Nick Clegg promises to 'fill the gap' left by childcare support cuts

http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2013/jan/10/childcare-children

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The government will fill the gaps in childcare aid by focusing on providing extra help to the working poor and those "crucified by high childcare costs", Nick Clegg, the deputy prime minister said today.

He was speaking after a meeting of the quad – the four most senior members of the coalition – who had agreed on the shape of the childcare package due to be announced in the next week or so. There has been an intense dispute over the extent to which the planned help should increase up the income scale. The Conservatives want the aid to be as broad as possible but Clegg denied that it will be seen as regressive in terms of helping the rich.

He said the aim is "first to identify those families that will in future be on Universal Credit, but will not get enough from Universal Credit to cover their childcare costs and provide an incentive for them to work. This is all about giving mothers and fathers an incentive to work and those who are not receiving enough help with their childcare to work.

"Secondly, consciously and explicitly, the aim is to target those working families who don't receive Universal Credit – who are by definition better off than them – but who don't feel rich at all and feel crucified by high childcare costs, and we need to give them help."

"We are filling gaps with working parents who have been left in the wake of those two or three big progressive steps we have taken with low income working families".

He said the reforms had to be seen as part of a sequence of initiatives from April, to provide 15 hours of free pre-school childcare support for two-year-olds starting with the most deprived families.

Julian Foster from Childcare Vouchers Association urged the government not to abandon the current voucher system despite criticisms that it helps the middle class most. "Solving childcare affordability doesn't have to mean reinventing the wheel. With a few simple changes to the childcare voucher scheme, Government could give working parents the support they need.

"Childcare vouchers can be expanded to include self-employed parents, those on the national minimum wage and through introducing a right to request."