John Redwood: (Wokingham) (Con):
We do need more childcare, and I wish the Minister every success with these policies, but we are going to need a lot more people, businesses and other institutions to come forward to provide that care. Will the whole Government do more? Can we get rid of IR35, a tax on the self-employed? Can we raise the value added tax threshold for small business? We must look at making childcare more worthwhile, because we need the teachers and the childcarers.
Claire Coutinho, Minister for Children, Families and Wellbeing:
I thank my right hon. FriendāI have just had a bit of a flashback to my days as a Treasury Parliamentary Private Secretary. He is absolutely right that the supply of childcare will be a really important part of growth, as has been reiterated by the IMF and others.
June 30, 2023
Good morning.
Why should those who wish not to or cannot afford children subsidize those who think because they can that they should have large families. It is their right of course but, it is not their right that the government pick the pockets of those who have smaller incomes and few or no children.
Benefits and subsidies make people and companies lazy and irresponsible.
June 30, 2023
Yet no comment on IR35, or VAT registration threshold
June 30, 2023
With IR35 I think it is a case of, “job done !”. With VAT it is a case of squeezing the pips until it hurts.
July 1, 2023
“With IR35 I think it is a case of, ājob done !ā. ” – Mark B
More like “Jobs gone!”
I do wish this government realised that there are ways to affect the economy other than manipulating interest rates.
June 30, 2023
People who create children should support themselves. Charity or Govt assistance exists to help those when difficulty arises. Assistance is not a discount for parents to plan and seek before the event.
June 30, 2023
If people had continued to have children at the pre WW1 rate.
And looked after them in the family, as they invariably did.
I very much doubt if we would be seeing many strangers on our shores.
Unfortunately most of the men did as they were told and trooped off to N. France.
And then in the 50s/60s fell for the 2.4 child edict.
June 30, 2023
Yet no comment on IR35, or VAT registration threshold
June 30, 2023
The Chancellor is too naive to realise simple sensible efficiency.
June 30, 2023
Yes. A man who thinks it a jolly good idea to have a recession, destroy jobs, business and families.
Oh what benevolent ‘leaders’ (sic) we have.
/sarc
June 30, 2023
Which Marxist (Grinsberg?) said ‘we will get at you through your children’. That is now coming true.
June 30, 2023
What do communist states do?
Control the children from birth.
What a terrible indictment on this dreadful country.
Info on this āpackageā (yuk) isnāt available on the internet (Hansard) at the moment? My iPad? Total incompetence? Or obfuscation/chaos?
June 30, 2023
Volume 735, debated on 28 June 2023 hansard.parliament.uk āChildcare Reform packageā.
June 30, 2023
Having ripped society asunder and encouraged the prevailing atmosphere of suspicion and hostility.
It is scarcely likely that our taxation crazy govt. will get much support for this particular divisive tentacle of control.
Not that it bothers them.
Press on regardless of sense.
āWeāve got the money tooā.
Yesā¦we knowā¦you keep taking it from us!
NetZero Food .tax? Thatāll help the children!
June 30, 2023
Were this government on the side of the people there is a lot it could do.
I do though like what I take to be a stunned silence response from Minister Claire Coutinho for at least she spares us from the usual waffle.
June 30, 2023
The best childcare is the mother, and the father can help as well. What is needed is not more public childcare services, but a society that enables mothers to look after their own children. Cost of living is too great in this country; housing and tax costs need to be reduced.
June 30, 2023
Dave A
I agree! If there is going to be childcare payments/allowances, then there should also be some tax provision to allow mums (or dads) to stay home and care for their own children.
As a young mum, it was said, to try and give our children the first five years of their life, before returning to work.
As some have said on this thread… childcare leaves it open to indoctrination by the government via nurseries … and goodness knows there’s plenty of that in schools never mind pre-school care.
July 1, 2023
Absolutely!
June 30, 2023
Why doesn’t the Government encourage grandparents to deliver childcare for their grandchildren ….. perhaps some kind of tax-break or voucher system?
I wonder if it’s because they want the opportunity to brainwash the children almost from birth in their politically-correct childcare institutions. Can’t have those pesky older people teaching them anything which hasn’t been approved by the social engineers.
June 30, 2023
Oh you must be right JR – the IMF says so!
I whitely disagree! Mothers already have jobs and donāt want to hand their babies over.
Letās get the rest of Britain working and letās get rid of much demand from unwanted immigrants.
Itās a farce of the Govtās own making that the Courts can overrule the āHighest Court in the Landā. Nothing can be allowed to constrain the House of Commons other than our Constitution. All these idiot Treaties must be voided when they are in conflict with the āattest will of Parliamentā as are our own statutory laws.
June 30, 2023
Governments screwed up when you all killed off childminders with your overzealous regulations. When you forced all 16-year-olds to stay in school studying for subjects like drama when they weren’t skilled in that (any other subject you have to get over a C to study at A level), by all means, study the Arts. Still, only if you are skilled and talented in those subjects and could get a C or above at GCSE you should be offering proper child-care apprenticeships at work with NVQ level 2 and level 3 gained if they have to study functional maths and English that should be done one day per week back in the schools and colleges but if the school failed to teach them that in the 12 years previous should this be real life English and Maths needs!
I laugh when I read ‘A parents guide to what my child can do after their GCSEs. It is ultimately up to your child. It isn’t; my parents didn’t want me to go to college because they couldn’t afford the bus fare and the Ā£8 per week child benefit stopped then. I wasn’t eligible for free school dinners, so Dad probably earned marginally over the cut-off point for any help. They wanted me to do vocational learning without having any family connections (that you required at the time) to get on a decent apprentice program with a big firm. My brother and I both got degree-level qualifications after work, in our own time and at our own expense. This one size fits all education, education, education is falling over everywhere and we just import people who are still living to our old systems in their Countries and learning required skills the business organisations say we need instead!
June 30, 2023
So if the IMF approves of childcare, it’s worth funding? Is that how we decide what kind of society we want?