Parents of pre-school children should be given £8,000 a year to stay at home to look after their kids, a think tank has suggested. Researchers at think tank, Civitas, are set to urge the government to make such childcare allowance available to support stay-at-home mothers, as Essex Live reports.
This comes after Department of Education officials reportedly had "intense conversations'' over how to improve childcare across the country and make it more affordable. The recommendation from Civitas, the Institute for the Study of Civil Society, involves bundling the existing child benefit and childcare grants into a single 'family support benefit'.
Under that model, parents of children under four years old will be provided with up to £8,000 a year. The money could then be spent on external childcare, paying a relative to look after the kids or supporting parents staying at home to do so themselves.
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The proposal involves allowing parents to claim their full allocation of child benefit while their little ones are under five - with payments usually paid until the child is 18. As such, the annual payments would rise from £1,114 to £5,101.
The think tank estimates more than two million “miserable mums” would rather be at home looking after their children than being stuck at work, as reported by the Telegraph. Similarly, a 2019 government survey found two-thirds of mothers with youngsters would prefer working fewer hours to enable them to stay at home.
“For over 30 years, governments have pushed parents into work and subsidised childcare,” Frank Young, head of children and families at Civitas, told the Telegraph. “This isn't listening to mothers. Childcare policy is the wrong way around."
Increasing child benefit to pre-2010 levels has also been suggested by the experts, which would increase the figure to £6,273. It would then be boosted by almost £2,000 to replace existing childcare subsidies, such as the grant for 15-to-30-hours childcare for parents of children aged three or four that is currently paid directly to nurseries.
Anne Fennell, chair of the Mother at Home Matter campaign, added: "Conversations around childcare must positively include and recognise those mothers who would prefer the choice to carry out this valuable work themselves."
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