A BASINGSTOKE dad has said that he spends more than £1,000 each month on four days of nursery a week for his daughter.

Then news comes after Chancellor Jeremy Hunt said in his Budget delivered on Wednesday, March 15 he wanted to reform the childcare system. He explained that mothers with young children struggle to go back to work due to childcare costs.

Tamer Shakran, who works as an assistant branch manager at a roofing supplier in Basingstoke, said he and his partner currently spend £1,200 each month on four days of nursery a week for their daughter, who is nearly two.

Mr Shakran, 31, told the PA news agency: "I’m incredibly angry about it. This would have been an incredible help for families like mine but now we have to struggle on for another year.

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“It’s too late for me, I work a 45-hour week and my partner works full time also – we have no local family members to help look after our daughter, so we have to send her to childcare.

“We and many others are also in debt with gas and electricity providers, struggling to keep within our budget for groceries, and many other factors of inflation leading to more people getting into debt.

“This needs to be brought in this year.

“People are struggling out here in the real world, the Government are so out of touch with how it feels to just try and live in the current economy.”

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In his speech on Wednesday, the Chancellor said: “We have one of the most expensive systems in the world. Almost half of the non-working mothers said they would prefer to work if they could arrange suitable childcare."

On childminders, he said he wanted to address the 9 per cent decline in one year in England.

He added: “I have decided to address this by piloting incentive payments of £600 for childminders who sign up to the profession, rising to £1,200 for those who join through an agency.”

Mr Hunt also confirmed the Government will fund 15 hours of childcare a week for children over nine months until the age of two, starting in September 2024, effectively pushing out many who currently struggle with childcare costs and whose children will be too old to be eligible by the time the plans come into effect.