Is it now too expensive to have kids?
The News Agents
Global
4.1 • 5.4K Ratings
🗓️ 10 February 2023
⏱️ 36 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Childcare in Britain is broken and yet it is almost never talked about. Why? In this episode, Lewis dissects why Labour thinks this could be the key to a majority at the next election and why in 21st century Britain having children is fast becoming a luxury item.
We talk you through how the system has become so expensive and the fact that families increasingly find themselves wondering whether it’s worth both parents staying in work - or worth even having children at all.
We also bring you up to date with the ongoing set of scandals engulfing sexual crimes and the Metropolitan Police and- horrifyingly- whether there may be even more to come.
You can watch our episodes in full at https://www.globalplayer.com/videos/brands/news-agents/the-news-agents/
The News Agents is a Global Player Original and a Persephonica Production.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The Newsagents podcast is brought to you by HSBC UK, opening up a world of opportunity. |
| 0:09.1 | This is a global player original podcast. |
| 0:12.7 | We are still paying more in nursery fees than we are in rent. |
| 0:16.1 | For a couple of years, my childcare costs were more than my mortgage payment. |
| 0:19.3 | I hate that I have to choose between a job and my child, and I feel like I'm a bad mother |
| 0:24.1 | for wanting to pursue my career. |
| 0:27.0 | Just listen to the sound of quiet frustration, of quiet desperation in those voices. |
| 0:34.0 | And this isn't about some grandiose, abstract political aim or longed-for utopian ideal. |
| 0:41.3 | It's about something as grounded, as earthy, as basic, as having someone look after your kids while you're at work, about an abject, total failure of a system. |
| 0:53.3 | And there are other failed systems in Britain right now. |
| 0:56.9 | It can feel sometimes as if you can't move for seeing them. |
| 1:00.4 | Healthcare, social care, transport, you name it. |
| 1:03.8 | But somehow all of them burn brighter in our national conversation than childcare, |
| 1:09.7 | which barely seems to be noticed, despite the fact |
| 1:12.7 | that as we're going to show, it's just completely bust and making parents bust into the bargain. |
| 1:19.2 | But that's not the only thing we want to do on today's show, because we also want to give you |
| 1:24.2 | a preview of the politics to come on this subject, Because that neglected child status, for one, of a better expression, could be about to change for all sorts of reasons. Childcare could be about to become one of the major battlefronts of our politics. It's Lewis here. Welcome to the newsagents. |
| 1:48.2 | The newsagents. |
| 1:52.5 | Childcare isn't the only thing on our agenda today. |
| 2:02.7 | We're also going to be talking you through the latest revelations in the David Carrick story, an appalling story, and while it tells us about the culture of the metropolitan police. But first, |
| 2:08.6 | we're going to stick to childcare. Because to understand its political salience, you have to understand what a policy failure it is, how we've got here. So the basics. Childcare in the UK is among the |
| 2:16.5 | most expensive in the world, according to the OECD. |
... |
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