At the start of 2023, the cost of living crisis is still dominating the news. In recent months, the government has chosen to spend billions of pounds on reducing energy bills to ease the financial pressures on households. 

However, ministers have paid much less attention to another significant strain on many families’ budgets: the cost of childcare. 

In the UK, over a quarter of parents’ joint income is now spent on childcare – around three times higher than the average across developed countries. This is largely caused by the government investing much less in childcare than in other countries, leaving parents to make up the difference. 

One survey found that almost two thirds of families are paying at least as much, if not more, on their childcare than they do their rent or mortgage. Worse still, childcare costs are rising fast at a time when few families can afford to spend more.  

Unsurprisingly, this concerning picture has attracted a lot of political attention in recent months, and just before Christmas not one but two think tanks published reports on how they would tackle concerns over the affordability and availability of childcare. 

And who better to talk us through these two new reports than the authors themselves. 

Rachel Statham is the associate director for work and the welfare state at IPPR, a centre-left think tank.  

And Bel Guillaume is a Research Associate at Onward, a centre-right think tank. 

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