West Worcestershire MP Harriett Baldwin this week welcomed a Government announcement that extends child care funding for low income families. The changes mean that 15 free hours of child care from the age of two are now available to all low income households. Every three and four year old already receives 15 hours of free nursery provision. The MP revealed to the House of Commons that across the UK there are 27,000 single parent families with more five or more children and 23,000 are workless and wholly dependent on benefits. None of these households makes more than £20,000. Harriett suggested that ‘the best way to help children grow up outside poverty is through helping their parents into work by increasing free child care.’ The statement was welcomed by the Leader of the House, Sir George Young, who responded: “The right way to help such people is to help them into work and to remove the barriers that prevent them from going in to work.” Sir George added that the Government has expanded free nursery education for disadvantaged families and a range of additional packages were announced in this week’s Autumn Statement. Speaking afterwards, Harriett added: “Figures from the House of Commons Library reveal that single parents with large families are particularly hindered from getting into work because of childcare costs. “There are clearly a lot of single parent families caught in this trap of high childcare costs and dependency on state benefits. “The Government must do all it can to help people get into work were possible and help parents to provide a better future for their children.” TEXT OF THE DEBATE Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con): On Tuesday in the autumn statement, the Chancellor made the argument that investing in early years education and schools will do more to lift people out of poverty than just increasing benefits. Figures that I have obtained from the Library show that of all single-parent families on child tax credits with five or more children, 23,000 such households are out of work and 4,000 are in work, so could we have a debate about whether the best way to help those households aspire to greater prosperity is through helping parents into work with increased free child care, rather than increasing the size of their benefit cheque? Sir George Young: My hon. Friend is absolutely right: the way to help such people is to help them into work and to remove the barriers that prevent them from going into work, one of which is child care. She will know that we have expanded free nursery education, first, for all three to four-year-olds and, then, to 20% of two-year-old children from disadvantaged families—a figure that was increased on Tuesday to 40%. I very much hope that that will help achieve the social mobility to which my hon. Friend refers. | Hansard