This article is the latest in a fortnightly series of policy proposals from John Penrose and the Centre for Small State Conservatives. You can read the previous instalments here: Only Thatcher-sized reforms will end Britain’s malaise Britain’s benefits system is unfair for all involved Labour’s change to Ofwat doesn’t hold water The fiscal farce that’s […]
In her Budget speech, Rachel Reeves said that the measures announced would ‘restore stability to our public finances and rebuild our public services’. Yet, despite pledging to increase state spending to a whopping £1.5 trillion by 2029/30, Labour have failed to grasp an important piece of the crumbling-public-services-puzzle: the problem of a shrinking workforce.The latest […]
The childcare system in the UK seems to be beset with problems. Barely a day goes by without a news story about the high costs of pre-school care, or its ridiculously long waiting lists. Similarly, nurseries all over the country are going out of business, or being bought up by private equity. But as I […]
The UK was once celebrated as a world leader in championing parental support, but cuts to funding have left politicians longing for the past. With last week’s report by the Institute for Fiscal Studies revealing that children from low income families who grew up near a Sure Start centre performed up to three grades better […]
The 2023 Spring Budget announced an offer of ‘30 hours a week of free childcare for 38 weeks a year, for eligible working parents of children aged 9 months to 3 years’ to be rolled out in phases from 2024. The government claims this will help with the cost of living, support education for the […]
Childcare, like housing, is one of those products where the shortage has got so acute that it feels weird to have reservations about any policy aimed at expanding it. Yet just as the Conservatives’ proposal to unlock the mass conversion of family homes into flats, which I wrote about last month, is a two-edged sword […]
Britain has among the most expensive childcare costs in the Western world. It’s a sentence that you often see written down. But it can be hard to understand what that means until you’re actually a parent yourself. So let me put it more simply. For a while before she started school, my daughter’s childcare accounted […]
