Labour Government to 'Kill' Childcare Voucher Scheme

kindofagilr

mwa wrote: »

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!

Yes I agree

Yes this does suck if this happens, but Labour arent going to be the only party that do something that people dont agree with.

Have either of the other parties stated they will be keeping the voucher scheme running if they get in?

Cos if anyone gets in over Labour then they could easily take away everything Labour have done (vouchers, tax credits etc)

Just my opinion

Murphy_The_Cat

kindofagilr wrote: »

Yes I agree

Yes this does suck if this happens, but Labour arent going to be the only party that do something that people dont agree with.

Have either of the other parties stated they will be keeping the voucher scheme running if they get in?

Cos if anyone gets in over Labour then they could easily take away everything Labour have done (vouchers, tax credits etc)

Just my opinion

Given that labour only announced its abolition yesterday, its possibly a bit early for others to give their response.
IMO, the Childacre Voucher scheme would survive under another regime as it needs minimal State interference, takes very little State Input/manpower and is administered directly by the Private Sector, the Childcare Givers & the parents, plus, it is an example of people getting a 'handup' to support themselves, rather than a 'handout'.
As for the other massively expensive, unwieldy, complicated and (in some cases) ineffective Tax Credit schemes, I would imagine that some of them would be on very much borrowed time, under a new administration.

Dizie

Apologies if this link has been posted elsewhere...

An online petition has now been set up at the No 10 website about this, I've just had it emailed to me and have checked it out and its valid. I'm a working mother and DH and I are both members of our respective employers schemes. We are both standard rate tax payers, earning around the "average" mark I guess although my wage is part time. For us, its the difference between me being able to return to the job I did prior to having the kids rather than have to look for evening/weekend work to avoid the childcare need. Surely the govenment would prefer women like me to be paying someone to look after their kids whilst they work, so they're providing a job for someone else, paying taxes etc. I know from the parents who use the nursery I use, if we had to find an extra £2,000 per year, many would look for other ways to avoid using the nursery. very sad times....

[FONT=&quot]Gordon Brown today announced plans to scrap the childcare voucher scheme, stating too many higher rate tax payers benefit from it. He plans to replace it with 10 hours' free childcare for 2-year olds - which is OK if you have a 2-year old... The[/FONT][FONT=&quot] UK lags behind the rest of Europe when it comes to helping working parents and this move would be a further step backwards. Penalising working families to help other families go back to work makes no sense at all. If you're a working parent finding it hard enough with childcare vouchers, let alone without, please let Gordon Brown know that you do not agree with his plans by signing this petition[/FONT][FONT=&quot]



http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/keepvouchers/[/FONT]

chivers1977

Another reason for us to only have one child.......... now luckily we only use this for afterschool and holiday clubs but if we had to pay for nursery still, it would be a huge loss :mad::mad:

Petition duly signed!

cclarke12

The joke about all of this is the claim that this is being scrapped to pay for childcare for the most disadvantagesd 2 year olds. The 2 year old scheme is already running in lots of areas and I think there was already a committment to make this available nationally. It seems more likely the case that they simply need to make buget cuts, and the childcare voucher scheme is an easy option for increasing revenue from tax/NI. However, they dress it up by saying it will be axed to directly cover the costs of the 2 year olds scheme. The Evening Standard last night suggested that the Tories would not axe the scheme.