Child Care (Hansard, 19 December 2002)

§ Mr. Nicholas Brown

We believe that work is the best route out of poverty, but recognise that parents can face difficulties moving into work due to the demands of balancing their work, life and family responsibilities. That is why we are providing extra help to reduce these problems and allow parents to successfully move into work.

Help with child care costs for people looking for work is available across Great Britain through our welfare to work initiatives, such as the New Deal. For example, the New Deal for Lone Parents can provide assistance when participants attend training or take up part-time work. We are also enhancing the child care support available through Jobcentre Plus. From April 2003, a Childcare Partnership Manager will be established in every Jobcentre Plus district to ensure that jobseekers with children and their advisers have access to the latest information about child care in their area.

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For lone parents who are moving into work of over 16 hours per week, the Working Families Tax Credit (and from April 2003 the Working Tax Credit) includes the Childcare Tax Credit which can pay for up to 70 per cent. of their child care costs. New Deal Personal Advisers can also use the Adviser Discretion Fund to help pay for advance child care deposits if the lone parent is unable to do so.

We have also recently announced an improved package of financial measures to help people make the transition into work. From October 2004 we will be introducing a new Job Grant to help people moving into a job after at least six months on benefit. Single people and couples without children will receive £100. A higher rate Grant of £250 will be paid to lone parents and to couples with children. This improved Job Grant will make a real difference in helping tide families over until their first wages are received.

In 1998 we launched our National Childcare Strategy for England. This aims to ensure that good quality, affordable child care for children up to age 14 (and 16 for children with special educational needs and disabilities) is available in every neighbourhood.

Since 1997, there has been a major expansion in child care provision. In England over 553,000 new child care places have been created, benefiting more than a million children. A number of Government programmes, including the Neighbourhood Childcare Initiative, are helping to extend provision in the most disadvantaged areas of the country. We are now also encouraging schools to provide and host a range of services, including child care, for the local community through our new Extended Schools programme. The 2002 Spending Review saw a doubling of child care funding to create a further 250,000 places, in new Children's Centres in disadvantaged areas and elsewhere, by 2006. This is on top of the existing target of creating new provision for 1.6 million children by 2004.

Responsibility for policy relating to the development of child care in Scotland and Wales is a matter for the devolved administrations.