Jeremy Hunt’s free childcare pledge leaves parents to ‘pick up tab’ as nurseries hike fees

Parents are facing a hike in nursery fees of up to 15 per cent as they pick up the tab left by funding gaps in Jeremy Hunt’s flagship scheme to expand free childcare, The Independent can reveal.

The chancellor’s £4bn extension of free care – a bid to win back voters in the run-up to this year’s election – is due to come into force in three weeks. But experts say the sector is being starved of funding to pay for the roll out – forcing bosses to either sharply increase prices or face closure.

Higher fees mean that, in spite of 15 hours of care being free, some parents are saving far less than they expected to – while some are even paying more. Higher-earning parents are being faced with dramatically bigger bills because they do not qualify for the scheme in the first place.

In one stark example, a parent will see her two-year-old son’s nursery monthly bill rise by more than £70 – despite him being eligible for 15 hours a week of free care from 1 April.

The mother had been paying £1,080 a month and assumed the cost would fall to as low as around £800, but instead she’s been billed £1,156 for next month. She told The Independent: “The joke is on us really for ever thinking there was any help or anything free from this government.”

The shortfall, nurseries claim, is because the hourly rates offered by the government under the scheme often do not cover the cost of care once bosses are also paying out on wage, energy price and rent rises.

One nursery manager who feels forced to raise prices by 10 per cent says she is facing questions from anxious parents who have been “mis-sold the whole thing”. “It doesn’t need a mathematician to work out it doesn’t add up,” she said.

It comes as new data shows 70 per cent of parents said childcare costs were about to – or had recently – gone up, with nearly a fifth of the 11,000 polled saying prices were rising by more than 11 per cent. One parent said their child’s nursery fees were rising by 15 per cent.