Childcare Bill

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.