Conservative response to Labour on childcare

Responding, Tom Pursglove MP, Conservative Party Vice Chairman for Youth, said:

“With our balanced approach to the economy, we are able to increase spending on childcare in real terms since 2010 to around £6 billion a year by 2020.

“This includes delivering our commitment to provide working parents of 3 and 4 year olds 30 hours free childcare a week – helping them balance work and family life and give children the best start in life.

“Labour don’t know how to handle the economy which means they wouldn’t be able to provide the funding our children need.

ENDS

Notes to Editors

Helping more families to access affordable childcare

• ·         We doubled free childcare to 30 hours a week for working families of 3- and 4-year-olds, which is more than Labour promised in 2015. The offer will save families around £5,000 a year per child and around 390,000 families across the country are eligible (DfE Press Release, 31 August 2017,link). 

• ·         We extended free childcare to 2-year-olds from low-income families. Evidence tells us that children from disadvantaged backgrounds can be up to 19 months behind their better off peers by the time they start school. By providing 15 hours of high quality early years education to 2-year-olds from low-income families, we will ensure all children arrive at school ready to thrive. The proportion of eligible disadvantaged two-year-olds benefiting from funded childcare has risen from 58 per cent in 2015 to 72 per cent in 2017 (DfE, 28 June 2018, link). 

• ·         We are making Tax-Free Childcare fairer and available to around 1 million more families than used the old scheme designed by Labour. We’re going further by encouraging families to take up the offer through a national marketing campaign (Hansard, 29 March 2018, HCWS616, link).

• ·        Labour’s policy of 30 hours free childcare to all two year olds was under costed by £2.7 billion in their 2017 Manifesto. The Labour Party manifesto claimed the policy would cost £4.8 billion per year, but independent research has estimated it would cost £7.5 billion (Labour Manifesto 2017, pg.36, accessed 2 October 2018, link; Localis, 30 May 2017, link).

Investing in childcare and the early years – so that all children get the best start in life

• ·         We are giving children the best start in life by supporting working families with the cost of childcare. That’s why we’ll invest more in childcare than any government before, spending a record £6 billion per year by 2020 (DfE Press Release, 11 April 2017, link). 

• ·         We spend 3.8 per cent of GDP on family benefits, more than any other OECD country.  Family benefits include cash benefits, such as person tax credits, Child Benefit; maternity benefits and child Disability Living Allowance; and benefits in kind covering child care and social services (Parliament, Written Question, 28 June 2018, link).

• ·        We meet 85 per cent of the childcare costs of families receiving Universal Credit, supporting parents into work. To help more families move off benefits and into employment, we increased the rate of childcare support available under Universal Credit from 70 per cent to 85 per cent, saving families £646 for one child or £1108 for two or more children (DWP Press Release, January 2016, link).

• ·         We are helping families with the cost of childcare through Tax Free Childcare. We are helping working families by giving basic rate tax relief on childcare of up to £2,000 per year per child.  Over 170,000 families already have a tax-free childcare account and we have begun activity to further raise awareness of tax-free childcare. We want to encourage more parents to take up the offer they are entitled to (HMT, Spending Review and Autumn Statement, 25 November 2015, link; Hansard, 15 January 2018, link).

• ·         We are investing £20 million to help parents improve their children’s early language and literacy skills. Research shows that where there is a gap in communication skills between disadvantaged children and their peers this can have a long-term impact on their educational attainment. Closing this gap will tackle inequalities before they develop and become entrenched (DfE, 30 April 2018, link).