Campaigners call for 30-hour childcare to be made universal to close disadvantage gap
Katy Morton
Monday, March 9, 2020
A campaign group of parents believe that the 30 hours discriminates against the most disadvantaged children, as they are ineligible for the policy.
Campaign for Equality for Disadvantaged Children (e4dc) has written to the Prime Minister’s fiancée, Carrie Symonds, asking her to support their campaign to offer ‘equal nursery education for all’.
In the letter they argue that the current 30 hours' eligibility, open to households where both parents work a minimum of 16 hours a week earning national minimum wage, is unfair to children whose parents are unable to work or get a job. These children are only eligible for 15 hours of funded childcare.
They go on to state that the current policy leaves ineligible children disadvantaged and that ‘social mobility will not exist for these children’.
To raise awareness of the issue, the campaign group is also organising a day where parents only entitled to the 15 hours of childcare leave their children with newly-elected Conservative MPs in the north of England.
Campaign lead Chris Cooper said, ‘All children should be entitled to the same educational start in life. The 30 hours policy is blatantly discriminatory towards the most disadvantaged children.
‘Unemployment is seldom a choice for parents. Where it is, that is disadvantage enough for already disadvantaged children. These children already face enough challenges without this grossly unfair policy tipping the odds against them even further.
‘The Government’s thinking is bizarrely disjointed in that they are spending millions on trying to close the gap between the rich and poorest in society, but this policy guarantees an irrecoverable widening of this gap.’
