When I was a small child, my mother left me in the charge of an elderly neighbour so that she could write. My grandmother lived far away in Scotland and no formal childcare existed. Still, my mother wanted to write. In bald economic terms, you could say that she was trying to rejoin the workforce to boost GDP and spare the state handouts. Forty years on, she doesn’t see it like that. ‘I needed to work to feel normal again – I didn’t want to go mad,’ she says, unapologetically.

Had she been in the same predicament now, she could have looked forward to the welfare reforms that promise working parents of children in England between the ages of nine months and two years up to 30 hours of funded childcare. Building on the existing scheme for children between the ages of three and four, Jeremy Hunt’s pledges significantly expand the welfare state, almost doubling the figure spent on childcare to £8 billion.

These reforms lean towards a more Scandinavian approach to childcare and are overwhelmingly popular with voters, but they are considered by the childcare sector to be unrealistic, because of funding issues, staff shortages and availability of spaces.

As a working mother........

© The Spectator