Childcare Bill

Before the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, replies, I thank the Minister for her response to the amendment, but there is a real problem here. I have been looking through the guidance, which I received only this morning. One of the problems is that it focuses on putting supply and demand together. That is fair enough. This picks up the point made by the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, on quantity rather than quality. Paragraph 19 states:"““We intend that guidance should emphasise that local authorities seek to close gaps with formal childcare as far as is reasonably practicable””." Again, it is all very well issuing guidance, but if it just repeats the words ““reasonably practicable”” and does not tell you what is supposed to be reasonably practicable, that makes things pretty hard. I know that this is only the preliminary guidance, but local authorities must take decisions on this. It continues:"““Local authorities should focus primarily on closing the largest and most obvious gaps””." Paragraph 18 quite rightly lists many types of gaps that can exist, such as geographical, income, specific needs and time. Here it would imply that the largest gaps have priority, whereas there may well be other issues that need to take priority in a particular area. Provision for workless families might be a very high priority in a particular area. There is great danger that the guidance issued may be tautological in many senses and repeat the previous wording. I come back to the point made by my noble friend Lady Walmsley: local authorities have to translate this measure into practical actions. They will have to decide whether they are providing sufficient childcare, and they will be examined by Ofsted in that regard. They need better and much more specific guidance than the measure implies.