Grant will ‘remove significant barrier to employment for parents’

Upfront childcare costs will be payable for the first month for people starting work who are claiming Universal Credit or are in receipt of other income-based benefits.

Parents who are eligible for the childcare element of Universal Credit and other income-based benefits can apply for a non-repayable grant of up to £1,500 from the department’s Adviser Discretion Fund (ADF), which will be paid in advance to a registered childcare provider.

Any amount awarded for childcare costs will be included within the maximum £1,500 limit payable for ADF awards in a 12-month period.

Applications for the grant will open on October 25 after Ms Hargey secured Executive approval for amendments to the current regulations earlier this year.

She said: “My focus is to support people, workers and their families who face the greatest economic challenges.

“Childcare is critical in helping parents into work and moving families out of poverty.

“I have introduced this change as it is crucial that barriers to employment are removed.

“We need to provide people with the support and assistance they need to move into, and stay in, employment.”

In GB, Chancellor Rishi Sunak has appeared to reject a call from footballer Marcus Rashford to extend the free school meal programme into the school holidays for the next three years.

In a letter to the Sunday Times, England and Manchester United forward Rashford joined with supermarket bosses and food industry leaders to demand ministers continue providing the meals to vulnerable children, even when they were not in the classroom.

The signatories said that doing so during the earlier stages of the pandemic, after campaigning from Rashford forced a Government U-turn, had been “a great success, bringing nutritional and educational benefits to children”.

They added that to go against recommendations in the National Food Strategy to extend this by three years would “both deepen and extend the scarring caused by the pandemic on our youngest citizens and ultimately our economy”.

However, Rishi Sunak told The Andrew Marr Show on BBC One that as other support such as the furlough scheme had come to an end, so should the provision of free school meals in the holidays.