To be quite angry about proposed changes to 3-4yo childcare- only for ALL working parents?

I am probably the least Tory person you'll ever meet, but i still think this is a good thing.

Yes, we chose to have kids knowing we'd need childcare, but it's still a massive drain on our finances. There's no way one of us could stay home, even if we wanted to (which I don't).

This will give me a year and a half where the pressure isn't quite so high. That's going be fantastically helpful. I can then put the money I'm saving back into the economy. Win win.

Sahm. I think its a great idea.

Just generally, I think we should all (including the government) think of childcare as an investment: for families, it's an investment in parents' careers, for the child, socialisation, exposure to other people, cultures etc, for society generally, there's a lot of research showing that high quality early years care helps to raise balanced, responsible young people. Especially for children in impoverished (financially, educationally) or chaotic homes.

So the 15 hours for any child, without looking at working status of parents, is an excellent thing. A pity that SureStart was cut ...

And I never get why women look at childcare costs as coming out of their wages and then use that as an excuse not to return to work. Surely childcare is a family cost, not just the mother's?

Does anybody know if their is a disclaimer for partners of working parents who are carers or incapacitated( or in prison) like there is with working tax credits ? If not then you are not unreasonable and I will be talking to my MP.

It is because if a family have made a choice to have a parent at home, then that is to care for the child or children and this paid childcare is not seen to be needed

This.

I don't see the problem? There'll still be the free 15 hours for 3 year olds.

And also, of course that's free, but you pay for whatever you use over and above the 15 hours pw. So I don't understand your snark about the nursery billing you.
Goodness, there was no such thing as anything free when my DS was little. We aid & aid, because I needed to keep my career going. It was a long-term investment in all sorts of ways: my son's well-being (as he was/is an only), my career, my sanity, and - when my DH died unexpectedly - the only way I could keep going.

If you choose to be a SAHP, then it's assumed you're doing the child care, and don't need assistance. I thought that was obvious to anyone. And no, it doesn't discriminate against SAHPs -- it's offering a much-needed break for parents who need to work outside the home, and who pay a lot for child care.

I'm a SAHM and agree that I don't need 30 hours a week childcare. But I also strongly hope that the government aren't planning to sacrifice the universal 15 hours a week early years education to achieve the 30 hours childcare.

We were aware that DS struggles socially and kept raising it with the HV. But it was only when he went to pre-school and they backed up my concerns that things started to be taken seriously and he was finally referred to a paediatrician to begin the process of an ASD diagnosis. And in the meantime, going to pre-school regularly has helped him enormously. Yes, I took/take him to groups and meet up with friends but he is too anxious to join in till near the end. Whereas the familiarity and regularity of the pre-school and its routines works much better for him.

To the question of the cost of childcare versus earnings: I'm a teacher earning what I would say is a good salary of around £36000. Take off pension, ni, tax, student loan and I'm left with £1900 a month. 2 under nursery age with my (relatively cheap!) childminder would be £1400 a month, meaning I'm working myself to the bone to earn £500 after paying for double childcare. DH earns £1400 so I suppose we could say that he might as well stay at home, but if he stayed at home, I wouldn't want him to turf the kids out to nursery for 30 hours, because it would mean he was doing absolutely nothing all day!

For financial reasons, we have decided to spread our children out, and will be waiting until dd is eligible for her 15 hours before having our next. The 30 hours would be fantastic for us, especially if we could have 15 hours of preschool education, and 15hours with the childminder to reduce our bill.
To my mind, if you're not working because you want to spend more time with your little ones while they're small, then you shouldn't want them out of the house for 30 hours a week, but if you're not working for financial reasons then you'll be able to use these 30 hours to get back into full time work. Very simple really

I agree with sovery that I would be grateful for any help offered, in whatever form it came.

We budgeted very carefully before ttc then had it all planned when I was pregnant. All of this was completely irrelevant as the MIL let us down massively in the first couple of months of me being back at work so had no choice but to increase nursery time.

Op, I would wait for the detail to become clear before coveting these 30 free hours.

The scanty information so far indicates that it's something I would never want to inflict on my child.

15 hours for sahp is plenty. It's a good starter and foundation for all kids. That won't change.

Increasing it for up to 30 for working parents is excellent. It should enable more parents who want to work to be able to do so.

I can't see the problem? If you are on jsa etc you get nursery place at 2. I assume the logic of that is so people on esa/pip can catch a break and people on jsa can look for work. If you have to pay a fulltime nursery place it can mean a huge amount of minimum wage/low paid jobs simply aren't viable. I do think there should be a cap on the extra 15 hours though so anyone earning high end wages doesn't auto get that top up.

Oh and we have only 1 dc and a dc that is here through all school holidays only. We decided not to have another dc because we cannot go back to 'living' how we have over the past 3 years, we just can't afford another child.

Sovery and headin, would you have rather had a lower tax bill overall than extra help with childcare?

I had 3 under 15 months.It was my choice.Sorry twins aside I don't think the state should be responsible for families who choose to have children close together in age.Stagger your family,save before ttc or have the family you can afford.

Yy to means testing.

I called it a stupid comment because that's What it is. We're not classed as 'low' earners, we earn about £100 PA too much as a couple to be given that 'title' and we are about as far from 'high' earners as you could be without being low earners.

We manage to pay nursery because we have to. We have had some very hairy times over the past few years due to paying nursery over bills. If he didn't go to nursery we can't work, if we don't work we can't live. 30 hours would have been a godsend, bloody hell even 15 would have been but we didn't qualify for 2 year funding as we earn low, just not low enough.

Your idea that, because we have managed, we shouldn't need help is ridiculous. We managed, we near starved, became unwell, had to 'steal' with permission nappies, existed not lived, near split with yhe stress of it all but it's ok.....because we managed.

workers

Come on most sahp give up a salary and take the financial hit.I don't buy the sahp don't have jobs to give up,they do.

And as for work not paying tax doing it because they will eventually what utter tosh.I never will unless I get a humongous pay rise.

I agree with the 15 hours for sahp,they should get that for education but don't need more however I strongly disagree with wealthier families getting this and truly believe students should get it.Study generally leads to higher salaries which are more likely to produce tax revenue.

I don't think anyone is arguing that SAHP need childcare. I think people are suggesting that they also might need financial support.

I agree with other posters that it should be related to household income though - an easy way would be to link it to receipt of child benefit - if you don't get that then you don't get free childcare. Or, if you want a lower threshold, tax credits. But I think that would be very harsh.

If you can afford to SAH then you don't need free childcare. You can either look after your child yourself or pay for it. I do not understand why SAHPs think that they need childcare anyway - the point of SAH is to provide childcare! Many people SAH purely because they can't afford childcare and might be happy to work (and pay taxes) if the childcare was cheaper. This is about helping people back into work (which in the long run is better for everyone) rather than facilitating a lifestyle choice. However I think actively looking for work should qualify for the free childcare too. In some areas there aren't many jobs, and then there's things like redundancy - people shouldn't lose the whole fabric of their lives just because they lose their job. At the least there should be some kind of wind down period.

Daft idea to pay the childcare of couples earning megabucks when it has no impact on their decision to return to work etc etc etc.

Why is it anymore daft than paying someone else to look after them when the parent in question earns less than the cost of that childcare? In that case would it be "worse" to support them to stay home and then return to work at a later date?