Childcare Bill

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.