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£1,200 childcare cost pledge

Families are to receive up to £1,200 a year towards childcare costs from 2015. The pledge will reportedly only apply to families in which both parents work and earn less than £150,000 a year. The Budget will be announced on Wednesday.

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Clegg: Childcare allows parents to mix work and family

I've lost count of the number of parents who tell me that, because of high childcare costs, they just don't think it's worth going out to work, and this is all about trying to help them.

Basically trying to give them a bit of extra help - 20% off their childcare costs, up to a certain limit - so that it pays to go out to work, because there are so many parents who want to actually mix work and family but feel at the moment it just makes no sense to do so.

I hope that this, when it starts in 2015, will make a big, big difference to those parents who presently just don't think it's worth working.

– Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg

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