![]() "The final package of childcare measures, which will seek to reduce childcare costs and make it easier to set up childcare in schools, has not yet been agreed but will be announced shortly." A No 10 source said: "The prime minister remains committed to helping families with the cost of living, which includes reducing the cost of childcare. He also pointed out that most of the savings identified by Truss were based on providers using current freedoms which are mainly unused at the moment.ĭowning Street hit back at Clegg. The rules for three-year-olds would remain the same – eight or 13 children per adult depending on whether a graduate was present.īut Clegg said Truss's calculations were flawed because they were based on "unrealistic occupancy and opening times" – that childcare operators would fill 100% of their places and be full all year round. This would increase from four to six for children over the age of two. Truss proposed to allow childminders to increase the number of under-ones they can look after from three to four. The intervention by Clegg, who spoke to David Cameron on Monday about childcare, was seen in No 10 as one of his most hostile acts since he killed off Tory plans last summer to shrink the size of the Commons after Tory MPs sank his plans to reform the House of Lords. ![]() ![]() ![]() The deputy prime minister, who briefed childcare providers on Wednesday that he had killed off the Truss blueprint, remained unbowed and issued a statement saying that her plans failed to stack up.Ĭlegg said: "I cannot ask parents to accept such a controversial change with no real guarantee it will save them money – in fact it could cost them more." "It is a bit premature to brief before the final package has been agreed," one senior Tory source said of the Clegg move. In a sign of how coalition policymaking has descended into hand-to-hand combat between the Tories and the Liberal Democrats, Downing Street appeared to be caught off guard by the Clegg announcement.Ī No 10 source said the government's planned childcare policy had not yet been agreed and would be announced shortly. ![]()
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