Opinion: Soapbox - Childcare tax relief won't help those in need

The big problem with tax relief is that it only benefits you if you paytax. There are 12.7 million adults, a third of the UK working agepopulation, who don't earn enough to pay any income tax. These parentswouldn't get any support at all, with better off families benefitinginstead. Also, without saying how much tax relief would be offered it'shard to know how useful it would be. At the last election the Toriespromised a 50 a week for all working families but typical weeklychildcare costs for a young child are 142.

Cameron also argued that making sure working parents got moneyirrespective of the type of care they used would be an improvement.Giving parents choice sounds liberating but the reason tax credits arelinked to "registered" childcare is that these providers have beeninspected and meet health and safety standards. At a time when childcareis fighting to establish itself as a professional public service, itwould be disastrous to cut quality providers off from public money.