Finance (No. 3) Bill

There is, and my hon. Friend will know that we have been very clear that the Government's wider proposed changes to child benefit are not fair or equitable, and that child benefit should remain universal. The former Prime Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath, and the former Chancellor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West, decided that child care was poorly targeted, but that if universality was to be broken, we must provide help and support to the poorest families to ensure that they had child care for two-year-olds. The Labour Government planned some 65,000 to 68,000 child care places as a result of the measures that are now in clause 35. The current Government have accepted those measures in principle, as we did, but unless the Exchequer Secretary tells me otherwise I do not believe they are delivering the outputs that we planned as a benefit of saving resources.