Children: Day Care

(asked on 10th September 2020) - View Source

Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if he will publish the (a) forecast expenditure and (b) actual expenditure for the tax-free childcare scheme in the last three financial years to date.


Answered by
Steve Barclay Portrait
Steve Barclay
Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
This question was answered on 17th September 2020
The forecast expenditure (forecast in March 2017) was £400m in 2017/18, £800m in 2018/19 and £900m in 2019/20. The actual expenditure was £32m in 2017/18, £117m in 2018/19 and £236m in 2019/20. Forecast expenditure has been published by the OBR (https://obr.uk/efo/economic-fiscal-outlook-march-2017). Actual expenditure has been published on the gov.uk website (https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/tax-free-childcare-statistics-june-2020).

The Government recognises that take up of Tax-Free Childcare has been below expectations, particularly for school-aged children. For this reason, at March 2020 Budget we announced a measure that will make TFC payments compatible with school payment agents, allowing up to 500,000 eligible children to access TFC for the first time.

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