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Clegg's 'obsession' with nanny state set to cost taxpayers £1bn as he lays out plans to create army of child carers

By Gerri Peev, Political Correspondent

Published: 13:44 EDT, 15 April 2012 | Updated: 13:45 EDT, 15 April 2012 'Obsession': Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg's army of nannies is set to cost taxpayers £1billion

Taxpayers will have to fork out £1 billion for Nick Clegg’s ‘obsession’ to create a ‘nanny state’ with tens of thousands of new jobs for childcare workers.

The Deputy Prime Minister laid out plans to create an army of new nannies who would look after disadvantaged toddlers to ensure they were more ‘classroom ready’ by the time they started school.

The nannies would care for 140,000 of the most ‘disadvantaged’ two year olds every year to improve ‘social mobility’, the Liberal Democrat leader said.

From next year, two-year-olds from poor backgrounds in England will receive 15 hours of free childcare during term time.

It is expected around one in five two-year-olds would qualify for taxpayer-funded nanny care.

The nannies would be employed by nurseries rather than directly by the government but the taxpayer subsidy will come at a time when middle income parents are facing soaring childcare fees of their own.

In a consultation document on the proposals, the state is referred to act as ‘the corporate parent’ of youngsters.




Mr Clegg wants to recruit an extra 65,000 nannies from September 2013 but government sources said the true figure will be closer to 12,000.

The costs of the ‘early intervention’ policy will reach £1 billion by 2015.

Only children in care or those whose families are eligible for free school meals - with incomes of below £16,200 or who are on benefit -would qualify for the extra childcare.

But councils would have discretion to allocate places to other ‘disadvantaged groups’ if take up was low. Nanny state: Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg's plans are aimed at making more children ready to enter the classroom. (Posed by models)

The Deputy Prime Minister said the government was ‘shovelling in resources’ for youngsters in a way that had never been seen before.

He also played down his controversial agreement to treble university tuition fees to £9,000 a year, saying: ‘Look what we were doing with public money, we were putting it into the one bit of the education system which needs the least public support and ignoring the bit that needed it the most.’

The Lib Dem leader said social mobility was his ‘obsession’. ‘I have been very clear that it is now the government’s principle social policy and priority.’

He told the Independent on Sunday: ‘I don’t think we should underestimate, and I say this as a young dad seeing children going into primary school, I don’t think we should underestimate the formative effect on a child of those first formative years in primary school.

‘There was a lot of controversy about higher education, but actually what happens when they are four, five, six and seven is more important arguably than when they are 17 or 18,’ he said. Costly: Nick Clegg said the proposals were aimed at improving social mobility. (Posed by models)

Studies had shown that the reason ‘the needle of social mobility didn’t twitch’ over the last 15 years ‘because we didn’t start early enough’, he added.

Health visitors and children’s centres will be asked to identify children who would benefit from the early intervention.

A consultation from the Department of Education also suggests that childcare provided by local authorities could be extended to 12 hours a day - from 7am to 7pm.

David Davis, the senior Tory MP, said: ‘I suspect it is not going to work. It will cost a fortune [and] the state is not a very good parent.’ Nigel Farage, the UKIP leader also criticised Mr Clegg for attempting to create a ‘nanny state’.

He said: ‘These plans are wrong, economically, practically and morally.

The costs will be astronomic at a time of supposed government austerity.’

Mr Farage added: ‘Is it morally right to remove parents’ responsibility for the bringing up of their own children?

'This will amount to a massive power grab by the state, the ramifications of which we will not see for decades, but all experience must make us wary when the state decides to do things for our own good.’

A source close to the Department for Education said the true figure of new nannies would be more like 12,000 rather than 65,000.




