 34 hours over 4 days, with grandparents covering the 5th day. Our daughter is very happy and settled. The nursery provide extended hours and are open all year round, without this we wouldn't be able to do our jobs.
It rather seems that the children in private nurseries are being punished for having working parents (who are contributing to the tax system). Moving to a states nursery is not an option due to our hours, if indeed we could get a place, which as mentioned in the scrutiny meeting wont be guaranteed (and we are very aware how oversubscribed the states nurseries are). In all likelihood, this will lead to some children being withdrawn from nursery.
From listening to the podcast, it seems to ministers that made the decision really haven't got a clue in practical terms how this will work and what effect it will have on the families and nurseries affected. The time scale seems far to short to allow families to make plans for the future.
We would be interested to know how the means testing will be assessed. Perhaps this could be addressed at the meeting next Wednesday.
Kind regards