Interview: Meet Joeli Brearley, founder of campaign group Pregnant Then Screwed

WHEN YOU HEARD THAT THE PRIME MINISTER IS NOW UNLIKELY TO GO AHEAD WITH THE RELAXATION OF RATIOS, HOW DID YOU FEEL?

We don't know they’ve definitely been dropped. The Department for Education has yet to publish its response to the consultation on proposed reforms, which should have happened a long time ago.

It does look unlikely a relaxation of ratios will progress because there are very few supporters of it. It was very much a Liz Truss policy. It's not a Rishi Sunak policy, he's not as tied to it as she is. With all the kickback against it, you would hope the Government would be pragmatic and drop it.

We’re obviously enormously relieved, as most providers, professionals and parents are. It was just a slippery slope to really low-quality provision. That would be hard to repair once that policy was in place.

ANY THERE OTHER PROPOSALS WITHIN THE GOVERNMENT CONSULTATION YOU WOULD BACK?

No. I don't think any of them are the right way to go. It's absolutely imperative to me that we don't do anything to damage the quality of provision and that would increase the division of care children receive. I think if you go down the Liz Truss route where you take away all the subsidies that are given to providers and give parents a credit instead, then you are risking a situation where you’ve got some children who are being cared for by babysitters, while others are receiving really high-quality education and care within settings. That's not going to fix the attainment gap, or the childcare quality issues we have in this country.

WHAT REFORMS WOULD YOU RECOMMEND TO IMPROVE OUR CHILDCARE SYSTEM?

I think we should follow the Australian model and the model that has been implemented in Ireland, under which subsidies are paid to providers based on their quality of provision. So you measure quality of education and care in those settings.

In Australia, they have a body that monitors quality of provision and then feeds back to government, which provides a subsidy based on a number of metrics.

LET’S GO BACK TO THE BEGINNING, WHEN AND WHY DID YOU START ‘PREGNANT THEN SCREWED’?

I was working for a children's charity on a fixed-term contract. When I found out I was pregnant I emailed them and asked to have a chat the next day, which is when they sacked me – by voice note! This left me without any income and worried that I was unemployable at four months pregnant.

I went into a bit of a dark hole for a while, but ended up doing really well workwise. I did a lot of freelance work and ended up going to Zimbabwe. I wrote a big paper for the British Council and did lots of fun stuff. I was still quite traumatised by what happened with my former employer so started Pregnant Then Screwed. That was in 2015. It was initially a blog, providing a place for women to tell their stories anonymously. That's all I thought it would be, but as it grew and more people started telling me their stories, I realised I couldn't sit back, so we set up support services and it just grew from there. I would love to pretend it was all a big plan and it was strategic, but it wasn't.

DO YOU THINK THINGS HAVE GOT WORSE, BETTER OR REMAINED THE SAME SINCE THEN?

Things have definitely got worse. We are seeing it in terms of the number of women that are contacting us and what they are contacting us about. We are seeing it in surveys and data.

The pandemic, cost-of-living crisis and recession have been big contributors.

In 2016, a report from the Equality and Human Rights Commission into maternity discrimination highlighted the number of women being pushed out of their jobs because they dared to get pregnant, the number who were experiencing discrimination and how women's flexible working requests were being denied. Within that report, a number of recommendations into how the situation could be improved were put forward to Government. In six years, not a single one of those recommendations has been implemented, nor has the report been commissioned again, despite the Government committing to a review every five years.

The cost of childcare is ridiculous now. Some mothers are paying more than £1,000 a month. A lot of mothers are telling us they are now paying to go to work, which of course doesn't make sense. We are now haemorrhaging mothers, particularly those with young children, from the workforce because of it, which is bad for women, children and the economy.

FOLLOWING YOUR SUCCESSFUL ‘MARCH OF THE MUMMIES’, WHAT ACTION IS PLANNED FOR 2023?

We are going to be focusing on getting the public completely on side with the conversation around childcare reform and helping them understand why investing in early years education is so important.

I think it is going to be very difficult to get all the political parties behind this full throttle. We’ve got maybe eight or nine months left as manifesto pledges are being written.

WHAT DO YOU ENVISAGE WILL BE THE GREATEST CHALLENGE FOR CHILDCARE PROVIDERS AND PARENTS THIS YEAR?

For providers, it's staying open and fighting for their own survival. For parents, it is finding childcare that works for them and that they can afford.

The only way we are going to win this is if we all work together. We all want affordable, good quality, properly invested-in childcare and for staff to be paid a decent wage.

However, on a more positive note, early years education and childcare is a vote-winner. We have an election in 2024. I am very confident Labour will come out with a very strong commitment to early years, as well as the Liberal Democrats. I also think that the Conservatives will come out with something, but it will probably be around giving parents credit to spend on childcare, which I will not support.

The biggest and most powerful group within this conversation are parents. They are the ones that will change the minds of the Government, who are all about winning votes.