How to fix Britain’s childcare problem

Childcare in the UK is among the most expensive in Europe. A full-time nursery place for a child under five costs in the region of £14,000 per year; if there are multiple children, this easily rises to an amount that means women would be paying to go back to work after maternity leave. The result: if a couple can’t afford to support a family on a single income until children are school age, then quite likely they can’t afford to have a family at all.

One typical reason given for these high costs is that regulations for the number of adults per child are more stringent than in many other countries, meaning more staff are needed to take care of the same number of children. Other European countries allow more children per staff member, and Denmark, Sweden, and Spain do not give any legal maximum.

In a bid to lower costs, the government has announced plans to slightly relax these rules.