THE GOVERNMENT’S decision to extend free childcare entitlement only to working parents is unlawfully discriminatory, the High Court heard today.

In 2016, the government doubled the pre-existing entitlement to free childcare for all three and four-year-old children from 15 hours to 30 hours per week, but only if their parents were in work.

Three lone parents and their young children have taken the Department for Education (DfE) to court, claiming it has unlawfully discriminated against lone parents who are carers, or who have been the victims of domestic violence, and their children.

GW and her two-year-old son LMT are homeless and living in temporary accommodation. She is unable to take up paid work as she is a full-time carer for her disabled mother.

LF is a lone parent of three-year-old RS and his six-year-old brother, who is not a claimant. Both children are “severely disabled,” meaning LF is unable to work.

FB, her two-year-old son AH and her five-year-old son are currently living in a single room of a women’s refuge in London, having fled from her violent and controlling husband.

Ian Wise QC said all of the child claimants “are starting life from a position of very substantial disadvantage ... they have no relationship with their fathers and their mothers are all dependent on state benefits.”

He added that there was “absolutely no evidence that the [DfE] had regard to the detrimental impact of exclusion” on children.

The DfE claims that the policy’s aim of “incentivising and facilitating parents to undertake paid work” justifies the discriminatory impact of the policy.

Mr Justice Lewis reserved judgment in the case.