Anne Fennell is Chair of Mothers at Home Matter.
The Chancellor has put the final nail in the coffin for mothers wanting to make the choice to stay home to care.
Economic necessity has for years forced mothers into the workplace to plug the family’s income gap. Taxation policies, which since the 1990s ceased to take account of the family, make it more economically viable for the mother (or second earner) to earn than the father (or main breadwinner) to earn extra income.
The Coalition Government, by removing child benefit from the higher earner and offering 30 free hours of childcare for three and four-year-olds for parents in paid work, exacerbated the problem: that families are penalised when they try to support themselves on one income. Single parents too were affected by the failure of the tax system to support them.
In so doing, the Coalition created a void between the end of maternity leave and the start of the free hours, and families have since struggled to sustain themselves.
The Treasury’s answer now seems to be to fund childcare with taxpayer money from the age of nine months. But what does this mean for mothers, for fathers, and for our babies?
Families on Universal Credit – almost half of all families – have an effective tax rate of 69 per cent (for every extra £1 they earn, 69p goes back to the Treasury in the form of tax, NI, and loss of benefit). The tax rate is similar for those now entering the higher rate of tax and losing their child benefit: over 80 per cent if they have more than two children.
What does it mean to take 70 per cent in tax from a family and hand it back as so-called childcare – but only on the condition that this care is outsourced?
It is simply an attack on families’ freedom of choice to do what they think is best for their children. Why should childcare discriminate against and exclude the option of care by mothers at home – or indeed, fathers or grandparents – according to how we need to order our choices?
This attack on our freedom is justified in the name of productivity: “Getting mothers into paid work will boost the economy and growth”.
But that idea is based on the insulting myth that mothers nurturing babies and toddlers are doing nothing at home; they are somehow inactive economic units. (Anyone who has taken care of babies will know that the job of raising children is anything but inactive.)
The economy will not grow in real terms; there will merely be transfer of care from the unpaid to the paid sector, from work done in the home for love to work done by care agencies for money.
Meanwhile Jeremy Hunt has failed to tackle the tax system which discourages aspiration, undermines fathers’ ability to earn more, and forces increasingly more families onto the benefit system. How long will it take families, particularly those on Universal Credit, to realise that there is no point using the free childcare because for every extra £1 they earn most of it goes straight back to the Treasury?
And what is lost? Mothers are being denied the precious privileges of motherhood, witnessing the first steps, the funny words, the infectious laugh, the awesome questions.
We are instead being forced to pay someone else to do the job we long to do, and mask over the anguish of separation at the nursery door telling ourselves it is good for our career – for our economy.
And what about the children? There is no research to suggest external childcare benefits children under three years. The Princess of Wales’ Shaping Us campaign has highlighted the critical importance of the first three years for brain development and building emotional resilience for later life.
Children’s mental health is in a state of crisis, but we are not prepared to ask ourselves whether allowing parents more time to parent and nurture might be a preventative measure for future illness. Babies need love. The pertinent question is: who is best placed to give it?
Anne Fennell is Chair of Mothers at Home Matter.
The Chancellor has put the final nail in the coffin for mothers wanting to make the choice to stay home to care.
Economic necessity has for years forced mothers into the workplace to plug the family’s income gap. Taxation policies, which since the 1990s ceased to take account of the family, make it more economically viable for the mother (or second earner) to earn than the father (or main breadwinner) to earn extra income.
The Coalition Government, by removing child benefit from the higher earner and offering 30 free hours of childcare for three and four-year-olds for parents in paid work, exacerbated the problem: that families are penalised when they try to support themselves on one income. Single parents too were affected by the failure of the tax system to support them.
In so doing, the Coalition created a void between the end of maternity leave and the start of the free hours, and families have since struggled to sustain themselves.
The Treasury’s answer now seems to be to fund childcare with taxpayer money from the age of nine months. But what does this mean for mothers, for fathers, and for our babies?
Families on Universal Credit – almost half of all families – have an effective tax rate of 69 per cent (for every extra £1 they earn, 69p goes back to the Treasury in the form of tax, NI, and loss of benefit). The tax rate is similar for those now entering the higher rate of tax and losing their child benefit: over 80 per cent if they have more than two children.
What does it mean to take 70 per cent in tax from a family and hand it back as so-called childcare – but only on the condition that this care is outsourced?
It is simply an attack on families’ freedom of choice to do what they think is best for their children. Why should childcare discriminate against and exclude the option of care by mothers at home – or indeed, fathers or grandparents – according to how we need to order our choices?
This attack on our freedom is justified in the name of productivity: “Getting mothers into paid work will boost the economy and growth”.
But that idea is based on the insulting myth that mothers nurturing babies and toddlers are doing nothing at home; they are somehow inactive economic units. (Anyone who has taken care of babies will know that the job of raising children is anything but inactive.)
The economy will not grow in real terms; there will merely be transfer of care from the unpaid to the paid sector, from work done in the home for love to work done by care agencies for money.
Meanwhile Jeremy Hunt has failed to tackle the tax system which discourages aspiration, undermines fathers’ ability to earn more, and forces increasingly more families onto the benefit system. How long will it take families, particularly those on Universal Credit, to realise that there is no point using the free childcare because for every extra £1 they earn most of it goes straight back to the Treasury?
And what is lost? Mothers are being denied the precious privileges of motherhood, witnessing the first steps, the funny words, the infectious laugh, the awesome questions.
We are instead being forced to pay someone else to do the job we long to do, and mask over the anguish of separation at the nursery door telling ourselves it is good for our career – for our economy.
And what about the children? There is no research to suggest external childcare benefits children under three years. The Princess of Wales’ Shaping Us campaign has highlighted the critical importance of the first three years for brain development and building emotional resilience for later life.
Children’s mental health is in a state of crisis, but we are not prepared to ask ourselves whether allowing parents more time to parent and nurture might be a preventative measure for future illness. Babies need love. The pertinent question is: who is best placed to give it?