Going by the words of employment minister Priti Patel on BBC Question Time last week, it would appear offering parents 30 hours of free early education is central to the government's plans for making it more attractive for parents to go out to work than living on benefits. Patel mentioned on numerous occasions how more government-funded childcare will help "rebalance" the economy by getting more people off benefits and into paid employment.
But if you were judging the importance of the policy by the limp report on the cost of childcare funding published by the Department for Education this month, you could easily conclude the government has lost its way (See Analysis).
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