(Dominic Lipinski/PA)
(Picture: PA Wire)London parents face a childcare crisis with rising prices and lack of provision pushing some parents — mainly mothers — out of the workplace, a major new report warns.
The cost of childcare for children under two has risen by 2.5 per cent in a year according to Coram Family and Childcare’s 21st annual Childcare Survey, the country’s most comprehensive annual survey of childcare costs.
Prices are highest in London, with parents in inner London now paying on average £183.56 for 25 hours a week childcare for children under two.
This is 50 per cent higher than the £122.17 that parents are paying in Yorkshire and Humberside.
Nationally, the cost of childcare for children aged three and four has also risen by 3.5 per cent in a year, the report said. Only 59 per cent of Local Authorities report having enough childcare available for parents working full time, down from 68 per cent last year, which is limiting many parents’ ability to work, the report said.
Describing the situation as a “childcare crisis”, the report said: “Costs are too high and there is not enough of it. It remains a deeply flawed patchwork system that makes it hard for families to get the support they need and forces some parents — particularly mothers — out of the workforce entirely.”
Coram Family and Childcare called on Chancellor Rishi Sunak to use tomorrow’s spring statement to help parents who are being hit by rising childcare costs. Ellen Broomé, managing director of Coram Family and Childcare, said: “We are disappointed that amid an ongoing cost of living crisis, and off the back of a pandemic which has severely impacted children’s life chances, the Government has again refused to review childcare funding and availability. Many parents, up and down the country, will be locked out of work or struggle to make ends meet as childcare prices continue to go up and the availability of places goes down.”
The charity is calling for the maximum amount of childcare costs paid under Universal Credit to be increased, more people to be eligible for the 30 free childcare hours, and for the early years premium, paid to childcare providers who take disadvantaged children, to be doubled.
According to the report inner London is the most expensive place in the country for all types of childcare except after school clubs.
For full time nursery care, inner-Londoners are paying £368.73 per week — 36 per cent more than the average across Britain of £269.86.
