The Trust says many people would pay more tax to improve childcare

Of 1,286 people questioned, 79% wanted quality childcare to be available for all children aged over 12 months.

And 56% wanted the government to contribute more to the costs while 27% wanted bigger employer contributions.

The trust said schemes like Working Tax Credits had brought improvements but wants a long-term childcare strategy.

Children's Centres

The government was already helping families meet the costs of childcare through the Working Tax Credit scheme and had set up Children's Centres in some of Britain's poorest communities, it said.

Children's Centres are designed to bring quality childcare and early years education together under one roof with health, family and employment support.

The public are ambitious for families Stephen Burke Daycare Trust director

Trust director Stephen Burke said the findings showed the general public "clearly supported quality affordable childcare for all children".

"The public are ambitious for families," he said.

"The next step is to develop a long-term strategy and timetable for the funding and delivery of children's centres in every community by 2015."

Dave Prentis, general secretary of the public services union Unison, said the findings showed that "childcare is a good thing for society and should receive greater public funding".

"The best way to ensure high quality, affordable childcare is for it to be well-provided within the public sector and for it to be delivered by well trained, fairly paid childcare workers."