Labour Government to 'Kill' Childcare Voucher Scheme

Murphy_The_Cat

Buried quite deeply in the flim flam at the Labour Party Conference yesterday was a 'pledge' by the Labour Government (if they get reelected, which is questionable) to offer Ten hours of free childcare a week for 250,000 two-year-olds from families "on modest or middle incomes" - paid for by scrapping the tax relief that is given to parent paid child care vouchers.

In other words, the childcare voucher schemes that have previously been supported by the Labour Government, repeatedly promoted by the likes of MSE and a much, much needed thing by several hundred thousand people in the country is going to get the chop. A lower rate tax payer will be out of pocket by £952 per year and a higher rate tax payer by £1195 per year. Just what people don't need in the current climate.
Are the people who run the country mad, or do they just think that we won't all notice ?

Gordon Brown to cut Childcare Tax Credits

amilotte

Fantastic, another example of how your alright if you have all or nothing :rolleyes:

bumpoowee

If this is true it is disgusting.

Murphy_The_Cat

bumpoowee wrote: »

If this is true it is disgusting.

Here is somewhere else that goes into a bit more detail about it.

It certainly sounds like it is something that they are going to try and do.

Of course, they need to get reelected first !

RoxieW

what do they class as middle income? Probably something ridiculous like £16K as usual.

RoxieW

not for 5 years either so would be no good to me anyway losing out all round.

woollyjumper

make you think Mr Brown is going for retirement and not wanting to be re-elected (not that he was in the first place).
Another reason to get rid.

cclarke12

This is not great news. We aren’t eligible for any means tested childcare related benefits (or any other benefit for that matter), so the childcare vouchers have been brilliant for us as we have 2 children in nursery. I can see the next thing will being the means testing of child benefit (which will probably cost more to administer than just keeping it universal), despite a commitment to keep this. I have always considered myself to be very liberal but I get frustrated that as a couple we pay a lot in tax and NI, yet we are the income bracket that are going to get hit the most in the next few years with changes to child vouchers etc.

onlyroz

Has Mr Cameron promised he will keep the childcare voucher scheme? This is worth around £100 a month to my family.

Spendless

Thanks for the info MTC.Unless I can find a job with school friendly hours (:rotfl:) it is only this scheme that makes it viable to work. We don't qualify under the tax credit scheme (mainly due to hubby's 'benefits in kind') and having had to take several years out of the workplace when I had kids, I am only likely to find a job which is low paid, meaning the majority will go in childcare fees.

mwa

Am I the only one that thinks that middle income people are going to be stung whoever gets elected? Seems at the moment that if you are either really poor or really rich you are OK but middle people like me and my hubby who work FT and raise 2 kids in a secure family unit will get badly hit!