The Summer Budget

It'll never catch on. Unfortunately...

On 1st June, Cameron announced that there would be 30 hours free childcare starting from this September.
In the budget, Osborne said it would start September 2017.

Who do we believe?
This is from the Telegraph, by the way.

Presumably we believe the person ultimately in charge of the budget.

Wouldn't you think they could have agreed on it beforehand? Why did Osborne change it? There must be lots of families who have been thinking it was this September. They might have even made arrangements for it, and are now having to change them.
The childcare organisers, etc., must be a bit worried now, too, having heard one thing last month and something else this month.

Do you really think that's likely? I'm sure most sensible organisations would have waited for the budget announcements.

Durhamjen don't you have your hands full enough with the homeschooling without mounting a one man anti Tory campaign? You must be about cross eyed looking for more links to post.

Friday, Jane. I'm allowed time off, not locked in the schoolroom until he comes back on Monday.

In fact I was going to say something similar about other posters. Some of them must be on gransnet all day.

The strange thing is that I do not look for links for Gransnet. I read a lot of interesting websites, and then think some people on Gransnet might be interested in that. So then I look on Gransnet.

Ana, why would anyone in childcare wait for a budget announcement to alter something that Cameron had said in parliament the month before?

" 4. Hundreds of thousands of parents will have to wait another year for 30 hours a week free child care

George Osborne was explicit in his Summer Budget speech: “To make sure work pays for parents, I can confirm that, from September 2017 all working parents of 3 and 4 year olds will receive free childcare of up to 30 hours a week. Once again, a promise made: a promise delivered.”

But is it? Under the plans the amount of free childcare will double from 15 to 30 hours for 38 weeks a year - a total of 1,140 hours of childcare a year.

Up to 600,000 families will eventually benefit from the move, worth around £2,500 a year on top of the £2,500 they can already save from existing free childcare offers.

But the scheme was planned to start from September 2016. Now the start date is actually September 2017. But Mr Osborne did not quite say that. "

Nit-picking. As I said, any organisation with an ounce of sense would not have been making unalterable plans before the budget.

The petty points you're making really aren't adding anything useful to the discussion which others are attempting to have, durhamjen.

Jane like wise

I don't think it's nit-picking Ana. It's a mare's nest of a budget and it will go on being unravelled.

I don't think it is particularly an anti-Tory campaign either Jane10; if was a Conservative budget after all. Any party which came out with such a budget would have it pulled apart and I imagine papers of all colours will continue to do so over the weekend. You really can't stand up saying the equivalent of "look how clever we are we are going to change the direction of politics" which is what they would have us believe and not expect people to critique it. I am quite sure you would do so if a party presented a budget which had little in it you saw as worthwhile and lots to cause concern. I am glad for you if you feel you don't have any concerned over this one but, to be honest, personal criticism tends to reflect a paucity of argument and always seems unnecessary to me.

Durhamjen was referring to a comment made by David Cameron before the budget, Gracesgran.

I think that complaining that it didn't quite fit with what George Osborne said in his budget speech is nit-picking and I stand by what I said.

But the truth is that DC said one thing and GO another "Ana* which has actually come through as a delay in something previously promised. The discussion is surely whether it will make a difference or not. Jen obviously feels it does and gave her opinion why. It is perfectly open to you to explain why you don't think it does. It would be interesting to know how you would put this in a thread without you defining it as "nit-picking." How does calling someone else's comment nit-picking add to the discussion? It's just getting personal.

I've already said (twice) why I don't see why it should have made a difference, Gracesgran.

So are we not supposed to believe anything Cameron says in parliament until it's been confirmed by members of his government, Ana?
I'd prefer that, anyway. In fact I very rarely believe anything he says.

Saying it did not quite fit in with his chancellor's plans is a slight understatement, particularly if you are a parent who had planned to get a job around the 30 hours a week free childcare. The government is saving itself quite a lot of money by changing the date by a year.
They are also telling single mothers with three year olds that once they have their children in childcare they will have to look for work, otherwise they will not be able to claim universal credit. Now the details have changed that single mother will have to earn a lot more to cover the childcare costs of 15 hours over the next year. They already have 15 hours free.

I don't usually believe anything David Cameron says, until it actually comes to pass.
It seems, tho, that he only promised there would be pilots of 30 hours free childcare, in some areas, from Sept 2015. So I guess no-one would be counting on getting that till they see official notification.

In previous budgets we've always been left worse off. Nobody was interested in middleclass bleating so most of us just put up with it but perhaps remembered come election time. I just wanted to point out that there are a lot of people like me who are better off for the very first time since a budget. Sad maybe but true nevertheless.

I don't think I am worried so much about who is better off and who isn't, Jane10, although if you can't afford to eat, etc., it will not help the country in the long run. There is no God given rule that says we will all continue to get better off even when the country is in debt. I am more concerned that the recent government and this one are not very good a detail and unintended consequences are always more difficult to sort out.

Maybe the government did want there to be a cliff edge at 25 so that businesses would endlessly recycle under 25s and bring down the unemployment figures in that area. I just get the impression that nobody actually looked at the issues that arise.

Good point Jane. My DS and DD and their spouses are all in 'good' jobs but having been losing out for years in terms of both pay and conditions, child allowance, etc.. And it's across the spectrum of both public and private employers.

Students especially have been hit hard.

Sorry to go on about it but its got me thinking. Despite redundancies ++ in the 80s and very frightening times including our house being on the line to help set up a new business we somehow managed without any taxpayer funded state aid. I had to work full time. No choice. No free child care. No help. But we managed. Massive strain on relationship. Opting our would have been easier. But we just put up with it like thousands of others. There's something about resilience here. I fully realise that this is anecdotal but, like other anecdotes mentioned here, it is illustrative of a large cohort of the electorate who rarely give voice to their concerns. Don't forget about us.

Well, you know Jane most people have always "managed" - if by that you mean they go on living, even if miserably.

There are probably lots of people on Gransnet - myself and my husband included - who have lived through similar times to yourself. My husband was a student nurse when we first married and we lived very frugally. Just because times were difficult for us, I don't begrudge other people getting some assistance when times are tough. In any case, some aspects of life forty or so years ago were easier. Buying or renting a home, for instance, did not take up such a large proportion of a person's income.

There's something about expectations though. I think previous governments have fostered a widespread expectation of state (taxpayer funded ) aid. I never said we were miserable btw. Everyone else was in the same boat. The situation then fostered the development of innovative solutions to coping. Maybe this current approach will do the same? I hope so.

We too have had some pretty hairy financial times in the last 51 years. Apart from family allowance (only for the second and subsequent children) there was, as far as I was aware, no additional state help, and it never occurred to us that there should be. For me a pressure cooker was an essential, as was a sewing machine. Friends helped and supported each other, most of us in the same boat, exchanging children's clothes, chipping in for the odd day out, with the kids, child minding to enable part time work, and, most important, having a lot of laughs, and also tears. It could be a challenge, but I remember lots of happy times with very little money. I guess expectations now are a lot higher and what was for us an aspiration is now a 'must have'.

Good post niggllynellie, I think that was probably true for a lot of us.

Yes, in the recession of the early 80s DH's business went under and we had to sell our lovely house and downsize considerably. We has two young children and I was, luckily working full time.

DH had to get a job, any job, to stretch our reduced income so we could feed the family and pay the mortgage. He worked long hours in a poorly paid, dead end job until something better came along.

No help from state or any other handouts. Like you niggly friends passed on clothes and we shared child minding, school runs, etc..

Eating out meant going around to each other's houses for a home made curry. We swapped recipes and reckoned we could write a book called 101 recipes with mince!

Do you feel you would have qualified to use a food bank, if they had been in existence, Anya?