Election 2015 Party Policy Guide: Early years and childcare

Conservatives

Labour

Liberal Democrats

Commentary

To win the vote of working parents, the parties have been playing a game of one-upmanship regarding childcare pledges. All are promising to increase the amount of hours offered under the government-funded free childcare scheme for three- and four-year-olds, with the Lib Dems vowing to broaden its remit so that all two-year-olds could access free care.

There are few costed funding commitments in any of the parties' manifestos, so the fact that all have pledged to spend hundreds of millions of pounds on expanding free childcare over the next parliament is significant.

But this boon for early years could also have far-reaching consequences for other services. Analysis from the Institute for Fiscal Studies suggests the Tories' spending pledge on free childcare, coupled with its commitments to protect health and schools spending, will mean cuts to unprotected departments, including local government, will be 15.3 per cent by 2018/19.

Labour and Lib Dem pledges to extend free childcare would not result in such deep cuts in unprotected department budgets as their overall debt reduction plans are less ambitious, says the IFS.