She was speaking following an announcement from the Education Minister on how a further £55 million allocated for childcare measures by the Executive will be spent.

The Lagan Valley MLA has said: “We have long called for the Childcare Subsidy Scheme to include school-aged children, as well as for further support for Sure Start and programmes like the Pathway fund who do such crucial work, so it is good that the Education Minister has acted on those calls.

“The cost of childcare continues to be a leading concern for so many families and while this announcement does not increase the 15% subsidy rate, it will expand the number of families who can avail of support, and further help those with multiple children.

“We continue to believe that the subsidy rate should be increased further and that the UK Government should act to expand the level of tax free childcare.

“Whilst I also welcome the commitment that more pre-schools will transition to providing full-time provision, the Minister, with the EA, needs to urgently sort out the major issues in how pre-school providers are allocated the number of children they can take.

“This announcement is a welcome direction of travel, however we still await the much delayed Early Learning and Childcare Strategy, which is crucial to securing long-term transformational change for children and families.

“A strategy that, for example, should include plans to expand the NI Childcare Subsidy Scheme further, as the spending review will have been completed and multi-year budgets will ideally be in place.”