We’ve been radicals on childcare before – and we’ll need to be again

By Alison McGovern MP and Lisa Nandy MP

Britain’s economy isn’t working for the people it should be working for and the human cost is all too evident. Wages are stuck, costs are rising and many people who want full-time work can’t get it. Families caught in this living cost trap are increasingly fed up, wondering when things are going to get just a little bit better. For many parents, and also for those who might like to be parents one day, it’s a gloomier picture still. The last few years have seen the costs of childcare sky-rocket, even as incomes have stood still and behind these figures are families who have to work several jobs to make ends meet, costing them precious time with their children at the most important time in their live.

The figures are alarming: according to the Office of National Statistics, the cost of placing a two to four year old in nursery has risen by 31% since 2010. For under-twos, costs are up by 27%. And in the areas that have seen the least benefit from this anaemic, lop-sided recovery, the costs have risen most. Families across the north west are paying 46% more, and their counterparts in the north east have seen childcare costs rise by 47%. These aren’t just percentages – it’s real, hard cash. Our constituents in the Wirral and Wigan with 2-4 year olds are having to find on average £31 more per week if they want to pay for 25 hours of childcare. A huge ask when for the past six years, many people’s wages have barely risen. Let’s put this in the starkest possible terms: if two parents are working part-time in jobs paying around the average wage, it will be Thursday of each week before their pay has covered their childcare costs and they can move on to paying for the other household bills.

Parents – both mothers and fathers – who find themselves in these situations are going to find it hard to justify returning to work financially, or if they do, will find little left in their pay packets. That cuts their incomes, it increases the risk of child poverty, it can exacerbate the gender pay gap and on a national level it raises welfare bills and cuts tax incomes. It deprives people of the chance to spend time with their children and to take part in their communities. At a time when we face huge challenges – loneliness and isolation, an ageing population and growing unemployment, we desperately need to draw on the talents and energy of everyone in Britain. Our failure to take childcare costs seriously leaves us all the poorer. And on this government’s watch, the problem has grown.

Labour in government has a record to be proud of on childcare. We introduced an entitlement to 12.5 hours of free childcare for all 3-4 year olds, launched SureStart, funded after-school clubs as part of a major expansion of wrap-around care. In 1997 childcare was seen as a women’s issue. We put it at the centre of the political agenda where it belongs. We were radicals then – and it is clear we need to be radical again. Sticking plaster solutions, such as this government is peddling, simply aren’t going to address the scale of the problem.

So that’s why one of the top priorities for Labour in government will be to introduce an entitlement to 25 hours of free, high-quality childcare for every three or four year old in a household where both parents work, or where the parent in a single parent household works. That’s 440,000 children benefiting every year, receiving childcare worth around £1,500. And we will pay for this by expanding the levy on the banks, who have got away with paying so little under this government, despite the continuing litany of scandals, failures and fines from the sector.

Moving to twenty-five hours free childcare could be transformatory for so many families. The debate must not be reduced to simply whether fathers and mothers should be ‘stay-at-home’ parents or return to work – that is for every individual parent to choose. But what is clear at the moment is that too few families have any choice at all. We can ensure that every parent has the freedom to make that judgement based on their own family, in an economy where choosing work isn’t financially unworkable because of childcare costs.

Alison McGovern is the Labour MP for Wirral South and Shadow Minister for Children and Families. Lisa Nandy is the Labour MP for Wigan and Shadow Minister for Civil Society