Family members such as grandparents can still provide childcare under the Tier 2 High Level Covid retrictions - as long as they are in your support bubble.

Under the new rules, which come into force in York at midnight on Saturday morning, you must not meet socially with friends and family indoors in any setting unless you live with them or have formed a support bubble with them. This includes private homes and any other indoor venues such as pubs and restaurants.

A support bubble is where a household with one adult joins with another household. Households in that support bubble can still visit each other, stay overnight, and visit public places together.

Informal childcare can also be provided via childcare bubbles. 

The Government rules say that people who can provide childcare support in private homes and gardens include registered childcare providers, including nannies, people in your support bubble, and people in your childcare bubble.

A childcare bubble is where someone in one household provides informal (unpaid and unregistered) childcare to a child aged 13 or under in another household. For any given childcare bubble, this must always be between the same two households.

Friends or family who do not live with you and are not part of a support or childcare bubble must not visit your home to help with childcare.

Childcare bubbles are to be used to provide childcare only, and not for the purposes of different households mixing where they are otherwise not allowed to do so.