Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, pursuant to the Answer of 18 December 2017 to Question 118344, what estimate he has made of the number of families that receive a lower level of financial support from tax-free childcare than they would have received through childcare vouchers.

Tax-Free Childcare is fairer and better targeted than the voucher scheme, as it covers a percentage of all childcare costs meaning parents who work longer hours and need more childcare are not disadvantaged. It is not possible to say how many families currently using Tax-free Childcare would be eligible for Employer-support Childcare, because that would depend on whether Employer-supported Childcare is offered by their employer, information which HMRC does not hold. Tax-free childcare does not depend on your employer offering the scheme – one of the reasons why it’s fairer.

Whereas currently around 600,000 families are in receipt of childcare vouchers, we estimate that 1.5 million families with childcare costs will be eligible for Tax-free Childcare. This means we estimate that Tax-free Childcare potentially supports 900,000 more families with the cost of childcare.