Deprivation/Child Poverty

The Select Committee on Children, Schools and Families has just returned from two intensive days' work in Copenhagen. What the hon. Gentleman says strikes a particularly discordant note for someone who has just come back from a country that supplies very high-quality early-years care. Does he not agree that if we are to stimulate young children as early as we can, it is the quality of the setting that matters? He would surely agree that part of what the Government are trying to do is to squeeze out below-standard child care. I, too, would like to have my cake and eat it and to have low-cost, stimulating, high-quality care. At this point in the 21st century, however, society can surely no longer accept the fact that poor children go into environments where they are not well stimulated because the pay and training of those who work there is poor.