To disagree with 3/4 year old children having more childcare paid for

[ReallyTired]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-24199711

I feel the goverment should pay for education rather than childcare. 15 hours a week is enough to meet a child's educational needs for pre school. At a time of austerity, I feel there are bigger spending priorities. (Providing enough school places for children who are of complusory school age!)

If you choose to have chidlren then you should pay to look after them. I feel that labour's set of proposals are totally unaffordable and making the "banks" pay will damage the UK financial sector long term.

All these election bribes do not help the UK in the long term.

There are a few comments on here saying that free child care is the norm in the rest of Europe. I agree that is true. However, in the rest of Europe, it is also the norm to tax families as a joint family unit as opposed to individually as they do here. Then you wouldn't end up with the unfair discrepancies of paying CB to families earning a lot more than other families who are losing it. I'm all for doing what the rest of Europe does, as long as we can adopt all of their family policies and not just the ones people want to pick and choose from.

cakeandcustard You ignored my question about people who cannot work from home; nurses, care workers, retail assistants etc. It all seems fine for people with nice office jobs but the practicalities are bonkers. I am a student social worker - I cannot have remote access to the system due to data protection. Never mind eh, the person desperate for respite will have to wait because I want a nice home life!

I also think that while policies like this will be of great benefit to many families, all governments refuse to tackle the underlying problems which is the huge cost of housing. I've read so many threads on here recently about families being forced out of their homes by land lords, it makes me so cross. We need lower rents, more social housing and a reduction in house prices generally. Perhaps if we could pay a reasonable price to keep a roof over our heads, we wouldn't necessarily need round the clock child care. The housing situation in this country is a disgrace, but I notice that all political parties are eerily silent on this issue

AnnieLobeseder said "What all these people fail to realise is that a) these 'kids that people can't afford' will be paying their pensions and wiping their arses when they're old.

Not true, or at least unlikely to be true. First off, I have been paying my National Insurance for 20 years so far, have no kids, so if I live to a very old age and require someone to wipe my arse, I will have paid for it already. Secondly, the way the finances of the UK are going, I will probably be in my mid-70s by the time I can afford to retire, there will probably be no state pension by then (as the Govt are making all employers introduce workplace pensions - to which we employees MUST contribute on top of our existing NI contributions) and again, I will have paid for that by 50-plus years of contributions.

My parents could barely afford to have one child, so they had me and stopped at that. They felt it was unfair to expect others to subsidise a choice. Yes, we need to keep the species going, and I don't mind contributing to a society that is fair. Unfortunately, I think it's becoming more unfair. I'm not saying we shouldn't all contribute. But I think there needs to be much more joined-up thinking and less ideas that are merely there to gain votes.

Exactly George soooooo many parents would like to cut hours,have periods with a sahp but nothing,absolutely nothing is done to facilitate that.

Cutting housing costs would help as would couples(not just marrieds) having the double tax threshold and CB.Nobody seems to think of other creative ideas.

ihategeorgeosborne, yes they are I agree. Isn't it because capitalism requires a compound 3% growth rate. Housing bubbles and the financial services industry is what keeps the wheels on. No growth means crisis.

I think it's a great initiative ...

Very Win/Win/Win

1 Parents, especially mothers, will be enabled to work (25 hrs much more useful than 15) especially when considered alongside proposal for guaranteed access to childcare from 8-6 linked to primary schools.

2 Children will get more early years education

3 Benefits for mothers and children will bring benefits to society, both economically and socially, and both now and in future generations.

And maybe an extra win for me as a job seeking early years professional

I have a nice office job and can't work from home either.

I do think making companies offer fully flexible hours/homeworking and more job-shares would also help. Yes, it won't help everyone, but people saying "no, cos my job is purely office-based" is just like the SAHMS objecting to childcare subsidies; just because it won't benefit you, doesn't mean it should be denied to others who would benefit.

My job can't be done out of the lab, but I can clearly see the benefit to other families of being more able to tag-team parent and work hours with less overlap, so one can do before-school care and the other do after-school.

Annie - the problem with flexible hours is how it works if EVERYONE in a dept is a parent. Who takes priority? My ex used to work in a legal dept and all were parents except her. Who was expected to stay and work late? The non-parent. Who got priority for holiday dates and time off over Christmas? The parents. Because "it doesn't matter, does it, you don't have to rush home to kids, and Christmas is a time for families"

Well, two people can be a family also. And some non-parents actually look after elderly parents and I think they deserve the same flexibility of working arrangements.

Keeps the wheels on for who though Elizabeta? As far as I can see high house prices have only benefited the banks and the people with high assets. For most of us, the wheels came off a long time ago and most people have just been bumping along on their arses for a while now. Capitalism only works for the already rich, the rest of us see no benefit. Growth fueled on housing booms is not growth, it's debt, which is why we are in the mess we are in. However, good old Georgie boy wants to stoke it all up again just in time for 2015. When it all comes crashing down, he'll be long gone with all his assets. The political classes really don't give a shit about us. Policies like this are used to try and make people feel like they are getting something, when the fact is, they wouldn't need it if they weren't being so shafted in the first place.

So. Where I live there are two schools. Both have pre schools. One offers the free 15 hours across either mornings or afternoons, 2.5 hours per day.

The other offers them as full days mon and tues and weds am. Or pm weds and all day Thursday and Friday.

The second system is so much better to facilitate working. The difference is the school pickup the lunchtime bill, one hour a day. A simple change so that all preschools could offer this system would be brilliant.

candy my friends a social worker and she uses a VPN to access the database from home. I know a nurse who arranges her shifts around her partners so someone is home for the kids, its not impossible at all, it just takes a bit of imagination.

ihategeorgeosborne absolutely.

The thing is, it's not just a help to parents, it's also a much-needed answer to gender inequalities.

The fact is, the prohibitive cost of childcare means that women stay at home to take care of the children. It's women who lose out on the career progression, salary progression, etc, and then have a hard time going back to work once the children are grown up. Oh and it's women who get discriminated again by hiring employers who assume they'll probably quit their job or go part-time to take care of future children.

It has huge financial implications long-term, that women bear the brunt of.

Of course in an idea world men and women would share childcare equally and the professional/financial sacrifice would be equally distributed, only that's just not the case in the world we live in :(

Many local authorities (and indeed other agencies) will not allow you remote access, so do not patronise me with using "imagination".

anotchan I wish I could like your post.

Elizabeta

For that matter I was brought up by a social worker and she was always there to pick us up from school.

There are some jobs where it would be difficult, but we need to move away from the male-oriented capitalist model of everyone in work 8am - 6pm for the profits of big companies and acknowledge that there are other ways of organising society.

It seems that the more they follow policies which enable both parents to work full time the more the price of living goes up and everyone is working their fingers to the bone to scrape by.

Actually, having thought on this further, I wonder of those people who are anti this potential policy are SAHMs or those who could otherwise afford the extortionate nursery fees. Encouraging parents to work is a good thing!

cakeandcustard So what? Many people in many professions work part time. The whole world does not revolve around parents.

Candy "The whole world does not revolve around parents"

Sometimes, I think it's going that way.....

thank you candy ... it is an issue that gets my blood boiling a bit, because the gender inequality angle is very rarely mentioned in the media.

We could afford all three kids when we had them ...then we became me. Without support via tax credits I would be a lone parent on benefits. With support I am the same working tax payer I have been for the past 20+ years.

It's not as simple as don't have kids you can't afford. People die people leave, businesses close, people lose their jobs...

VoiceofUnreason - where did I say only parents should get flexible working? Places of work (and many already do) should have core hours, say 10-4, and outside of that, you can come and go as you please as long as you work your contracted hours. Your status as a parent is irrelevant. Unpaid overtime should also be illegal. Too many people work stupid hours for free; it's not good for anyone but the people pocketing the profits off the backs of the workers.