Jeremy Hunt has warned the childcare changes in his Spring Budget “will not happen overnight” but backed his plan to help parents with young children.
Mr Hunt, addressing the Commons on Wednesday, also said inflation would fall from 10.7 per cent in the final quarter of last year to 2.9 per cent by the end of 2023.
He announced a string of crowd-pleasing announcements including 30 hours of free childcare for eligible children over nine months, a cut to duty on pints and a freeze on fuel duty for another 12 months.
In an interview with the BBC, the chancellor was asked why the childcare support won’t be fully implemented until September 2025.
“We’re willing to start it as soon as possible,” Mr Hunt replied. “but the advice we had is that it’s such a big change in the market that it wouldn’t be possible to do it overnight”.
Earlier, the Government made a pre-Budget announcement confirming that the energy price guarantee would remain in place until June.
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said the Budget was “dressing up stagnation as stability", claiming it put the country “on a path of managed decline".
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