Is There Enough Help with Childcare?

If you need to pay for childcare then it can be very costly and eat into your salary. I saw an interview with a mum and her care takes all her salary.

I think more money should be going into childcare from the government. As it's a sector that's always overlooked.

All I got was child benefits when mine were younger. We chose to have children and didn’t expect help from anyone.

I do think working parents with children under the age of 3 should get some kind of help, I am in Scotland and there is no help, there as if your on benefits and the child is under 3 you get help with childcare

Think parents should be given as much childcare as needed but not sure of being means tested like other state benefits.

If you have children why should the tax payer pay for your child care ( or 15/30 hours of it) so you can then keep your salary to spend on what you want. I had only child benefit for my son, had to pay for a childminder out of my single wage. people these days expect too much. Whilst the tax payer is payer for their childcare, they are buying very expensive phones, got sky TV, go on holidays etc,etc.

A big chunk of earnings goes on childcare unfortunately.

Ridiculously expensive. But it's also not just expensive for profits. A lot of people that run childcare organisations don't get much profit cos the overheads are crazy. Staff are highly trained some have degrees. These aren't just teachers bug nursery workers, support staff in schools, youth workers and play care workers

I stayed at home for 3 years until our son got free nursery hours as I couldn't afford to go back to work. Once he started I was able to go back but if it hadn't been for the free hours then the majority of my wages would have gone on childcare. We decided to have a child so it is our responsibility to look after him but we were very grateful for the free hours, although technically paid for by mine and my husbands taxes.

It’s a tough one for sure, i think 30 hours is not enough really especially if they are single parent without any family who can help.

I know a fair few people who have said it makes more financial sense for them to stop working to look after their kids, as opposed to working and paying for childcare

I was always bought up if you can’t afford you can’t have it. The same goes for children. If you can’t pay for them stop producing!!

The world is so over-populated and England now has a higher population density than Japan due to high levels of immigration. I feel we need to adapt our workforce rather than encourage more children. It doesn't seem unreasonable to me to start reducing benefits aimed at making bringing up children financially easier especially if you have more than one child.

We are not a very low birth rate country. We rank 65th in the list with many countries like Germany, Japan etc with lower birth rates. Also add to that we simply can't afford it, these are hugely expensive benefits. Also many people have stated the cost of raising families in the UK is one of the reasons many migrants come here because of these generous benefits. Child benefit on its own costs the UK £12.5 billion a year and this is rising all the time and that is not one of the highest benefits aimed at children either although is probably the one most universally claimed by parents. Child benefit probably accounts for about £500 tax for every working person a year except of course the government is still borrowing for everyday expenses adding to the huge debt pile.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_birth_rate