Archive for April 22nd, 2015

Conservatives Pledge New Childcare Places

Wednesday, April 22nd, 2015

David Cameron Visits Westminster's Children SocietyThe Conservatives’ manifesto pledge on childcare will create an extra 600,000 free places, David Cameron is to say.

The prime minister will say his party’s reforms will ensure it pays for people to go out to work.

Under the £350m Conservative plans, the amount of state-subsidised childcare for three and four year-olds would be doubled to 30 hours a week.

Currently, all three and four-year olds in England are entitled to 570 hours of free early education or childcare a year, which works out as 15 hours each week for 38 weeks of the year.

The Conservatives said the 30-hour offer from 2017, announced a week ago, would result in more than 600,000 extra 15-hour free childcare places every year.

They said the proposal would be funded by reducing tax relief on pension contributions.

Mr Cameron will say his government inherited a “shocking” situation, “where couples were spending as much on childcare as one of them took home in earnings”.

He will add that “for many second earners, work didn’t pay because the cost of childcare was so high”.

A Conservative government would expand on the changes made in the last Parliament, Mr Cameron will say.