[Mr. Joe Benton in the Chair]
Childcare Bill
4:15 pm
Nick Gibb (Shadow Minister, Education; Bognor Regis and Littlehampton, Conservative)
What the Minister is saying is interesting. She is clarifying matters very well, but Ofsted is an inspection organisation. Many schools languish in special measures for more than a year, and Ofsted’s inspection and repeated inspections, and guidance even, are sometimes not enough to improve standards. The same undoubtedly applies in early child care settings. Therefore, the Minister is sub-contracting quality assurance to Ofsted, which is really an inspection regime.
It is odd that, under the Minister’s regime, she is willing to allow primary schools to drive out perfectly valid and high-quality child care—primary schools are exempted from the caveat in the Bill—but is not prepared to drive out, through the local authorities providing new child care provision, child care settings that are of very poor quality, as determined by Ofsted.