Let nurseries start taking in toddlers at 6am

Ministers’ bid to get more mums to work

PARENTS should be able to leave their young children in state-subsidised childcare as early as six in the morning, ministers said yesterday.

Toddlers would also be able to stay in nurseries or with childminders until 8pm so working parents can put in longer hours under a scheme to double provision of free childcare.

The plan to extend childcare hours – with costs that would amount to an extra £1 billion a year by 2019 – is part of the Government’s push to persuade more mothers of young children to go back into fulltime work.

It means that taxpayers would foot the bill for children aged three and four to spend 30 hours a week in nurseries or with childminders, as opposed to 15 hours a week at present.

Ministers said that earlier opening and later closing times would give parents greater flexibility ‘to cover work patterns’.

But critics have accused the Government of ignoring the interests of both youngsters and their parents in order to further its aim of pushing more mothers of young children into jobs.

Current regulations say nurseries should offer sessions that last no longer than ten hours between seven in the morning and seven at night.

The changes would also extend the minimum length of subsidised childcare sessions, currently two-and-a-half hours.

A consultation paper that the Government published yesterday said: ‘We know that these patterns may not be suitable for all parents.’

Education and Childcare Minister Sam Gyimah said: ‘As a Government we have put helping families at the heart of our agenda.

‘ Nothing shows this better than our determination to support more families through childcare than ever before – today is the next step on delivering on that commitment.

‘Hard-working parents have all sorts of shift patterns, so childcare needs to be more flexible as well as more affordable.

‘Our consultation sets out how we could achieve this, with greater choice over the hours available to parents that better meet the demands of the 21st century, so they can balance raising their children with their working lives.’

Critics of state- subsidised childcare have long warned that children may be put at a disadvantage by spending many hours in nurseries or with childminders compared with those who spend their early years being brought up by their mothers.

A Swedish researcher warned in 2013 that long-term childcare could lead to mental health problems for children and difficulties in school. Jonas Himmelstrand said falling educational standards and a wave of disorder and bullying in Swedish schools were directly connected to state subsidies for daycare.

And in 2008 the UN agency Unicef also warned of a link between long hours of daycare and anti-social behaviour.

Author and researcher on the family Patricia Morgan said yesterday: ‘I do not think that ministers have considered the effects on children or on the choices before mothers. There is an assumption that all children should be in daycare and all mothers in full-time work.

‘The Government is ignoring questions over the long-term effects on children who spend all day in childcare.’