A new Eurostat study on childcare in the EU finds that there is little demand for daycare services.

It reports that 62.3pc of people minding children aged under 15 do not use ‘professional childcare services at all’. Only 7pc of people minding children under 15 cite cost as a reason for not using ‘professional childcare’ and just 3pc cite none being available.

Almost no-one says a lack of daycare is why they find it hard to reconcile home and work. The main reasons are long commutes, long working hours and so on.

But 64pc of respondents have no difficulty at all in reconciling home and work.