One of the central barriers to women going back into the labour force has been the gross inadequacy of affordable child care in the past. The government has pursued a number of policies to try to make child care more affordable, including a national day care network, but also vouchers for nurseries, and a range of other policies.
These have been effective as far as they go, but are a very expensive way of getting people into work, particularly if there are only low-paid jobs available. At some point, you get to a point where you're paying one group of relatively poor women to look after the children of another group of relatively poor women. This is because of the way economics works, as it seems to increase the GDP. If you look after your own children, it has no economic benefit; if you look after someone else's children, the GDP of the country increases. So it increases economic productivity, but it has some negative policy consequences.
There can be problems with some children if they spend a lot of time in day care from a very young age and both parents are working very long hours. The family tends to be under stress, both the parents and the children. There is a need to see the value of unpaid work and caring work, which is not really recognized in the current government's social exclusion policies in all parts of the U.K. It is recognized more in some parts of the U.K. than others.
This is a big issue that ministers often only address tangentially: who should care for children, how should they be cared for, and for how much time, and who's going to pay for it?