When asked on Wednesday how scrapping Liz Truss’ childcare reforms helped families, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak replied that it was important that families today could “balance between work life and family life, and childcare is obviously an important part of that”. Right he is. But if by childcare Sunak means a hired pair of hands in a tax-payer subsidised nursery, rather than a loving parent at home, he’s guilty of doublespeak. One cannot state that work-life balance is important while advocating for a policy that shifts that balance away from family life and towards employment. 

We start from a false premise if we judge the success of childcare policy by the number of parents it allows to return to paid employment. Instead, effective childcare policy should focus on enabling more parents not to seek employment. Politicians should not strive to make childcare affordable by outsourcing it, but should endeavour to make one income families achievable. Shipping the kiddos out to the local nursery is not the vote winner that politicians think it is. 63 per cent of adults wish they spent more time with their family, not less. Politicians pontificating on childcare would do well to bear that in mind. 

So what should our family-focussed politicians do to help?

The obvious solution to the childcare crisis is to make the option for parents to stay at home with their children more financially enticing. The tongue-in-cheek types might suggest that high childcare costs are, therefore, a good thing as it keeps a parent at home. But so would proposing to cut women’s wages to a tenth of men’s. Not only would the average Josephine meet such a policy with ridicule and scorn, but this approach ultimately results in couples not having as many children as they desire, as families would still be trying to survive on one income, which is unimaginable for many. The Government needs real solutions to the two-income trap. 

Our Government could, of course, borrow pro-natalist ideas from the likes of Hungary. In Hungary, the birth of your fourth child means a lifetime exemption from income tax. Parents can also qualify for favourable mortgage rates and even help with buying a car. Naturally, such policies cost hefty sums and our Government seems unlikely to jump on the pro-natalist bandwagon anytime soon. But there are plenty of less ambitious, yet still helpful, options out there. 

A change to taxation could help keep mothers or fathers at home

For a start, a change to taxation could help keep mothers or fathers at home. The present tax set-up cajoles parents into the work-force and away from their sprog. The report “Parents Know Best” by the Centre for Social Justice notes that the “UK is an international outlier in not recognising family in the tax system, taxing couples with children as though they are individuals, and not recognising economic dependents.” As taxation currently stands, “If the household income is evenly split between two full-time earners, that household will pay less tax than if the same income were to be earned by just one earner.” A Government that cares a dot about work-life balance would not permit taxation that clearly disadvantages parents who chose to spend more time with their children. 

The Government could also look to reform the free care allowance that parents receive, to enable greater choice as to how it’s spent. The current 15 (sometimes 30) hours of free care a week that parents of three and four-year-olds in England can claim gets paid directly to nurseries, similarly with tax-free childcare. Changing this so that parents, not nurseries, receive the allowance to distribute as they judge best would help give parents a greater say over their child’s care. They might choose to spend it on a nursery place after all, or they might gift it to grandparents as a thank you for helping, or they might simply supplement their own finances with it. Truss considered such a reform and Sunak would be well advised to adopt it himself. We find ourselves in a funny position when a mother can claim money to pay someone else to look after her children but can’t claim that money for herself to do the same role. Conservatives should trust parents to make the best decisions as regards the resources and support available to them and their children. 

Finally, the Government needs to address the gap in support for parents of children aged nine-months to three-years-old. The Centre for Social Justice proposes pooling the budget for free hours of childcare with that of tax-free childcare, forming a “Family Credit”. Parents could then claim this set amount of money over a longer period of time, rather than waiting until their child turns three. UK Onward proposes similar policy recommendations in their report “First Steps: Fixing Childcare”. At their core, these policies enable flexibility. And flexibility helps parents stay home with their children.

Although feminists might fear that incentivising stay-at-home parenting will lead to women’s retreat from the workforce, and consequently a diminished voice at the table of decision making, this need not be the case. We no longer restrict women’s roles to the home, nor men’s roles to the office. Since the outbreak of Covid-19 in 2020, the number of stay-at-home dads has increased by a third. We should celebrate this. A present parent is invaluable to children’s development and a key indicator of later success. If more men are willing to consider playing their part in that legacy, then that’s a win for women too.

In his speech on Wednesday, the Prime Minister mentioned family 15 times and children 12 times. He stressed the importance of changing our country for our children and grandchildren. If Rishi Sunak wants to succeed in this aim, first he should get to work on supporting people to have those children without then needing to outsource their care to others.