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Leeds MPs challenge PM over childcare vouchers
GORDON Brown is facing a revolt from two Leeds Labour MPs over a controversial plan to cut child care vouchers.
Paul Truswell (Pudsey) and Colin Challen (Morley and Rothwell) have warned the Prime Minister that removing the popular benefit for 340,000 parents will penalise "middle income, hardworking families".
They have also told him that his policy threatens to widen the pay gap between men and women and will discourage mothers from returning to work.
Earlier this year Mr Brown announced that he was removing tax relief for employer-based childcare vouchers, arguing that too much of the money was going to the middle classes.
Under the voucher scheme, a family on the basic rate of tax, where both parents claim the tax relief, can save 1,924 a year on the cost of childcare.
The vouchers help parents juggle family life with their jobs and give thousands of mothers the financial security to return to the workplace.
The PM promised that the money saved from phasing out the vouchers will go towards providing 250,000 two-year-olds from 'modest or middle incomes' with 10 hours of free childcare a week.
But the cuts have sparked a backlash with more than 75,000 people signing a Downing Street petition criticising the decision.
And it now threatens to provoke a major backbench revolt with 88 MPs signing a Commons motion opposing the move.
The Early Day Motion warns that phasing out the vouchers will reduce "opportunities for two parents to work" and impair "the quality and affordability of childcare available to working parents".
Mr Truswell said: "I welcome the Government's plans to extend still further the provision of free nursery care, but it is crucial that this initiative does not place greater costs on families with modest incomes who currently benefit from the tax relief on childcare vouchers."
Despite the opposition, Mr Brown defended the cuts during Prime Minister's questions: "We have said that nobody who is receiving tax relief for child care vouchers will lose it."
Meanwhile, Selby Labour MP John Grogan has condemned Government plans to fine unemployed single parents with pre-school-age children if they do not prepare for work while receiving benefits.
Ministers believe it is "reasonable" to expect parents to take up free education and training while their three and four-year-olds are in Government-provided childcare or reception classes at school – and right to hit them with financial penalties for not doing so.
But Mr Grogan appealed to fellow Yorkshire MP and Work and Pensions Secretary Yvette Cooper to water down the proposal.
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Friday 25 May 2012
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