Pregnant Then Screwed Cardiff protest draws mums for march

Some of the protesters were dressed in Halloween costumes

Mums and families gathered in Cardiff calling for urgent reform of childcare, parental leave and flexible working.

About 100 people - some in Halloween costumes - marched from the Aneurin Bevan statue to the central library, with speakers demanding change.

It was one of a number of protests across the UK - with others in cities such as Bristol and Manchester.

The UK government said it was committed to supporting working parents.

The protest in Cardiff - organised by charity Pregnant Then Screwed - was part of a day of action.

Former Plaid Cymru Member of the Senedd Bethan Sayed - who stepped away from politics in 2020 to spend more time with her son - was one of the speakers.

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"From my experience, you rely on women in those parliaments to raise those issues and unless that happens, it doesn't get heard," she said.

"I didn't have maternity cover, I had to campaign for that. We need to fundamentally change society so that women aren't doing all this hard graft for themselves."

The mothers want the system to be reformed

Chief executive Joeli Brearley said: "We've got women terminating pregnancies, thousands more deciding not to have children, or not to have more children.

"Women falling out of the workforce in droves and children being pushed into poverty - What for?

"All because of an unaffordable, inaccessible, dysfunctional childcare sector that has been neglected."

The mothers and family members marched through the centre of Cardiff

A UK government spokesman responded by saying it has "one of the most generous maternity leave entitlements in the world" and had spent more than £20bn over the past five years to improve the "cost, choice, and availability of childcare".

He added: "We want employees to be able to request when, where, and how they work, and that's why the government has recently consulted on making the right to request flexible working a day one right for all employees."

The Welsh government said: "We recognise the importance of childcare and play provision, including holiday play schemes, for children and their parents and believe all workers should have an automatic right to request flexible working.

"We provide 30 hours a week of government-funded early education and childcare for working parents of three and four-year-olds and we are expanding this to all two-year olds in Wales."