The government has increased its planned childcare allowance to a maximum of £2,000 per child.
From September next year, parents of children under 12 will be able to claim a 20 per cent rebate on their childcare costs, up a maximum of £2,000 for each child, provided both parents are employed.
When originally announced last year, the scheme was limited to £1,200 per child. It was to be phased in over a number of years and would only be open to families earning less than £150,000 per year.
The government has now agreed to introduce the scheme for all eligible children within the first year. They claim around 1.9 million families will benefit from the new scheme.
Parents on maternity, paternity or adoption leave, those starting businesses and people working part-time who earn more than £50 per week will all also be eligible for support.
The current Employer Supported Childcare scheme, which only benefits around 450,000 families, will be phased out.
Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg told the BBC:
“This is really simple. For every 80p you pay, the government will pay 20p.”
This is social engineering at its worst, generally if parents take the option to have one parent at home they know that they will take a financial hit but they accept that because they think (rightly or wrongly) that it is better for the child.
Now we are making them (as well as single people of course who always lose out on tax benefits anyway) subsidise the parents who both go out to work !
This is shameful in my opinion.
I find it quite shocking that couples earning up to £150,000 are now to be subsidised further by the taxpayer. If high earners of this sort cannot afford to pay child care, they should cut their hours down. There are families paying taxes and surviving on less than £20.000 a year. Should they be subsidising couples earning £150.000 a year? I think not.