𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

Labour is so wasteful with other people’s money that it now wants to throw cash at solving problems that do not even exist. Taxes are at an all time high and the economy is anaemic, but Bridget Phillipson has called for unemployed parents to be given free childcare. The Education Secretary said there are families who cannot afford to pay for someone to look after their children “because they aren’t working, and they struggle to work because they can’t afford quality childcare”.

She added: “So their children miss out on quality early years education. Where’s the sense in that? By extending government-funded childcare into these communities, not only would we be supporting parents into work, not only would we be supporting disadvantaged children with quality early years, but we would no longer be cutting off these families from society, no longer fostering disengagement and detachment.”

Families are only entitled to free care for children from the ages of nine months to four years old when both parents are in work. Campaigners say this leaves around one million parents excluded from the scheme, often those who struggle the most at school.

Phillipson said free childcare would stop young people ending up as so-called “NEETS” – not in employment, education or training – and insisted Labour will not have achieved “truly comprehensive education” until every family has equal access to childcare.

A universal childcare offer is tipped to cost up to £15billion.

Asking working parents, or any other taxpayers for that matter, to foot the bill for childcare for mothers and fathers who don’t have to leave the house is an astonishing insult. It is further proof that Labour is not only contemptuous of Britain’s strivers but also wants to create a dependency class that will forever be in hock to its largesse.

Under this government, the state now steps in to provide breakfast for schoolchildren and also teaches them how to brush their teeth. It wants to keep chipping away until personal responsibility becomes obsolete because the state takes care of every aspect of life.

There’s not even any need now to worry about how to keep the family entertained in the school holidays. Unemployed parents are given special rates for major visitor attractions. So, a family of four can visit the Tower of London for £4 instead of the usual £111 bill.

None of this helps the children escape the benefits trap. If they grow up to learn that parenting is carried out by the state and the tab for everything is also picked up, then there is little incentive for them to make their own way in the world.

But that suits Labour fine. It is the party of welfare and wants to recruit the next generation of voters. Research by the Centre for Social Justice found that a three-child family in work needs £71,000 a year before tax to match an equivalent jobless family.

The think tank warned that scrapping the two child benefit cap and failing to tackle welfare reform had led to a “worsening of deeply perverse incentives” in the benefits system under Labour. It found there has been the fastest increase on record of the number of children growing up in workless households, standing now at a total of 1.5 million.

CSJ chairman Iain Duncan Smith warned in the report that “taking money from those who work hard to give to those who work not, is bad economics and bad politics”.

The former Tory leader pointed out pouring money into benefits is not the same as tackling the root causes of poverty. But it is a concept that Labour seems unable to grasp.

Social security minister Stephen Timms published an interim report this week that found that the main disability benefit, the personal independence payment, is “not fit for purpose”.

The bill for Pips is set to hit £41billion at the end of the decade, but Timms did not find that a problem. He told the BBC: “My view is the current level of spending is not a great concern.”

The party’s refusal to cut the benefits bill brought down one prime minister and the next is showing no sign of taking on that battle.

But Labour must learn that creating dependency is not compassion because at the moment it is failing the people it wants to help and treating taxpayers like mugs.