Budget 2023: Chancellor to promise 30 hours of childcare a week for one and two-year-olds
The chancellor will promise to provide 30 hours of childcare a week to parents of one and two-year-olds, Sky News has learned.
The multi-billion pound announcement is set to be made in tomorrow’s Budget.
Families with children aged one and two do not currently receive support to cover the period after parental leave ends and before free nursery hours are offered for three and four-year-olds.
Politics live: Changes to childcare and pensions set to be in budget
Extending the provision could form a central plank in Jeremy Hunt’s pitch of helping with the cost of living and getting parents into work, according to Sky News’ political editor Beth Rigby.
UK childcare costs are among the most expensive in the world, with full-time fees for a child under two at nursery reaching an average of £269 a week last year – equivalent to around £14,000 annually.
Last month, the Early Years Alliance told Sky News nursery fees are expected to increase even further, going up by an average of 8% – higher than in previous years.
Responding to the expected funding boost, the organisation said that while it appears positive, “as always the devil is in the detail”.
Chief executive Neil Leitch said: “We know that the sector is facing its most challenging time in decades – settings are closing at record levels, there is a severe recruitment and retention crisis, and costs continue to soar.
“Unless the government puts in safeguards to ensure that funding for all early entitlement offers continues to meet the sharply rising costs of delivering places, not only now but in the future, what is currently a crisis will end up in catastrophe.”
Childcare has emerged as a key political battleground in the run-up to the next election, with Labour vowing to overhaul the “broken system”.
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Nursery providers in England have also raised concerns about underfunding, with complaints about the lack of government investment.
Currently all families of three and four-years-old qualify for 15 hours of free childcare a week, over 38 weeks, while households can qualify for 30 hours of free childcare if parents earn the equivalent of 16 hours a week at the national minimum or living wage.
Tory MPs have been pressing the chancellor to make childcare more affordable to reduce pressure on families and enable more women to re-enter the workforce.
The government is expected to pledge £4bn to expand free provision to one and two-year-olds, with details on where the money will come from to be laid out on Wednesday.
Labour MP Stella Creasy claimed that is only half of what would be needed, tweeting: “If this is true, it’s asking childcare providers to offer more hours at a loss as it’s only half the money needed to deliver this promise. (It) would be the same as (the) help to buy scheme which pushed up house prices because it didn’t increase supply.”
Paul Johnson, director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, said that many would welcome the announcement but warned the “whole system is hugely complex”.
“As universal support has expanded, targeted support for children most in need has contracted,” he wrote.
What’s expected in Wednesday’s Budget?
Mr Hunt is expected to announce a package of measures to help parents, including changing the rules so that those on Universal Credit are given more childcare and provided with the funding upfront.
The Treasury is also believed to be planning a cash injection of hundreds of millions into increasing the availability of the 30 hours of free childcare to three to four-year-olds.
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Plans are also being considered to loosen staff to child ratios for two-year-olds, which could make the cost of childcare a little cheaper.
However, Mr Leitch called on the government to “re-think this shameful plan”, saying: “At a time when we finally seem to be making some progress, policies that undermine the quality of care and education that children receive are the last thing we need.”
Few other “big bangs” are expected on Wednesday, with Mr Hunt likely to focus on measures to support the government’s plan to halve inflation, grow the economy and reduce public debt.
The fiscal package comes in the wake of the autumn statement last November, which saw the chancellor hike taxes as he and Prime Minister Rishi Sunak sought to restore UK financial credibility after Liz Truss’ short-lived premiership.
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Are Tory voters losing confidence?
Government insiders said there will be two parts to the Budget: a short-term support plan to provide immediate relief on the cost of living crisis and then the long-term plan for growth.
On the cost of living, Mr Hunt is expected to cancel the planned £500 hike in the government’s ceiling for energy bill support which was due to come into force next month.
However he is not expected to offer voters any cuts to personal taxes.
Efforts to encourage the over-50s, the long-term sick and disabled, and benefits claimants back into the workplace are likely to form a key plank of the budget, while the chancellor is also said to be mulling over changes to pensions to entice early retirees back to work.
Donald Trump has agreed to send “top of the line weapons” to NATO to support Ukraine – and threatened Russia with “severe” tariffs if it doesn’t agree to end the war.
Speaking with NATO secretary general Mark Rutte during a meeting at the White House, the US president said: “We’ve made a deal today where we are going to be sending them weapons, and they’re going to be paying for them.
“This is billions of dollars worth of military equipment which is going to be purchased from the United States,” he added, “going to NATO, and that’s going to be quickly distributed to the battlefield.”
Weapons being sent include surface-to-air Patriot missile systems and batteries, which Ukraine has asked for to defend itself from Russian air strikes.
Pic: Reuters
Mr Trump also said he was “very unhappy” with Russia, and threatened “severe tariffs” of “about 100%” if there isn’t a deal to end the war in Ukraine within 50 days.
The White House added that the US would put “secondary sanctions” on countries that buy oil from Russia if an agreement was not reached.
It comes after weeks of frustration from Mr Trump against Vladimir Putin’s refusal to agree to an end to the conflict, with the Russian leader telling the US president he would “not back down” from Moscow’s goals in Ukraine at the start of the month.
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Trump says Putin ‘talks nice and then bombs everybody’
During the briefing on Monday, Mr Trump said he had held calls with Mr Putin where he would think “that was a nice phone call,” but then “missiles are launched into Kyiv or some other city, and that happens three or four times”.
“I don’t want to say he’s an assassin, but he’s a tough guy,” he added.
Earlier this year, Mr Trump told Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy “you’re gambling with World War Three” in a fiery White House meeting, and suggested Ukraine started the war against Russia as he sought to negotiate an end to the conflict.
After Mr Trump’s briefing, Russian senator Konstantin Kosachev said on Telegram: “If this is all that Trump had in mind to say about Ukraine today, then all the steam has gone out.”
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Meanwhile, Mr Zelenskyy met with US special envoy Keith Kellogg in Kyiv, where they “discussed the path to peace” by “strengthening Ukraine’s air defence, joint production, and procurement of defence weapons in collaboration with Europe”.
He thanked both the envoy for the visit and Mr Trump “for the important signals of support and the positive decisions for both our countries”.
At least 30 people have been killed in the Syrian city of Sweida in clashes between local military groups and tribes, according to Syria’s interior ministry.
Officials say initial figures suggest around 100 people have also been injured in the city, where the Druze faith is one of the major religious groups.
The interior ministry said its forces will directly intervene to resolve the conflict, which the Reuters news agency said involved fighting between Druze gunmen and Bedouin Sunni tribes.
It marks the latest episode of sectarian violence in Syria, where fears among minority groups have increased since Islamist-led rebels toppled President Bashar al Assad in December, installing their own government and security forces.
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In March, Sky’s Stuart Ramsay described escalating violence within Syria
The violence reportedly erupted after a wave of kidnappings, including the abduction of a Druze merchant on Friday on the highway linking Damascus to Sweida.
Last April, Sunni militia clashed with armed Druze residents of Jaramana, southeast of Damascus, and fighting later spread to another district near the capital.
But this is the first time the fighting has been reported inside the city of Sweida itself, the provincial capital of the mostly Druze province.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reports the fighting was centred in the Maqwas neighbourhood east of Sweida and villages on the western and northern outskirts of the city.
It adds that Syria’s Ministry of Defence has deployed military convoys to the area.
Western nations, including the US and UK, have been increasingly moving towards normalising relations with Syria.
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UK aims to build relationship with Syria
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Concerns among minority groups have intensified following the killing of hundreds of Alawites in March, in apparent retaliation for an earlier attack carried out by Assad loyalists.
That was the deadliest sectarian flare-up in years in Syria, where a 14-year civil war ended with Assad fleeing to Russia after his government was overthrown by rebel forces.
The city of Sweida is in southern Syria, about 24 miles (38km) north of the border with Jordan.
The man convicted of the murder of British student Meredith Kercher has been charged with sexual assault against an ex-girlfriend.
Rudy Guede, 38, was the only person who was definitively convicted of the murder of 21-year-old Ms Kercher in Perugia, Italy, back in 2007.
He will be standing trial again in November after an ex-girlfriend filed a police report in the summer of 2023 accusing Guede of mistreatment, personal injury and sexual violence.
Guede, from the Ivory Coast, was released from prison for the murder of Leeds University student Ms Kercher in 2021, after having served about 13 years of a 16-year sentence.
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Since last year – when this investigation was still ongoing – Guede has been under a “special surveillance” regime, Sky News understands, meaning he was banned from having any contact with the woman behind the sexual assault allegations, including via social media, and had to inform police any time he left his city of residence, Viterbo, as ruled by a Rome court.
Guede has been serving a restraining order and fitted with an electronic ankle tag.
The Kercher murder case, in the university city of Perugia, was the subject of international attention.
Ms Kercher, a 21-year-old British exchange student, was found murdered in the flat she shared with her American roommate, Amanda Knox.
The Briton’s throat had been cut and she had been stabbed 47 times.
(L-R) Raffaele Sollecito, Meredith Kercher and Amanda Knox. File pic: AP
Ms Knox and her then-boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, were placed under suspicion.
Both were initially convicted of murder, but Italy’s highest court overturned their convictions, acquitting them in 2015.
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