Give mothers £8k to stay home with children, MPs told

MOTHERS who want to spend more time looking after their children should be given an £8,000 childcare allowance so they can stay at home, a report backed by parents has proposed.

Ministers and officials in the Department for Education are understood to have been engaged in “intense conversations” about what can be done to improve childcare for parents in England. A paper on reforms to make childcare more affordable is expected in the coming weeks.

Researchers at Civitas, a think tank, will today urge ministers to bundle existing child benefit and childcare payments into a single “family support benefit” that would give parents with children aged under four up to £8,000 a year. Parents could use the benefit to spend on childcare, to pay a grandparent or relative, or to spend more time looking after their own children.

A survey of more than 5,000 parents by the Department of Education in 2019 found that two thirds of mothers and children aged four and under would rather work fewer hours so they could spend more time looking after their children. Civitas estimated that there are more than two million “miserable mums” with pre-school children who are working when they would rather be at home looking after their children.

Frank Young, the head of children and families at Civitas, said: “For over 30 years, governments have pushed parents into work and subsidised childcare, something new parents tell us they object to.

“This isn’t listening to mothers. The Government’s own mega-poll of parents shows that two thirds of mums with children under four want to quit the rat race to spend more time being mum. Childcare policy is the wrong way round.”

The think tank’s proposal would allow parents to claim all of their existing child benefit entitlement until their child is 18 while their child is under five years old. This would increase the annual payment from £1,114 per year to £5,101 per year, according to Civitas.

The report, due to be published today, also proposes increasing child benefit to its pre-2010 levels, which would bring the annual payment to £6,273. The benefit would be topped up by almost £2,000 by replacing existing childcare subsidies. They include the free childcare allowances of between 15 and 30 hours for parents of three and four year olds. The funding is presently paid to nurseries but could instead be given to parents to spend as they see fit.

Anne Fennell, chairman of the Mothers at Home Matter campaign group, said: “Conversations around childcare must positively include and recognise those mothers who choose, or would prefer the choice to, carry out this valuable work themselves.

“We may finally recognise that mothers are having to work very long hours away from their children for very little recompense.”