Jeremy Hunt’s Autumn Statement had a curious omission: childcare. The pleas of desperate parents who gathered on Whitehall last month during ‘The March of the Mummies’ appear to have fallen on deaf ears. Demonstrators gathered outside Downing Street banging drums and shouting: ‘Dear Rishi Sunak, we want our choices back.’ So why didn’t the Chancellor listen?
Britain’s childcare costs are already among the highest in the world, with the recession and soaring inflation increasing pressures on parents. One way to reduce the burden would be to make nurseries cheaper. For many parents, is cripplingly unaffordable, especially as the current subsidy of 15 hours a week only applies to three and four-year olds. Full-time nursery for children under the age of two can cost almost two-thirds of a parent’s weekly take-home pay. As a result of a reduction in the number of nurseries and childminders, many mothers – 87,000, according to the Office for National Statistics – are unable to work as they either can’t find or afford childcare.
So it would make sense – and bolster our faltering economy – to reduce the cost of nurseries in order to help these women back to work, since they and the nursery workers would all pay tax.
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