Policy Exchange: ‘£55 childcare for all mothers’

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article3784917.ece

All mothers should be entitled to a weekly payment of £55 to help to cover childcare costs, even if they do not go out to work, a think-tank close to David Cameron has recommended.

The proposals for a flat-rate Parental Care Allowance (PCA) for all mothers with children under three will be considered by Conservative policy chiefs. Policy Exchange said the current system of means-tested subsidies was unfair both to better-off working mothers, who do not qualify, and to mothers who stay at home.

Labour targets childcare subsidies to low-paid working families through the tax credit system.

Policy Exchange said UK parents paid 70 per cent of childcare costs compared with an average 30 per cent elsewhere in the EU. This was despite total spending of £17 billion since 1997.

It was particularly unfair, it said, that most parents (59 per cent) got no help at all, either because the mother stayed at home, or because grandparents and friends helped out.

Of the 41 per cent who used formal childcare, most preferred individual care by a nanny or child minder to the collective day-care of a nursery, Policy Exchange said. Yet subsidies were heavily skewed towards the latter.

The scheme would cost £5.4 billion a year, and be paid for in part by scrapping the childcare element of Working Tax Credit, worth £1.4 billion. Policy Exchange also suggests that benefit for 16 to 18-year-olds should be cut, the Sure Start maternity grant for very low income homes should be scrapped, and that spending on Sure Start children’s centres be scrutinised.


IF PEOPLE WANT CHILDREN THEY CAN PAY FOR THEM THEMSELVES - HAVING CHILDREN IS NOT A RIGHT -
iI would love a new car - are they going to pay for it?
These families who breed to keep themselves on a meal ticket for life - if this goes ahead - they must be laughing!
Why is it that people expect the gov to fund their lifestyle choice?


Margaret, Bristol, UK

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I just post the stories, for interest.. for everyone

Lord, what fools these mortals be!
- A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act III, Scene ii

Voltaire said: "Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities."

H.L.Mencken wrote:"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”

Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. Albert Einstein

Why the hell are governments making it everyone's expense for people's child care? Having kids is a CHOICE. NOT a right.

Unbelievable!!!!! A WEEK?!?! THat is so unfair to people choosing not to have children. Maybe the government should give those not chosing to breed a weekly stipend as a gift for not bothering others with their brats.

savesprinkles1234 Wrote:
> Maybe the government should give those not chosing to
> breed a weekly stipend as a gift for not bothering
> others with their brats.

And not contributing to the overpopulation and destruction of the planet!

thats on TOP of other. this is just childcare costs.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=418657&in_page_id=1770

from 2006

Single parents on the poverty line are getting over £100 a week more in state benefits than couples facing the same difficulties

And to get there single mothers will be given £132.79 a week from the state in tax credits - over £100 a week more than the £29.55 in tax credits that the couple will be given.

The analysis is based on the level of income that, according to the Department of Work and Pensions, was the poverty line in the financial year 2004/5.

For a single mother with two children living in a council house, the poverty line would have been £186.

A couple in the same circumstances, however, would have needed £325 to be out of poverty because of the living costs of the extra adult.

and
http://www.mailonsunday.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=400309&in_page_id=1770

But under EU rules, Polish and other Eastern European parents working in Britain can leave their children at home and still qualify for UK money - £907.40 a year for a single child and £608.40 for each additional one


from 2004 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/newscomment.html?in_article_id=401859&in_page_id=1787


Meanwhile, the annual bill for benefits to single-parent families has spiralled to an enormous £5 billion over the past seven years. We are the capital of Europe when it comes to handing out benefits to lone mothers.

Today, 8 per cent of British women aged between 18 and 35 are bringing up children on their own. That's nearly four times the level in France, twice the rate of Germany and twice that of liberally-inclined Holland.

One in four of these single mothers is claiming the highest lone-parent benefits of £6,400 a year, according to a recently published study by the Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona. And, dispiritingly, this research shows that the more money a British single mother is given in benefits, the more likely she is to have another baby.

a list of benefits women with children can get

http://www.dwp.gov.uk/lifeevent/famchild/

*********************************************************************************************************************************
I just post the stories, for interest.. for everyone

Lord, what fools these mortals be!
- A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act III, Scene ii

Voltaire said: "Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities."

H.L.Mencken wrote:"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”

Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. Albert Einstein