Orders of the Day — Childcare Bill

House of Commons, 9 March 2006.

New Clause 1 — Power of Constable to Assist in Exercise of Powers of Entry

Maria Eagle (Labour, Liverpool, Garston)

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

Michael Lord (Deputy Speaker, Central Suffolk and North Ipswich)

With this it will be convenient to discuss Government amendment No. 18.

Maria Eagle (Labour, Liverpool, Garston)

It is a pleasure to resume our deliberations on the Bill. I hope that we shall be able to deal with the outstanding issues succinctly; I shall certainly attempt to do so.

New clause 1 allows persons authorised under clause 77 to apply to the court for a warrant for a constable to support them. It is purely a technical, tidying amendment—which means that we forgot to deal with it earlier—to ensure that the power under section 102 of the Children Act 1989 of a constable to assist is carried forward appropriately to the legislation. It would enable the court to issue a warrant in cases where it appeared that Ofsted had been prevented, or was likely to be prevented, from exercising powers under clause 77. Fortunately for all concerned, such applications have been extremely rare so we do not expect the provision to be needed frequently; none the less, it makes sense to include it.

Amendment No. 18 simply tidies up the impact of the new clause by adding a power for a constable to assist in respect of family proceedings. On that basis, I commend the provisions to the House.

Tim Loughton (Conservative, East Worthing and Shoreham)

I shall not detain the House on these technical amendments, which the Minister was gracious enough to admit might have been dealt with earlier.

On a general note, however, the Government recently tabled a number of amendments for discussion today, several of which are completely new provisions, yet no accompanying explanatory notes or letters from the Minister have been forthcoming. That is not helpful. Usually when the Government table amendments on new matters, one would expect an explanation, as a courtesy at least.

Furthermore, I notice from the Order Paper that the Secretary of State is making a written statement on "Safeguarding in early years and childcare", which I presume is germane to the Bill, yet neither I nor my hon. Friends—nor, I suspect, the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke), who speaks for the Liberal Democrats—received notice of that statement. My office rang the Minister's office this morning and we were promised that a copy would be e-mailed straightaway, but that has not appeared. That is regrettable, especially in the light of what happened last week with the Children and Adoption Bill, when Opposition Members were not notified about the imminent publication of a report that was absolutely germane to the business, and was referred to during that business by the Minister of State. That is a shame, because it diminishes the detail of our debate at a late but crucial stage.

I am thus not in a position to take issue with the points that the Under-Secretary of State has just made, although based on a scant reading of the provisions, we do not want to raise any objections to them. However, it would have been nice to receive an explanation of them sooner.

Maria Eagle (Labour, Liverpool, Garston)

I apologise to the hon. Gentleman for the fact that we do not appear to have managed to do what we said we would do, and get those details and the written statement over to Opposition spokesmen. It was certainly our intention to do so, and I undertake to find out why that did not happen. I am the first to admit that the situation is not satisfactory; I can but apologise.

It seems, however, that the Opposition do not take exception to the new clause and the amendment—[Interruption.] I have just received some late information. The detail that we hoped to pass to the Opposition was placed on the letter board—I assume, this morning—so we attempted to inform them. I shall try to find out what went wrong and when, and I will talk to the hon. Gentleman about it outside the Chamber.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause read a Second time, and added to the Bill.

New Clause 2 — Provision of Information About Young Children: England

Beverley Hughes (Labour, Stretford and Urmston)

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

Michael Lord (Deputy Speaker, Central Suffolk and North Ipswich)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following: Government new clause 3—Provision of information about young children: transitory provision.

Government new clause 4—Provision of information about children: Wales.

Government amendments Nos. 26 and 27.

Beverley Hughes (Labour, Stretford and Urmston)

The purpose of the new clauses and amendments is to allow for a significant improvement in the quality and accuracy of the information we collect about early years provision—that is, integrated child care and early education for children under school age. It will enable more accurate funding to follow the delivery of nursery entitlement for three and four-year-olds and provide essential support to local authorities in the fulfilment of those duties under the Bill.

The provisions will enable the Secretary of State and other prescribed persons, such as local authorities, to collect individual child-level information from all registered providers of early years provision in England, in line with the reformed regulatory and inspection framework in the Bill. In Wales, the powers will apply under relevant legislation, consistent with the regulatory framework in Wales. The powers are not to demand information from parents but for local authorities to collect information that providers will hold already.

A key purpose of the power is to manage better the funding of free nursery education provision. At present, the information collected by the Government from local government about free entitlement is aggregated information on all the children enrolled with each private, voluntary or independent provider, rather than individual child-level information. Holding such child-level information will reduce the risk of double counting, which we think is happening to some extent at present, where parents use more than one provider for their free nursery entitlement.

We are building on the success of that entitlement, progressively increasing the number of hours and weeks, so an increasing amount of public funding is being used to support it. It is thus important that providers receive money for what they actually provide for each child.

There are some other reasons for the provisions. The duty for local authorities to improve outcomes for all children and reduce inequalities is one of the cornerstones of the Bill. Local authorities need a full range of information about children in early years provision, to ensure that they are fulfilling that duty. It is also important for central Government to have that information to evaluate effectively the success of the policy. This enabling power to collect information from all early years providers will show how much provision each child receives, and where, and will supply outcome measurements, such as the foundation stage profile.

We shall hold full consultations on draft regulations carrying the detail of the proposals. We shall also take careful account of the views of stakeholders, providers and local authorities on how the power is implemented. The ability to collect accurate and robust individual child-level information is essential to ensure the proper allocation of funding and to support local authorities in delivering better outcomes for all children. Amendments Nos. 26 and 27 are consequential, to ensure that the provisions on data collection can be commenced by the appropriate authority at the appropriate time.

I commend the new clause to the House.

Tim Loughton (Conservative, East Worthing and Shoreham)

The new clauses are quite chunky, and again I make the point that we had no inkling about them in Committee. It is not clear whether these provisions are connected to the child safeguarding provisions in the next group and which in turn have connections to the forthcoming Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Bill. From what the Minister said, it would appear that they are more to do with a numbers exercise, to ensure that the correct figures are analysed. If that is the case, the Opposition certainly have some concerns about the wide-reaching nature of new clause 2.

New clause 2, as I understand it, places obligations, through regulation, on various people involved in child care to provide information, not about children in general, but individual child information, the nature of which we do not know. According to subsection (3), the information can be provided to the Secretary of State or "any prescribed person". Who will those prescribed persons be? Will it be you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, or will it be me? Who will be involved?

Subsection (4) is even more wide-ranging. It states that the Secretary of State

"may provide any individual child information".

That is, it appears, without any exemptions. The subsection continues

"to any information collator".

Who will those information collators be? Who will be licensed or allowed to collect, analyse, view and disseminate this information "to any prescribed person", as mentioned in paragraph (b), or

"to any person falling within a prescribed category"?

Not many members of the population are left out.

There is then the provision that "any information collator" may pass on information to any other information collator. All the way through, the new clause appears to give enormous powers to the Secretary of State to decide who he thinks should handle, interpret, collate and act on this information. We do not have an inkling about these people, not least because we have had no explanation of this quite powerful new clause. It appears that the only safeguard is in subsection (7), which reads:

"No information received under or by virtue of this section shall be published in any form which includes the name of the child."

That may be unavoidable in some circumstances—when child care is provided on a one-to-one basis, for example, or in small groups.

I fear that the new clause has been put together belatedly and perhaps rather hurriedly. I have serious concerns about whether it conflicts with the Children Act 2004. This matter was handled by the Minister's predecessor, but she may recall—the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke) certainly will—that we had lengthy debates about the nature of the information databases. The Opposition continue to have serious concerns about them—and those databases are now beginning to be put into operation.

One of the safeguards that we were given—specifically written into the Act—appears in section 12(4)(h). It is that information of "such other description" may be put on to these databases. Specifically, medical records are not included, or such other personal records as the Secretary of State may by regulation specify. In that measure, the sharing of information was specifically curtailed for medical records. For very good reasons, we supported that. There were other categories involved as well. We do not appear to have such safeguards in the new clause.

Individual child information—not numbers—can be produced and must be produced as requested, and passed on to an indeterminate group or groups of people to do indeterminate things with it. Medical records, among other things, are not specifically exempted. Does the Minister agree that there is a potential conflict with that section of the 2004 Act? Can she give me some assurances that that was not intended, and say whether some further detail will be added to ensure that such a conflict cannot happen?

Will the Minister identify who the information collators are likely to be, and what they are expected to do with the information? I want a definition of what individual child information is likely to amount to. That is important. Much in the 2004 Act was essential to promote the sharing of information among professionals in dealing with vulnerable children who might be at risk of harm. We agreed with that, and that was the thrust of what became the 2004 Act. There were also some perfectly good provisions that protected the confidentiality of children and their parents. Those provisions seem to have been ignored in the framing of new clause 2. I would be grateful if the Minister gave us some more detail—which was, alas, not forthcoming before today's deliberations.

Annette Brooke (Liberal Democrat, Mid Dorset and North Poole)

I concur 100 per cent. with the hon. Gentleman. At the top of my copy of the amendment paper I wrote "Child Protection". I assumed that the provision was an extension of what we were talking about with the Children Act 2004 in the context of databases. There were some words of reassurance that we were considering numbers relating to payments, but that was not how I understood it. That might be blamed on my interpretation. However, other people might have made the same error. If I had had a red pen in my hand, the amendment paper would have been covered in comments about ambiguity and non-understanding of terms.

Subsection (1) reads

"such individual child information as may be prescribed."

That means nothing to me. We then have the "prescribed person". I turn over, as it were, to the regulations and the notes and I read that "prescribed" means "prescribed by regulations". I do not think that I have ever seen such accompanying notes—if they can be called that—which actually say nothing.

Then we have the "information collator". I had no idea how wide that definition was. I did not know whether it went beyond local authority employees. We then have the phrase:

"to any other information collator".

I have made some notes along subsection (7) that there was a slight saving grace in that there will be no publication of

"the name of the child or children to whom it relates."

I have the greatest concern about accepting the new clause without either a clear statement from the Minister today or an undertaking that there will be a clear statement as the Bill progresses through its stages of consideration. I am concerned about the whole.

The Minister's predecessor was extremely helpful to one of my constituents who was refused funding as a provider. It appears that my local authority had been misinterpreting regulations about how funding could be used and where. That shows that we must be absolutely clear about the regulations on the allocation of funding. The problem arose in the context of someone who was being denied funding for a nursery place, and I am grateful to the Minister's Department for sorting that out for me.

Justine Greening (Conservative, Putney)

I concur with my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton). The new clause is far too broad. The Government need to be far clearer about what they are trying to achieve with a measure that they seek to introduce at such a late stage in the consideration of the Bill. There is a real danger that parents throughout the country will be concerned about the level of information being collected on their children. It would be ironic if parents were dissuaded from using child-minding services because of concern about the collecting of information that would then be permitted about their child.

We must examine closely what the clause seeks to achieve and whether the information powers that it contains are excessive to achieve the Government's objectives. I hope that the Minister can confirm what the Government are seeking to achieve and why they need particular information. Perhaps it will be possible to be more specific about what information will be collected, by whom, by what powers, when, how regularly, where it will be stored, who will have access to the database, and perhaps the central control of the information. If so, the House would be able to say much more confidently whether the proposal before us is good or bad.

I am worried that the reference to "any information collator" could include the Child Support Agency, and could apply to cases in which non-contact orders have been made. The new clauses do not make any reference to the Data Protection Act 1998, which may conflict with them. I find it difficult to believe that there is any information about the child care industry that it not made available to the Government. Can the Minister clarify the nature of the information that she lacks? The Opposition are struggling to understand why the new clauses are necessary.

Beverley Hughes (Labour, Stretford and Urmston)

I sympathise with hon. Members who are anxious about new clauses that have been tabled late in the proceedings, and I shall try to deal with their concerns. Government new clause 2 reflects provisions in the Education and Inspections Bill on individual child data in schools. Those are based on provisions in section 537A of the Education Act 1996, which was passed under the previous Administration. The powers in the new clause are almost identical to those provisions because, as I have tried to outline, we have made a big push on early-years provision, so they need to apply to that sector too.

The power is an enabling one, based on the long-standing provisions in the 1996 Act. Hon. Members are understandably anxious to probe the nature of the information that will be provided. That will be dealt with in detailed regulations, which will define the nature of the data collected and identify those who can collect it. Information collators may be local authority officers, civil service statisticians or anyone who has the right to collate information on behalf of Government. There is therefore a circumscribed group of people who can collect that information.

Tim Loughton (Conservative, East Worthing and Shoreham)

Will all the people who are given powers as information collators be subject to scrutiny under the Bichard proposals in the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Bill? Can the Minister guarantee that anyone who is nominated as a collator who has access to that information will be vetted accordingly?

Beverley Hughes (Labour, Stretford and Urmston)

The Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Bill proposes that specific groups of people will be subject to the highest level checks in the barring and vetting scheme if they collect or collate information. Those groups include people who are responsible for the updating and upkeep of data and procedures on the information-sharing index to which the hon. Gentleman has referred. I will go away and ask if those people, and the data provision under the new clause, will be caught. My understanding is that they will not, because that data and information is not of the same order, but I shall certainly ask about that.

Tim Loughton (Conservative, East Worthing and Shoreham)

I am rather alarmed by that reply, as I thought that the Minister was going to say, "Yes, obviously." Those people will be in receipt of a great deal of information about where children are, what they do there, how many children there are, what their hours of attendance are, what sort of services they receive and which staff deal with them. It is essential to vet such people because if they had bad intentions they could use that information themselves or pass it on to others who might use it for purposes for which it was not intended. I therefore hope that the Minister will do a little more than go away and check. I hope that she will go away and make sure that the provision is watertight.

Beverley Hughes (Labour, Stretford and Urmston)

As I told the hon. Gentleman, a compulsory check at the highest level will be made on the people administering the information-sharing index, but we have yet to finalise which groups of people are affected and which level of check will be imposed on those working in local authorities. That is an issue to which we will return during proceedings on the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Bill.

Hon. Members may be reassured to learn that current arrangements involve the transfer of individual child information from providers to local authorities. In the new clause we are seeking to standardise that practice. A survey that we conducted in December among a large number of local authorities demonstrated that the majority already collect information about early years settings on an individual child basis. The Department for Education and Skills requires that information to be sent to it in an aggregated form.

Many local authorities welcome the proposal to mirror the way in which school data is provided so that individual child information can be passed on to the Department, because—to answer the hon. Gentleman's question—that will reduce their workload and make their task much simpler. I accept that that does not take into account concerns about the kind of information collected, but we envisage that the amount of that information will be limited. It could include identifying information on children such as gender and ethnicity, whether they receive special educational needs provision, and, of course, the number of hours that they spend in the setting, including the number of funded hours. That is essential because, as I said at the beginning of our debate, some providers lose out if parents take up the free nursery education offer with a number of different providers. Because the information that the Department receives is aggregated, we cannot ensure that funding flows to the providers who are caring for the child for a certain number of hours a week. Providers are particularly concerned about that, as hon. Members will appreciate.

Annette Brooke (Liberal Democrat, Mid Dorset and North Poole)

When the regulations are published, will the Minister include a requirement that the local authority must not keep information on certain things? I am sure that we all accept the examples that she has given, but much more detail could be requested, and the new clause would permit a considerable amount of information to be held.

Beverley Hughes (Labour, Stretford and Urmston)

It will not be necessary to include things on which the local authority must not hold information, because local authorities and providers can only hold and pass on information if the regulations empower them to do so. Indeed, that information is already circumscribed. For example, it is legally not possible for information on medical records to be held and passed on. We are simply talking about identifying information and the number of hours and weeks that the child spends in the setting. Such information can help us to assess whether child outcomes are achieved by local authorities.

Tim Loughton (Conservative, East Worthing and Shoreham)

I hope that the Minister understands why we are trying to establish the detail of the proposal. She said that medical records were exempt, and would not be kept on the database—a point that I made in relation to section 12 of the Children Act 2004. Does one provision override the other? The new clause does not refer to the 2004 Act or to the exemptions in it, so is there a measure that makes it explicit that the new clause is subject to those exemptions? The exemptions apply to national and local databases, and will not necessarily apply to the database that will be collated. I am not sure that there is an interconnection.

Beverley Hughes (Labour, Stretford and Urmston)

Existing legislation is not swept away, as the hon. Gentleman will know from his careful reading of the clauses. The provisions that prevent the holding and passing on of medical records at present will take precedence.

For both reasons—for the flow of funding, and in order to assess whether local authorities are meeting their duty on outcomes for children in the round—we need the information. It is routinely held and passed on by providers and local authorities. It is important that we standardise that. Our survey of local authorities showed that some were collecting some information and others were collecting other information. The regulations will standardise the collection of information.

Justine Greening (Conservative, Putney)

I understand how the information might be used by central Government, but it seems slightly contradictory that the Bill gives powers and duties to local authorities to make sure that child care provision is available locally. I have many young parents living in my constituency, Putney, and I question whether the level of detail is appropriate. Local authorities are being given powers and duties to provide child minding and child care facilities, but the Secretary of State is seeking such a level of detail that the Department could interfere in individual nurseries. Surely it is for local authorities to take decisions. Why does the Department need such detail? Why can it not accept the summary detail that it gets in other areas of education?

Beverley Hughes (Labour, Stretford and Urmston)

The hon. Lady is wrong about that. The level of detail that relates to children of other ages is not aggregate. Local authorities must increasingly provide individual level data, because the funding flows from Government to local authorities. Local authorities may allocate it, but the level of provision is based on numbers of children, and in this instance, where those children are accessing the free nursery entitlement that the Government have provided. We want the money to flow more effectively to the providers. In order to give parents more flexibility, so that they have a range of options for that nursery offer, we need to make sure that we can disaggregate in the case of children for whom the offer is spread over a number of different providers. That is happening now and providers are losing out, because only one provider is getting the total amount of money, whereas there might be another one, two or three providers who have the child for part of the week but are not getting the money that flows from that.

The other important issue is the outcomes duty. Local authorities will want to test themselves as to how far, for the population as a whole, they are improving outcomes for children and reducing inequality. We as a Department want to assure ourselves that local authorities are fulfilling the terms of that duty. There will, of course, be further opportunity to discuss the matter in the other place, and I can assure hon. Members that further details of how we envisage the measure working, short of the regulations, will be available for that debate.

Tim Loughton (Conservative, East Worthing and Shoreham)

Before the Minister finishes, can she explain what subsection (1) of new clause 3 means? It states:

"Section (Provision of information about young children: England) has effect with the modifications specified in subsections (2) and (3) until section 7 comes into force."

Which section 7 and which Act does that refer to? I cannot work it out.

Beverley Hughes (Labour, Stretford and Urmston)

The hon. Gentleman has a smile on his face, as if he thinks he has caught me out, but I think he will find that I have a sound and accurate explanation for him. New clause 3 makes transitional arrangements to enable data to be collected from funded nursery education before the provisions in new clause 2 come into force. New clause 2 will come into force as a whole in September 2008 for all providers, but for providers who are already getting funding for nursery education, we can legitimately get that information, which will of course be partial, earlier because it is already being collected. The new clause gives the legal power for a transitional arrangement to enable that to be done for a year, before the full force of new clause 2 takes effect. Section 7, therefore, is the present clause 7 of the Bill.

Roger Williams (Liberal Democrat, Brecon and Radnorshire)

As I understand the Minister's comments, new clause 3 covers the period before new clause 2 comes into force. What will happen in Wales? New clause 4 mirrors new clause 2, but there is no mirror of new clause 3.

Beverley Hughes (Labour, Stretford and Urmston)

The hon. Gentleman might have got me there. As he says, new clause 4 enables the regulations to take effect, allowing the Welsh Assembly to collect individual child level data. It may well be for the Assembly to decide on any transitional arrangements. I shall make sure that the hon. Gentleman gets an accurate answer to that question.

There will be opportunity to discuss the new clauses in another place, and before those discussions take place, there will be further information about what we envisage.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause read a Second time, and added to the Bill.

New Clause 3 — Provision of Information About Young Children: Transitory Provision

New Clause 4 — Provision of Information About Children: Wales

New Clause 5 — Disqualification for Registration Under Children Act 1989

Maria Eagle (Labour, Liverpool, Garston)

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

Michael Lord (Deputy Speaker, Central Suffolk and North Ipswich)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following: Amendment No. 49, in page 7, line 2, clause 12, at end insert

';

(d) child protection arrangements'.

Government amendments Nos. 19 to 25.

Government amendments Nos. 28 and 29.

Before we discuss this group of amendments, I must tell the House that an error was made in printing Government new clause 5. A corrected version has been placed in the Vote Office, which I understand has been available to Members. I am given an assurance that the corrections are not of any great import.

Maria Eagle (Labour, Liverpool, Garston)

The amendments fall into two groups. I shall leave amendment No. 49 until the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) has spoken to it.

New clause 5 and Government amendments Nos. 22, 23, 24, 25, 28 and 29 enable the Secretary of State to make regulations disqualifying from registration persons who are barred from working in schools on the grounds of ill health and those who have been cautioned by the police for an offence. Amendments Nos. 19, 20 and 21 add to the Bill specific mention that regulations which govern the activities of providers registered under part 3 may deal with arrangements for safeguarding the children concerned. That arises from my consideration following our deliberations in Committee, so I hope that that small group of amendments, at least, will please Opposition Members and that we may get some kind words about them. We will wait and see.

Paragraph 4 of schedule 9A to the Children Act 1989 sets out certain grounds on which an individual can be disqualified from providing day care or child minding. Individuals can already be disqualified from providing child care on the grounds of convictions for sexual and violent offences, or orders that show that such a person is unsuitable to work with children, or because his name is included on the Protection of Children Act list, or because the person is subject to a direction under section 142 of the Education Act 2002—in other words, the person is on List 99, on the grounds that he is unsuitable to work with children.

In light of the statement from the Secretary of State on 19 January following an urgent review of barring procedures in schools, two small additions have been identified that are necessary to ensure that disqualification from providing child care works on a similar basis to disqualification in schools. The additions are those whose names are recorded on List 99 on the grounds of ill health. Such directions are made when, for example, a person has a medical condition such as alcohol or substance misuse which means that they are considered to pose a threat to the safety or welfare of children. We also want to include those who have received a caution from the police for particular offences, and we intend to use that power in relation to cautions received for serious sexual or violent offences.

As a caution involves an admission of guilt, we want to include disqualification on the grounds of cautions in respect of any of the offences currently listed in the disqualification regulations that might otherwise result in a conviction. That change to the current legislation will ensure that we can provide additional safeguards at the earliest possible opportunity. Hon. Members have already referred to the new Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Bill, and when the new system comes into force, the Secretary of State will require the same powers, which is why we have introduced amendments Nos. 22 to 25.

On amendments Nos. 19 to 21, we have made it clear throughout that children should be safeguarded and protected from harm and neglect when they are in the care of a child care provider. Hon. Members will recall that during the last day in Committee I made a commitment to look further into whether the Bill should be amended explicitly to address the issue of safeguarding. That commitment was in response to amendments that sought to place a duty on early and later years providers to consider the need to safeguard and promote the welfare of children.

We have considered the matter further and have concluded that that point was well made and that such a provision should be included in the Bill. When children are in the care of a child care provider, it is crucial that they are safeguarded and protected from harm. We propose to strengthen and make explicit the position of safeguarding in the Bill. Rather than introducing an overarching duty with a power to make statutory guidance, we have decided to make it clear in the Bill that matters which may be dealt with by regulations include "arrangements for safeguarding" as well as

"the welfare of the children concerned".

Amendments Nos. 19 to 21 will send a clear signal to providers that they are responsible for safeguarding children in their care, which will hopefully contribute to the creation of a culture and ethos that reflects that responsibility. The requirements will be set out in secondary legislation, and they will be checked as part of the registration and inspection arrangements. They will be mandatory, and a breach by a provider may result in registration being removed. Such requirements may include the implementation of the appropriate child protection procedures based on current national standards. In addition, providers must meet certain registration requirements in order to be registered in the first place, including that they are not unsuitable to work with young children. They will not be granted registration if, for example, there is information on enhanced criminal records disclosures that suggests that they are unsuitable to work with children.

Tim Loughton (Conservative, East Worthing and Shoreham)

The amendments deal with child protection, which we have raised before. A lot of water has flowed under the bridge in the three months in which we have been waiting patiently for the final stages of this Bill. I am delighted that we have been joined by a Childcare Bill veteran, my hon. Friend the Member for Putney (Justine Greening)—it seems so long ago when the Bill was in Committee. I have also been joined by two new recruits who will beef up our whole approach to children and child care: my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Mr. Goodman), who is shadow spokesman for child care, and my hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mrs. Miller), who is a member of our education team and who speaks on children's issues, young people and families. That shows that we take our cross-departmental responsibilities on children very seriously.

Annette Brooke (Liberal Democrat, Mid Dorset and North Poole)

I applaud that breadth of experience, but we frequently refer to Wales in our work on children's issues.

Tim Loughton (Conservative, East Worthing and Shoreham)

We could create even more of an imbalance between the Front Bench and the Back Benches by drafting in some of our hon. Friends from the shadow Wales team, who take child protection seriously. We have discussed the matter with them and our colleagues in the Welsh Assembly, because the issue of child protection extends beyond Offa's dyke.

Government new clause 5 amends schedule 9A to the Children Act 1989. It is frustrating when Acts are amended by subsequent legislation and when we are provided only with the original legislation. My copy of the Children Act 1989 provided by the Table Office does not include schedule 9A, which was added later. As a general point, it would be useful if the Table Office were to keep supplies of updated legislation, because I have been unable to obtain the exact wording of schedule 9A. Perhaps the Minister will be kind enough to provide hon. Members with the original wording.

On amendments Nos. 19 and 20, we are waiting for the final details on the arrangements for safeguarding children, and it would be interesting to know when they will be published. In the past few days, the Government have published the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Bill, and a lot of detail is required on barring, vetting and appeal mechanisms, so we are being asked to accept the amendments on trust.

Government amendment No. 22 states that someone can be disqualified from registration

"on grounds relating to his health".

The Minister has provided a couple of examples—of people suffering from alcohol or substance misuse. If people have ongoing medical conditions that mean that they may not be up to the job, they will be disqualified, presumably on a temporary basis, until they are—hopefully—treated successfully. What about other conditions? What about people who have HIV? What about people who are suffering from minor mental health conditions? Can the legislation be used to exclude or disqualify people from working in child care if they are suffering from one of those two conditions, which may not be deemed by many people as sufficiently serious or germane to the subject to merit their being disqualified completely from working with children? That is particularly true of people who have minor mental health problems or who have their HIV condition under control and who take all precautions on contamination. I fear that those conditions could be used to discriminate against people who are already stigmatised because they are suffering from a mental illness or have an HIV condition. I would be grateful if the Minister can confirm that the clause could not be used for the purposes for which I am sure she does not intend it to be used.

Government amendment No. 24 says that disqualification can happen if

"he has been given a caution in respect of an offence of a prescribed kind".

Government amendment No. 25 refers to section 65 of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998. That part of the Act, which gives the definitions of cautions and reprimands, can catch a lot of people. The definitions of when it is appropriate to give reprimands or warnings include when

"an offence is not so serious as to require a charge to be brought."

Will the Minister indicate the sorts of warnings or reprimands that she thinks were not sufficiently serious to merit a full charge under that Act, but are deemed sufficiently serious that those people should not then come into child care contact with children? In effect, it is possible that a teenager who in a moment of high spirits did something that was not serious enough for them to be charged and given a criminal record, but to which they admitted guilt by accepting a reprimand or a warning, could find when they tried to embark on a career in child care or some other form of contact with children, that they are exempted. It seems draconian to exempt a whole group of people who are not on the face of it a danger to children as most of us might term it.

There is another issue that I hope that the Minister will deal with when we come to discuss the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Bill, if she is handling it. We need to be able to distinguish between the severity of offences. If a 17-year-old boy or girl has sexual relations with a 15-year-old boy or girl minor, that is against the law. When set against a convicted paedophile who downloads child pornographic images on the internet and engages in molestation of children, I think that most of us would agree that those two offences are on an altogether different scale. There should be some balance in the Bill. Otherwise, people who end up accepting a reprimand or a warning under that wide-ranging section of the Crime and Disorder Act, on the basis that that was the most sensible thing for them to do at the time so that they could move on, may find that it has undermined their entire potential career in the child care work force.

I heard about an example of that recently. A mother had intervened to stop her son being beaten up by a school colleague who was something of a bully. Without going into the detail of the whole episode, it ended up with her being taken to the police station and being advised to accept a caution for her supposed aggression in separating those children. Given her telling of the story, with other witnesses corroborating it, I have no doubt that what she did was anything more than trying to drag a bully off her son. She thought nothing of it and took the caution. A few years later she applied for a job to work with children in the local youth service. The caution came up and, lo and behold, counted against her so that she could not get the job. That is a high price to pay for somebody who was protecting her son.

It is right to seek to disqualify people who are a serious threat to children from working with children, because that needs to be tightened up. Conservative Members have been critical of the loopholes and laxness in the system that have allowed serious sex offenders to carry on teaching, in particular, and working in the health service. That is why we will, at the appropriate time, welcome many of the measures in the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Bill. However, we are in danger of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. I ask the Minister to give us some assurances on the subject.

Government amendment No. 28 is a technical amendment on which we have no comment. Government amendment No. 29 amends the long title of the Bill. It is usually my job to try to change the long titles of Bills that are to do with children. I applaud the Minister for following my example, as many of them are a disaster.

I turn to amendment No. 49, which stands in my name and those of my hon. Friends. Our amendment gives a slightly different angle on the whole subject of protecting children. It would add the words, "child protection arrangements", to clause 12, which deals with the duty to provide information, advice and assistance. It would be appropriate, particularly given the furore in recent months over sex offenders working in environments where they will be involved with children, to do everything that we can to reassure parents that local authorities and child care providers have gone that extra mile to ensure that their children can go to the nursery with every reasonable measure having been taken to ensure that the people with whom they will come into contact have been properly vetted.

It would enhance the thrust of clause 12 if an additional piece of information were provided to parents and prospective parents to give an indication of what child protection arrangements have been established by the local authority and are demanded of child care providers, and whether they are being put in place, adhered to, maintained and updated where appropriate by those child care providers. That would be a sensible enhancement of the Bill to give parents a degree of assurance that they are giving their children into the charge of people in whom they can have the greatest confidence, so that they can be sure that such people are there in the interests of the children, not because they harbour some other, less desirable intentions towards those children.

I hope that the amendment is constructive. If the Minister is unable to incorporate it into the Bill now, I hope that it might be considered later, or at least put into regulations for local authorities to follow so that this important issue is taken into account.

Helen Goodman (Labour, Bishop Auckland)

The Minister will recall that in Committee I was concerned that there appeared to be a loophole on the safeguarding provisions for child care operators in chapter 4—that is, those with voluntary registration. I therefore welcome her statement on safeguarding and the read-across to the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Bill. I want to emphasise on the record that that Bill now stipulates the following:

"Under the new scheme, where work, whether paid or unpaid, involves frequent teaching, caring for or otherwise working closely with children, the employer will be required to check that their employees are not barred from working with children, and they will be committing an offence and will face penalties if they employ a person so barred. This will include those working in childcare not registered by Ofsted."

I am most grateful for that tightening up of the situation.

Annette Brooke (Liberal Democrat, Mid Dorset and North Poole)

I, too, was generally pleased with the amendments. Again, there were no accompanying notes. I picked up the word "health" and I was not sure what it covered, but I believe that the same expression is used in the Protection of Children Act 1999—POCA—list. There may be additional information that I have not had time to find. It would therefore have been helpful to have the information. I have asked a series of parliamentary questions about checks on child care and I imagine that the written statement, which I have not seen, will add to the information that I have gleaned.

I, too, am pleased that the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Bill will apply to child care and that the list or lists—however it ultimately works out—will have to be checked. However, it prompts the question why criminal record checks are not required in unregulated settings, such as in a crèche that provides under two hours of child care, which I keep mentioning. I had hoped that amendment No. 49 would pick up that point, but its approach is from a slightly different angle. I am still worried that parents do not know that criminal record checks are not carried out on those in unregulated settings. However, I agree that it is helpful to know that the lists will have to be checked before anybody can work with young people.

I am pleased with the safeguarding amendments—Nos. 19, 20 and 21. They tie in with other parts of the Bill. However, in Committee, we discussed at great length whether the measure should include the word "may" or "must". The amendments, which refer to

"the arrangements for safeguarding the children concerned"

apply to subsections of clauses that state:

"The regulations may provide"

for the following matters. On safeguarding, the word should be "must", as we argued in Committee. The safeguarding amendments make it even more important to revisit the "may" and "must" argument, which I will not discuss at great length because we spent much time on it in Committee. However, it is worth raising it again because we have changed the measure and our awareness is heightened about the necessity of safeguarding and protecting. I therefore ask the Under-Secretary to reconsider the matter.

Maria Eagle (Labour, Liverpool, Garston)

I thank hon. Members for being positive about the changes that amendments Nos. 19, 20 and 21 would make to include safeguarding in the Bill. I am glad that the proposals have been generally welcomed.

Let me deal with the comments of the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) on amendment No. 49. Towards the end of his remarks, he suggested that, although we might not be able to incorporate it in the Bill, we might take a great deal of interest in its substance. I am happy to give him that assurance. It is important that parents have full information about child protection and safeguarding. Information services clearly play a key role in ensuring that parents can make informed decisions on the suitability of various child care providers for their children. We will publish regulations and guidance to try to ensure that that is clear to parents.

The hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke) stressed the importance of parents understanding the difference between regulated and unregulated settings. I agree. It is our intention that information services can and must tell parents about the registration status of providers and the implications of that, the difference between a registered and a non-registered setting and the checks that registered providers and their staff undergo as opposed to those that staff in unregulated settings may—or may not—undergo.

Information services will need to inform parents about the questions that they should ask when they choose provision. In regulations, we intend to require information services to provide information about keeping children safe in the community. The information might include what parents should do if they have concerns, for example, about child protection or children's welfare. It might also include initiatives or publications from the local safeguarding children boards. Their role in the community is to keep children safe in all sorts of settings in many different places.

We hope that hon. Members agree that the obligations are comprehensive. The guidance and regulations will include holding such information centrally. I therefore hope that the hon. Gentleman will feel able not to press amendment No. 49, with the understanding that we have fully taken on board the points that Opposition Members made about the importance of information for parents and its centrality to what parents require when they choose provision.

Let me deal with some of the points made by the hon. Member for Worthing—

Tim Loughton (Conservative, East Worthing and Shoreham)

East Worthing and Shoreham.

Maria Eagle (Labour, Liverpool, Garston)

All the easts, norths and wests can be confusing. [Interruption.] Not to mention highs, souths and so on. I am having one of those days. I shall simply refer to the "hon. Gentleman"—that is easier.

The hon. Gentleman made some points about the ill health provisions, which relate to List 99, to try to tease out precisely what was intended. He gave a couple of examples, including HIV infection and minor mental health problems. The provisions will mirror List 99. There will not be a separate list so that a minor health problem could suddenly be taken into account to ban somebody from a child care setting. Ill health will be taken into account only when it is already sufficient to prompt questions about an individual's suitability for teaching children. The provisions will apply to individuals who could already go on List 99 if they are in an education setting. That does not therefore include HIV infection or minor mental health problems. We are considering examples, such as those that I gave earlier, of serious debility arising from ill health that could make somebody completely unsuitable for looking after children in a child care setting.

Tim Loughton (Conservative, East Worthing and Shoreham)

I am grateful for that elaboration but does the Under-Secretary accept that, because the provisions refer simply to "health", an authority, or an individual in it who was so minded, could exclude people in the two categories that I mentioned? That would be neither fair nor appropriate. The provisions give a broad licence to authorities. Will the guidance notes to local authorities state that they were not intended to apply to the examples that I gave?

Maria Eagle (Labour, Liverpool, Garston)

We can make that clear. The provisions apply only to those in an education setting who end up on List 99. They are not intended to be any wider.

The hon. Gentleman raised a constituency case to show the potential dangers of barring on the basis of cautions. He made legitimate points about the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Bill, the way in which we intend to make the new barring and vetting process work and the impact that it will have. He gave the example of a mother who intervened to save a child from being pushed around and ended up with soft information on a Criminal Records Bureau record that caused her problems in working in child care. Those issues are central to the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Bill and establishing the new barring and vetting scheme. We have given the matter considerable thought. We do not intend to provide that any caution would lead to being barred from the children's work force. We would not have such a work force, which could deal with all the jobs and roles in it, if we cast the net too wide. Obviously, it is important to cast it in the appropriate place, however, and that is certainly our intention. It would be our intention to bar on the basis of cautions only for serious sexual or violent offences. We would not want to see people being barred from the child care work force if they had, perhaps sensibly, received a caution for a very minor matter that would not make them a risk to children.

The hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham is right to draw the comparison, which is sometimes age-related, between circumstances that might relate to a similar offence. He used the example of a 17-year-old and a 15-year-old having a relationship, and compared it to the case of a paedophile downloading child porn then wanting to work in the child care work force. Common sense would suggest to most hon. Members that there is a huge difference between those examples.

When the hon. Gentleman sees the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Bill in all its glory, he will understand that we are dealing with precisely where the lines should be drawn in what are sometimes grey areas. However, I do not think, from what he says, that he disagrees too strongly with where we have tried to draw the line. The provisions that we are putting into this Bill try to make consistent the place at which the bar will fall between the education work force and the child care work force. We are trying to tidy up and make consistent the places where the line is drawn in that regard.

I regret that we cannot give the hon. Gentleman the full details of all the relevant measures, but some of them are in another piece of legislation, which we shall consider in the not-too-distant future. I can assure him, however, that we have in mind the issues that he has raised in regard to proportionality. There will also be provision for appeals and for people to make representations in appropriate cases. It is perhaps regrettable that those measures are in a Bill that has yet to come before the House. I am asking hon. Members to take on trust some of those issues in relation to the Childcare Bill. I can assure them, however, that its provisions will be consistent with those of the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Bill in regard to the new barring and vetting scheme, which the House will have plenty of opportunity to consider in great detail in the not-too-distant future.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause read a Second time, and added to the Bill.

New Clause 6 — Best Value: Code of Practice

Paul Goodman (Conservative, Wycombe)

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

Michael Lord (Deputy Speaker, Central Suffolk and North Ipswich)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following: New clause 8—Best Value Provision Of Childcare—

'Any local authority operating a best value regime, in accordance with Part 1 of the Local Government Act 1999 (c. 27), must act in a fair and transparent way in delivering best value obligations with regard to childcare provision, having due regard to any relevant statutory code of practice.'.

Amendment No. 60, in page 4, line 10, clause 6, after 'sufficient', insert

', and is likely to remain sufficient,'.

Amendment No. 5, in page 4, line 15, at end insert

', or

(c) to receive appropriate assistance with children with disabilities or other special needs.'.

Amendment No. 13, in page 4, line 15, at end insert

'or

(c) to sustain caring responsibilities.'.

Amendment No. 35, in page 4, line 15, at end insert—

'(1A) In assessing the requirements referred to in subsection (1) a local authority should have regard to any disabilities of the parents themselves, as defined by the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 (c. 50).'.

Amendment No. 10, in page 4, line 24, at end insert

', and

(c) must consider the quality of local childcare provision with reference to the Ofsted inspection process.'.

Amendment No. 7, in page 5, line 24, clause 8, at end insert—

'(3A) A local authority must establish a complaints procedure for existing or potential childcare providers who have been disadvantaged by local authorities who choose to provide childcare and related services themselves.'.

Amendment No. 31, in page 5, line 26, at end insert—

'(4A) Where childcare is provided by the governing body of a maintained school it must be both fully co-ordinated with other local provision and with the local Children and Young People's Plan, published under section 17 of the Children Act 2004 (c. 31).'.

Amendment No. 32, in page 5, line 34, clause 9, leave out 'other than' and insert 'including'.

Amendment No. 38, in page 6, line 13, clause 11, at end insert—

'(1A) Assessments of sufficiency under subsection (1) must have regard to any Local Area Agreement relating to the local authority.'.

Amendment No. 59, in page 6, line 28, leave out paragraph (a) and insert—

'(a) consult—

(i) parents and prospective parents in their area,

(ii) early years providers in their area, including those in private and voluntary sectors,

(iii) other persons engaged in activities which may improve the well-being of young children in their area, and

(iv) young children in their area.'.

Amendment No. 39, in page 12, line 33, clause 26, at end insert

', having regard to the Local Area Agreement process'.

Paul Goodman (Conservative, Wycombe)

As my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) has pointed out, three months have passed since Second Reading, which was the last opportunity that I had to speak on the Bill, as I did not serve on the Committee. However, today, along with my hon. Friends the Members for East Worthing and Shoreham and for Basingstoke (Mrs. Miller), I have been placed on the Front Bench to speak on child care issues. It is a pleasure to see the Under-Secretary of State for Education and Skills, the hon. Member for Liverpool, Garston (Maria Eagle), whom I last saw when we discussed the Disability Discrimination Bill, although at that time, I did not have the chance to have the kind of detailed exchanges with her in Committee and on Report that we might be about to have now.

The new clauses and amendments are about sufficiency, but they are also, no less importantly, about sustainability, contestability and fairness in child care provision. These matters were explored to some degree in the Committee proceedings that I have read, but there is yet more action to be taken on them. The Government are formally signed up to work in partnership with PVI—private, voluntary and independent—providers, and they are very proud of that. When the Minister for Children and Families replied to the Second Reading debate, she gave the House statistics on the child care provision that is made by the private and voluntary sector. She will be aware, however, as the issue was raised in Committee, that some PVI providers and others are concerned that the playing field is not as level as it might be, and that the mixed economy in child care is, to some extent, under threat.

In some ways, local authorities have an advantage over PVI providers. My hon. Friends gave some examples of that in Committee—including that in regard to capital spending—and I shall not repeat them here. However, when these matters were raised in Committee, the Minister for Children and Families responded to a point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr. Gibb) about a National Day Nurseries Association survey by saying

"for his information, the closure rate of all child care businesses, as recorded by Ofsted, has fallen recently . . . Ofsted's statistics suggest that, since the publication of the 10-year strategy, closure rates for these small businesses have fallen dramatically."—[Official Report, Standing Committee D, 8 December 2005; c. 120–21]

Before I turn to the new clauses and amendments dealing with contestability and fairness, I must tell the Minister that the figures that she gave us do not square with information in written answers that my hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke and I have recently received. According to calculations made by my hon. Friend, some 200,000 places closed in 2004–05, up from 59,500 the previous year. That seems to be an extraordinary increase. I tabled a written question on this matter recently and, according to the answer that I received this week, the latest figures reveal that, in the six months to last September, roughly 114,000 places opened, but some 73,000 closed. In other words, the closure rate appears to be increasing. We used to say that, for every two places that opened, one would close. According to the latest figures—which might not be sustained; we shall have to see—it now appears that, for every five places that open, roughly three are closing.

In short, there is a suspicion that the overall growth in the child care market—which we have certainly seen; there is no doubt about that—could be unsustainable, and that we might be entering a dangerous process of growth and contraction. First comes the growth in the number of places; second comes the closure among the PVI providers as local authority-favoured providers exploit the unevenness of the playing field to expand places; finally, there could be a contraction in local authority places as the flow of Government money into child care places continues to increase but slows down.

If that were to happen, such an outcome would obviously be immensely destabilising for parents, who want certainty, and for children, who need stability. The new clauses and amendments aim to provide more stability and certainty by increasing contestability. They would put into effect some of the recommendations from the excellent CBI report entitled "Children First", which I am sure the Ministers have read.

New clause 6 proposes that an obligation be placed on the Secretary of State, and written into the Bill, to publish a code of practice by the beginning of next year that would ensure that local authorities operating a best practice regime—in practice, that is nearly all of them—act in a fair and transparent way with regard to child care. New clause 8 underpins new clause 6 by directly placing a duty on local authorities to act in such a fair and transparent manner.

Amendment No. 60 would help to write sustainability into the Bill. As drafted, the Bill places a duty on English local authorities—the Liberal Democrats need not worry; I am going to deal with Wales in a minute—to

"secure, so far as is reasonably practicable, that the provision of childcare (whether or not by them) is sufficient to meet the requirements of parents in their area".

I understand that there was some dispute in Committee about the words

"so far as is reasonably practicable".

Inserting the words

"and is likely to remain sufficient"

would place a duty on local authorities to ensure that that sufficiency is sustainable. It is evident from the calculations of my hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke, and from the written answers that we have both received, that there is at the very least a question mark over that sustainability.

Clause 6(1) already obliges local authorities to ensure that

"the provision of childcare . . . is sufficient to meet the requirements of parents . . . who require childcare"

so that they can take up work, education or training, which is admirable. Amendment No. 5 adds a new category of parents who require child care to help them

"to receive appropriate assistance with children with disabilities or other special needs".

I am sure that we have all encountered that group of parents and children in our constituencies. I recently visited a club in my constituency that provides care for children with disabilities and special needs on Saturdays, in order to give parents respite that is desperately needed. The Minister nods: she knows a great deal about these matters from her previous experience as Minister for disabled people.

Amendment No. 35 obliges local authorities to

"have regard to any disabilities of the parents themselves".

Access to child care may be crucially affected if parents have difficulty gaining access to transport. Amendment No. 7 protects the position of

"existing or potential childcare providers who have been disadvantaged by local authorities who . . . provide childcare and related services themselves"

by placing on them an obligation to establish a complaints procedure. Amendment No. 38 proposes use of the local area agreement process, whereby central Government pay bonuses to local authorities that enter into agreed action, to include the creation of a diverse range of providers of children's services or a sustainable local market for child care in England. Amendment No. 39 makes the same provision for Wales.

I have a feeling, based on my experience of previous Bills, that for one reason or another the Government may not accept all the amendments. The Minister may tell us the reason. [Interruption.] My hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham accuses me of pessimism, but it is simply the triumph of experience over hope.

If the Minister has difficulties with our amendments, we shall be keen to hear how the Government will deal with the issues of contestability and transparency. It is clear from the latest child care statistics, which show an increase in the rate of closures, that something very curious is happening in the child care market. Either it is simply a problem of oversupply, or—as the CBI has complained, along with others who aired their complaints in Committee—Government provision is driving some PVI providers out of the market. The question is, as the flow of money slows, what will happen to places that have disappeared and may not be able to return to the market? I look forward to the Minister's reply.

Annette Brooke (Liberal Democrat, Mid Dorset and North Poole)

I have no great disagreement with the hon. Member for Wycombe (Mr. Goodman). I certainly share his concerns about sustainability. We should, however, also be mindful of the problem of affordability. I am sure that there is a desire for child care, but it may not translate itself into demand for reasons connected with funding. That is an enormous problem for the Government. Large sums are needed to make child care affordable, and I cannot offer an easy solution.

I want to concentrate on amendments Nos. 5, 13 and 35, all of which deal with the same issue. The Bill does not cover the provision of child care when parents are workless. In Committee, we pointed out that parents might be workless because they were caring, or because they had disabilities themselves. In such circumstances, access to child care might be even more important. I tabled an amendment suggesting that a local authority "may" rather than "must" have regard to providing child care for workless parents. We could be storing up greater costs in the long run by not providing child care, because of the prioritisation of a hard-pressed local authority, when it is deeply needed by both parents and children.

I remember saying that two deaf parents might have hearing children. The children would really need child care, and the ability to socialise more generally. I am still concerned that the Bill does not even use the word "may" to indicate that in some circumstances local authorities throughout the country—not just the best-funded authorities—may need to provide child care.

It could be said that amendment No. 10 is slightly in disguise. Let me explain. I spent a good deal of time in Committee, and indeed on Second Reading, speaking about quality, because I think that it is crucial. However, humbled and crushed into the ground by all the Ministers' answers, I tabled this minimalist amendment. I listened carefully to Ministers who kept telling me that I need not worry about local authorities' monitoring quality, because there were Ofsted inspections. I therefore suggested the additional instruction that local authorities

"must consider the quality of local child care provision with reference to the Ofsted inspection process".

I merely suggest that local authorities should look at Ofsted reports across the board. I hope the Minister will accept that modest, basic requirement in the spirit in which it is proposed by me and by my hon. Friend the Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Mr. Williams). We recognised that we must define what we meant by "quality"; defining a baseline in Ofsted terms could do the job.

In February the Government issued "A Code of Practice on the Provision of Free Nursery Education Places for Three-and Four-Year-Olds". Its emphasis on quality is welcome. It states:

"Local authorities may also require other providers of nursery education to participate in a quality assurance scheme".

In Committee, I pressed the Minister for answers on the Investors in Children kitemark scheme. Although the answers that I received were reassuring, at a meeting of the all-party parliamentary group for children it was clear that early-years providers were again concerned about the future of Investors in Children. It would be helpful if the Minister could update us on the progress of consultation, and tell us whether there is a commitment to maintaining a generally recognised kitemark, or something similar, for quality assurance.

I stress that such monitoring by Ofsted would be minimalist. The problem would be that monitoring might happen only once every three years. However, Ofsted reports can bring strands together. For example, one report observed that there was a high proportion of child care settings in which not all staff were in place at the time of their opening. There is a need for local authorities to keep an eye on such nurseries.

Amendment No. 31, which we tabled, picks up on the idea that we must have a level playing field. The hon. Member for Wycombe (Mr. Goodman) said that there is a worry that it does not exist. The amendment is fairly modest. I favour neither state nor private provision. I have no agenda on that because I come from an authority that relies on the private and voluntary sector for the bulk of its provision, which is good. However, there are reports from all over the country that some of our important private providers are not satisfied that there is a level playing field, so it is critical that that problem is taken on board.

I tabled amendment No. 59 so that we could return to a matter on which we touched in Committee: consultation with all partners and participants, including young children. I have tabled the amendment to a different clause than I did in Committee because the Minister explained to me that it would not be appropriate for young children to participate in making overall strategy. Amendment No. 59 is a probing amendment that tries to encapsulate the importance of listening to all children. Would it not be groundbreaking to include in the Bill a reference to listening to young children? The Government have funded exciting work on listening to young children, so why not have some recognition of that in the Bill? I think that the amendment could be incorporated in clause 11, but I wait to hear otherwise.

Justine Greening (Conservative, Putney)

I support the amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Mr. Goodman). As hon. Members have already said, the market is mixed. That is one of the values of the market because it ensures that the provision of child care is diverse. An especially diverse group of people lives in my constituency, so the more diverse our provision, the better the choice for my local parents. It is incumbent on the Government to ensure that the Bill facilitates and helps to develop that mixed market, rather than stifles it. It is thus especially important that we have a level playing field for both private child care providers—there are many excellent ones in my constituency—and provision provided by a local authority.

We have heard that for every five child care places that come into being, three are lost, which suggests that there is a huge amount of churn in the market. The Bill places a duty on authorities to assess the local provision of child care, but the churn will make that difficult. It is in everyone's interests to ensure that decisions taken by not only local authorities, but private child care providers, are informed, fair and sustainable so that local authorities do not constantly have to try to assess a situation that is evolving so rapidly that they cannot tell whether the local need for child care provision is being acceptably met.

When we discuss the mixed market, we often forget about the individuals whom we need the market to serve: children. Nurseries may shut down in response to a changing market. However, if the closure is unsustainable, children often find changing their nursery difficult to take. Parents can find it stressful if they suddenly have to find a new child care provider because their existing one was forced out of the market. The more that we can avoid that situation happening unnecessarily, the better.

I especially support amendments Nos. 5 and 35, which would ensure that local authorities would assess parents with disabilities themselves. As my constituency is a London seat, we have perhaps more than our fair share of Victorian buildings, which are not the most accessible in the world. We also have problems with public transport because although the buses are accessible, our local underground is not. It is important that the Bill urges local authorities to consider the accessibility needs and disabilities of parents when determining child care provision so that some people are not disfranchised from a measure that is meant to help absolutely everyone.

Beverley Hughes (Labour, Stretford and Urmston)

I welcome the hon. Member for Wycombe (Mr. Goodman) on his debut to the Front Bench. As he implied, I am well aware of his responsibilities because of the dozens of parliamentary questions that he has assiduously put my way, the answers to which he used to good effect today. It is good to see him on the Front Bench. We are considering a large group of new clauses and amendments, which cover a range of slightly different issues relating to the general matter of sufficiency, so I will try to deal with them in a way that makes coherent sense.

The hon. Gentleman talked about the role of local authorities at the start of his speech. We have stressed the importance of that role throughout the Bill's passage. A local authority is the strategic holder of the ring when making sure that there is a sufficiency of child care places for parents in their area. I appreciate that he wants to utilise all the levers that are already in the system to ensure that there is good local authority practice, sustainability and the level playing field about which he spoke. Several of the amendments represent proposals on best value and local area agreements. Although I appreciate the intention behind them, there is perhaps a misunderstanding about the way in which best value and local area agreements work at present.

There is no need for a separate statutory code such as that in new clause 6 because all the functions carried out by a local authority are automatically covered by the best value regime and the guidance that has already been produced. The new clause would lead to a piecemeal change whereby a different duty of best value operated solely in relation to child care provision. Such a change would be not only confusing for local authorities, but unnecessary.

I can make a similar point about new clause 8 because fairness is an intrinsic part of the best value regime that has already been legislated for. Local authorities must have regard to the combination of economy, effectiveness and efficiency. In doing so, they must also have regard to a range of considerations that include fairness and transparency. New clauses 8 and 6 together imply that special arrangements would be needed for the child care duty, and that is not the case.

Amendment No. 60 relates to future sustainability. Again, I understand what hon. Members desire, and I support that, but the Bill already imposes a duty on local authorities to secure a sufficiency of child care. The word "secure" implies a duty for continuing effect. As long as the duty remains in place and is phrased in that way, the requirement is for the local authority to ensure sustainability in the future. Local authorities have to consider and plan for future changes that may have an implication on the requirements.

Maria Miller (Conservative, Basingstoke)

Will the Minister pick up on the issue that most concerns us? We have teased out in parliamentary questions the sheer volume of places lost in the nursery sector. The figures that she kindly supplied to me only this week show that more than 200,000 places are being lost. We are most concerned about that trend and I would value her specific comments on it.

Beverley Hughes (Labour, Stretford and Urmston)

I do not think that there is a conflict in the way in which Conservative Members have selected part of the data that is available to us and to Ofsted on the total picture in relation to closure and opening rates of child care places. When referring to lower closure rates, until recently I have referred to total closures as a share of the total stock in places, including full day care, child minders and out-of-school clubs. The Ofsted data show that that rate has fallen quarter by quarter right across the board since the launch of the child care strategy.

I take it that Opposition Members are referring only to private sector places—

Maria Miller (Conservative, Basingstoke)

They cover the majority of such provision.

Beverley Hughes (Labour, Stretford and Urmston)

Certainly, but there was an implication that the Ofsted data that I quoted were incorrect. The data go right across the board and show that there is much more stability in the sector as whole, although there are changes in the private sector market, as there are in any private sector market.

Paul Goodman (Conservative, Wycombe)

For the sake of clarity, the Minister is saying that her contention in Committee—that

"closure rates for these small businesses . . . have fallen dramatically."—[Official Report, Standing Committee D, 8 December 2005; c. 121.]—

is consistent with the figures that she has given, whereby approximately 128,000 places closed between 2003 and 2004 and approximately 187,000 places closed from April 2004 to March 2005. That is an increase. I do not understand how it is consistent with a 10 per cent. fall.

Beverley Hughes (Labour, Stretford and Urmston)

I do not have those figures, but I agree that there is churn in the private sector part of the child care market. It is not significantly greater than the general figures that I have seen on churn in other parts of the private sector market not related to child care. Private businesses stop trading and operating. The level of that in the child care market is not significantly greater than it is in other private businesses. If we look across the sector as a whole, in terms of the number of places that are being opened and the number that are closing, across the piece Ofsted data show that the rate of closure has fallen quarter by quarter since the child care strategy started and that, on balance, the net rate of places is increasing, because the rate of increase is greater than the rate of closure.

Maria Miller (Conservative, Basingstoke)

It is worth teasing out the information a little further. The figures are clear. We have seen a seismic difference in closure of nursery places over the past two years. The year before last, 59,000 places closed; last year, 200,000 places closed. The feeling we get is that that is reducing the take-up of nursery places. At the moment, the figures show that nurseries are running at 79 per cent. capacity, which is well below the level that is financially viable. That came out in the Public Accounts Committee debate on the subject two years ago.

I want the Minister to focus on that. The difference between 59,000 and 200,000 closures is enormous. As my hon. Friend the Member for Putney (Justine Greening) said, it results in uncertainty for children and working parents, which we are not happy about.

Beverley Hughes (Labour, Stretford and Urmston)

I think the hon. Lady will agree that she is using figures up to the end of December 2004. It is the case that, as the strategy was developing, there was turbulence in the system as private providers came into being. Perhaps they did not have the sustainability and went out of business, and some child care places were lost in that sector. I have not got the relevant figures with me, but I shall ensure that the hon. Lady gets them if she does not have them; however, I suspect that the hon. Member for Wycombe (Mr. Goodman) has them. On reading those figures, she will see that since December 2004 there has been much greater stability, even in that part of the child care market catered for by private-sector providers. So there has been much greater stability not only across the board, but in that particular part of the market, in the past 15 to 18 months. The market is settling down and we are not seeing the degree of churn that existed 18 months to two years ago, to which the hon. Lady referred. That said, I am concerned about this issue. Like the hon. Lady and the hon. Member for Wycombe, we want a diverse and varied market that includes the private sector. As with the voluntary sector, where the private sector achieves good quality provision, we want local authorities to work with it to develop and grow such provision.

I turn to amendments Nos. 38 and 39 and local area agreements. I appreciate the attempt to use existing levers to ensure that local authorities are working in real partnership, but there are several difficulties with citing local area agreements. First, they apply to England only; secondly, they are voluntary agreements and have no statutory basis, so we could not include them Bill. As I have hinted, because the local area agreement process does not exist in Wales, amendment No. 39 is not appropriate.

A number of amendments—Nos. 5, 35, 13 and 59—deal with the ways in which local authorities relate to various groups of people who might want to use child care in their areas. On amendments Nos. 5 and 13, the child care needs of many of the carers cited is already covered by the duty on local authorities. They will be in—or be seeking to be in—employment, education or training, so they will be part of the population to whom the duty on local authorities will apply. There are also other initiatives to support carers of children or adults—regardless of whether they are in employment, education or training—through the social care and social security system: the carer's allowance, the carer's grant and council tax discounts.

I do acknowledge that parents and carers of disabled children need breaks, and such children also benefit from new experiences and opportunities to interact with other children, away from their families. However, the point is that we do not need new legislation to achieve that. Section 17 of the Children Act 1989, and standard 8, on disabled children, of the national service framework for children, young people and maternity services, already make such provision. We must look to such measures, rather than expanding the duty on local authorities to ensure such provision for disabled families.

Annette Brooke (Liberal Democrat, Mid Dorset and North Poole)

I want to repeat my concern that in the light of scarce funds, local authorities will prioritise. Although I appreciate that in some local authorities there may be considerable funding from social services for places, in others there is not, and no increased funding will be coming on board. Unless the Bill deals with this issue to some extent, the focus will be on working parents and some workless parents could be completely left out, simply because all local authorities have to prioritise. The child poverty target has not been met because just one method is being used to get people back into work; other methods need also to be used. If we focus on a single group, others might be totally overlooked. I am genuinely concerned about this issue.

Beverley Hughes (Labour, Stretford and Urmston)

I appreciate the hon. Lady's concern and I know that it is genuine; she raises these issues because of her regard for such people. We are trying to frame a duty on local authorities to provide sufficient child care, and it is important that in doing so, we strike a balance. It is not that the groups whom the hon. Lady mentions are not important; they are, but we are talking about requiring, in law, local authorities to ensure that sufficient child care is available for certain groups. They will be judged accountable according to where we draw the line for that duty, and the Bill proposes that it should be drawn for working parents and the parents of disabled children.

In fulfilling that duty, local authorities will generally make good-quality child care more available across the board, and I have no doubt that it will be available for people outside the groups to which I have referred. We have to decide what we should require local authorities to guarantee, as far as they reasonably can, and the criteria against which we should judge them. The Bill strikes a reasonable balance in that respect, ensuring that there is more child care for other groups, but not imposing a very high threshold of duty on local authorities.

Amendment No. 35 would place an explicit duty on local authorities to have regard also for the requirements of disabled parents when securing sufficient child care. I agree that the needs of disabled parents must be taken into account and accommodated, although not necessarily by this Bill. A new disability equality duty will come into effect in December this year, requiring all public bodies to ensure that disabled people are treated equally. Obviously, that duty will play a part in what local authorities must provide in connection with this Bill, and that is why the amendment is not necessary.

Amendment No. 59 would include on the face of the Bill the groups that local authorities should consult when carrying out their assessment duty. During the Committee stage, we published a paper outlining our intentions in that regard, and that is still available in the Library of the House. It states clearly that local authorities should consult with parents, carers, providers, employers and local organisations to ensure that the provision meets their needs. As I said in Committee, we will require local authorities by means of regulation to take account of the views of children. I hope that the hon. Lady will be happy with that, as it will give us a quality system for assessing sufficiency.

Other amendments deal with the relationship between the private voluntary sector and schools, the two parts of the sector that will provide child care. As part of the level playing field argument, amendment No. 7 would require local authorities to set up an appeals process to handle the concerns of child care providers. We discussed the matter very thoroughly in Committee, and the arrangements in the Bill will safeguard the very valuable role that the private and voluntary sectors play in maintaining the diverse market that we want to exist.However, as I said in Committee, if local providers still feel that they have been treated unfairly, processes are in place to ensure that they can complain to the local authority.

Secondly, we have said that any complaints received by the local authority must be referred to Ofsted for consideration as part of the joint area review. Thirdly, guidance will make it clear that the authority must inform Ofsted about issues raised in complaints in respect of its analysis of sufficiency and other matters.

Amendments Nos. 31 and 32 deal with the role of maintained schools, and once again are similar to amendments tabled in Committee. I still believe that amendment No. 31 is not necessary, as clause 35 of the Education and Inspections Bill will introduce a new duty for maintained schools to have regard to the children and young persons plan. That will take care of the objective contained in amendment No. 31.

Amendment No. 32 is similarly unnecessary. Maintained providers are already subject to quite stringent requirements in respect of the quality of the services that they provide and of the management of their delegated budgets. Local authorities already have to have in place detailed and well established monitoring and accountability arrangements for budgets in schools and other maintained settings. It follows that financial assistance for child care in schools will be closely monitored in that way. Therefore, the amendments are not necessary.

The hon. Lady rightly pursues the issue of the quality of child care. I hope that she did not feel crushed in Committee, because that was not my intention. I would never seek to do that, especially to the hon. Lady because I know that her sentiments are generally benign, if sometimes a little misguided in terms of how we get where we want to be. I tried to stress in Committee that a substantial part of the Bill—part 3—is about quality, because we are instituting a new regulation and inspection regime, and a new framework for the early years foundation stage as a basis for that regime. That Ofsted framework is the appropriate way to achieve a national consistent standard of achievement. In addition, clause 6 requires local authorities to have particular regard to the need to secure sufficient child care that is eligible for the child care element of the working tax credit. Child care will be eligible for tax credits only if it satisfies the standards set by Ofsted. It does not make sense to require local authorities to duplicate 150 times what we have already established, which is a national organisation that parents trust and that works to consistent standards across the country. That is the way to proceed.

Clause 11 requires local authorities to carry out an assessment of parents' needs for child care. That will not be just an assessment of parents' needs regarding the quantity of child care but of the quality and flexibility of that child care. Our regulations and guidance underpinning that duty will make it clear that local authorities must consider the types and features of child care that parents require.

We have to allow local authorities to exercise leadership in the way that they think best for their area. They are doing so in significant numbers, but that is different from placing them under a requirement that would potentially conflict with or duplicate Ofsted's role. I am the first to agree with the hon. Lady that the quality of child care is crucial, but I do not agree that the amendment is the way to achieve it.

I am afraid that I cannot give hon. Members much comfort in terms of accepting their amendments, but I hope that the reassurances that I have tried to give show that what they seek to achieve is either encompassed in the Bill or in other legislation or regulations. I ask the Opposition to withdraw the new clause and not to press the amendments.

Paul Goodman (Conservative, Wycombe)

The Minister said a moment ago that she had not given us much comfort. I agree, and I shall explain why by returning to the figures. The key word that she used was "churn" and she said that there is a churning of places. She also said that matters had improved since December 2004. From 2003–04 to 2004–05, according to the parliamentary answer that the Minister kindly provided, 16,000 new places were provided, but some 60,000 were closed. We find it hard to see how that can be a churn. Either there is over-supply or there is not a level playing field in the way that the CBI and the National Daycare Nurseries Association have suggested. It must be one or the other.

In her reply, the Minister essentially said that these amendments are a duplication. That was a lawyer's answer. Saying something is a lawyer's answer is not necessarily an uncomplimentary remark; after all, my party was led by a lawyer until recently, and the right hon. Lady's party still is. I was not for a moment claiming that the right hon. Lady is a lawyer, simply that her answer was a good lawyer's answer, and I am sure that she was assisted by her Department in that. However, it seems to us that although the Bill may contain the measures necessary to ensure that a level playing field is established, it is hard to see them. We do not intend to press these amendments to the vote, but our colleagues in another place will require more reassurance about how the Minister's Department is going to provide a level playing field once the Bill comes into effect. At the moment, there is a very strong suggestion that the playing field is not level.

I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.

Motion and clause, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 1 — General Duties of Local Authority in Relation to Well-being of Young Children

Maria Miller (Conservative, Basingstoke)

I beg to move amendment No. 1, in page 1, line 7, leave out 'reduce inequalities between' and insert

'show how it is raising the quality of outcomes of the most disadvantaged'.

Sylvia Heal (Deputy Speaker, Halesowen and Rowley Regis)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments: No. 34, in page 1, line 8, at end insert—

'(c) show how it is raising the quality of outcomes of the most disadvantaged young children.'.

No. 40, in page 1, line 11, after 'health', insert 'development'.

No. 52, in page 2, line 1, at end insert—

'(f) their relationship with their parents or carers.'.

No. 41, in page 2, line 2, leave out 'set targets for' and insert 'establish procedures for assessing'.

No. 2, in page 2, line 5, leave out 'reduction of inequalities between' and insert

'improvement in the quality of outcomes of the most disadvantaged'.

No. 36, in page 2, line 7, at end insert—

'(3A) Procedures for assessing the improvements set out in subsection (3) should be based on quality of outcomes, in accordance with the regulations referred to in that subsection.'.

No. 42, in page 2, line 9, leave out 'targets' and insert 'procedures'.

No. 61, in page 2, line 10, leave out 'met' and insert 'adhered to'.

No. 43, in page 2, line 41, clause 3, after 'facilitate', insert 'and maximise'.

No. 56, in page 3, line 1, leave out 'identify' and insert 'target'.

No. 55, in page 3, line 32, clause 4, leave out 'may' and insert 'shall'.

No. 47, in page 4, line 1, leave out clause 5.

No. 11, in page 6, line 37, clause 12, after 'assistance', insert 'for families'.

No. 48, in page 6, line 40, after 'provision', insert ', funding and sustainability'.

Maria Miller (Conservative, Basingstoke)

I was due to serve on the Committee on this Bill, but because of a double booking with Standing Committee on the Equality Bill, I was unable to do so. Equality won out, which is as it should be. I eventually got here, and the hand of fate means that I am involved at the end of the day. I reiterate the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) earlier about the cross-departmental child care team on the Opposition Benches. My hon. Friends the Members for East Worthing and Shoreham and for Wycombe (Mr. Goodman) are part of the official Opposition's strong child care team, and I am pleased to be part of it too.

In Committee there was vigorous debate, particularly on issues that I shall cover in this group of amendments. It is a diverse group—something of a shopping list—but these are important amendments and are worthy of further consideration. This group focuses on the duties of local authorities to ensure the well-being of children and I shall subdivide it further so that the debate makes sense.

I shall first look at amendments Nos. 1 and 2, which relate to clause 1, about improving the well-being of children. On Second Reading, the Secretary of State stressed the idea of children having the best start in life, and the Opposition wholeheartedly endorse that. We believe that amendments Nos. 1 and 2 would instil that ideal more into the Bill. Our concern is that "the reduction of inequalities"—the wording currently in the Bill—could be interpreted in a number of ways and lacks the clarity that legislation should provide. Clarity of direction is vital. We believe that the Bill needs to focus on raising standards—an objective that we all share. We have heard today that the Government have failed to meet their target for reducing child poverty, and we share their obvious concern about that. Many hundreds of thousands of children who should have been out of poverty remain in it.

We have to focus on what we can do to close the gap between rich and poor, because it must be addressed in terms not merely of targets, which can sometimes create perverse outcomes, but of raising standards for all, especially the quality of experience for the most disadvantaged groups. We believe that the Bill should, and will, set the tone and ethos for what we want from child care. The Bill is important because every child deserves the opportunity to maximise his or her potential.

In Committee, some philosophical differences were expressed about the reduction of inequalities versus improvement in the quality of outcomes. I hope that we can agree that we should continue to work on those points, but we may be closer together than the Committee debate suggested. I refer to an interview given by the Prime Minister on "Newsnight" in 2001, when he clearly stated that the Government's objective was to level things up. He said:

"Surely the important thing is to level up those people that don't have opportunity in our society."

We wholeheartedly endorse that view, which our amendments would make much clearer in the Bill. Our philosophy is simple: to maximise the potential of children so that no child is held back or left behind. The amendments would help to make that clearer to the people who implement the legislation.

It will be useful to deal with amendments Nos. 34, 43 and 56 together. They all refer to improving children's well-being, which relates to the Government's objective of ensuring that we help the people who need it most, which the Secretary of State stressed on Second Reading. The objective of the amendments is to focus the Bill on doing exactly that. As child poverty remains of great concern, I hope that the Government find the amendments useful in ensuring that our objectives in the legislation are clear.

I am sure that the House agrees that we have much to learn from other experience of child care provision. The US head start programme is interesting. It puts tremendous focus on the most disadvantaged families and has resulted in significant, measurable improvements in language, social development and parental interaction with their children, in terms of reading and discipline. In the UK, Sure Start is a welcome help for the most disadvantaged, although it covers only 40 per cent. of disadvantaged children. Indeed, my constituency, which has areas of significant disadvantage, receives no such help, although I am pleased that the situation will change in the future with the establishment of children's centres.

As the Minister of State has stressed, when I have put questions about the results of Sure Start, these are early days, but is the programme targeted enough on the most disadvantaged? In the light of the national evaluation of Sure Start, will the Minister consider whether more can be done directly to underpin and support the most disadvantaged groups, especially those important groups that the research showed were as yet unsupported by the programme—lone parents, teenage mothers and workless households. We all feel that they deserve more support.

We all want to improve the well-being of children in the broadest sense, but it is vital that support for the most disadvantaged is at the heart of our discussions. All three amendments would focus resources more actively on those most in need, which we hope will do most to help children in poverty. The proposals would not merely facilitate but maximise access to the services on offer and not merely identify but target the parents most in need, making the Bill much more active and its support more directed.

We are concerned about the structure of the Sure Start programme, which needs some attention. It is rather loose and variable in execution, so it can be difficult to measure outcomes. Our key concern is that we are ensuring help for those who need it, and perhaps that is not ingrained in the implementation of Sure Start to date, as evidenced by the Birkbeck study, which was published in November 2005. I am, of course, aware of the supplementary pamphlets and notes that have been issued as a result of that research. I ask the Minister to comment on whether she feels that that background is sufficient to cause the change that we probably need to see in Sure Start to underpin those important groups.

The Government clearly have continuing problems with poverty levels. We have been targeting to reduce poverty, but hundreds of thousands of children whom the Government were hoping to lift out of poverty have not been removed from it. The Institute for Fiscal Studies has estimated that an additional £1.4 billion will be needed to hit the Government's targets by 2010. Obviously that is down to the Chancellor, who must ponder and think about it. We accept on both sides of the House that work is an important way out of poverty. Indeed, that was reiterated this morning by a Minister speaking on behalf of the Department for Work and Pensions during an interview. The Bill is an important way to support parents with the aim of getting back to work in mind. If we are to ensure that the proposed legislation reaches its maximum potential, there may be room to consider the amendments to ensure that we are focusing our activities in the right direction.

Amendments Nos. 40 and 52 were tabled to offer some support and help in improving the well-being checklist. What is on the checklist will dictate the approach that the local authority takes. As we all know, what happens to us as children influences us for the rest of our lives. The way in which we assess the progress of children is of paramount importance.

Amendment No. 40 is about the physical and emotional health of children. I am sure that we all realise that mental health is a long-term issue that develops over time. It is not static, and cannot be considered at only one point in time. We need to consider the mental health development of children, and that is a continuing process.

As for amendment No. 52, there is the recognition that children's relationships with their parents are important in their long-term well-being. I was somewhat surprised to see that that was not recognised in the Bill, particularly after some of the debates that we have had recently on the Children and Adoption Bill, during which we all agreed on the importance of the relationship with parents. This should be a pivotal element of the well-being checklist, and I ask the Minister to consider that carefully. The amendment would lead to a constructive improvement.

With amendment No. 36, we try to draw attention to the importance of the quality of outcomes. As part of improving the well-being of children, we are improving access. We are also improving the quality of child care on offer. We have already discussed our disappointment that so many private and voluntary nursery places have come to an end, although there has been a net gain. We see that as a positive move, but we are concerned that 200,000 places have been closed.

We need to ensure that when, or rather if, the Bill is enacted, local authorities focus on quality, not quantity alone. We feel strongly about that, and the issue was debated thoroughly in Committee. It is worthy of being set out in the Bill, and the amendment would do that. It would put into the Bill the importance of quality and the importance of raising the quality of outcomes, which should be at the heart of the legislation.

Amendments Nos. 41, 42 and 46 have been tabled to encourage better acknowledgement of the importance of giving local authorities some room to manoeuvre in their local approach to putting child care in place in their areas. We all know that our constituencies are diverse—Basingstoke is a mixture of suburban and rural communities—and even within a single constituency and local authority area the Bill will have to deal with a great deal of diversity. The amendments would give the local authorities the ability to adapt to local needs, and more autonomy, making sure that they were not just driven by centrally dictated targets but could take into account what was happening in their own communities.

Amendment No. 55 has a specific aim, and echoes the debate about "may" and "must" in Committee. Clause 4 deals with the duty of local authorities to work with relevant partners such as the national health service in the delivery of integrated child care. Members on both sides of the House will agree that collaborative working is vital if the Bill is to succeed. The Bill makes it clear that local authorities must work with their relevant partner agencies, and clause 4(4) says that they

"may . . . provide staff, goods, services, accommodation . . . and maintain a pooled fund."

That wording suggests that there is a choice. The Government may have overlooked that usage, but we need to be certain that that is the case.

We know from debates on the health service that there is enormous pressure on finances in this area, and that one in four primary care trusts are in financial deficit. When we talk to Ministers about the provision of services in other areas we are told that that is the responsibility of local management. I have asked Health Ministers on a number of occasions about the provision of local health services in north Hampshire, but they tell me that that is dictated by local management. We need to take that into consideration when we assess this part of the Bill. Can the Minister explain where the well-being of children will fall in local NHS priorities? The amendments recognise the need for a statutory directive in the Bill to ensure that it can achieve what it sets out to achieve.

Finally, after that rather long shopping list of amendments, amendment No. 47 would remove clause 5. Under that clause, the Minister could redefine the nature of early childhood services, thus giving her unlimited powers to change the group of people whom the Bill is intended to help. How would those services be redefined? Will she explain why that provision was included by telling us when and why it would be used? I commend the amendments to the House, and I look forward to the Minister's response.

Michael Wills (Labour, North Swindon)

Briefly, in the light of the comments by the hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs. Miller) about local autonomy, I would welcome reassurance from my right hon. Friend the Minister that levers will be in place in future so that her Department can ensure that the money given to local authorities will not be diverted from the poorest children in the poorest areas of each local authority. I would also welcome an assurance that the Department will continue to monitor local authority spending so that it remains focused on the children who need it most.

Annette Brooke (Liberal Democrat, Mid Dorset and North Poole)

I listened with great interest to the hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs. Miller) because, as many of us recall, the subject matter of amendment No. 1 generated a great deal of debate in Committee. I explained at the time that I had intended to support it—until I heard the arguments for it. Despite the fine words that we have just heard, amendment No. 1 would rip the heart out of the Bill. It is essential that "reduce inequalities" be left in.

I was interested in the Conservative amendment because it had been pointed out to me that inequalities could be reduced by pulling the more advantaged down. Despite clause 1(1)(a), I still have a concern that that could happen, so I tabled amendment No. 34, with which I tried to achieve the best of all worlds. I stole the Conservatives' words, left in "inequalities" and added paragraph (c) to make the same point.

As a belt and braces measure I tabled another amendment, which was not selected but might be even better. If paragraph (a) read

"improve the well-being of every young child in their area"

that sounds like quite an undertaking, but the phrase "every young child" is used elsewhere, so there is a precedent. I could not support amendment No. 1 which, by removing "reduce inequalities", would undermine everything in the Bill.

Several amendments refer to targets. We discussed that in Committee and we are all concerned about targets being centrally set and possibly having unintended consequences. There is an argument for requiring the monitoring of performance, rather than the setting of targets.

Our amendment No. 11 relates to the duty to provide information, advice and assistance. My hon. Friend the Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Mr. Williams) proposes that clause 12(1) should state:

"An English local authority must establish and maintain a service providing information, advice and assistance for families in accordance with this section."

I have previously expressed great concern about the fact that in the entire Bill there is no mention of families. This, if anywhere, is where such a reference should be. We want advice for parents and support for children, but the relationships and dynamics within the family are greater than the sum of its parts, whatever form the family unit takes. If clause 12(1) included a reference to families, we would ensure that information about a raft of family support measures was available. That small amendment would greatly enhance the Bill.

We have had a useful debate on this large group of amendments and tackled the underlying philosophy of the Bill. The wording of clause 1(1) and (3) could be improved to make doubly sure that we do not reduce inequalities by pulling the more advantaged down.

Ann Coffey (Labour, Stockport)

I shall speak briefly on amendment No. 1, which seeks to remove the general duty on a local authority to

"reduce inequalities between young children in their area"

and replace that with

"show how it is raising the quality of outcomes of the most disadvantaged".

After we debated the matter in Committee, it was still unclear why the Conservative Opposition want to remove the provision, and their position remains unclear.

In Committee, Conservative Members argued that each child should be treated individually and not in relation to another child. The Bill includes a general duty to improve the well-being of young children in an area, and the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr. Gibb) suggested in Committee that there could be a perceived duty in some areas to make it more difficult for the best nurseries, because by allowing them to flourish inequalities are somehow increased, although I am not sure how that would happen.

Paul Goodman (Conservative, Wycombe)

My hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr. Gibb) was making this point: when one attempts to reduce inequalities, one first attempts to bring up the standard of those who have fallen behind, but if one cannot do that, there is only one other option—bringing down the standard of those who are ahead.

Ann Coffey (Labour, Stockport)

I am not sure how that could possibly happen. The hon. Gentleman's comment reflects the Conservative party's general paranoia about levelling down. Conservative Members seem to think that there will be a huge move up and down the country to lower outcomes for the better-off in order to achieve a reduction in inequalities. I do not know how they think that will happen or the mechanism that they think we will use.

Paul Goodman (Conservative, Wycombe)

It is simple: the law depends on the words in the Bill, which are "reduce inequalities". If it proves impossible to bring up the standard of those who are being left behind to those who have gone ahead, there is only one option, which is to bring down the standard of those who have gone ahead to those who have been left behind.

Ann Coffey (Labour, Stockport)

The hon. Gentleman has demonstrated the paranoia to which I have referred. I do not understand what mechanism will be used to achieve that levelling down.

Ed Miliband (Labour, Doncaster North)

Since the Bill was in Committee, the right hon. Member for West Dorset (Oliver Letwin), who is policy chief of the Conservative party, has given an interview to The Daily Telegraph, in which he said that it is a priority to reduce the gap between rich and poor—in other words, to reduce inequalities. Conservative Front Benchers may be out of step with their party on this issue.

Ann Coffey (Labour, Stockport)

I thank my hon. Friend for sharing that policy development with Conservative Front Benchers, who are clearly unaware of it. A concentrated effort would be required from all public agencies on levelling down, because all the evidence suggests that better educated and better informed people are, for example, changing their diets, taking more exercise and attending preventive health checks, with the result that their life chances and those of their children are improving at a better rate than those of less well informed people. I imagine that the only way to lower outcomes for the more advantaged would be to stop them getting information in the hope that they will stop doing the things that are improving their health.

All the evidence suggests that more effort is required to find ways to improve outcomes for the most disadvantaged. The hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs. Miller) has argued that outcomes will improve for the most disadvantaged if effort is concentrated on them, so it does not matter that outcomes for the advantaged are rising. However, if the gap widens and less advantaged people perceive that their life opportunities are much less than those of more privileged people, then they will think that the situation is unjust, and it will become more difficult to sustain a multicultural, diverse community.

Maria Miller (Conservative, Basingstoke)

My argument is focused on raising standards for the most disadvantaged, and I have tabled amendments to focus more of our resources on that group. I feel that we are running the risk of not focusing enough of our energy on those who need help most, and perhaps by inference we are focusing some of our energy on those who do not need help as much.

Ann Coffey (Labour, Stockport)

But focusing on inequalities means that resources are focused on those who have least. That is what a target to reduce inequality does. I do not understand the problem that Conservative Front Benchers have with this.

Returning to relativities and the importance of ensuring that the gap between rich and poor does not increase, I do not want to hark back to the past, but there is a generation of young people in my community who are difficult to help, to train and to employ. They grew up under a Government who believed that relativities did not matter and therefore ignored widening inequalities. I am glad that Conservative Front Benchers are addressing that offending behaviour, but I feel that they still have not quite got it.

Justine Greening (Conservative, Putney)

Action is more important than rhetoric. Under this Government, social mobility has dropped rather than increased. I am pleased that I am in my mid-30s, not my mid-teens, because the prospects for me now would be far bleaker than they were when I was 16.

Ann Coffey (Labour, Stockport)

That is the most unutterable rubbish that I have ever heard in this Chamber. The investment in children's centres is a recognition that we have to do something about disadvantage from an early age. Providing a general duty to address inequalities will lead to the development at a local level of policies that take particular account of helping the most disadvantaged because of the way in which that service provision will then be developed.

For example, extra cash for improving school meals may make a local authority consider giving a subsidy to parents who are just above the level for qualification for free school meals. That would encourage parents to let their children have school meals instead of lunchboxes. As part of that initiative, parents might be encouraged to come in and talk about diet. That might help to reduce inequalities in outcomes in the long term. Without a duty to address inequalities, there will not be the same kind of pressure for innovative thinking at a local level to ensure that in every policy area thought is given to ensuring that outcomes for the most disadvantaged are improved.

Tim Loughton (Conservative, East Worthing and Shoreham)

That is what the amendment says.

Ann Coffey (Labour, Stockport)

Of course that is what it says—that is why I do not understand the hon. Gentleman's problem with the clause on inequality.

I have come to the conclusion that addressing inequalities, beyond warm words, is a step too far for the Conservatives. I believe that this duty, with a huge investment in early years, will mean that from an early age, when it matters most, parents will be supported and extra help will be given to those children, who without it will grow into another disaffected generation excluded from any real opportunity to change their lives.

Roberta Blackman-Woods (Labour, City of Durham)

Before I begin my remarks on amendment No. 1, I want to say what a great privilege it was to serve on the Standing Committee that scrutinised the Bill. Of course, all Standing Committees are riveting, but this one was in a league of its own, as Members from all parties vociferously debated their case. Several divisions arose, particularly on clause 1.

On Second Reading, some of my hon. Friends may not have given enough attention to the importance of clause 1, which does two remarkable things. First, it places a duty on local authorities to improve the well-being of all young children in their area. Secondly, local authorities must reduce inequalities between young children in their area—but not, as the hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs. Miller) suggested, by dumbing down. As subsection l(a) and (b) make clear, inequalities can be reduced only by improving outcomes for the least well-off more quickly and to a greater extent than for others, so that they catch up and the gap is reduced. We debated that at length in Committee. I am sorry that the hon. Lady was not there to hear that debate.

We had many vibrant exchanges in Committee. In the end, the Conservatives did not like the idea of reducing inequalities; instead, they wanted to raise the quality of outcomes of the most disadvantaged, and tabled a similar amendment to that end. The problem is that, if the outcomes for all children continue to improve, those at the bottom could be left even further behind. We know that inequality matters, especially in societies such as ours, where we deal largely with relativities—relative poverty and relative disadvantage—and where parents want to provide more than the basics for their children. At least the Tories made their stance on the issue clear in Committee; the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke) was less clear.

Annette Brooke (Liberal Democrat, Mid Dorset and North Poole)

If the hon. Lady would like to look back at the speech that I made on Second Reading, she would see that I welcomed the mention of the reduction of inequalities. As I have explained, my reason for being concerned about the expression used is the fact that inequality could be reduced simply by bringing the top down, and if subsection (1)(a) relates simply to an average, that is still quite compatible. Even now, an amendment to that subsection is needed—it is not foolproof. However, hon. Members will recall that I was horrified by the comments of the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr. Gibb). No one could dispute the fact that I certainly believe in the reduction of inequalities, and we must talk about less-advantaged children gaining ground more rapidly than others.

Sylvia Heal (Deputy Speaker, Halesowen and Rowley Regis)

Order. I think that the hon. Member for City of Durham (Dr. Blackman-Woods) wanted to continue.

Roberta Blackman-Woods (Labour, City of Durham)

I was referring, of course, to the fact that the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole abstained in the vote on a similar amendment in Committee, and we all concluded that the Liberal Democrats were ambivalent about whether to reduce inequality.

To return to the importance of clause 1, the Child Poverty Action Group reminds us:

"Inequality is damaging because access to goods and services of those on the lowest incomes is intimately connected and affected by the spending power of the richest. Unless the gap between incomes of the richest and poorest is reduced we will continue to be divided by differential, income-related access to the opportunities in society".

So it is terribly important—if we want to reduce inequalities, which Labour Members certainly do—that clause 1 stays exactly how it is, and we celebrate it.

I was not going to make this point, but I am so incensed by the remarks of the hon. Member for Putney (Justine Greening) that I have decided that I need to say something about child poverty. Under the last Conservative Administration, childhood poverty in this country increased massively. At least this Government have started to take enormous numbers of children out of poverty. If you want, I will send you the figures, so that you know exactly how many children were put into poverty by the previous Government.

Sylvia Heal (Deputy Speaker, Halesowen and Rowley Regis)

Order. I remind hon. Members that when they use the word "you" they are referring to the occupant of the Chair, not to the hon. Member whom they have in mind.

Justine Greening (Conservative, Putney)

I hesitate to engage in such a debate again—the one in Committee was particularly heated—but I want to take this opportunity to reassure Labour Members of my own genuinely good intentions in supporting the amendment. All I want is the outcomes of the most disadvantaged children to improve, and stating that explicitly in the Bill would make it absolutely clear to local authorities. I fully understand the concerns, but there is a need to include that explicitly in the Bill, which is why I support the amendment.

Ed Miliband (Labour, Doncaster North)

I shall make a brief contribution because Conservative Front Benchers have unwittingly revealed the problem with today's Conservative party. On the one hand, Conservative Members use rhetoric that makes it sound as though they are caring, sharing, modern and interested in a fairer society, but when it comes to reality, they oppose the concept. Since my earlier intervention, I have done further research and I have a copy of the interview with the new policy chief of the Conservative party, the right hon. Member for West Dorset (Mr. Letwin), in The Daily Telegraph on 23 December 2005. He said:

"Of course, inequality matters. Of course, it should be the aim to narrow the gap between rich and poor."

I do not know whether the Conservative party's policy chief scrutinises Front-Bench amendments but, on the basis of the interview, I cannot believe that he would approve of an amendment that would remove the aim of reducing the gap between the rich and the poor.

Maria Miller (Conservative, Basingstoke)

Of course we are talking about the gap between rich and poor and we take that seriously. Surely the hon. Gentleman should take seriously the Prime Minister's statement on the matter. In a "Newsnight" interview in 2001, he said:

"Surely the important thing is to level up those people that don't have opportunity in our society."

Perhaps the problem that we are revealing today is the gap between the hon. Gentleman and the Prime Minister.

Ed Miliband (Labour, Doncaster North)

I think not. It is clear from the Bill that we both want to improve the well-being of young children and reduce inequalities between them. However, amendment No. 1 would remove the notion that the gap should be reduced. There is a simple explanation for that: in its heart, the Conservative party and its Front Benchers do not want to reduce the gap between rich and poor—they do not believe in that. That is a valid position, but it would be better to admit it. They are at odds with the remarks of the Conservative party's policy chief. Conservative Front Benchers may shake their heads but there is a blatant contradiction between the amendment and the words of the Conservative policy chief.

Tim Loughton (Conservative, East Worthing and Shoreham)

I have sat silently listening to that complete twaddle, although it is reassuring to find that a few subjects remain on which the old class war mentality of the Labour party leaps to the fore. If we suggested that we should favour the best off, the hon. Gentleman would have a good case. If we suggested that the gap should remain, he would have a good case. However, the wording of the amendment would replace "reduce inequalities" with

"show how it is raising the quality of outcomes".

That does not mean doing nothing; it means actively raising the quality of outcomes of the least advantaged. That is our intention.

Ed Miliband (Labour, Doncaster North)

If class war is being waged, it is being waged, rather uncharacteristically, by the right hon. Member for West Dorset, who appears to have converted to what the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) describes as "class war"—reducing the gap between rich and poor. However much the hon. Gentleman wriggles or squirms, the policy chief of the Conservative party said that he wants to reduce the gap between rich and poor but the amendment would remove that wording from the Bill. Increasing the outcomes of the most disadvantaged is perfectly consistent with widening the gap between rich and poor. That is at odds with what the Conservative party claims to be its policy.

Annette Brooke (Liberal Democrat, Mid Dorset and North Poole)

It is almost as if crumbs were enough for one group and a feast for another.

Ed Miliband (Labour, Doncaster North)

I agree with the hon. Lady. The Bill should be passed as it stands. Conservative Members need to do some more homework, and especially to read what their policy chief said.

Beverley Hughes (Labour, Stretford and Urmston)

Many of my hon. Friends have stolen my thunder in terms of replying to the debate, but I am grateful to them for doing so. Perhaps I can be briefer as a result.

We have had a short rehearsal today of the debate that we had on this matter in Committee. It is clear that the Conservatives still have not fundamentally understood what we are trying to do. Either they do not understand our intentions or they still feel uncomfortable with them, as they are again trying to take the words "reduce inequalities" out of the Bill. As hon. Members have pointed out, the two paragraphs of clause 1(1) have to be read together. The first provides that an English local authority must

"improve the well-being of young children in their area",

and I am advised by parliamentary counsel that that means all young children in their area. The second paragraph provides that the local authorities must "reduce inequalities". It is clear, if the two provisions are read together, that it is possible to achieve those outcomes only by taking all children upwards in terms of achievements, and by doing so at a faster rate for disadvantaged children. That is how we will close the gap.

The Conservatives are talking the talk, but they cannot yet walk the walk. They have not yet internalised a genuine commitment to the protestations of the right hon. Member for West Dorset (Mr. Letwin) and of their own leader, who has said that the test of Conservative policies will be to show

"how they help the most disadvantaged . . . not the rich".

The Conservatives' amendment is inconsistent with the policies that their own leaders are putting forward. To echo the points made by my hon. Friends the Members for Doncaster, North (Edward Miliband), for City of Durham (Dr. Blackman-Woods) and for Stockport (Ann Coffey), I just wonder whether the Conservative leadership is aware of the amendments that have been tabled. We hear their protestations in the media, but their default position, which we have seen in Committee and again today, is to be against reducing inequalities and not to be prepared to see our provision written into the Bill.

I am glad that the hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs. Miller) and her party now think that child poverty is something that we should be reducing, rather than increasing, as happened under the previous Conservative Government to a massive extent. If we had continued in the direction in which they were going, the number of children in poverty would have increased by more than 800,000. This Government are going in the right direction.

Amendments Nos. 40, 36 and 52 deal with the definition of well-being. There is considerable misunderstanding about the intention of these amendments, because they attempt to rewrite the Children Act 2004, the "Every Child Matters" policies, and the five outcomes enshrined in those provisions. The Childcare Bill is using those five outcomes as the basis for the outcomes duty and other provisions, which is why we have incorporated them as they are. They are the outcomes that children and families identified, and they were endorsed in the 2004 Act. We are really not in the business of rewriting them now. I agree that relationships with parents are important, certainly in helping to achieve those outcomes, but local authorities should not be responsible for the quality of relationships between children and their parents. However, we want to help parents to support their children. We are sticking with the five outcomes, and that is why I am unable to accept those three amendments.

I am quite puzzled by amendments Nos. 41, 42 and 61, which deal with target setting. We have just had a big debate about the importance of improving outcomes for children and the duty on local authorities to achieve that. The amendments would replace the targets for local authorities to achieve those outcomes with "procedures for assessing". I am at a loss to understand how the Conservatives feel that criteria for judging whether a local authority has achieved those outcomes for children can instead be defined as "procedures for assessing". They seem to want to replace an outcome criterion with a process criterion. That is not what we are about. We are interested in outcomes. That is the bottom line, and that is the basis on which the targets for local authorities will have to be decided. They will be decided in conjunction with local authorities, but they will relate to outcomes, not to how well authorities are dealing with the process.

Peter Bottomley (Conservative, Worthing West)

Will the Minister give way?

Beverley Hughes (Labour, Stretford and Urmston)

I beg the hon. Gentleman's pardon, but I will not. He has only recently come into the Chamber, which I think is discourteous.

Tim Loughton (Conservative, East Worthing and Shoreham)

He's very good.

Beverley Hughes (Labour, Stretford and Urmston)

He may be very good, but he has not listened to the debate, and on that basis I will not give way to him. Had he listened more, I should have been happy to do so.

Amendment No. 47 proposes to remove the ability to amend the definition of early childhood services. Had the hon. Member for Basingstoke either been in the Committee or read the report of this part of its proceedings, she would know that I granted what she is asking at that stage. I said that I envisaged the power being used only in the event of, say, structural changes in individual Departments such as the Department of Health or the Department for Work and Pensions that necessitated technical amendments, or if the experience of practitioners and local authorities made clear that young children would benefit from the inclusion of other services or other relevant partners. I have now put on record twice the circumstances in which we envisage the possibility of that power being used.

Amendments Nos. 43 and 56 concern access to services. I believe that amendment No. 43 risks creating a perverse incentive. If authorities need to "maximise access" to early childhood services, there may be a danger of their encouraging groups of parents to take up services that they do not need. That would prevent resources from being devoted to the most disadvantaged, which is what the hon. Member for Basingstoke said she wanted. Changing "identify" to "target", which is proposed in amendment No. 56, is unnecessary, because clause 3(3)(b) requires local authorities to encourage parents who have been identified to take up services. I hope that the hon. Lady will accept my assurance that the amendment is not necessary.

Amendment No. 55 would remove any local authority flexibility in the sharing of resources with relevant partners. I think that we should leave the position as it is. Local flexibility is important. Resources are already being pooled, and I think that the judgment on when that is beneficial should also be made at local level.

Amendment No. 11 deals with information for families. I have some sympathy with it. Our intention is to focus resources on information for parents and carers, because they will be the most responsible and will have the most influence. I appreciate that in many cases other family members will act on behalf of parents. I shall make clear in guidance that, in the right circumstances—obviously not when it is against parents' wishes—they too will be able to have relevant information.

As for amendment No. 48, we know that funding and sustainability are key issues for local authorities planning child care. In Committee, the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) confirmed that he did not expect authorities to look into the future to determine whether a provider was likely to last. Regulations under clause 12 will require local authorities to provide detailed information about providers, including their registration status, how many places they have, and how many funded places they offer. Authorities will also be required to tell parents how to gain access to Ofsted inspection reports that may include information. It is not clear to me what further information authorities would be expected to give other than their own assessments of sustainability, which could be misleading. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will not press the amendment.

There are issues that I have not mentioned, including the point raised by the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke) about Investors in Children. I can tell the hon. Lady that I am not convinced of the need for continuation of a kitemark scheme. However, I said to her in Committee that we are working closely with the National Children's Bureau to see what other arrangements we can put in place, supported by the sector—that is appropriate—to enable the funding that goes to local authorities to be used to ensure that there are local schemes. That will ensure that there is continuing development and improvement through those quality assurance schemes, which is the right way to go.

I hope that the hon. Member for Basingstoke will think that I have replied sufficiently for her to withdraw her amendment. Certainly, there is still a considerable political divide on amendment No. 1 and I make no apologies for not accepting it.

Maria Miller (Conservative, Basingstoke)

I am sure that many people listening to the debate will share my disappointment that the Government still hark back to eight years ago and the records of bygone days, rather than starting to talk about their own record. They should do less of that and instead take account of their record and be responsible for it.

The amendments in the group are important and I am sure that they will be debated further in the other place when it considers the Bill. The debate on the role of parents has been useful. I was glad to gain agreement from the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke) on the fact that it is quite extraordinary that the Bill makes no reference whatsoever to the role of parents. I hope that that can be thought about a little further.

It is clear from the Minister's comments that, perhaps unsurprisingly, we are not going to agree on targets. We feel that a target culture is not helpful in always driving the right outcomes, but we will have to agree to differ on that point.

I want to pick up on the Minister's response on the pooling of resources. I am pleased that she is satisfied that we can leave a slight open-endedness when ensuring that partner agencies are compelled to take part in discussions and provide staff and resources locally for child care. I hope that she is right that that will be sufficient to secure the support that is needed. Knowing the financial position of my primary care trust in north Hampshire, which is £14 million in deficit, I find it difficult to see how great priority is going to be given to the matter in the future. I am sure that all those issues will receive further discussion in the Lords.

Returning to our discussion on "mind the gap", which has taken up most of the debate on this group of amendments, I am pleased that the Prime Minister agrees with us that it is levelling up that is important. We are entirely happy with the idea of reducing the gap between people who are disadvantaged and those who are not, but we believe that that is best done by raising aspirations. People listening to the debate will find it difficult to understand why Government Members take such exception to our argument. As a parent, I understand why many parents throughout the country believe that we should have better aspirations for our children—whether we come from the most wealthy or the most deprived areas of the country. We believe that if we put raising aspirations at the core of the Bill, we will make it better.

Peter Bottomley (Conservative, Worthing West)

As the Minister rightly said, I was not here at the beginning of the debate—I was chairing a churches meeting elsewhere—but I want to pick up a specific point on assessment. To talk about well-being by itself is useless to parents. I do not know how one would count it or measure it. If we go back to the Court child health report or the Plowden primary school report, we see that everything in them is measurable and there are procedures for assessing them. I hope that the Minister will reflect on what she has said and, if she will not accept the amendment now, talk to her officials and get better advice than she has offered to the House.

Maria Miller (Conservative, Basingstoke)

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point; I wish that he had been able to make it a little earlier.

Ed Miliband (Labour, Doncaster North)

I want to give the hon. Lady one last chance to redeem herself in the eyes of the right hon. Member for West Dorset (Mr. Letwin). Given the words from him that I read out in the House, does she not agree that an amendment that would remove the words "reduce inequalities between" is a problem for her and, if she persists, she may well have to explain herself to the right hon. Gentleman on Monday.

Maria Miller (Conservative, Basingstoke)

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I was trying to give him one last chance to say something new, but he failed to do so.

I am entirely in accordance with my fellow Wessex MP, my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset. We are entirely at one in our need and our desire to reduce the gap, but we are saying that it is about raising aspirations, not some vague notion of reducing inequalities.

These issues are not mutually exclusive. We can reduce the gap between those who are less well off and more in need, and those who are not. We can do that most effectively by raising aspirations and raising standards, and that is what we would like the Bill to focus on. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 18 — Meaning of Childcare

Beverley Hughes (Labour, Stretford and Urmston)

I beg to move amendment No. 15, in page 10, line 17, at end insert—

'(6A) "Childcare" does not include care provided for a child who is detained in—

(a) a young offender institution, or

(b) a secure training centre.'.

This is a technical amendment that corrects an error—an omission from the definition of child care in clause 18. It will ensure that young people in young offender institutions and secure training centres will not be considered as being in child care. That means that local authorities will not be under a duty to secure sufficiency of provision or to assess provision under clauses 6 and 11 respectively. It is clearly not appropriate to describe young people in those institutions as being in child care. The amendment will ensure clarity in the Bill and I commend it to the House.

Peter Bottomley (Conservative, Worthing West)

I do not think that the Minister has justified her amendment. We know that the children who are most likely to be casualties are those in care. We know that the children in care who are most likely to be casualties are those in secure institutions. The Minister is shaking her head. Does she want to tell me that I am wrong? If not, I shall work on the basis that she agrees with me. It is the children of the state who have the most awkward lives and are likely to face the worst constellation of difficulties as they grow up.

If the local authority has no responsibility for the welfare of the child in the circumstances that the Minister described, who will carry out that duty effectively? My hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) and I have experience of children who are parked in our town, in small children's homes. Many of them get dedicated care, and many of their experiences are not good. [Interruption.] I will give way, if the Minister wants to intervene.

We are debating an amendment tabled by the Government, who believe that they have wrongly drafted legislation. At present, local authority social services can have some interest in a child in secure accommodation.

Beverley Hughes (Labour, Stretford and Urmston)

It may help the hon. Gentleman to get to his point if he understands that the Bill is about children aged nought to five and the duty of local authorities in terms of the outcomes for children aged nought to five—not their general well-being—and the provision of child care for children aged nought to 14. Patently, young people in institutions do not fall into that category.

Peter Bottomley (Conservative, Worthing West)

The point that I am trying to make, to which I hope the Minister was listening, is that we can use the amendment to focus attention on those whom she is trying to exclude from the Bill's provisions. She may need to do that for technical reasons, but if she is saying that we are wrong to be concerned about the interests of children who would otherwise be covered in theory, she is wrong. One thing that the Government should do is to direct their attention to improving the situation of children in the circumstances that I described.

The Minister may say that the peg for that is purely a technicality. She may say that the amendment is purely a technicality. However, the lives of the young people who concern me are not a technicality. They are at a stage when some of them have a chance of redemption and of getting a positive experience of life. The sooner she acknowledges that the better. She gave bland responses to the points made by Conservative Front-Bench spokesmen on the previous group of amendments. She can rightly say that nought to five does not cover those people, so the amendment does not relate to them, but the welfare of older children, whose circumstances would otherwise be covered by the Bill, does matter. I hope that the Government take that forward in a more positive way and that there is a process of assessing the outcomes, rather than just having targets.

Beverley Hughes (Labour, Stretford and Urmston)

The situation of young people in young offender institutions is important. The Government take it seriously. However, it is outside the scope of the Bill.

Amendment agreed to.

Clause 41 — The Learning and Development Requirements

Annette Brooke (Liberal Democrat, Mid Dorset and North Poole)

I beg to move amendment No. 9, in page 20, line 16, leave out from 'which' to 'and' in line 17 and insert

'young children should experience and learn, appropriate to their age, ability'.

Sylvia Heal (Deputy Speaker, Halesowen and Rowley Regis)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments: No. 8, in page 20, line 16, leave out 'taught to' and insert 'experienced by'.

No. 51, in clause 46, page 23, line 4, at end insert—

'(1A) The reasons for any such disapplication or modification must be set out clearly and published.'.

No. 53, in page 23, line 10, at end insert—

'(3) The reasons for any such disapplication or modification must be set out clearly and published.'.

Annette Brooke (Liberal Democrat, Mid Dorset and North Poole)

This is the most important part of our discussion. We might have had a lengthy and sparky debate on the previous string of amendments, but to my mind learning and development is the most important issue to address.

I welcome the principles of the early years foundation stage, which lays out the basis of a curriculum so that we can make clear judgments about quality, which is set against milestones. Indeed, the early years foundation stage provides opportunities. However, including the word "taught" means that there is a great possibility of unintended consequences.

As we know, young children learn by being supported to play and by exploring the world around them. That must be reflected in the learning and development requirements. It is difficult to incorporate in the Bill the reality that children learn through play, which is why in Committee we tried to replace the word "taught" with "experience". As that was rejected, and bearing in mind the clause heading, we have redrafted the amendment to include experiencing and learning.

There is a concern that we might give out wrong messages to child care practitioners. We all know that we have much work to do in upskilling the work force. With the inclusion of the word "taught", it will be all too easy to incorporate practices that do not generate the type of learning that we would like young children to gain at such a key phase of their development.

Paul Goodman (Conservative, Wycombe)

Does the hon. Lady agree with the Daycare Trust, which in its comments on the Bill is worried that the Government's approach could lead to a "schoolification"—a new word—of early years provision for very young children?

Annette Brooke (Liberal Democrat, Mid Dorset and North Poole)

That comment probably does reflect my concerns. As I said in Committee, the word "taught", whatever the dictionary definition, has connotations: it implies a group of young people, children or adults receiving instruction, rather than learning by experience at the right level.

The anecdote that I want to mention came from a former inspector of early years, who, on looking through some Ofsted inspection reports, noted that the early years report said that worksheets were not being used. The provider in question responded by providing worksheets, but generally speaking, they are not appropriate at that level. The danger is that we will make this incredibly important stage of learning far too formalised. We will not achieve what we could achieve through this Government's vast investment in early years provision unless we ensure that there is the right environment and culture.

What we really need to do is to add depth and richness to children's lives. They need to have plenty of opportunities to explore the world, and plenty of experiences that they can choose from for themselves. Such learning must not be so prescriptive that we stunt—

David Taylor (Labour, North West Leicestershire)

Does the hon. Lady not agree that the clause's existing phrase embraces experience and learning and does not necessarily have to be interpreted in an over-formal, over-prescriptive way? Why does it need amending?

Annette Brooke (Liberal Democrat, Mid Dorset and North Poole)

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, which has actually underlined the point that the word "taught" is incongruous. In fact, it is incompatible with the guidance notes that the Minister distributed in Committee, which were almost encouraging in terms of how providers should approach the early years foundation stage. We are simply objecting to the word "taught", which I sincerely believe should be changed, as all early years providers agree. Whatever the civil servants may be saying, we should look to the professionals in this field.

Early years is the most important period: it impacts on future life experiences and attainments. During early years, children should be in a setting that provides a relevant and positive learning experience, so that they can develop a sense of their own identity—not that of the child care worker—and become self-confident learners. This is about setting the scene for a hopeful and positive education experience, which inevitably becomes more formalised once children go to school. At that early stage, it is absolutely vital that we enable children to develop at their own pace and give them every opportunity to learn and to assimilate as much as they possibly can. Children learn at different rates, and they must want to learn and be ready to learn. When we use the word "taught", which has specific connotations, we should remember that the ratio of pupils to teachers is usually higher than one to one. At this critical stage, we have to allow children to progress at their own rate.

I hope that we will get a positive response from the Government. This issue was debated in detail in Committee, and I felt that between us, we were winning the argument; however, it was not to be. As I have said, this is the single most important change that needs to be made to the Bill, and I hope that the Government are now listening.

I turn briefly to the amendments tabled by the Conservatives. They will be useful in securing further clarifications, as the answers in Committee to the questions that they raise aroused great unease. Clause 46 allows exemptions to the early years foundation stage to be granted to certain providers. The worry is that they could be granted here, there and everywhere, with the result that we lose the basis for quality assessment.

I understand that there might be a very good reason for granting an exemption in the occasional, one-off case, but clause 46 implies that exemptions could be widespread. I and my hon. Friend the Member for Hazel Grove (Andrew Stunell) hope that the Minister will say more about how the clause will be implemented, as I feel that there could be a case for deleting it entirely.

Tim Loughton (Conservative, East Worthing and Shoreham)

We support the amendment, as the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke) has shown again that she shares our approach to these matters. It is worth noting that the phalanx of class-war dogmatists has scarpered now that we are dealing with serious technical matters to do with the quality of child care. The fact that their interest has waned rapidly says a lot about their presence earlier, and reveals their limited interest in what the Bill is trying to do.

Amendment No. 9 centres on the use of the rogue word "taught". We concur that it is completely inappropriate for very young children, especially those aged between nought and two. I shall not rehearse Professor Bowlby's attachment theory, which the Committee considered in some detail, but it is clear that very early years children must be treated very differently. Whether or not the term "schoolification" is apt for the attempt to impose curriculums on them, the approach itself is simply not appropriate.

I draw some comfort from the more enlightened contributions made by Labour Back Benchers, and I welcome what the hon. Member for North-West Leicestershire (David Taylor) said a moment ago. Alas, the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman) is no longer present, but in Committee she supported our case. She spoke at length about peek-a-boo games, but also about children. She said:

"I have a great deal of sympathy with the points made by Opposition Members about the use of the word "taught" . . . However, if we concentrate on taught literacy, we risk turning off small children."—[Official Report, Standing Committee D, 15 December 2005; c. 251–252.]

The first two years of a child's life are especially important, but too often the Government seem to want to rush to push young children through a regimented school system. They want to tick the boxes about children's ability to read, write and add up, but they do not give those children enough time and space to grow up and become sociable, well ordered and normal kids. That is the problem, and I fear that talking in the language of school curriculums does nursery-age children a big disservice. The Minister may say that "taught" is only one word, but it is a very important one whose use, we feel, sends out all the wrong signals.

The hon. Lady said presciently that if the Minister did not accept the amendment that we proposed in Committee she would be realistic and seek on Report to change the word "taught" to the phrase "experienced by". Well, hey presto, the hon. Lady's word is our command. Our amendment would do exactly that, because we feel that the phrase "experienced by" is much more sympathetic to the social development that should be going on in those child care environments, rather than a mini school curriculum, which is what the Government run the danger of being perceived as trying to thrust on them.

We had an interesting debate in Committee on the issue, with some excellent contributions from my hon. Friend the Member for Putney (Justine Greening), with her great tales about "The Very Hungry Caterpillar", on which she is the House's leading authority.

Amendments Nos. 51 and 53 seek clarity and to add transparency to the Bill. I do not know the conditions under which exemptions should be conferred by the Secretary of State, such that the learning and development requirements need not apply or can be modified. We are in danger of ending up with a bit of shambles unless we have a clear steer from the Minister as to what the exemption offer is trying to do and in what terms and on what occasions it might be used. The amendments request clarity and transparency in the Bill and seek to ensure that if any exemptions or disapplications are made, the reasons must be set out clearly and published, so that everybody can understand them and be sure that we are all acting on a level playing field or whether the fear of a two-tier system is justified.

We support the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole on amendment No. 9, which concurs with the intention of amendment No. 8. If she does not choose to push that amendment to a Division, I hope that the Government will nevertheless reflect on the point again in the other place. We all share the same intentions and the Minister's response to my pronouncements on the merits of attachment theory suggested that she concurred with our view on what we should be trying to achieve in those early years. However, the language that the Bill uses will be adhered to by local authorities and child care providers when they seek to do what the Government want them to do. They are in danger of throwing baby out with the bath water, by trying to make baby grow up rather faster than baby needs to, because baby needs to learn about how to be a decent child before getting into a school curriculum. The word "taught" smacks of schoolification.

Maria Eagle (Labour, Liverpool, Garston)

I hope to be able to provide some reassurance, although in the light of our experience in Committee I am not convinced that I will be able to allay completely the concerns expressed by the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) or the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke). I do not think that there is much between us. I know that the word "taught" is between us, but I hope to try to provide some reassurance.

It is important to use the word "taught", and it does not necessarily imply the extreme formality that Opposition Members fear. It is a term recognised by the early years sector, and reflects the language already used in the foundation stage and in the Education Act 2002. It does not necessarily imply sitting toddlers in rows and cramming them with rote learning, no matter what age they are. I accept that "taught" can have that connotation, but it does not necessarily have it.

The hon. Lady will forgive me if I return to the dictionary definition because dictionaries, especially the Oxford English Dictionary, are the basis from which we start when interpreting what we mean by the words that we use. Although it is true that the dictionary includes formalised definitions of "teach" such as

"to impart information to skill to (a person) or about (a subject) . . . do this for a living . . . put forward as fact or principle",

another definition is more informal and is what we intend the work of the early years foundation stage to be. It is to

"cause to adopt (a practice etc) by example or experience".

That uses some of the words that hon. Members are trying to replace "taught" with.

My argument is that "taught" encapsulates what hon. Members are seeking to replace it with. To remove the word completely leaves us thrashing around to try to make sure that we can encapsulate fully the meaning of what we are trying to say in the legislation. Clarity is important in legislation.

This is not conclusive, but some technical defects with amendments Nos. 8 and 9 make it difficult for them to be accepted. They illustrate what could happen if we were to remove a word such as "taught" from the Bill, as amendment No. 8 would do by removing the word "taught" from the "matters, skills and processes" that practitioners should offer young children of different abilities and maturities and replacing it with reference to the matters, skills and processes that young children should experience by their involvement in or exposure to learning and development. That is a complicated way of removing a word from the Bill, and does not add to the clarity of the meaning.

Amendment No. 9 would have a more complex effect because it would remove the word "taught" from the Bill by replacing the phrase

"which are required to be taught to young children of different abilities and maturities"

with

"young children should experience and learn, appropriate to their age, ability"

The effect of that would not be clear, because it would allow learning and development requirements to specify the matters, skills and processes that young children should experience, and it is hard to see how matters and skills can be experienced. I do not think that it would add to the clarity of the Bill if we were to adopt the wording that either amendment suggests, although I understand the point that hon. Members are making.

Andrew Stunell (Liberal Democrat, Hazel Grove)

I have been listening carefully to the Minister's argument, although I have had difficulty in following some of its intricacies.

If the hon. Lady accepts that the alternative words proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke) cover the full range of what she wants to achieve and if she is arguing that the word "taught" covers not only that but something that she does not want to achieve—young children being taught formally—does she not agree that it would be better to accept my hon. Friend's words? If they need tidying up, perhaps the hon. Lady could give us a hint that she will go in that direction. She seems to be trying to achieve something far beyond the aims behind the initial wording of the Bill.

Maria Eagle (Labour, Liverpool, Garston)

No, I do not accept that. I said that the words with which Members have tried to replace the word "taught" are fully encapsulated in that word, so they add nothing. I have tried to illustrate that removing "taught" would make it more difficult to understand the clause. I understand the points that are being made about formality in education at too early an age, which we debated extensively in Committee. I do not think that there is much difference between us in respect of the outcomes that we want.

Removing the word "taught" will not solve things or add clarity in any useful way. It is well known in the early years sector, and is clear in "Birth to Three Matters" and the foundation stage documentation that "taught" means much more informal learning than that for older children.

Annette Brooke (Liberal Democrat, Mid Dorset and North Poole)

Will the hon. Lady give way?

Maria Eagle (Labour, Liverpool, Garston)

Yes, but I do not want to go round in circles.

Annette Brooke (Liberal Democrat, Mid Dorset and North Poole)

Will the Minister confirm that in Committee it was established that the word "taught" does not appear in "Birth to Three Matters"? We are particularly concerned that we seem to be combining the whole age range.

Maria Eagle (Labour, Liverpool, Garston)

But the word "teaching" does appear in that document. We could go round in circles for a long time, but our positions are close enough not to worry too much about that definition. I cannot accept the amendment, but there is not too much difference in substance between what we and Opposition Members are saying. "Taught" is only a little word, but it is obviously a central concept and we need to make sure that everybody understands it fully.

There will be further opportunities for us to make it clear that we are not talking about extremely formalised learning. There will be regulations and we shall hold consultations on them. There is ample opportunity to ensure that there is no misunderstanding in the sector about what we mean.

Justine Greening (Conservative, Putney)

Will the Minister give way?

Maria Eagle (Labour, Liverpool, Garston)

I will, but this really is the last time.

Justine Greening (Conservative, Putney)

I am grateful that the Minister recognises that there is confusion. Parents in Putney have expressed concern about the word "taught" and that should be borne in mind as the measure is rolled out in the wider world, to allay parents' fears that the framework is more rigid than the Minister intends.

Maria Eagle (Labour, Liverpool, Garston)

I hear what the hon. Lady says—her constituency surgeries must be interesting.

As we draw up the regulations, there will be more opportunities to deal with the issues—

Maria Miller (Conservative, Basingstoke)

Will the Minister give way?

Maria Eagle (Labour, Liverpool, Garston)

No, I shall not give way again on that issue.

I want to move on to amendments Nos. 51 and 53, which were tabled by the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham. He asked me to provide more clarity about the waiving of learning and development requirements in certain circumstances. I want to reassure him that the measure will not drive a coach and horses through all our early development aims.

Such a waiver might occur where a local authority had difficulty in securing the training required to improve the skills of the local child care work force by 2008. For example, a small provider such as a playgroup might not technically yet fulfil all the requirements of the early years foundation stage, but could none the less offer an excellent service, or be not too far from being able to do so; the staff might be undergoing training but not have completed it. We would want the provider to improve so that it could deliver the framework rather than closing it down for a short period until the staff managed to gain the required qualifications. There could thus be a time-limited exemption so that the provider was not closed down when the early years foundation stage was implemented.

We want to provide flexibility, while ensuring that quality is maintained and improved. We also want to take into account some of the practical difficulties that small, local organisations might experience in getting themselves up to scratch as we make the transition to the early years foundation stage.

The hon. Gentleman suggested that it would be appropriate to publish the reasons for exemptions, disapplications or modifications in respect of individual children. It would, however, be unfair to single out individual children in that way. Indeed, Members said earlier, with reference to another matter, that they did not want data about individual children to be published, yet the amendment seems to suggest that we should do just that.

The situations that we are talking about are likely to be very rare. For example, it might be necessary to exempt specific individual children from certain aspects of the early years foundation stage where it is necessary because of their parents' religious beliefs. For example, I understand that members of the Plymouth Brethren do not really like information and communications technology, and they do not like their children to work on computers. If work on a computer does not conform with a parent's religious belief, even though that is a minority religious belief, it may be appropriate to exempt an individual child from requirements that relate to ICT.

We are talking about smallish and individual exceptions such as that. We do not anticipate that the provision would be widespread or extensively used. We want to try to provide the necessary flexibility to ensure that we are not riding roughshod over important matters such as human rights and the rights of individuals to follow their own religious beliefs, for example.

I hope that that reassures the hon. Gentleman, and that he will feel able to withdraw his amendments. I am sure, however, that hon. Members will feel less happy to withdraw their amendments in respect of the word "taught", and I fear that we might continue to have that debate in another place.

Peter Bottomley (Conservative, Worthing West)

The Minister has been quite convincing on amendment No. 53. I hope that the interpretation of that is that the parent will be told why their children are being exempted from certain things. Obviously, it is at the request of the parent that no information is to be given. If there is some reason why the parent has not asked, it is perhaps worth bearing in mind that parents should be told of the situation. That is a different sense of the meaning of "published"—not keeping secret.

As I think the Minister recognises, she is not on quite such strong ground on amendment No. 51. The main point of the debate is about the word "taught". The Minister explained that "taught" meant the same as "experienced by", and then explained that "experienced by" necessarily did not mean the same as "taught". It seems that that is where she got out of her circular argument—on the wrong spot. It would be a good idea if before this issue comes up in another place the Minister were to seek advice and would ask what would be lost—

Maria Miller (Conservative, Basingstoke)

I thank my hon. Friend for allowing me to intervene. I wonder whether he shares my concerns. The Minister was talking about drawing up regulations. When doing so, should she not take account of the impact that formalised teaching may have on premature babies who are still struggling to catch up in development terms during the important early years?

Peter Bottomley (Conservative, Worthing West)

The Minister may choose to respond again at the end of the debate, or she may want to consider this question when it comes up in another place. If the clause were not in the Bill, I do not think that anyone would miss it. Most people who are caring for children, especially in an early education setting, are trying to do all these things in any event. Given that the clause is in place, the Minister should be asking those whose opinions she respects—I hope that she respects our opinions in this place, but there are others whose opinions she may respect—that if "taught" means the same as "experienced by", cannot "experienced by" mean the same as "taught", and would not that then be satisfactory?

Annette Brooke (Liberal Democrat, Mid Dorset and North Poole)

I drew a diagram, and I think that the hon. Member for Worthing, West (Peter Bottomley) has expressed the situation clearly. I drew a circle to incorporate everything that "taught" meant. Learning and experience was clearly a sub-set of "taught", so "taught" means a great deal more than learning and experience. That is clear.

The Minister questioned whether learning and experience could be applied to matters and skills—but when I visited the most excellent early years centre that I have ever seen, there was complete free choice for all the young children. Nothing was structured. The experience led me to ask some questions. I was given an example. If, for instance, some children decided that they wanted to fly kites, and it was found that there were not enough kites, others who wished to join them would have to make kites. For that they would need to find scissors from the cupboard. They would need to find paper. They would use scissors because they wanted to make kites, like the others. That is a clear example where one might say, "You must be taught how to use scissors." However, in the early years, we are talking of a skill that is acquired by learning and experience, when that skill is wanted. I question whether the Minister is right on this point.

Peter Bottomley (Conservative, Worthing West)

We have been taught that the word "taught" has six letters. The sixth word after the word "taught" in clause 41 is "abilities". Perhaps the Minister should table a manuscript amendment to change it to "aptitude" as the Department has found it difficult to distinguish between the two.

Annette Brooke (Liberal Democrat, Mid Dorset and North Poole)

That could take us down another route. The task in hand is to remove the word "taught", so if the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, I will concentrate on that.

I cannot stress enough the importance of changing that word. I am happy to accept that the drafting of the amendment is not perfect, but, having served on many Committees, I know that when one wants to say something, it is worth trying to write the amendment oneself, because if it makes a good point, professionals will rewrite it. I am concerned about the impact of the provision on professionals in the field.

A great deal of consultation is under way to establish exactly what the early years foundation stage will include. There is a great deal of confidence about those discussions, but there is not confidence among professionals while the word "taught" remains in the Bill. Their anxiety is much greater than the Government have conceded. Given the lateness of this debate I am not going to press the amendment to a Division, but I very much hope that Ministers will give a great deal of thought to the matter as the Bill proceeds to the other place. The amendments are certain to discussed further, and I expect that there will be professional input in the other place. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 43 — Welfare Requirements

Clause 59 — Regulations Governing Activities

Clause 67 — Regulations Governing Activities

Clause 75 — Disqualification from Registration

Clause 101 — General Interpretation etc.

Maria Eagle (Labour, Liverpool, Garston)

I beg to move amendment No. 16, in page 50, line 32, at end insert—

'(f) the Council of the Isles of Scilly;'.

Sylvia Heal (Deputy Speaker, Halesowen and Rowley Regis)

With this it will be convenient to discuss Government amendment No. 17.

Maria Eagle (Labour, Liverpool, Garston)

I hope to deal with these amendments very quickly. Government amendment No. 16 refers to the council of the Isles of Scilly, which we have rather stupidly omitted from the definition of an English local authority. We clearly need to include that council in the Bill. Government amendment No. 17 ensures that the National Assembly for Wales can commence at the appropriate time the provisions in schedule 2. These are technical amendments, and I hope that the House will accept them speedily.

Tim Loughton (Conservative, East Worthing and Shoreham)

I am a little worried, as the good burghers of the Isles of Scilly must be seething, about an obvious omission that should have been addressed at the outset. Goodness knows, the Government have had enough time to deal with this. The Under-Secretary skimmed over it in a single sentence, but I would be grateful if she gave us an insight into the structure of the education authority on the Isles of Scilly so that we can understand why the change is essential.

Peter Bottomley (Conservative, Worthing West)

If the omission had not been spotted and the amendment had not been tabled, this is the kind of change that the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill could properly deal with. The Government would be well advised to ensure that such a change would be covered by that Bill. The Minister ought to congratulate the person who spotted the omission.

On Government amendment No. 17, it is right to pay tribute to those who advise the Minister and are involved in the drafting of the Bill. When a Bill proposes amendments to nine Acts, things are as complicated as they can be, especially in relation to consequential changes. Those who do that work deserve praise. The work is not as exciting as some of the policy changes and arguments, but detailed attention to what is in a Bill does matter.

Maria Eagle (Labour, Liverpool, Garston)

I am happy to do as the hon. Member for Worthing, West (Peter Bottomley) suggests and pass on the congratulations of hon. Members to my officials, who work extremely hard to make sure that Bills are as good as they are. Although nothing is perfect, they frequently approach perfection, in my experience.

As for the comments of the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) about the education system in the Isles of Scilly, I can tell him that there is a population of 2,000 there. I cannot tell him how many of those people are children, but because the population is so small, the islands may require separate arrangements with regard to provisions in the Bill. I hope that is enough to satisfy him.

Amendment agreed to.

Clause 105 — The Appropriate Authority by Whom Commencement Order is Made

Schedule 2 — Minor and Consequential Amendments

Beverley Hughes (Labour, Stretford and Urmston)

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.

Our debates on the various stages of the Bill have been productive, constructive, at times humorous, and well intentioned. I pay tribute to the commitment that Members in all parts of the House have shown, and to the detailed knowledge that many of them have brought to our deliberations as a result of many years of interest in the subject, going far beyond our experience as parents.

Apart from the one, albeit fundamental, dividing line between us on reducing inequalities, we have achieved a remarkable degree of consensus on the principles of the Bill and its aims. That is a measure of the extent to which the Government have shifted the ground. Such transformational change as we have seen over recent years, culminating in the Bill, in marked contrast to the previous Government's policies, commands consensus across the political parties.

The Bill has benefited from the close scrutiny to which it has been subjected, and the changes that have been made have improved it. I thank the Deputy Speakers who have chaired our discussions today, and our Chairmen in Committee. I thank the hon. Members for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) and for Mid-Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke), who led the debates from the Opposition Benches, and their hon. Friends. I also thank the Under-Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Garston (Maria Eagle), and all my hon. Friends who have taken such an active part in the debate and helped us enormously, and I thank the Clerks and our officials, whom my hon. Friend has just mentioned, who have supported us ably throughout. I am grateful to everybody.

Let me put the Bill in the context of Government objectives since 1997 of transforming the experience of children, young people and their families. We are doing that, first, because we are serious about increasing social mobility, reducing inequalities and tackling the long-standing disadvantages for many children and families that existed prior to 1997. Secondly, we need to respond to the labour market changes that have occurred over recent years, the aspirations of women as well as men, and the desire for both parents to have the flexibility of combining work and home life in ways that still provide high-quality options for their children.

Thirdly—we have not discussed this issue, but it is none the less important—as a nation, we need to maximise the achievement of all our people in the face of increasing global competition, which includes rising economies such as China and India. We must ensure that every child reaches their potential and goes on from early years to educational success. Investment in early years is not only a social and moral imperative, but an essential measure for parents in their home and work lives and for our international economic competitiveness.

The Government have worked to bring about that transformation since 1997. We started with a massive increase in child care places and moved on to the Children Act 2004, the "Every Child Matters" programme, the five outcomes, the 10-year child care strategy, the promise of a children's centre in every community and extended schools, and this landmark Bill extends that process. It is the first ever Bill dedicated to early years and child care, which demonstrates our commitment to early years and "Every Child Matters". We are providing opportunities and choice, improving outcomes, reducing inequalities and increasing long-term investment.

The Bill focuses on outcomes and ensures that parents have a real choice. The Bill empowers local authorities to be the strategic leaders, which is a role that they will fulfil in consultation with parents and providers. Parents will be given the information that they need, and there will be a new approach to inspection and regulation. The early years foundation stage will build on what works and good parenting, and the child care register will extend quality. Last but not least, the need to safeguard children underpins the entire Bill. That is everybody's business, and we will discuss it in greater detail when we consider the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Bill, which has been mentioned today.

The Bill is important and exciting. It starts to redraw the welfare state in terms of what families can expect to be provided for them locally in their areas. The focus is on quality, improving outcomes for children in early years and reducing inequalities. The Bill is an integral part of our "Every Child Matters" programme, and it will ensure that every child has the opportunity to achieve their full potential.

It is good to see the commitment of Opposition Members to the Bill, which I commend to the House.

Tim Loughton (Conservative, East Worthing and Shoreham)

I echo the Minister in saying that we had well-mannered, good-humoured and well-informed debates on Second Reading, in Committee and on Report. I thank the Committee Chairmen, my hon. Friend the Member for Southend, West (Mr. Amess) and the hon. Member for Bootle (Mr. Benton). As has happened today, we conducted our deliberations in Committee without guillotines or knives, and the lesson is that we can have a rational debate without being constrained by artificial timings, which the Government Whips too often seek to impose.

I thank my hon. Friends who have contributed. Our Whip in Committee was my hon. Friend the Member for South-West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous), who was here earlier today. We witnessed bravura performances by my hon. Friend the Member for Putney (Justine Greening), who mentioned "The Very Hungry Caterpillar". My hon. Friend the Member for Bromsgrove (Miss Kirkbride) is very well-informed, but, alas, she is abroad today and cannot join us. My hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr. Gibb) made a cameo appearance on the Front Bench this afternoon, when he was the target of so much vitriol from Labour Members—he has now scarpered, as have some of his attackers.

Many additional amendments have been tabled. It assists debate if we can have as much notice and as detailed an up-front explanation of those as possible. If the Government intend to table further amendments, I hope that they give colleagues in the upper House a little more breathing space by supplying them as far in advance of the debate as possible.

We welcome the additional measures to safeguard children. As the Minister knows, over the past few years we have fully concurred and co-operated with the Government in their various Bills to try to make the protection of our children, particularly vulnerable children, a genuine priority and to achieve some genuine change from the poor outcomes that they have experienced for far too long. It is absolutely right that this Bill, like the other legislation that is yet to come before us, should be proof against those who would abuse and undermine our children.

There are other good things in the Bill. The Minister called it a landmark Bill and said that it is part of the redrawing of the lines of the welfare state. That suggests that the Government set rather more store by the great dogma of their programme than we do. As far as we are concerned, the Bill is about affording more people the chance to access quality child care to improve the start that their children get in life, whether they come from disadvantaged or advantaged backgrounds. That is why we have wanted to concentrate on those from a disadvantaged background getting those opportunities as well.

It is interesting, amusing and reassuring that we can occasionally rattle the great class warriors who still exist on Labour Benches, albeit in a rather confused way that contradicts their own Prime Minister. They set great store by phrases about reducing inequalities instead of concentrating on improving outcomes for those who need and deserve our support most of all. I do not think that those two things are mutually exclusive. It is interesting that there have been so many attempts to put divisions between what Members say. All that we are trying to achieve is better outcomes for the most disadvantaged, but for many, the argument about reducing inequalities is more important.

The hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke) rightly said that one of the most important parts of the Bill concerns the word "taught"—just six little letters and one little word. We had a great debate about that. The Minister was at pains to say that although there was little between us, that one little word was so fundamental that it had to stay in the Bill. That is a shame, and I hope that the Government will reflect on it. My noble colleagues in the upper House will certainly return to the subject as the Bill proceeds.

It was encouraging that we almost had a rebellion from the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman), who has also scarpered. She threatened to vote with the Opposition at one stage and abstained in one vote. Given her great expertise on early years child care and the whole subject of play for children, the Government would do well to listen to her comments.

The Government accepted many of our arguments and sympathised with many of our intentions, but in the end they did not accept any of our amendments. That is disappointing.

It is worth pointing out that the success of the Bill will rely enormously on the way in which local authorities embrace, interpret and enact its provisions, which of course bring no additional moneys with them.

All our discussions in the House will amount to nothing unless local authorities are able to do their job of ensuring that there is sufficient child care and that it is provided in a balanced way, because many of the private and voluntary independent providers, who have provided so much child care in the past, are threatened by unfair competition. The child care places that are lost must be set aside the creation of new ones. We admit that the net figure has increased, but the sustainability of those places is important.

The Bill is not just about the numbers or the shiny new buildings that may house those child care places, whether in nurseries or whatever, but about the quality of provision and ensuring that we are giving those children the very best start in life. That is absolutely fundamental. We can write all the terms into the Bill that the Government wish and we can exhort local authorities to ensure that the numbers tally with what the Government want, but the most important thing is the quality of the outcome that the Bill achieves for those children and its impact on them, particularly in those crucial early years—years one, two, three and four.

We welcome the Bill. We have supported it throughout, but we want it to work in practice. I hope that the Government have taken on board the serious concerns that we have expressed throughout our good debates. I hope that they will reflect on them and that, when the Bill reaches the upper House, they will allow some of the amendments that our noble colleagues table to see the light of day and be included in the legislation. Ultimately, we support the Bill. We wish it well, and we will certainly support its Third Reading this evening.

Annette Brooke (Liberal Democrat, Mid Dorset and North Poole)

May I, too, thank the Chairmen, Deputy Speakers and all the hon. Members on both sides of the House who have participated in Committee and on Second and Third Reading? I certainly agree that we have had some very good debates—perhaps longer ones than I had anticipated, given the nature of the Bill—on some rather interesting issues. I particularly thank my hon. Friend the Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Mr. Williams) for picking up some rather important Welsh omissions and for emphasising the rural nature of some of the child care settings in Wales.

It has long been Liberal Democrat policy to invest in children's early years, and we are delighted that the Government have proceeded with a large commitment since 1997. I know what a difference that has made to my constituency. I am sure that many children will be much better prepared for life. I am pretty convinced that we will eventually see some very goods returns on a lot of the Sure Start schemes. Whenever we—I use the royal "we"—are rather punitive towards young people, I hope that the early intervention that is taking place will make a real contribution to our local communities and society, and I mean that very sincerely.

I was going to count the number of times that Ministers have said "Oh, that's going to be in the regulations", but I found a better use for my time. They said that an incredible number of times in Committee, and that has been followed up at the same pace, if not an increasing pace, today. That makes scrutiny rather difficult. I am sorry that we could not have more information as we went through the Bill. I admit, of course, that we could not do so, because consultations were going on. I would not want to impede the consultations, but the lack of information seems a pity and it has made things difficult at times, because we have moved amendments to be immediately told, "That's all right: it's in the regulations"—but we have not seen them.

I also welcome the additional safeguarding measures. Although we mentioned safeguarding in our deliberations in Committee, experiences in school settings before Christmas heightened our awareness and made it important to table such amendments. The Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Bill will also deal with some of those issues.

We have discussed quality at great length and we can never lose sight of its importance. As has been shown, it makes all the difference to outcomes, especially in the very early years. I am not convinced that we have managed to include enough about quality in the Bill, but we had good debates about it.

I would like to believe that the Bill will make a difference. Clause 6 states:

"An English local authority must secure, so far as is reasonably practicable, that the provision of childcare . . . is sufficient".

Without the resources, "reasonably practicable" will mean minimal. I hope that the Government will monitor that to ensure that the Bill makes a difference. It may well be necessary to provide a top-up in resources. We must not make false promises to our constituents. The words in the Bill are generally good but, without the resources, they will not mean anything for our constituents. They will not make the genuine difference to the disadvantaged about which we all care, however we express that.

I sincerely hope that the word "taught" will be changed, but I have probably said enough about that for one day. I support Third Reading.

Peter Bottomley (Conservative, Worthing West)

My hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) and I have adjoining constituencies and it falls to me to express my party's thanks to the Conservative Front Benchers, my hon. Friends the Members for Basingstoke (Mrs. Miller), for Wycombe (Mr. Goodman) and for East Worthing and Shoreham. I add my hon. Friend the Member for Bexleyheath and Crayford (Mr. Evennett), who has paid close attention to everything that was said.

Perhaps it is too late to suggest to Ministers that the title of the Bill should be changed to "Early Years Well-Being". When considering the well-being of children up to the age of five—or up to the age of eight if one takes account of part 3—it is important to reduce the avoidable disadvantage, distress and handicap that they may face and to improve their well-being, which is a mixture of wealth and welfare. The development stages, which part 1 covers, are vital.

Although the measure is primarily about the duties of local authorities, everybody in local authorities will want to involve parents. Trying to develop the confidence and competence of parents is the key to developing the confidence and competence of children in the early stages and building on that through the primary school years, secondary school years and adult life.

Earlier, I referred briefly to the Plowden report, which was published in 1967. The research papers are worth rereading and I commend them to people in local authorities as well as to those who advise Ministers. The Court report on child health services again showed that parents' actions matter. There is no point in relying on what local authorities or health services can provide if we do not engage parents in what they can do. The reports may be 30 to 40 years old but, if the work was redone now, the same conclusions would be reached. What was learned in Home Start and what Sure Start is introducing are lessons that are not especially new. Every generation needs to relearn them.

The bipartisan approach to the issues that local authority responsibilities cover matters. We have the problem—or challenge—of trying to ensure that that gets across to parents in all parts of the country in every generation. If 600,000 to 700,000 children are born each year and at least half are first children in a family, many new parents need to know what is available, what their child's experience will be and what the normal hiccups, obstacles and problems are. All those who dedicate themselves to children, whether in the voluntary sector or in other ways in their professional lives, matter a lot.

My final word of caution is to enthusiastic Ministers in this third way, new Labour Government. Life did not start in 1997, and nor did the co-operation between health and education. It has been said in a slightly jokey way that, when my right hon. Friend the Member for North-West Hampshire (Sir George Young) was booked into a hotel room at a party conference with his wife, Lady Young, they were the Ministers for the under-fives in health and education, and that the two Departments have had better dealings with each other ever since.

We need to monitor the outcomes that people have worked for. When my wife, who is now in another place, was Minister for Health, she was as concerned about these matters as Ministers are now. I suspect that Ministers will be coming to the House in five or 10 years' time to report on the measurable outcomes. The issue of whether reducing inequality—which is not how I would have put it—or raising people up from levels at which they should not be allowed to stay is the more important will become clear.

An example of inequalities for the elderly in our constituencies is that they have to wait nearly two years for a hearing aid, but if they go privately they can get one almost straight away, for a vast sum of money. We could reduce that inequality by saying that people should not buy hearing aids privately. Alternatively, we could reduce the level of unfairness by saying that everyone should get their hearing test and their hearing aid within 18 weeks. I commend that to the Ministers as well.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read the Third time, and passed.