Speaking at the Daycare Trust's annual conference in the capital, Ken Livingstone said the lack of affordable, good-quality childcare was 'a major barrier to taking families out of poverty and providing them with the skills, education and training needed in London's employment market'.
He said, 'Many women in London are trapped in this situation because of the high cost of living and childcare in London, which means that Government policies which work in the rest of the country have less impact here.'
The mayor claimed that if the national minimum wage was to reflect how much more expensive it was to live in London than other parts of the country it would need to be raised to 7.76 an hour rather than the present rate of 4.50. He also said there needed to be more childcare provision for black and ethnic minorities - 41 per cent of children in London were from these groups, as were 40 per cent of lone parents, compared with less than 10 per cent of lone parents nationally.
Mr Livingstone said, 'The average childcare costs are 25 per cent higher in London than the rest of the country. High childcare costs and the high cost of housing are keeping thousands of parents out of employment. For many parents, especially lone mothers, it does not pay to move off benefits and into employment.'
The mayor announced a childcare strategy for London, saying it was necessary because the city had the highest rates of child poverty of any region. He said that after housing costs were taken into account, more than one-third (35 per cent) of London's children lived in low-income families, and in inner London this went up to almost half (48 per cent), compared with 30 per cent nationally.
The strategy's aims are to make childcare more affordable by promoting the childcare element of the child tax credit and urging their reform to reflect higher childcare costs in London; to promote family-friendly employment practices; and to improve information and communication by mapping the range of childcare provision and its cost, as well as monitoring its availability and suitability for black and ethnic minority families.
Mr Livingstone said the London childcare strategy would increase the availability of quality childcare in the city, through funding from the London Development Agency which would include planning powers to have childcare centres as part of new building developments. He also said he would 'take action on low pay' by promoting best practice in terms of fair wages and terms and conditions for childcare employees.
Mr Livingstone said that regeneration was not about building a factory but 'about individuals achieving their full potential'. He added that many women lost eight years of work experience when they had children and that 'the whole of Britain's economy is undermined by not allowing women to get back into the workplace'.
