What's the single biggest thing the government could do to help parents?

[JustineMumsnet]

Hello Mumsnetters,
Can I pick your brians for a moment please? Were you to get the chance to sit around a table with Gordon Brown and he was to ask you what government should be doing to help mums and families, what would you say?

make childcare more affordable

sort out the farce that is tex credits

longer paternity leave for fathers

more affordable housing

Dh got the max amount of child tax credit when he was SAHD and I was making about £14,000/pa and it was significant.

Of course not as much as if we'd put the children in daycare, but it wasn't exactly an insignificant sum.

If you're working poor, you qualify for it.

No doubt, schneelby!

Tax credits are despicable!

To saddle the working poor with thousands of pounds of 'debt' because THEIR office cocked up is utter BS.

I'd agree, the tax credit system is the first thing I'd like sorted out too

I've told people they're better off staying on the dole than getting involved in this tax credit bollocks that could leave them in even greater poverty than those living on the dole - and yes, I'm not making that up.

Extend the nursery grant and means test it. I was gobsmacked to get a letter yesterday from my extremely middle class private school showing how much nursery grant would be set off against fees for my DD next term - more than £500. I am a lawyer and DH works in an investment bank - we do not need this, but other people in other situations desparately will.

I would like to see accessible, integrated drop in family centres - say, with a nurse where you could get injections done, a health visitor, a nursery school or creche, maybe offering cooking classes for adults and children, etc. It doesn't need to be emblematic of a "nanny state" - although I am hugely in favour of an enhanced Sure Start type operation - rather, I think we all learn from being with others. TBH, what we need is a "phyical" Mumsnet.

expat - can you tell we got paid the wrong amount!?

We were getting £150 per month which dropped to £30 because of their mistakes! I still think they owe us.

We got paid the wrong amount, too, and I had to fight like hell because it was THEIR mistake and I had the papers to prove it.

We were plunged below the poverty line when they cancelled out credits entirely and tried to force us to pay money on top of that.

And I'm serious, below the poverty line because I was still paying full rent, council tax, taxes, etc.

I was able to know what to do through having a good education, but what about people who don't have those advantages?

They just wind up even poorer for working than if they'd gone on the dole.

The threat of being hit with a letter demanding £7,000 immediately and not being able to pay for basics because of your 'debt' on your measly £13,000/annum income for three of you and one on the way is a reality for TENS OF THOUSANDS of working poor.

Thanks, Gordon! Hope you rot for doing this to people without so much as a second thought! What goes around comes around.

we were paid the wrong amount too

I constantly phones them up to report it, was told it was ours

Then got a demand for it all back

So went to CAB and fought the TC system

Lost and have to pay back £80 a month, we live on less than £250 a week, so they have left us in the sh*t

agree with expat too

They are shit. Expat - that is so true when you say about being educated enough to be able to do something about it. So many people must get shafted something rotten! I am an even tempered person but this shit pisses me off!

I never phone them anymore. I only contact them by Recorded Delivery written correspondence and I keep a copy of EVERYTHING.

A doula for every mum with a new baby. A mum with a newborn should be able to rest after the pg and birth, and concentrate on bfing and bonding, not have to do housework and run around after her family. I'm convinced that such pn support would substantially increase bfing rates and reduce PND rates.

Ecognise that SAHMs are also working, albeit unwaged, and make it easier for such families by allowing allowances to be pooled/transfered to their financial advantage.

yes, it was the fact I had always phoned them on the helpline number that was my undoing - they just said they had no proof I had ever contacted then and they refused to go through transcripts of the phone calls I made

help (tax credist etc?) for working parents with schoolage children to help cover holiday childcare. (I have never claimed TC as I truied to apply and go given such a runaround we decided not to bother. money is such a struggle though. Hlaf my wages go on childcare for my school-age boys.

More child-care options for older children. Apparently when my son is 12 he will have to fend for himself in the summer hoidays as all playschemes only go up to 12 round here.

More support for new parents and parents to be. Surely it's worth it when considering the potential costs of mental health care int he future...

I would like good state schools. Really good state schools. Schools that are obliged to offer good quality before and after school clubs from 7.30 to 7.30. Not that I plan to leave my children there for 12 hours a day - just so that I have the flexibility to do so should the occasion arise.

Oh god yes Quattro - scrap everything else. Let's just have fabulous state schools. Please please please. Stop pouring money into crap subsidies, and fighting wars which are nothing to do with us and just give us better schools!

I wonder if Beverley Hughes passed on the suggestion about introducing an enforcable policy of zero tolerance of swearing in secondary schools. This could empower headteachers, make life more pleasant for teachers and would back up parents in their efforts to maintain behaviour standards with impressionable teens.

Justine is Gordon trying to save money on specialist advisers by having mumsnetters providing a think tank service for him ?

He probably has his paid minions reading this thread and making up their new list of 'targets'.

God forbid they ever use their own minds to think outside the box and actually come up with something that makes an iota of sense.

I've met Big Issue sellers with better capability to govern than these yahoos.

BRAVO, smallwhitecat!

My DH pays a HORRENDOUS amount of income tax and national insurance. I am a SAHM expecting her 3rd baby.

What I would like to see happen is.....

the government gives the DH/DP the mothers tax allowance whilst she is staying at home DOING THE VERY IMPORTANT JOB OF REARING THE NEXT GENERATION.

If DH and I were to be jointly earning his salary, the tax would be split over both our allowances and we would be SO much better off each month. He works bloody hard for his wage and suffers the stress of his job as a result.

I think it's important to encourage (IF the mother wants to) the opportunity for Mum's to stay at home. I think this could only have a beneficial effect on society.

PS forgot to mention, we haven't been eligible for tax credits for a few years now. I contacted them ages ago and informed them of our change of circumstances because I suspected the payments needed to stop.. was told no, it's fine.

............. We've now had to set up a standing order for £30 a month to pay back tax credit overpayment!!!!!!!!!!!!

Okay Hopey. If you stay at home mums are getting transferable tax allowances, can the working mums get tax-deductible childcare? It's only fair...

I agree with quattro.

It would make things more simple all round

Put Mumsnet in charge ...