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Hi Louise,
I hope you are well. We met when you knocked on our door before the elections and we had a good chat about childcare, schools and how the government is attacking the middle earners of Jersey. I did vote for you by the way
I am really disappointed at the news today about the free nursery hours – I have a small baby, 5 months old, as well as a 5 year old at FCJ. The baby will shortly be starting nursery, and we, like many other families, have budgeted long term, taking the free hours into account.
I think firstly it's outrageous to make this cut in the first place, but also to bring it in so swiftly without allowing for parents with long term budgets in mind.
While I can see from one aspect that people who can afford to pay should do so, I also feel very strongly that we have contributed extensively through taxes and social security over the years, and why on earth should we now fund free hours for people who can't be bothered to work in many cases, and not get any benefit whatsoever for ourselves?
Indeed, I can see that this would mean many people having to stop work and end up claiming benefits so could be counteractive? Not to mention impacting on child development and early education.
We do earn over the £75k mark, and we have worked extremely hard to get to that point – in fact with the cost of living in Jersey, I genuinely don't even think that makes us wealthy? I saw a comment that this would only affect 100 families? I can tell you that is way off the mark – even amongst our own friends I could tell you about 20 families off the top of my head that would be impacted by this (and we don't know that many people, and they certainly aren't all wealthy – they're just hard working, middle earning families).
I feel really strongly about this and it is just another attack on those who work hard to better themselves and their families lives.
I sincerely hope that if this goes to a vote in the states, that you would vote against the change and urge your states colleagues to do the same.
Kind regards