Shadow chancellor Ed Balls to announce policy for all three and four-year-olds at party conference on Monday
Working parents will receive 25 hours of free childcare a week under a Labour government for any children aged three and four, Ed Balls will pledge on Monday.
The shadow chancellor intends to increase the number of hours covered by state funding to households in which single parents or both parents in a couple hold down jobs.
It comes on top of Labour's pledge at the start of its autumn conference in Brighton to provide wraparound care through schools to help ease the childcare burden for families.
Balls is due to make the announcement in a speech outlining how Labour will tackle the "cost of living crisis" by reforming spending priorities.
That includes increasing free childcare for three and four-year-olds from 15 to 25 hours a week for working families, while the 15-hour early years entitlement will remain universal, all funded through an increase in the bank levy.
Balls is expected to tell conference: "Childcare is a vital part of our economic infrastructure that, alongside family support and flexible working, should give parents the choice to stay at home with their children when they are very small and to balance work and family as they grow older.
"But for many families high childcare costs mean that it doesn't even add up to go to work. So to make work pay for families, we must act.
"Stephen Twigg set out yesterday how we will guarantee childcare is available for all primary school children from 8am to 6pm. But we need to do more for families with nursery age children too.
"Conference, after the financial crisis, it is right that the banks make a greater contribution. But in the last financial year, the banks paid a staggering £2.7bn less in overall tax than they did in 2010. Over the last two years the government's bank levy has raised £1.6bn less than they said it would.
"At a time when resources are tight and families are under pressure that cannot be right. So I can announce today the next Labour government will increase the bank levy rate to raise an extra £800m a year.
"And we will use the money, for families where all parents are in work, to increase free childcare places for three- and four-year-olds from 15 hours to 25 hours a week.
"For the first time, parents will be able to work part-time without having to worry about the cost of childcare. Making work pay, tackling the cost of living crisis, a radical transformation in the provision of childcare in our country."
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