Jayne Dowle: The mother of all bribes but no working solution

The monthly bill for my son and daughter cost more than our mortgage payments. And the children only went for three or four days out of five.

I can’t remember how we actually managed to pay for it. I just remember that we only ate meat about three times a week, never went further than the East Coast for our holidays and spent many an evening wondering whether it was worth either of us going to work at all.

I have every sympathy for the working families with young children who will welcome the Chancellor’s plans. If all goes ahead, an estimated 1.9 million households will benefit from a £2,000 annual tax break per child to help meet the soaring cost of nursery care. Good for them, I say. I know how much they need that money. I’ve been there. I’ve made the sacrifices.

And I’m still there. Still making the sacrifices. The nursery bills are a nasty memory, but the children, thankfully, are happy and thriving. Growing, demanding new school uniforms, bus fares, school dinners and ever-increasing amounts of food.

I’d like to ask Mr Osborne to tell me what he proposes to do to help my two? Does he assume that when they go to school they become self-sufficient? I’d argue that the bigger our children become, the more help we need. Crippling nursery bills begin to pale into insignificance when it comes to the ongoing costs of keeping a teenager fed, clothed and safe.

By the time the tax break is introduced in 2015, my two children will be nine and 12. Although I accept that the £2,000 a year could go towards the cost of breakfast club and after-school club for my daughter, this concession is missing the point. It’s not just about childcare. It’s about the cost of living.

I work from home. I get up at 6am to start work so I can take Lizzie to school and pick her up myself. Am I less deserving of financial support than my friend who works nine to five for the local council and needs wrap-around provision? Should I send Lizzie to breakfast club just so I can claim the money back? These are the kind of crazy debates parents will be forced to have with themselves.

While the cost of nursery care has been grabbing all the headlines, parents of older children have been left behind. This is short-sighted and potentially damaging for politicians. We are not daft.

In fact, many of us have learned to become deeply cynical. We recognise that parents of young children are an easy target to win over. Most of them are too exhausted to even put up a fight. Offer them a quick solution to a pressing problem and they will capitulate. They might even vote for you.

I don’t wish to sound world-weary, but this money seems a bit gratuitous to me. I notice that the offer was extended from under-fives up to under-12s at the last minute. This suggests that someone somewhere might have realised that older children need support too. This still doesn’t solve the problem though: where’s the help for the parents of over-12s? All I get for my two is child benefit. And that £134 a month is just about enough to keep us all in food and household provisions for a week. My son already wears the same size clothes and shoes as me. He’s just going to grow bigger and bigger. Does Mr Osborne realise that his school trousers cost £14 a pair?

If the Chancellor really was committed to helping families, he would find a way of making his money available to all parents, regardless of the age of their children.

Focusing it entirely on the cost of childcare and only for households where both parents work is limiting and unfair. Why not make it a universal tax break for families across the board?

This would cost, I know, but surely there are ways around it. Bring down the proposed top rate of income qualification for starters. Sorry, but no parent on £150,000 a year needs public money to subside their child’s nursery fees.

Of course, there is more than one political motivation to the plan. It aims to encourage mothers back into the workplace, as it is only available to households where both parents are in employment.

I have worked since my children were tiny. Yet, I know that if I had my time again, I would take steps to rearrange my life so that I didn’t have to put in quite so many hours. It’s only as they grow older that you realise what you might have missed. Bribing parents to go to work is morally wrong, really.

However, this bold move by the coalition ensures that childcare is already becoming a key General Election issue for all parties. Mothers and fathers should ready themselves to be wooed, and potentially swayed. If they really do want to secure the parental vote though, I suggest politicians look beyond the nursery gate.