When Chancellor Jeremy Hunt pulled out of his red box a promise to give all working parents funded childcare – the government believed it had conjured up a top-tier vote-winning policy.

Under pressure to bolster a dwindling workforce - and fully aware that household budgets were being crippled by the cost of childcare –in a somewhat surprise move working parents were promised that a policy of 30 hours of ‘free’ childcare a week was on its way.

It was, many said at the time, a scheme too good to be true.

And with the first phase set to come into force within weeks – there are fears critics of the policy may be about to be proved right.

Problems with staff shortages, funding and nursery closures mean that rather than a red-carpet roll-out of the £4bn expansion, increasing numbers of parents wanting government-funded places are finding doors being closed in their faces.

Nurseries say they are being starved of the funds needed to make the roll-out a success while tales are emerging of parents facing huge fee hikes for costs outside of the funded hours as settings try and plug budget gaps.

Also looming are incoming changes to the National Living Wage that will give millions of young workers a pay rise, which whilst only right in the current cost of living crisis, will undoubtedly place extra pressure on an already struggling sector.

There are also claims emerging that thousands of student nurses, midwives, social workers and teachers are dropping out of courses or ditching plans for qualification because the free childcare scheme isn’t extended to them.

Technically still ‘in training’ because their shifts come with study requirements, Unison says those workers who need help the most (and the UK needs most to fill essential roles) are dropping out because of problems securing care for their offspring.

In a Radio Times podcast released this week singer Lily Allen reveals having children, she believes, hit the brakes on her blossoming pop career.

She said: “My children ruined my career. I love them and they complete me, but in terms of pop stardom, they totally ruined it.”

In 2023 UK mothers earned £4.44 less an hour than fathers – a gap which has grown by almost £1 in just three years.

While analysis by the Institute of Fiscal Studies, released just ahead of Mother’s Day, declared that men’s earnings are ‘almost completely unaffected by parenthood’ while women’s earnings fall sharply after they have children and seven years after the birth of their first child will be, on average, less than half of men’s.

“I get really annoyed when people say you can have it all because, quite frankly, you can’t” declared an honest Allen this week.

With parental leave systems still heavily weighted in favour of women taking on caring responsibilities, a new childcare scheme in disarray and wages still in the grip of a gender pay gap – could she be right?