Jeremy Hunt defends delaying 30 hours of free childcare for all under 5s by two YEARS

manchestereveningnews.co.uk:

Jeremy Hunt has defended the speed of the rollout of his Budget offer of free childcare for working parents with children under the age of five.

The policy, announced in Wednesday's budget (March 15), will not be rolled out in full until September 2025. Mr Hunt said it could save families around £6,500 a year on childcare.

He told Sky New on Thursday morning (March 16): “This is the biggest transformation in childcare in my lifetime. It is a huge change and we are going to need thousands more nurseries, thousands more schools offering provision they don’t currently offer, thousands more childminders. READ MORE: When will extended free childcare for all under 5s start and who is eligible? “We are going as fast as we can to get the supply in the market to expand.

But it is the right thing to do because we have one of the most expensive childcare systems in the world and we know it is something that is a huge worry, for women in particular, that they have this cliff-edge when maternity leave ends after nine months, no help until the child turns three and that can often be career ending. “So I think it is the right thing to do for many women, to introduce these reforms and we are introducing them as quickly as we can because we want to remove those barriers to work.” What do you think?