My Lords, although I had not intended to speak on this section, I would like to raise one particular concern. Before I do that, I will add my concerns to those of the noble Baronesses raising the issue of repeal under Clause 76. Earlier, before we began the Committee, the noble Lord, Lord McColl, talked to me about whether a particular group of children should be given priority and whether we could find a way of doing that. I said that, if you try that, you will find that almost every group of children that local authorities currently deal with are a priority, because those are the only groups that they deal with at the moment. It is very difficult for local authorities at the moment to move into preventive work or into other areas.
If we have one piece of legislation for adults, which has the duty, and another piece of legislation for children, which does not have it, my great concern is
that children will slip down the priority list in this particular area. I am not saying that they will not be protected—that will be followed up—but proper assessment for under-five provision will slip down the priority level. It has to, because that is the only way that local authorities can manage their finances and priority ratings. I hope that the Minister and the Government will look again at this repeal. I think that the way forward is to look at the regulation and the framework and to get that into an accurate package, which would take us forward.
The other area that concerns me—this is a probing question—is those children who have additional needs and who need to be placed in under-five daycare so that their parents can work or develop skills. I am thinking in particular of children with, say, autism or similar developmental issues and am really trying to probe how this fits with the government amendment. At the moment, a local authority may provide funding for a place, but if the parent wishes to make additional payments for an extra quality of service, the local authority will not pay because that would be a mixture of private and statutory funding—even if the organisation providing that service is a voluntary, not-for-profit organisation.
I take some responsibility because I suspect that, in the past, I was one of the people who pressed for the principle of not mixing private and statutory funding, but I do not think I ever saw it coming to a position where, as a parent, you could not give added quality to children in need. The difficulty has arisen because some parents have objected to having to pay—one organisation I know in particular may have to close its doors because it cannot manage the quality of care that they need to provide for these difficult children. This is really a probing question: are the Government prepared to look at mixing or is it an absolutely sacred principle that private and public funding should not be put together? I also support the other the noble Baronesses who put the other arguments so clearly.