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The way I see it.
One of the great injustices of our tax system is that no allowance can be claimed by working mothers on wages. They must pay someone to care for their children while they are working. In my case, I have a local lady who picks up my child from school, brings her home, gives her tea and stays with her until my return. For this service I pay £10 a week. Without it, I could not go out to work at all. Before I found this "treasure" I had two foreign au pair girls. The first one got the sulks and ate like an elephant; the second was delightful, well worth her wages plus her keep - until we got our phone bill, which was £100 higher than usual! Can I claim an allowance for this "hidden" cost of working? Silly question. Of course I can't. If a mother has children under five years of age, the problem is different. She needs full-time care for her kids and she may, if she's lucky, find a State nursery to do the job. For children of school age, though, there is no such provision, and if a mother wants her children collected from school and cared for till she comes home - well, she must pay for the privilege. If she cannot afford to do so, her kids will probably become latch-key kids - belonging to that "lost" generation who go home to empty houses where there's no-one to hear about their day. Worse, they might not even bother to go home at all, but hang about instead, getting up to all kinds of mischief. We can claim an allowance for looking after an elderly relative, so why not an allowance on money we have to pay out in order to get our kids looked after? For many mums, working is not a luxury - it's a necessity.