Hundreds of thousands of working parents have been left counting the cost as the government’s free childcare offer falls short of what they need.
That’s the view of Batley and Spen MP Tracy Brabin, whose comments follow new analysis of childcare costs in Yorkshire that has revealed a rise from £101.15 a week in 2010 to £125.70 a week now.
An average two-child family in Yorkshire will have spent nearly £1,760 on childcare over the seven weeks of the summer holidays this year, at £880 per child.
During the same period wages rose by only 14% across the country, meaning that childcare is a greater proportion of family income.
Ms Brabin, the Shadow Minister for Early Years, warned that childcare costs were rocketing just as the government’s new free entitlement fell dramatically short of the numbers pledged by former Prime Minister David Cameron.
She said the next Labour government “will give every two to four-year-old 30 hours of free childcare a week, with the resources to actually deliver it.”
She accused the Tories of letting down working families across Yorkshire, adding: “With the summer coming to an end, parents have been feeling the squeeze as they face ever rising childcare costs and wages that just can’t keep up. The government has left hundreds of thousands of working parents either ineligible or unable to access the free childcare they were promised.”
