Call for evidence: Support for childcare and the early years.

Anthony Shelton ajmshelton@yahoo.co.uk

18 Jan 2023

1. I am married with no children, however, I have friends, colleagues, neighbours and meet people from time to time who do have children.
    
2. I would simply ask the Committee to (a) consider the economic benefits of helping to free up parents to participate, or participate more fully, in the workforce; and (b) to look at how this is done in other countries, particularly in Europe, and specifically in Scandinavia.
    
3. There are also social and educational benefits to child care/support.
    
4. The underlying points are that (a) as regards investment, the government’s borrowing costs are lower than those in the private sector; (b) in a field where the development, maintenance and enforcement of necessarily extremely high standards is vitally important a centralised role for government is de facto required (not, to be clear, to the exclusion of the private sector); and (c) effective government control opens up possibilities for intelligent financing initiatives, e.g. through the tax system.
    
5. I would also ask the Committee to consider the provision of child care/support as a universal benefit, i.e. not to be provided on the basis of means testing. Wealthier parents will still have the option to use fully private sources, just as they do in respect of education. Means testing uses up resources, is divisive and may put people off entirely – or encourage fraudulent behaviour.
    
6. There is also Mahatma Gandhi’s famous quote, “…the true measure of any society can be found in how it treats its most vulnerable members.” Parents who are in the bind of being unable to afford child care/support and thereby are hampered in their efforts or desire to participate more fully in the economy, and in society, can reasonably be argued to be vulnerable members of society, so too their children. Growing up in poverty (or relative poverty) is not a good start in life. It lessens the prospects of the individual, and it thereby reduces the scope for the individual to later make a positive contribution to society.