Childcare Bill

I am grateful to the Minister for his explanation on these amendments. So far as the amendments to which I spoke are concerned—Amendments Nos. 38 and 40 relating to the position of maintained schools—we are reassured by what he said. It is amazing how quickly one forgets what was in a Bill one worked on, and I have to say that I did not remember the specific parts of the 2002 Bill. It was good to get reassurances from the Minister and, as far as we on these Benches are concerned, we accept his reassurances on the position of maintained schools within the diversity of provision. We support him in relation to building collaboration and partnerships between different parts of the sector. We also support the concept of the extended school. I am a little less happy about his answer to Amendment No. 37, partly because it seems to me that the wording of the Bill is extremely awkward and we need a better explanation of what ““appropriate”” might mean. I understand the point he made about diversity and the different types of provision that one might be looking for. I will read what he had to say very carefully and we may come back to this on Report.