JEREMY CORBYN announced today Labour’s plan for a “radical expansion” of free childcare that would benefit more than a million families.

In his keynote leader’s speech on the last day of Labour conference, he will condemn the current “patchy support for childcare [that] is holding back too many parents and families.”

Instead a universal, free, high-quality childcare would be a “vital and long overdue change,” the Labour leader will say.

Parents of all two to four-year-olds would be offered 30 hours of free childcare a week without having to undergo means testing.

On top of the 30 free hours, Labour’s new proposal offers additional subsidised hours of childcare, which would be free of charge for parents on the lowest incomes and no more than £4 an hour for those on the highest wages.

Mr Corbyn will also detail plans to improve standards of childcare that include introducing a two-term plan to shift to a graduate-led workforce.

He will say this will improve the pay and skill levels of nursery staff, who are overwhelmingly low-paid women. They would be earning at least £10 an hour instead of the £7.20 minimum wage.

This would entail gradually requiring all staff to be at least qualified at or working towards a level 3 qualification, including support for existing staff to attain the qualification on the job.

The higher-qualified workforce would also drive up standards to close the attainment gap among children that locks in inequality before they have even started primary school, he will say.

Mr Corbyn will describe the current Tory childcare provision arrangements as “free in name only” because only 40 per cent of two-year-olds qualify for childcare.

This is while working parents with three and four-year-old children are not getting the childcare they were promised by the government at the last election because of complex rules.

Underfunding of childcare providers has led to one in 10 of them operating at a loss and a quarter are no longer profitable, putting additional strain on already low-paid staff.

According to a government survey, half of families are forced to pay for extras for their children at nursery.

Tory cuts have also led to the loss of over 1,240 Sure Start centres that were introduced by the last Labour government.