Childcare Bill

I welcome many of the aims and much of the content of the Bill, which the Secretary of State has explained. However, I am a little concerned about the tone of some of her remarks and I emphasise that Opposition Members—indeed, I thought it applied to all of us in the House—recognise the very important role that child care plays in Britain’s future. The Secretary of State made a number of claims about Conservative party policy, so let me place it on the record that it is not our policy that the social clock should be turned back. It is our policy that families should have the choice of doing what works best for them. As someone who, as chairman of education in a Conservative borough in London under a Conservative Government, ensured that there was a child care place in a nursery for every three and four-year-old child whose parent wanted one, I take umbrage at the Secretary of State’s comments about do-nothing Tory years.