Childcare Bill

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.