Free Childcare

As the hon. Member for Wirral South said, this is not a recent phenomenon; it has accumulated over a number of years. I can speak only from my personal experience—I know that the children of the hon. Member for Warrington North are a bit older. My children were accessing early years childcare during the years of the Labour Government, and I saw those prices go up exponentially. That is why we are dealing with this issue. In addition to various other policies that help many of the issues that have been described today, such as giving people access to flexible working and shared parental leave, which was never introduced under the previous Labour Government, more than £6 billion will be spent on childcare by 2019-20 in cash terms—[Interruption.] I know the hon. Lady is not listening, but that is more than any other Government have ever spent on this issue. It includes an extra £1 billion on the free early years entitlement.