Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the findings of the survey of 20,000 parents by Mumsnet with 13 other groups, published in September 2021, what recent assessment he has made of the impact of the cost of childcare on (a) household bills and (b) the career choices of parents.
The department welcomes the contribution that Mumsnet and their partner organisations have made around this topic. However, it is important to note that this survey is unweighted, and the sample size represents a small proportion of all parents with a child or children in the early years.
Ipsos MORI conducted wave 9 of our parent poll, ‘Childcare use, perceived impact on child development, information on working from home, and awareness and use of free entitlements for families of 0-4 year-olds during COVID-19’ in July 2021, with a smaller but representative sample of 1,000 parents of children aged 0-4 in England. This is available at: https://www.ipsos.com/ipsos-mori/en-uk/childcare-use-perceived-impact-child-development-information-working-home-and-awareness-and-use.
The data has been weighted to match the population profile of parents of children aged 0-4 in England by region, social grade, and the age of the selected child.
The Parent Poll asked different questions to the Mumsnet survey but key points from the findings include: